And now I hope they never leave me.
Because goddess only knows what I’d become if I were alone.
I’d become exactly what my father worked so hard to create.
Some small fraction of me mourns for Jeriko. I didn’t know that was even possible. I thought I’d hated her so thoroughly like she hated me. Yet, I find myself missing having someone to point all my anger toward, someone who’d take it and still be there in the morning.
My attention lifts as Nollix drops his arm from the wall and scoots over to my side. He points at the lantern, the small amount of oil that’s left. It’s hardly visible at all. “The light will be going out soon.” He lowers the flame to try and preserve some of the precious fuel.
There’s a cold draft that wafts between the iron bars. I shiver, curling into myself. Nollix moves a fraction closer until his warmth aligns with me. He holds out one scarred hand between us. An offering.
Is he trying to... comfort me?
I sniffle and try to ignore all the reasons I want to cry right now. My fingers slip through his. Slow circles drift across the back of my knuckles as his thumb brushes over the scarring mark of the Wild Hunt.
“Do you want to know why I joined the Wild Hunt?” He doesn’t look at me as he continues to draw swirling marks over the back of my hand. A brief distraction, that’s all this is.
My lips purse. Even though I can’t bring myself to answer him, he continues on anyway.
“I’ve never been well liked.”
I snort, and his eyes flick up to my face. I swear I hear his teeth grind together.
“My mother was Fae, my father a demon who despised my very existence.” That sounds familiar. “I knew my father, had some form of a strained but existing relationship with him; however, I lived with my mother. When I was fourteen—not quite a man but no longer an innocent child—she got sick.”
A shudder runs through me as sorrow fills his voice. He mistakes the small movement for a shiver from the cold and lets go of my hand to loop an arm over my shoulder and pull me closer against him. My heart beats faster. My stomach flutters with uneasy nerves.
“My father had all the means in the world to help her, to save her.” He squeezes me gently, like a small hug that I think he needs more than I do. “I begged him to help, but he wouldn’t, not unless I made a deal with him first.”
“What was the deal?” I whisper though I doubt anyone is near enough to hear us.
“He wanted to marry me off.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad...”
Nollix chuckles, but the sound is tense. “The girl wished to stay with her family. She came with a large dowry and would allow him to have ties to a wealthy and influential family. He’d trade me like I was nothing more to him than livestock, send me away from my mother to live with the Attorprat.”
Attorprat. The word feels mildly familiar and deeply connected to hell itself, but I can’t quite place it. He gathers as much from my dazed look.
“Attorprats are the least Fae-like of all demons. Somewhere between hellhounds and me. They’re cruel, vicious, and the women are known for slaughtering and eating the males after they’ve given birth.”
The lantern flickers, threatening to go out. Somehow it holds to life as we both suck in a breath, ready to be plunged into darkness.
“Did you take the deal?”
“To save my mother? Yes.”
Silence stretches between us. Did Nollix truly marry?
“I’m sure you can guess the ending,” he mumbles.
“Your father didn’t save your mother?”
His fingers curl into my arm a little tighter. “No. He let her rot away, and I didn’t even get to be at her side when she died.”
I chew on the inside of my lip, trying to rid myself of the ick that settles inside of me. “Did you... marry?”
His dark hair sways against his forehead as he shakes his head. “No. I got word the night before the wedding. I fled in the dead of night.” He closes his eyes, his face scrunched like he has been pulled back into a dark memory. “It was an all-out manhunt.”
