I tried to crawl out of bed to make coffee without waking her, but as soon as I stood up, Rose rubbed her eyes and looked at me with a sheepish glance. I hadn’t bothered to put on clothes after last night. Neither had she, but while I was standing, she’d pulled the covers up over herself.
The fire had burned down low last night, and I tossed a few logs on to get it heated up again as I filled the coffee kettle from a basin. “How do you feel this morning?” she asked. I knew she was staring at me. Everyone stared at me, and normally, it annoyed me. She was different. I liked the way she was looking at me.
I set the water to boil and turned back around. “I feel good. The real question is how do you feel?” I put my hand out to touch her, and she seemed to pull away, curling up tighter in the covers.
“I think I feel good?” she said, and I could feel the vulnerability. I felt the incubus inside me already ready for more, but I pushed the hunger back.
“You’re not tired?” I asked, concerned. “Even most fairies are at least a little groggy the next day. I didn’t hold back last night.”
She shook her head and seemed to be breathing faster than normal, and her wings were fluttering regularly. She needed some space. Not very much, but a little.
I stood up and pulled my pants on, covering myself up and giving her some time to wake up a little before she had to confront what had happened last night. I squatted by the fire, watching the twigs breaking.
It was hard to see it and not think of Nyx even though I knew that I should be focused on Rose. I’d wished that I could control fire like him when I was young.
As I watched the fire, memories flooded my mind, and I bowed my head remembering. Then I felt Rose’s hand on my back. “I’m sorry that you had to fight him, Sebastian.” Her words were so soft. I looked up at her. She was wearing her clothes from yesterday.
“How’d you know?”
“You’ve never talked about caring about anyone except him. Now you’re watching the fire and sad. What were you thinking about?”
“You don’t really want to know. You probably wouldn’t understand how he was.”
“Try me, Mister. I’m a Queen, and Queens know things. Or at least I think they do.” She gave me a smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“I was thinking about the first time that Nyx hurt me. He was showing me how to fight. He was letting me use him as a target as he danced across a training ground while I shot stream after stream of mist at him. One finally caught him in the chest while he was jumping.”
“He’d fallen hard, and I’d rushed to help him up, scared that I’d hurt him. I was young, maybe a hundred years old at the time which is extremely young for someone raised as a Fae. As soon as I was within a few feet of him, he screamed, and fire filled the air.”
“It coated me from head to toe. I screamed as it burnt me. He didn’t try to put it out. All he did was watch me as I slowly healed from it. When I could finally see again, my eyes healing, I looked down and saw an obsidian dagger at my throat.”
“Don’t trust me, Prince,” he said. “Don’t try to help me. I may be helping you now, but in the end, men like me only destroy things. If you stay near me, I’ll end up destroying you too.”
“He was right all those years ago. He’d have killed me yesterday. I cared about him, but I did kill him. When he told me that all those years ago, I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe that he’d end up hurting me. But I did remember not to trust anyone else.”
“It made me stay away from everyone, only coming out of the palace to feed.” I looked up at Rose. “I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to trust you, and I want you to trust me. For the first time since my mother died, I want to trust someone again.”
“I trust you Sebastian, and I hope that you can trust me.” She smiled down at me, and for just a moment, everything was quiet. Then the kettle began to whistle, and I picked it up as I stood.
“I think I can,” I said, feeling the moment that we’d shared begin to fade. “What do you want to do today?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of lost in all of this. What am I supposed to do?”
“You probably need to start learning about your magic. If you’re going to survive the Immortal Realm, you’re going to need to know how to defend yourself.”
She seemed to think for a moment and then said, “I want to do more than peel potatoes.” She stood up straighter and seemed to steel herself. I gave her a confused glance and began to put coffee into the kettle.
“I think that’s more than reasonable for a Queen in training…”
“No, I want to be useful. All I could do last night was peel potatoes. I don’t want to be known as the Queen Who Peels or some such nonsense just because I’m worthless in every other way. I want to be a contributing member of the village.”
I shrugged. “That seems like a good task to set yourself to.”
“And I want to learn to fight like you.” I turned around, ignoring the coffee.
“I don’t think you want to do that, Rose. People who fight like me end up killing people. Maybe you should surround yourself with people like me who can protect you. Then you won’t have to fight. You won’t have to kill.”
“No. You just got done telling
