Page 73
“I . . . I told you I still care for The Raven.”
“And so you should. An anam cara bond is not merely magical. It is only bolstered by the magical. But where is the problem in that?”
“The problem is that I cheated on him.”
He frowned, his features carving into his face like a disapproving saint. “What does this mean? I know what it means to cheat at cards, to cheat in trade. But you say this cheated on as if it is an action?”
I snorted in amusement at the sheer ludicrous nature of explaining what cheating meant to a Fae Ard Tiarna who had probably been part and parcel to a thousand such affairs. “It means that I betrayed The Raven, our . . . whatever it is . . . with you by doing what we did.”
“Did you? Did you make oaths to him of fidelity? Did the two of you swear equal exclusivity after you came to my chamber?”
“Well, no. But he said it was only to be on his terms and with whom he chose.”
“And you tolerated that?”
“I . . .” I snapped my mouth closed. Why had I accepted that?
“Feh. You might not actually be who I think you are. The firebrand I thought you were would never allow their anam cara to tell them who to fuck, when to fuck, and how to fuck. She would enjoy herself independent of her relationship to him and keep for him sacred her heart.”
Anger sparked within me at being all but called a coward. “It’s not that!”
“Then what is it, dear Banfhlaith mine?”
“It’s what I want to be! I want to deserve him! I want him to love me as I love him! Desperately. Without ending! I want him to long to crawl across broken glass to sniff the hem of my skirt!” I exploded without realizing I had even thought that way. “And now that I’ve fucked someone else, I am a filthy thing! I’m not worthy of someone like him.”
A dangerous grin sliced across Brittle Spear’s face, a clarion warning at having dug too deep. I should have held back. I should have retreated. The truth was too naked. Too bald and angry.
“There it is.” A serpentine tongue flicked out and wet his lips as if clearing away the last remnants of the greatest meal he had ever eaten, gone too soon to savor it truly. He leaned forward to pinch my chin between his thumb and forefinger as he turned my head left and right, examining me. “And there it shall be, for there is nothing I can do to excise this mirage of inadequacy. You built that fortress around yourself brick by brick, and only you can dismantle it. I can maybe loosen a single stone, though. Know this, my Pearl, your worth has never been measured by others. One day, you will pull off the blindfold you have kept on yourself, and when you do, you will see the horde that everyone around you has been casting avaricious eyes toward.”
He flicked my chin away as if I disgusted him. It didn’t help my mood.
“I’m nothing. I’m nobody. I don’t even have a fucking name,” I whispered to his back as he rose.
“That is a lie,” he threw back without even turning around. ”You might not know it, but you have one. It’s waiting for you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and claim it.”
When I finally composed myself and had the tornado of emotions that swirled within me under something resembling control, I made my way back to the group who had been patiently waiting. Brittle Spear had the dappled grey mare saddled, but the mask they used instead of bits had its reins tied to his saddle.
He was already seated atop his dun mare when I returned, easing into the conversation by scratching the large flank of what was now my horse.
“You won’t leave them, will you?” I whispered up to him.
A gentle smile was cast down to me, followed by an even more gentle caress of my cheek. “Never, Banfhlaith. Nor you. No matter how much you wish it to be so. Loyalty lies not in hiding the multitude of our mistakes or shortcomings but in the exercise of embracing all that makes up one and other. I suspect you will find that even our gloomy, possessive Raven will agree with me.”
I gave him a sad smile in thanks, even if I truly didn’t believe him, as one of his soldiers helped me into the saddle. I’d never ridden a horse, and as the beast began to move, swaying side to side and me holding on for dear life, I was happy Brittle Spear had been smart enough to lash me to him. I had no idea how to drive this crazy thing, and I was starting to suspect the horse knew it.
After a long stretch of silence, our group moving through meadows and small brush-filled thickets, I looked up to the affable grin on Brittle Spear’s foreign face. “Why couldn’t I fall in love with someone like you?”
He snorted. “Because I am not for keeping, my lady Pearl. We could be lovers for millennia, but I am not yours to be kept. I am but a pretty plaything. I am not the answer to your question.”
I frowned, disappointed by this simple but true recitation of our situation. He was not and would never be mine, no matter how much I wished it were so. It wasn’t that I wanted Brittle Spear the way I longed for Emrys. It was easy. Being with Brittle Spear was easy. And it was easy because there were no stakes here. There was no forever to look forward to with him. There was no eternity with someone that could be looked forward to and ruined with a single foolish action. He was just what he called himself. A plaything. A simple distraction from the heartache living at my center now that the bond between Emrys and I had been severed.
I wanted him not because I loved him, but because I didn’t. I wanted him because it was easy to want something that had meant nothing. I had been doing it all my life.
Because investing in something, in someone, had always been too dangerous.
They would always disappoint me. They would always walk away. And the faster I was to get to the door, the easier it was to nurse my broken heart. Brittle Spear was the easier of the two. With Emrys, I had to work at it; I had to be better. I had to be worthy of him and earn his love, faith, and trust. With Brittle Spear, all I had to do was open my legs, and he would crawl between them.
I looked up to him, his proud bearing pointed ahead of us as the group’s leader, taking on any danger we might encounter, headfirst.
