“ThereisProtocol around insulting my bond, Councilor Velriks.” Ever’s voice still sounded calm, though very fucking cold.
“Your bond isn’t present,” Velriks replied, her words no longer so smooth. When Bo moved to look around Ever at the unicorn, she was staring at Ever with wide eyes. Doe-like and lovely, a soft, gentle creature faced with what she’d probably call a monster.
“How about you shut the fuck up?”
“Enough.” Bells turned to the warning snap of lightning too close to the ground. Bo turned his wary gaze on the cloud-haired Yenah. She, in turn, eyed Ever with no little amount of that same wary look. “Humans are not fae. There is no ‘equal.’ The validity of your bond is in question, as is whether or not we face a threat from him.”
“The conversation is not about kelpies,” Charil added, a little defensively. What were they? Some sort of water horse, Bo was certain. “I trust we’d still be here just as we are if Everil were, say, a sidhe or brownie.”
“Of course,” Velriks answered. The liar. “But it is true that some fae are more susceptible to temptation than others. And humans are a vile influence, driving the weak minded to rash actions.”
Ever didn’t snarl again, but a stream cut its way through the grotto, dividing Bo and Ever from the Council.
“We poison them as much as they do us,” Fiadh, in her fur cloak, said from where she was tucked against her bond. Her voice was mournful moonlight threaded through a lullaby. “We are water to humanity’s oil fire. You’d do best to forget about this,” that, she said to Bo, limpid black pools beseeching, “about him, and leave this be.”
“Quite.” Velriks sniffed.
“Enough, darling,” said the phoenix, settling her golden, flame tipped hand over Velriks’s pale one. “Let’s not chase this question in further circles. Our honored colleagues are committed to seeing this through. Even if the kelpie is so clearly mistaken.”
“I’m not a child, confusing infatuation with magic.” The ice in Ever’s voice rang through the clearing, and warmed Bo to the bones. “Bo is my soulbond, whether you agree with it or not.”
“There is no fucking way it was infatuation instead of a bond,” Bo scoffed, still behind and half blocked by Ever’s back. “Not like ‘you look like shit’ is much of a pickup line.”
“Charming,” came the whisper dry voice of the dryad, flat for all that it was little more than the rustling of leaves. Across the (rapidly quickening) stream, she stared at Bo with the same disinterested hardness as the one in the willows. Her too green gaze flicked to Ever after a short study. “What you are is tied to another. You don’t have the whole of you to bond with and chose ahunter.”
Disgust curled her words, browned the edges of the wind tumbled leaves that surrounded her seat. Beside her, fur-cloaked Fiadh flinched.
“How the fuck would I have been able to do the forest thing if we weren’t bonded?” Bo muttered, fingers curling in Ever’s shirt.
And Ever, fucking bless Ever, leaned down and murmured against his hair, “You’d have not been, sweet Bo. Nor could I have found you.”
“Helooksfor us the dryad said, while Bo’s little heart grew three sizes and melted simultaneously. “He tells the world of his findings. Untold numbers watch him do so. Everil, you claim to have bonded apredatorwith only part of your soul and then you gave him aGate.”
Fuck Bo forever, but Nimai’d said the same thing. Said it like an oily weasel might, deadly and waiting for weakness. Called it acoup. Fucker. Fuckers.
“No,” Bo snapped, sharp. Ever … purred? Oh. Nope. That was a stifled, near-silent growl. Sharp rocks lined the widening stream, nestled in the bottom soil, coupled with spiraling, dangerous looking currents. “Fuck that. I wouldn’t.”
“Humans,” the leaves murmured back, “tend to lie.”
“Unlike fae?” Councilor Wyte, still lounging, grinned at the dryad with far too many teeth, his delicate fingers idly toying with one of his long, soft looking ears. “C’mon, Sal. Let’s not play the holier-than-thou card.” His smile was impossibly wide. “We’re all mad here.”
“Councilor Wyte. Could you try not to be crass?” Velriks’s managed to make a whine sound silken, her pale features drawn. “This is a matter of grave concern.”
The mountain at Wyte’s side made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort, quiet and hidden behind a beard of moss.
“I could. But I won’t.” Wyte studied Bo, smile gone. “We’re talking about a ReelSelf influencer.Graveis a stretch.”
“You’re the one who said he hunts us,” came the unicorn’s plaintive reply.
“I said he–” Wyte cut himself off with a tug at one of his ears. “Never mind. I don’t have it in me to try and explain the internet again. He looks for us, yeah. And why’s that? Because we fucked up. Let our names be used to trick and twist akid. Not for wonder or joy, butcash. Used to be, we’d make someone pay for that.”
“There was a time, yes. And what came of it?” The dryad’s voice was the snap of dry wood. “Those who didn’t punish humans were used. Those that did, dubbed monsters. And he is a child no longer.”
Bo leaned into Everil, jaw set. They were talking about hisparents. Reasoning out his goddamn life. He wasn’t just going to stand there and listen.
“Monsters, fuck. You want to know what I learned about dryads? Once, we went camping. I was, fuck, nine or ten. They gave me meds to make me sleep, and I woke upin the fucking forest alone in my pajamas. Covered in scratches, like something dragged me through it.” Bo smiled, the expression as hard and angry as he was. “They said it was because I wasspecial. And you only let me go because of the iron I kept in my pockets or some shit. And they made me tell it over and over for the whole world to hear and read.Youbecame the goddamn monster.”
Ever pulled Bo into his arms, holding him close. It helped. A little.
