And I don’t know how to live with that.
Chapter twenty-five
Dyfri
That was a long, exhausting day. One of those where it feels as if everything you are juggling is about to come crashing down.
But I think everything has been patched up, and now it is finally time for bed. As I slip under the covers and sink into the mattress, it is hard not to let out a sigh of relief. I have to contain it because I’m married now, and it’s my honeymoon, and that means no privacy, not even when ready for sleep.
Jack puts his glasses and book away. He turns off the lamp. There may be no privacy, but there is Jack. Warm and solid and kind. Handsome and willing to please.
My cock throbs. I scowl. Again? Already? I should find the time to see a healer. This new frequency of arousal cannot be healthy.
But wait. For once in my life, this is not an inconvenient problem to be dealt with. Jack is right here next to me. My husband. He likes playing with me, and I like playing with him. This isn’t a curse, it is a blessing. A night of fun with Jack.
Grinning, I roll over to face him. I slide over and close the small distance between us.
He flinches as if I’ve stabbed him.
I freeze. My heartbeat is the only sound. The only thing I can feel. Pulsing through me hard enough to make me shake.
“Jack?”
His breathing is erratic and uncertain. It’s dark in our bedchamber, but not so dark that I can’t see that his eyes are wide and troubled.
“I…um… have a headache,” he stutters.
My chest constricts painfully. My stomach does an awful dropping thing that makes me feel as if I am dying.
“I see,” I try to say coldly, but even my voice betrays me. It falters and wobbles.
I roll over and give Jack my back. I blink furiously and hold my breath so it doesn’t hitch.
I thought he liked me. I thought we had reached an accord. I stupidly thought that Jack might be someone I could trust one day. Someone who might guard my back and stand by my side. Someone to chase the loneliness away.
But he doesn’t want me. Not even my body. I’ve never genuinely attempted to initiate sex with anyone before, so no doubt I made a pig’s ear of it. Even so, it shouldn’t be hard. Seducing people isn’t. People are inherently horny. So I’m sure it wasn’t my approach that was wrong. It’s just me, I’m wrong.
“Dyfri…” The sad pity in his voice is awful. The worst thing I have ever heard. He knows he has wounded me. I haven’t even been able to hide it from him.
“Don’t!” I snap. It feels as if claws are tearing at my heart.
Furiously, I rub at my eyes. I’m such an idiot for having all these weak and pathetic thoughts. I know better thanthat. I’ve had a lifetime to learn that people don’t like me. Too unseelie for the seelie court, too seelie for the unseelie. Clearly too something for Jack.
“Please let me explain, Dyfri. Mabon told me about… who… when you became a rhocyn…”
I’m fleeing towards the door before I’ve realised I’m moving. I grab the handle and fling it open. I step forward and slam to a stop as if I’ve hit a force field.
What am I doing? I can’t leave. It is my honeymoon. Leaving is forbidden.
Behind me on the bed, Jack is sitting up. I’m still reeling from what he just said. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Now it feels as if I am falling and falling and I’m never going to stop.
“Dyfri, please don’t go,” he begs. “Can we talk about it?’
“What is there to talk about?” I attempt to seethe, but it sounds pathetic and defeated instead. Broken and lost and so very, very sad.
Jack sucks in a breath. “I didn’t ask Mabon. I wasn’t prying. He just came out with it.”
That does sound like Mabon. He has betrayed me without even meaning to. Not that it was a great secret. All of court knows. They all love to talk about it even all these years later. Jack was always going to find out.
