Chapter 25: Chapter 25

Elijah

He didn’t want to leave.

She’d glanced over at him, hair spilling across her face and down her shoulders, tumbling in thick waves. Her lips – full and red – had parted, and she’d inhaled shakily, her eyelashes fluttering against her bronzed, freckled cheeks.

His heart and stomach competed for his attention and, after a moment’s hesitation, he allowed his aching, empty stomach to drag him towards the main house.

Above, stars glittered. Interwoven into the fabric of the night sky, they seemed to shine just for him, just for a moment. He brushed his hair over his ears, even though their hosts knew – and had pointed ears of their own.

“Hello?” He rapped lightly on the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me. Elijah,” he added hastily, poking his head inside. Warm lamplight spilled across the wooden floor, and two faelen smiled broadly at him from the kitchen. Anyen, a female with dark, cropped hair, lounged at the broad dining table, fiddling with a vase of flowers at its centre. Her mate, Pritus, turned away from the stove as Elijah ducked inside.

Meyann had introduced them briefly earlier, and they’d offered up their barn and suggested he and Lily both join them for dinner. He’d declined politely, stating Lily’s exhaustion as an excuse. But perhaps… perhaps it would be good for her to meet them.

They’d been wary of letting wolves not from Entra into their home – understandably so, with the full moon fast approaching – so he’d opened up more than he would’ve liked to in order to gain their trust.

“How is your little mate settling in?” Pritus asked, extinguishing the flame on the stove with a click of his fingers. Elijah shook his head, in awe of the easy way Pritus used his magic. It was an extension of his hands, and it appeared to be utterly thoughtless.

“Don’t call her that,” he cautioned. “She doesn’t… I don’t know. She hasn’t made any mention of it.”

“Yet,” Anyen corrected, leaning back in her chair. Bright blue eyes glittered at Elijah, and he fell easily into the seat opposite her. There was something natural about their kinship, despite the brief amount of time they’d known each other.

Pritus struggled to lift the weighty tray of food from the counter. With a flick of her wrist, Anyen sent a wave of air beneath it to lighten his load.

“I wish I had the freedom to use my magic as you do,” Elijah sighed, watching enviously as the tray lowered itself gently upon the dining table. A steaming bowl of vegetable stew and a fresh loaf of crusted bread settled before him, along with a clattering pile of plates and cutlery. His stomach groaned.

“So move here,” Anyen teased. “It’s much nicer than any wolf pack – I can promise you that.”

Pritus’s hazel eyes shone with mirth. “Not that we’re free of wolves here, either.” He wrinkled his nose demonstrably. “Irritating creatures.”

Anyen elbowed her mate as he sat down, and they shared a look that made Elijah’s heart clench. He longed for such camaraderie, and he hoped that, one day, he and Lily would share such smiles and loving, lingering looks.

“I’m only half offended,” Elijah grinned. There was something easy, something familial, about being around others like himself. He did not want to leave Lily alone for long, but he found it hard to pull himself away from them.

They fell into easy chatter as they served the stew and bread. Anyen and Pritus pulled away his mask entirely, leaving him exposed in the face of their kindness. His fear had kept him from introducing Lily to them, and he was beginning to wonder if doing so had been a mistake.

They carved thick slices of homemade bread for Elijah to take back to the barn, and filled two wide-brimmed bowls for him and Lily with stew. Anyen used a gentle breeze to lift a second tray onto the dining table, and slid the dinner plates and cutlery onto it. But as Elijah stood to leave, she caught his elbow.

“Elijah?”

He adjusted the weight of their dinner in his arms. “Yeah?”

“Have you told her?”

He frowned. “You know I haven’t told her she’s my mate yet. I want… I want to give it time. She’s been through a lot. I will, of course – if she doesn’t broach it first. Perhaps when we return to Sea Pine territory, when we’re home. I know so little about her.”

Pritus rolled his eyes. “Even I knew that wasn’t what she was asking.”

Anyen tutted under her breath. “You’re one of us. A faelen.”

His knees gave way, and his body sagged back into the chair. He let their dinner clatter back onto the table and put his head in his hands. “I’m well aware.”

“Entra is separate from the continent in that history plays no part here. That does not mean we are ill-informed,” she said, and Elijah felt her eyes boring into him. Slowly, reluctantly, he met her gaze.

“I know. But I… I can’t tell her, not yet. She has to know me first, for who I am – separate from heritage and history.”

“She is your mate. She will not turn on you,” Pritus said gently. He punctuated his words with a loud slurp of stew.

Elijah stood stiffly. “I should return to her. I’ve been gone too long.”

Anyen nodded, still watching him closely. “Of course. You’re welcome to join us for breakfast in the morning. Both of you.”

Trying to swallow his unease, memories blurring with his present reality, Elijah agreed quickly. Thanking them both, he lifted the tray and stumbled back out into the night.

The stars no longer shone for him and him alone. They were a pasted mockery of their past beauty, a thousand pairs of eyes trailing his shadowed form as he tumbled back into the past.

* * *

He’d done ten laps of the barn by the time he managed to get Leahne’s icy blue eyes out of his mind. Their dinner was cold, a forgotten weight, and a new guilt eased across his shoulders, settling there like an old, comfortable blanket.

He hurried inside, apologies ready to spill from his lips, only to find that Lily had dozed off atop the covers. Her face was soft in sleep, gentle, and his fear subsided. Brown eyes, warm as autumn leaves, would rise to greet him when she awoke. Brown eyes, not blue.

He placed the tray on the barrel beside the bed, moving carefully, quietly, so as not to wake her. Sliding off his boots to further soften his footsteps, he padded into the adjoining bathing chamber.

Rather than using the hot tap – a privilege he was far too used to as an Alpha – he decided to test himself. He filled the burnished bronze tub with cold water, and held his hands just above its surface. Flames danced across his skin, and slowly, filled with uncertainty, he heated the water.

It was not so fancy at Pritus’s click of his fingers, nor was it as smooth as Anyen’s wrist-waving. But eventually it worked, and he eased himself into the steaming tub.

He scrubbed his hair, hands stilling when they felt the pointed tips of his ears poking through. He’d shoved his magic away, allowed it only to spill out in moments of terror or anguish. His wolf-side made keeping his identity hidden a necessity. But seeing other faelen, seeing the ease and joy with which they used their magic, had made his chest swell with regret.

He loved his pack like family. No matter his regrets, he’d make the same sacrifices he had a thousand times over.

He just wasn’t sure if he could hide himself in that same way from Lily. His throat bobbed, memories of Leahne, of the choices he’d made with her, fresh in his mind. He ducked his head under the water. Panic flooded his chest, and imagined water filled his lungs. He forced himself to stay submerged for as long as he could stand before allowing his head to break above the water’s surface.

He’d told Leahne everything, and she’d rejected him.

Elijah shook himself. Uncurling his fist, he held out a hand, palm upright and flat. Feeling the fire in his blood, he practiced creating a tiny flame; he allowed it to spring to life as he opened his palm, and extinguished it as he closed his fist around it. He wasn’t sure what practical use it would have, but it tore his head away from worrying miserably about past decisions he’d made and couldn’t change.

Still eager to experiment, he tried to use his fire to dry himself off. Abandoning that idea quickly, he towelled off his body and shoved still-damp limbs into his clothes, keen to return to his sleeping mate.

He could feel her pull, could feel the bond yearning for them to be together. His heart stumbled over itself with excitement as he nudged open the creaking door. Bathing had refreshed his emotions, but left him physically exhausted; it was the kind of weariness that seeped all the way to his bones.

Elijah wanted nothing more than to pull Lily close under the covers, and to fall asleep with her pressed to his side. He wouldn’t, of course – instead, he’d sleep on the floor, curled on one of the mismatched rugs. He resigned himself to lying on the ground beside her, allowing himself to breathe in her presence, her proximity, from as close a distance as propriety – and his own morality – would allow. He would not wake her and, in the morning, they would take breakfast together with Anyen and Pritus.

With sleep blurring the edges of his vision, he shuffled back into the main room. He did not allow himself to look at Lily. The bond would shatter his resolve. Instead he kept his eyes down, and settled uncomfortably on the rug closest to her. The echo of her heartbeat eased him towards sleep, so fast that, when she spoke, he swore he was dreaming.

“What are you doing down there?”

Brown eyes peered at him over the edge of the bed. Her hair was tousled, strands stuck to her cheeks and temples. Elijah thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“I – I don’t know.” He did know. She made him dizzy; she made him stupid.

Her hand reached for him and, gladly, gratefully, fearfully, he took it.