“My feather…” he whispers, “…can it be… Are you considering accepting me as your soulmate?”
That question stalls in my thoughts, and my brows dip. “It’s something I have to accept? It’s not just something that…is?”
“Acceptance is not forced. Rejecting me would erode our connection until nothing remains. You…” He swallows. “You would slip away from me. If I let you.”
A prickle of unease attempts to settle in my stomach, but it cannot hope to mingle with the prickle from before, that prickle—perhaps—of desperation. I ask, “Would you let me?”
He, so gently, kisses my cheek and whispers, “No. Until my final moment, I intend to be with you.”
“So even if acceptance on a cosmic scale isn’t forced, you’re still forcing me?”
“I could never force you to love me. I simply can no longer tolerate the idea of a world without you. If you wish to reject me, it would kill me, my love. Your rejection would multiply the pain of loneliness that I have suffered for centuries. It would be the unfettered truth of what I already believe about myself—which is that I am unworthy, unwanted, and unloveable. Such a confirmation is not something I could bear to exist beyond.”
So. Rejecting him would mean killing him? “Isn’t that…emotional manipulation?”
“Only if my death means something to you.”
“Wouldn’t anyone’s blood on my hands mean something to me?”
He laughs.
I stay silent.
His smile vanishes. “Oh. You were serious.”
Uh. Yes. I was. I was serious, and now I’m worried about how much blood is on this madman’s hands and how much of it meantnothingto him.
“Life is precious,” he says. “Within it, I have known good, which I have come to love, mourn, and pity. I have also known wickedness, which I have come to despise. Finally, however, there is life I have not known. Such existence I am indifferent to. Those I have never known vanish like an inconsequential ripple in the ocean. Whether their end comes by my hand or another’s matters not, for nothing about them matters to me at all. It’s true that in recent years I have gained more appreciation for the value of life in general, but there are too many souls who have met their end in my apathy.” His fingers dance through the waves of my hair. “Love me, Mine, and make me yours. Or hate me, and make me suffer for eternity beneath the agony of your ire. Either is fine. Only rejection would cast me to indifference, and if you have the heart to reject me, then, no, I will not be someone whose blood settles on your hands. My life would slip through the cracks of your fingers, as inconsequential as it has always been. Moreover, it would hardly be your fault that I was not strong enough to go on without you. Rest assured, if such is the path you choose, I could in no right mind plant the dagger in your hand.” He kisses my nose, smile forlorn. “No matter how dearly I would wish for your own two hands to be what cleaves my soul from the living, it is not a burden I should ever think to place on you.”
Yikes.
And, yet, this means I have options.
I can claim him as my soulmate and stay with a man who has clear anger issues, a control streak, and a pitiful grasp on reality…or I can reject him and let him die without me.
If Willow was telling the truth, then there are other powerful faeries willing to protect me from the humans who threaten me. Not only that, I’ve seen a cherry tree palace in a brighter land filled with creatures that seemed kind. I could live in a differentpart of Faerie and never have to worry about my mother or Rodrick again.
I haveoptions.
For the first time in my life, I have options. Real solid choices that are mine alone to make.
Big and small. Options for moments of weakness. Options for where my life will go.
My attention drifts from Castor to the giant teddy bear, and I realize which arms I have already picked first.
How…frightening.
“What troubles you?” Castor murmurs, dotting kisses up the bridge of my nose to my forehead. “Your spirit is conflicted. Claiming a soulmate is as painless as rejecting one.”
I wet my lips. “I’m afraid of making a mistake.”
“Ah. That is understandable. As far as I can tell, you have been raised to doubt yourself for the sake of those who once controlled you. We both know that an insecure slave poses fewer problems with obedience.”
My stomach clenches, swirling with nausea.
Helping nothing, he spins me, clasps my hands in his, crosses them over my body, and reels my back against his chest in a hug. “Forgive me. I’ll not be delicate with the truth even if it upsets you.” His lips land on my neck, and I drag in a sharp breath. Deliberately, he kisses me, and my knees weaken. “You were abused. It’s obvious.”
First, Willow calls my character fragile, and now this? Can everyone seedoormattattooed into my flesh—even when they’re blindfolded? I guess being treated like a person doesn’t erase the history that’s made me into what I have become.
