Solstice (Midsummer #3)

28. Ivy

28

Ivy

THE WEDDING

I t was a sham wedding.

I might as well be honest about that.

I hated Alexei Fairfax. I always had. I always would. Yet, as I traced over the scars on my palm, a permanent reminder of what we’d done together all those years ago, there could be no doubt I loved him more deeply than I ought to. More deeply than this marriage would require.

Our lives were so entangled and chained together that we would never be free of one another. I had stopped trying long ago.

“Ivy?” Kit gave me a hesitant smile and took a few steps inside, her dark hair twisted up on the back of her head. “Wow, you look stunning. Absolutely stunning.”

“You look beautiful, too,” I told her, and she grabbed my hand, staring out over the beginnings of the party below. The Potomac glistened in the afternoon light, and boats littered the channel with paparazzi hoping to get a photo of the Washington-Fairfax wedding.

The event of the season. Of the year.

“Did he bolt?” I asked.

She laughed. “Not a chance. You know he won’t back down from you. He never has.”

“Tell him I’m planning to murder him in our marital bed.”

Kit hummed an amused noise. “I think he already suspects that.”

I cleared my throat and looked down at the scars on my palm, right along my lifeline, tracing over a particular grouping as the aching chasm in my heart deepened. We still hadn’t heard from anyone. It was as if Siobhan and the others dropped off the face of the planet. Had they been captured? Had they been killed? If the fairy king came, who would protect us? Could we protect ourselves?

Miri wasn’t here. Carter wasn’t here. That hurt the worst. Not that I expected them to come, not after everything that had happened. It was too fucked, and given the danger I suspected headed straight for us, I didn’t blame them. If I could, I would have left me years ago.

Just me and Lex again. Like always.

“Ivette,” my mother said, waltzing into the room with that same judgmental arrogance she’d had all week. She stopped when she saw the look on my face. “Why so glum? It’s your wedding day. At least pretend like you’re excited.”

Ah, yes. Pretend this was my idea, that the relationship between Lex and me had been real from the start, that I wanted any part of this.

I should. Lex was a handsome, powerful man. We had all the money in the world. Our marriage would be broadcast to over twenty-seven countries. But the hollow, sinking feeling in my gut only worsened.

It seemed so trivial now. The last thing I should be doing was getting married. All of this, all of them, so insignificant.

“ Look at me, child,” Evelyn said. I forced my chin up and tried to smile, hoping she couldn’t see the fractures through the duct tape. “You’re making the right decision. You both are.” She straightened her spine. “I know this isn’t what you wanted, but we all have to make choices we don’t like for the good of the country.” She touched my cheek, the way she used to do when I was a little girl, and gave me a pitying smile. “I’ve been where you’re standing. And I wouldn’t change my decision.”

It was the wrong time to compare her and my father to me and Lex.

Especially since Kit and I had spent part of this week trying to find out how far her manipulation went.

My mother gave me a fake peck on the cheek and announced I had fifteen minutes to get downstairs if we wanted to start this thing fashionably late. As soon as the door shut behind her, I made up my mind.

“Ivy.” Kit turned to me, taking my hands. “I debated telling you this after the wedding, but you should know something.” She took my hands. “And you’re not going to like it.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s about that thing you asked me to look into, that weird thing I found on Mother’s firewall.”

The look on her face told me everything I needed to know.

“Is it what I think?” I said. “Was it her?”

Kit’s features dropped, and she pursed her lips, giving me a solemn nod. “I think so. Whoever hacked you and your spouses, they did one sloppy thing. Just one. But—” She sighed. “I’m pretty sure Mother is the reason you broke up the first time. And the photo leak?” Kit pursed her lips. “I found the cache myself.”

Words could not describe the fury that shot through my blood. Rage at my mother, at the media , at all of them for doing this to me. To us. Sadness that we had missed out on so much because of it, because of the roles we all had to play.

Well, I was done playing it.

I couldn’t do anymore.

After everything that’s happened, they didn’t deserve it. Lex’s voice played in the back of my head. “Bunch of sycophants, all of them.” He was right. Lex had always been right about everything. Screw the polling numbers. Screw the rumors. I didn’t care. They’d taken everything from me.

I should let this wedding go on, let it all fall to pieces. If the fairy king was coming for us, then tear us apart, you bastard.

Evelyn Washington deserved my wrath, and god-fucking-damn it, I’d hit my breaking point.

No one had heard from Poppy, Siobhan, or the other fairies in weeks. The queen had been asleep for two days in our guest room. Miri had gone MIA. I couldn’t get a hold of Carter. The media had not stopped skewering me, despite being invited and attending my wedding. My big bill had fallen flat on its face. To top it off, my mother had violated a personal part of my life and manipulated me into years of pain.

Enough.

Time to tear it down. I turned on my heels and met my sister’s sympathetic gaze.

“What?” She narrowed her skeptical gray eyes. “You look like you’re about to do something stupid.”

“Maybe I am.”

“What?” More serious now, she gasped and tried to reach for my hand, but I was already out the door, picking up my dress so I could run down the hallway on the balls of my feet.

“Mother!”

I caught up with her halfway there. She stopped and turned to face me. “Yes?”

All the terrible things that had happened up to this point rushed through my mind, and most of them were her fault. In fact, if she hadn’t arranged this marriage between Lex and me, Siobhan wouldn’t have noticed me. We would have gone on with our lives, happily oblivious to this warped, twisted reality.

Maybe I was looking for someone to blame, or maybe I had realized that none of this mattered. I knew the consequences of what I was about to do. Hell, my career would likely be over. But I didn’t want it anymore if it came with her strings attached. Making that decision freed me. I raised an eyebrow and took a menacing step toward her.

“What are you doing?” She planted her feet and held firm.

“Whatever I want for a change.”

She balked, her brows furrowing. “Ivette, what has gotten?—”

“No,” I cut her off, grabbing her elbow so I could back her up against the plaster wall. “No, the time for you to speak is done.”

I twisted her bony arm in my fist, and I stared her in the eyes, allowing my gift to take over, giving myself this moment, this millisecond, to unleash my anger on her.

“I know what you did, Mother,” I told her, picking through her memories, crawling through her mind like a spider in the deep, dark webs of her subconscious. “Why? Tell me why.”

“Ivette, what is happening?” Her voice came out fast and high-pitched, sounding terrified and transfixed. Perhaps it was impulsive to do this now when so many other things were happening, but nothing could have stopped me.

“ Tell me,” I bellowed. “Did you cause the breakup with Carter? Did you leak the photos to the press? Did you do this to me?” I squeezed my hand tighter, almost to the point of pinching. Her agony ricocheted up her arm, around her spine, slipping into her brain so I felt it with my own.

She stayed silent for a moment, then muttered a simple, “ Yes .”

The memories came next. She’d hired the best people in the business to monitor our computers, our smartphones, all of our tech. She’d made sure, even months after Carter and Miri had left, that we didn’t see each other. When she found out we were back together, when she found out we’d gone to the cabin for Christmas instead of coming home and playing house, that had been the last straw. She had the same people hack our security system, go inside our house, and find the pictures, find anything that could be used against us.

Yeah, she could have leaked the whole thing, and if this were about more than forcing me to do what she wanted for the good of the family, she might have. What point was there to that? The same result could be achieved with minimum collateral damage. If it was just me, if it was just my reputation to repair, I’d been so drama free my whole life, I could take the hit.

My hatred for her boiled in my veins, sending a spike through our connection, into her brain.

“What are you doing to me?” she pleaded again. “ What are you? A monster?”

“Ivy,” Lex’s voice cut through all of it, pulling me from my outrage and bringing me back to the present. “X, stop it.”

I let go and stepped back, gasping for air to fill my lungs. My fingers and toes vibrated, my legs wobbly, barely able to hold my weight. My mother wilted before catching herself and pushing herself upright.

“You’re a demon,” she whimpered. “What did you do to me?”

Lex twisted my body around to face him, cupping my cheeks. “X, look at me. Take a breath.” Kit stood just to the right, staring at our mother with her hands over her mouth.

I focused on my fiancé.

“Deep breath in,” he told me, “and a deep breath out. ”

I repeated the mantra as he calmed my nerves and all of the rage directed at the one person who’d made my life hell. A practical part of me was already freaking out and worrying about what she’d do to me as a result, but this new vengeful side didn’t care anymore. Even if she did, who would believe her?

Then it hit me, a crushing wave of power so strong it nearly dropped me to my knees. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. The overwhelming strength of Alberich’s foreign magic twisted its way down my spine and into my thighs, turning my body to Jello. Lex’s hands clawed into my forearms.

“Ivy?” Lex said.

I nodded, my heart sinking into my gut. “He’s here.”

The king.