I want to push away his questions with cynical jokes about being fine as long as I have coffee and French fries. I want to tell him I have a black soul so nothing can hurt me, but I settle on, “My life is terribly boring, so there’s not much to know. I’m not a prince. I work at Best Burgers Bonanza, and I’m not even employee of the month.”
“I don’t believe you,” Kyran says, playing with my fingers as I hear a rhythm in the distance, as if someone is playing music. “You risked your life to save a little beast, you make tinctures that make water smell divine, and you can draw things from your imagination. That’s quite incredible. Oh, and you make amazing fries,” he adds, as if he believes the fast food I served him at Best Burger Bonanza was my own culinary creation.
I smile at the memory of him sitting in the mint-colored booth at the back of the restaurant, slurping a milkshake. I guess white milk must have been a novelty.
I turn around so I’m resting my back against him again, because I’m afraid I might cry if I keep facing him. I’mnota crybaby. I’m strong, I depend on myself, and I buried my traumas so deep I don’t need to dig them up anymore.
“I live with my mother, I have to pay her rent, but at least the house is nice. Thoughshe’sawful, so I hope to move out in the future.”Maybe to the Nightmare Realm. “Sadly, she’s also right about many things. I’m nothing special, my art is just about average, and I can’t actually cook, I just put together ingredients. I know this might sound like I’m fishing for compliments, but I’m not. I’m just facing reality.”
Idon’t want pity, but when he hugs me, my eyes sting and my chest aches as if it’s about to start bleeding all the infected pus I’ve gathered there over the years. “You can’t believe that. You are smart, and graceful, beautiful, and a real artist.”
I shrug, but my insides still flutter at the compliments. Best I ever got back home was“nice hair”, or“you really know how to suck dick”. “Smart? I never even finished high school.”
“High school, low school, doesn’t matter! You fit in so easily, and understand people, and... you say such funny things, like that comment about cows. Others want my favor, but you are always truthful. You listen. You’re bright like a flame in the middle of a dark forest full of bloodthirsty beasts.”
My little goth heart beats faster at the fuzzy feeling thrumming through it. He really likes me. Not just because he wants to secure my shadow. All I need to do is trust him.
“That is… very sweet.” I put my hand over his. I can sense his warmth through the glove, and it puts me at ease.
“Maybe I feel tainted because my mother never wanted me in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
I have to take a deep breath and fight the instinct to avoid burdening others with my personal issues. Kyran has shared so much about his parents. He deserves the same trust in return. “She got married young because she got pregnant with me. Her husband convinced her to keep me, even though she didn’t want to. I know, because she told me many times. He left us a few months after I was born. I never even met my dad, but no regrets about that. He must have been an awful person.” I rub my eyes, frustrated that talking about this causes me so much pain. I shouldn’t care about it anymore. “I don’t know if it’s because she had to take care of me on her own, or because I’m the son of a man she hates, but she never failed to make sure I knew just how painfully lacking I am. When I got to my teens and started acting out, things went even more downhill. But at least I’m no longer trying to please her. Nothing I’ll ever do will be good enough.”
Kyran tightens his hold around me. “You are not lacking in any way, and I will make sure you understand that even if it takes me a lifetime. Your value isn’t tied to your mother’s opinion.”
We ride in comfortable silence as I mull over his words.
“Maybe I can be special toyou. I’d like to feel special,” I whisper, because it’s such an embarrassing thing to admit. ‘Luke wants to be a speciallittle snowflake’ I can almost hear my mother’s mocking voice. And still, it’s what my heart yearns for. To do something different, to excel at something. To prove to my mother I wasn’t a waste of womb space.
“Of course you’re special to me,” Kyran whispers as the music gets louder upon our approach to the village. It’s vibrant, full of wind instruments and tambourines, like something one might hear at a renfaire, but right now all I can focus on is the soft whisper of Kyran’s breath in my ear. “Destiny brought us together. I let it guide me and pulled you out of the depths of death. And since I’ve been getting to know you, it’s been almost uncanny how well we fit together. Like a shadow and the man who casts it.”
No one’s ever been so tender with me, and I can’t help but lean into it with a smile. Kyran might be a murderous elf prince on a ruthless quest to steal the crown of the Nocturne Court, but I can’t deny the way he makes me feel. He is a whirlwind, untamed as the Sea of Sorrows when we’re in bed, yet tender as if I were made of porcelain when he handles my silly feelings.
When I’m with him, I don’t care whether I come off as corny. I’m not self-conscious about expressing my joy. Instead of criticizing my style, he gets me new nail polish, just because he noticed it chipped. He might not like Count Flapula, but he still let me keep him, because it makes me happy.
Maybe he’s right, and some kind of invisible hand of destiny did bring us together.
I want to believe that.
I squeeze his hand where he holds it on my chest, but I don’t have fine words, so I resort to jokes. “And now we’ll need to pretend I wasn’t easy, and didn’t put out on the night we met. We’re stillcourtingafter all.”
I will do my best to locate Carol in the village and talk to her so I can put my heart at ease once and for all.
Kyran laughs as we approach two columns marking the entrance into the village. Green flames illuminate homes beyond the symbolic border, and I watch them as he kisses my cheek.
“Nothing feels easier than being with you. It’s as if it’s in my nature.”
I tell my heart to stop beating so fast, because I can’t be falling for him so soon.
Chapter 28
Luke
My skin itches as we approach the village. The trees on either side of the road reach for us like the claws of a giant. Back in my world, I’d be convincing myself there’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing malevolent hiding in the dark, but as Kyran strokes my forearm and invites me to lean against his strong chest, I fear nothing.
I’ve learned not to trust anyone, even less so the men I’ve been sleeping with, but in the two weeks since he snatched me from Best Burger Bonanza’s parking lot, Kyran entangled me in a web of charm, and I can only wish it’s not being held together by a bunch of lies.
