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And as for me . . .
I swallowed, feeling ill. But the truth was, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d wished a part of me dead. I’d spent centuries looking for a way to do exactly that—to kill off the terrifying thing inside me that had made anything like a normal life impossible.
Memories crowded in, not hers this time, but mine. Of running through a briar patch, shredding my feet and legs, too desperate to get away to bother finding an easier path. She’d almost erupted in the middle of an inn that time, where I’d been dumb enough to get talked into a game of cards by the fire. It had been cozy: rain beating down on the roof from a storm outside, a bowl of stew by my side, a tankard of ale in the hand that wasn’t holding the cards. A perfect, relaxing night . . .
Until one of the men accused me of cheating, and pulled a knife.
It was a stupid thing; he was drunk. And the brawny innkeeper was already heading our way to settle it. And even if he hadn’t been, was a red-faced idiot barely able to hold a knife someone I couldn’t handle?
Dorina had apparently thought so, forcing me to run off into the cold, desperate to get far enough away that she couldn’t wreck the place. Because she’d wanted to. I’d felt it like I’d felt her, rising like a gorge in my throat, blood filling my senses, threatening to choke me.
And everyone else.
So I ran, like I did a hundred other times. And ended up spending the night in some farmer’s barn, curled up among the cattle and hoping I woke before anyone found me in the morning. And was gutted for their trouble.
But running didn’t always work. She could take me in an instant sometimes, like the night a group of guys decided to jump me in an alley, just some young thugs, barely armed, who I could have knocked out with their own cudgels. Except the next thing I knew, I was waking up covered in blood and they were all dead.
The same thing happened with some highwaymen, who would have probably settled for the little bit of money I had on me. And with a group of randy soldiers, who were too drunk to outrun me, not that they’d had the chance. And with the personal guards of a stupid lord who thought he’d have a little fun with a peasant girl.
I’d come around inside his coach that time, lying on his lordship’s bloated carcass, his men arrayed almost artistically on the dirt outside. I’d stared at them, dizzy and sick, their blood a cloying stench in my nostrils, and recalled the stories about my uncle Vlad. Who, it was said, had liked to arrange his victims in pretty geometric shapes so he could admire their corpses from the towers of his castle.
Guess it ran in the family, huh?
I’d started trying harder to avoid conflict, after that.
Like giving up sea travel, because my other half in an enclosed space for too long was not a good idea. Like avoiding gambling, because a game gone wrong might end with the accuser strung up by his entrails. And like shunning close friendships, much less romances, because people near me had the life expectancy of a mouse hanging around a cat.
In other words, just as long as the cat didn’t get hungry.
I’d never known when my personal monster was going to get hungry, or been certain that I could stop her if she did. And every time it happened, I’d felt more like a failure, more like a bloodthirsty thing that enjoyed killing, more like the monster people thought me to be. So isolating myself had become the norm, not for my sake, but for everyone else’s. And that was still true, wasn’t it?
It was still true yesterday, when I’d been too afraid to mark Louis-Cesare. I didn’t want him tied to me when I didn’t know who I was anymore, or who I might become. I didn’t want him getting hurt when the crazy came out, possibly for good this time. I didn’t want him to wake up and realize that he didn’t know the woman lying beside him.
But he wouldn’t accept that, wouldn’t listen if I tried to tell him, just like he hadn’t listened in the shower. He thought he could handle it, that he could handle anything, but he couldn’t handle her, and neither could I. She was going to do what she always had—any damned thing she wanted, to anyone she wanted, and that included him.
And that couldn’t include him.
/> Whatever it cost me, it wouldn’t.
* * *
—
I finally ran out of hot water, threw on some old gray sweats, and ran a comb through my wet hair. And made my way down to the kitchen, where activity was going on, although not of the cleaning variety. Instead, a couple of mighty fey warriors were peeling apples, another was coring and cutting them up, and a third was standing by the kitchen table with a rolling pin in hand.
Despite everything, I felt a smile twitch at my lips. And not just at seeing the fey put to work for a change. But at the table.
It had been cleared off except for a piece of fabric that had once been a tablecloth, before it had become too stained for regular use. It had now become a kitchen aide, one that had been liberally sprinkled with flour and was supporting a large sheet of rolled dough. And there was only one thing Claire used that setup for.
Ah yiss, I thought gleefully. Motherf’king strudel!
Maybe.
“It keeps tearing!” a fey warrior said shrilly.
The fey was the one by the table, with sweat on his forehead and fury in his eyes. And flour in his hair, which someone, probably the determined-looking redhead standing beside him, had made him put up into a sloppy ponytail. More of it was smeared on his cheeks, where he’d wiped his face with a flour-dusted sleeve, leaving him looking like a toddler at play in Mom’s kitchen.
A profane toddler.
