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She glared, twisted toward him, and sneered. “Your love is fickle, and your priorities suck.”
He gripped her chin. “My mind is weak to you, but never call my love fickle again. I have faced centuries alone without a scrap of hope. You cannot begin to comprehend how deep my love for just your existence goes.”
He watched her swallow as her eyelids drooped.
His heart tripped. “You… Are you…trying to provoke me?”
“Keep talking, dreamboy.” Her fingers rose and fell against his wrist, barely hanging on. “You make it easier to pretend I’m not hurting so much.”
His fingers trembled as he slipped his thumb along her chin—dark nail to warm, pale skin. He could hardly help himself. He kissed the spot where her jaw met her neck. “Dearest, all will be well. You were not given to me as a punishment to either of us. It has all been miraculously designed with purpose, intent, and kindness. The things you care about were taken into consideration before you were formed. Any sacrifices you might be asked to make in order to gain the future you are meant to have will not leave anyone you care about worse off.”
Her fingers tangled in the hem of his shirt as she leaned into his pressure. “I don’t like change. Better or worse. It’s too much for me to handle, especially when it comes unexpectedly.”
“You need control.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you have spent so much of your life giving it up?”
She stretched the fibers of the magic he’d woven into the clothes he wore. “The rules I’ve been taught help me make sense of my reality. When they are clear, following them feels like a type of control.”
He pulled back. “Look around you, Kassandra. Your reality is more beautiful than any of the humans in your life may ever be able to understand. You are so much more than you have been taught is acceptable.”
“How do I atone for not always sharing that with my littles? How do I apologize for not believing Meda? How do I move forward correctly with so much new information? It has to be right. I need things to be right, Pollux. What are all the new rules? Are there any that make sense of why humans have things so terribly wrong?”
Pollux watched as a tear formed and flowed past her lashes. Golden. If she had been crying into her pillow earlier…who knew what residue might remain. Who knew if she would even be able to perceive the magic of her own self before she was claimed and the glamours of Faerie fell away.
“Well?” Her voice cracked.
“You would not wish to follow them if I told you.”
“Don’t act like you know me if my doors are still locked.”
Lifting her face, he caught the trail of her tear on the tip of his tongue, let the pure magic consume him, then he kissed the corner of her eye. “Don’t forget that you showed me moments when you thought you were alone in your head. I don’t need to see beyond your locked doors to know you are someone different entirely when you believe no one else can see you.”
“The word for who I am when I believe I’m alone with a pretty figment of my imagination is skank, Pollux. We’ve been over this. I’d like to believe my true character is someone other than an affection-deprived adult.”
“You continue to neglect my response to that degrading assessment.”
“For your information, I’d be ashamed of wanting anyone. It has nothing to do with you.”
He hummed. “When others hurt us, it rarely does.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been taught that your needs and the rawest presentation of yourself are unacceptable.”
She straightened. “Excuse me. You don’t need to go that far.”
“I think I do.” He twisted her fingers out of his shirt, gripped her wrists in one hand, and pinned her back to the cloud. “If we get technical, I probably need to go farther.”
Wide-eyed, she stared at him, lips parted. After a long moment, her body tensed, aware, and she snapped, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“This is your domain. Nothing is out of your control.” He flashed a sharp smile. “Except me.”
He could spend decades touching kisses to the heat that rose to her flesh. She locked her jaw, tilted her head back to look up at her restrained hands, then provided a meager tug against his hold.
“Rule one…” he murmured, gliding a nail up the column of her throat. “No more forcing smiles.”
