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Cain looks dubious, like he might be about to suggest I just leave North to his alone time, but I slip away and out onto the balcony before Cain can say anything.
North is staring out over the strip, his hands gripping the railings, leaning forward almost like he’s trying to catch an elusive scent on the wind. I reach out—I want to touch—but I stop myself right before my hand can land on his back.
I’m not sure if I’m allowed. I want to be helpful. I don’t want to drive him away further. But it’s been so long since I tried to reach out to someone or let them in, to be a—a part of something, really—and I feel so frustrated with myself I could scream. Why can’t I just… know how to be a part of a relationship? Why can’t I just know how to support someone?
“Um.” I take a deep breath and come up to stand next to him, leaning back against the railing, facing inward so I can keep an eye on Cain and Raven. I can’t see Raven, and Cain is in the kitchen looking through the room service menu. Clearly both giving us space.
“Look, I’m not really good at this kind of thing,” I admit. “The whole ‘talking about feelings’ shit. I just… I haven’t really had anyone in my life to do that with. But you sound like you could use someone to talk to.”
North snorts. “There’s no point in talking.”
“Oh? So you’re just going to do the whole brooding out here thing for, what, an hour? Until you’ve bottled all your feelings up again? That sure sounds healthy.”
North glares at me, but his mouth is twitching like he’s also amused and is trying to hide it.
I smile at him.
North huffs and looks back out over the street, at the bustling cars, the people hurrying to beat the heat inside one of the air-conditioned casinos where they can forget their worries and lives, forget time itself.
“Has it always been this way?” I gently prod.
“No,” North snaps defensively. He swallows, like he’s working on his tone. “No. It wasn’t. I could shift as a child.”
I nod, trying to be encouraging. I feel like we’re two people stumbling around in a pitch-dark room, blind, trying to find each other. “You could just do it? Easily?”
North nods. “It was like breathing. I just swapped around. I could be… this. Or a wolf. Didn’t matter.”
“What happened?” Did someone hurt him, giving him trauma? Did someone curse him? Usually, when we can’t access a part of our inherent magical abilities, it’s either from birth or because we were cursed somehow.
North shakes his head, showing his sharpened teeth as he growls in frustration. He might not be able to shift, but there are still wolfish things about him. “I don’t know. It was a few years ago.”
The words seem to be fighting their way out of his chest, and so I try to keep still. If I say the wrong thing, if I even make the wrong move, he might clam up again and stop confiding in me. I hold still and wait, watching him. I owe him patience.
After all, I’d be just as bad if the shoe was on the other foot.
“Ever since then…” North huffs. “Ever since then, I feel like pieces of me are falling away. I’m losing parts of myself.”
“I… I know it’s not the same, but…” Fuck, he’s confiding in me, and I want to try to show him the same thing, I want to try to be vulnerable too. Sort of a quid pro quo. “I denied my fae self for years. I really only used my powers for burglaries. I lived as a human. Hell, I’m enrolled at NYU.”
North doesn’t say anything, but he watches me carefully, listening to every word I speak as I continue.
“So now, with you guys knowing about mates and using your Sight and all of that, I—I feel like I’m behind the curve. I didn’t know about the market or a lot of other things. I didn’t even know who Donovan O’Shae was, or that he was so incredibly powerful until it was too late. If I’d been more of a proper fae, I would’ve known. I feel like I’d be better at all of this.”
North looks at me in surprise, as if he can’t imagine the idea that I’d ever think badly of myself. “You aren’t lesser, Kiara. You have all your powers. You just don’t know how to use them.”
“How do you know it’s not the same for you, then?” My voice comes out fiercer and more challenging than maybe it should, but I don’t care. I never got anywhere in this world by being sweet and nice. “You can’t have sympathy for me and none for yourself.”
“You’re just discovering powers you didn’t know you had,” North counters. “I had this. Then I lost it. It’s not the same thing.”
I press my lips together, but I don’t know how to dispute that. Because he’s right, it is different. “That doesn’t mean that all this is lost to you forever.”
“It might as well be,” North huffs. “I get it. You don’t want to… admit that I’m… nothing. I don’t want to admit it either. But I couldn’t phase out with the boulders. I couldn’t shift for you, for mymate,when you really needed me to. I’m not a shifter or a fae. I’m nothing.”
That takes me aback. How can North possibly think he’s nothing? I lay my hand on his arm, finally giving into the urge to touch him. He might not be connected to his wolf side—or so he thinks—but I know that shifters really respond to touch. It means a lot to them. They’re all very touchy people.
“You’re not nothing,” I tell him. “That’s a load of bullshit, and I’m not going to stand for it. We’ve been hunted for so long because of those fucking vampires, and so many of us died. We’re all so isolated. No wonder none of us know anything about our culture or our powers. And so many of us are only partially fae, North, it’s what we had to do to survive! It’s just how it happened! If you’re one fae among a fuckton of shifters, of course you’ll eventually fall for one of them. It’s the law of averages. You’re not going to leave and try to seek out another fae just to procreate. We’re not animals.”
I clench my jaw, trying to wrestle my emotions back under control. “What’s happening to you isn’t your fault, and it doesn’t make you nothing. I’m sure there are tons of fae hybrids out there who have similar issues to you.” I squeeze his arm. “You’re the leader here. Cain and Raven look to you to make decisions. They trustyou.And the way you took out those bats? And ran across those boulders? You’re not nothing, North. I won’t hear it.”
