His unglamoured form.
“Your skindoessparkle,” Benny murmured.
“I don’t sparkle,” Helio argued, his offense briefly winning over his panic. “Iglimmer. Sparkling would be undignified. I’m not some sort of fictional vampire.”
Benny nodded in an absent-minded way, as if he wasn’t really listening, his inspection moving on to Helio’s pointed ears.
Now would be the perfect time for Helio to snap his glamour back in place, to deny and obfuscate, to perhaps give Benny a morsel of some fruit of forgetfulness.
But it seemed Helio’s steady diet of Benny’s straightforward nature had…infected him somehow. He found himself saying outright, “I’m fae.”
Benny met his eyes, his head cocked. “Like…a fairy?”
Helio hated that word. It brought to mind little winged insects dancing among the flowers. But he couldn’t really throwaround any righteous anger over nomenclature at the moment, could he? He’d already used up his protest over the sparkling. “This isn’t my private island,” he said instead. “This is the fae realm. You made an unwitting bargain with me that first night, and I was able to transport you here.” He paused but was unable to keep himself from adding, “Able tocaptureyou.”
“Huh.” Benny scratched at the back of his neck. His dark hair—which had grown in a bit in the time he’d been there—was damp with sweat. He must have gotten at least some of his workout in before Cyprian had rudely interrupted.
“I could keep you here for an eternity,” Helio told him, his secrets seeping out like some sort of leeched poison. “I’d be within my rights.”
Benny didn’t seem any closer to terror than he’d ever been in Helio’s presence. His brow only furrowed slightly. “Why?”
“Why?” Helio repeated dumbly.
“Why would you want to do any of that?”
Helio kicked at the sand, feeling unbearably petulant. Did he really have to keep explaining himself? He was fae. It was what they did. Cruel and mischievous in turn, as was their nature.
But Benny was looking so sincerely confused, and not even a bit accusatory, so Helio let out a sigh. “I’ve been…bored,” he explained. “I was banished from my queen’s court decades ago.” Almost a century at this point, actually. It had been the case of a single error on his part—Helio hadn’t read between the lines the right way, had unintentionally offended her, and there had gone all his prestige, all his power. His whole charmed life, gone in an instant. Or at least until enough centuries passed for her to forget her ire. “I suppose tormenting humans has become my pastime.”
“So where are they, the others you trapped for eternity?” Benny looked around, like a gaggle of confused humans was going to pop out of the sand at any moment.
“No, I—I didn’t really keep them,” Helio told him sheepishly. “I let them go, once I’d terrified them sufficiently.”
Benny scratched at his neck again. “Pretty uncool.”
“Yes.”
Benny didn’t say anything else for a long time, and Helio didn’t know where to go from here. He wasn’t lettingBennygo, he knew that much.
He couldn’t.
Although, he’d been expecting at least a little frisson of fear.
“Do you understand I’m not human?” Helio asked, embarrassed to realize he was almost pouting. “Because you don’t seem even a little frightened.”
“I’msurprisedand everything, but…” Benny bit at his lower lip. “There’s this guy in my town. Sascha. I’m pretty sure his boyfriend is, like, a devil of some kind? I’ve seen him through the window, all massive with, like, horns sticking out his head sometimes, when I’m making a delivery and they don’t realize it fast enough. You’re not nearly as big as him.” Benny looked off wistfully into the distance. “I just wish he’d give me his workout routine.”
“Benny…”
Benny shook himself out of his thoughts with clear effort. He met Helio’s eyes. “So you were lonely and bored. I already knew that. What now?”
“Now…well, Cyprian knows we’re here. If the queen’s court figures out I’m staying in the fae realm and that I’m…content…they won’t be able to resist tormenting us.”
“Fae are kind of dicks, huh?” Benny didn’t wait for an answer to that question. “So we need to leave, then?”
Helio wanted to say no. He wanted to say that Benny would stay exactly here, where Helio had placed him. Wanted to say that nothing would disrupt this idyll they’d created.
He sighed. “Yes.”
