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She’s all right. She’s going to be fine.
I was too slow to answer her call. This is on me. It gave time to the Lesser Faeries of the woods to attack her. I haven’t claimed her as my own so they thought she was easy prey.
Maybe I’m a fallen King, a cursed King, but I protect what is mine and I never realized that in my mind she already belonged to me.
And all this… understanding, this realization, it confuses me even as it clarifies everything. It’s like feeling the air in my lungs sustaining me, like seeing the world for the first time, glimpsing what is under the surface of things. It’s a feeling unlike any I’ve ever experienced in my long life.
It’s real and yet I don’t know how in the hells it happened.
Tome. How it happened tome.
I’ve seen it overcome others over the years and decades, back when I was King in my palace. I’ve seen Fae change from the blink of an eye to the next, forgetting the world, their responsibilities, their troubles, all to be with one person. The tales sing about such feelings and what it feels like to fall headfirst into their warm darkness.
Not me. This isn’t happening to me.
Damn.
And it doesn’t matter. It’s not like she cares for me. Last time she made that perfectly clear. Why should she? She doesn’t know me. And I haven’t been my best self.
Then again, I’m not the King who sat on the throne anymore. I’m cursed and desperate, with nothing to offer. I’m a feral animal living in a lake, more beast than man.
And I’m probably dying.
Yet I couldn’t let her die.
What if she despises me? She’s a small, soft thing all big eyes and emotions, all soft curves and silken dark hair, and I inhale her sweetness as I gently swim with her toward the shore.
“Adar…” My name is a gust of warm air against my skin where her head rests.
“I’m here,” I say, petting her hair. “It’s okay. You will be fine.”
“Something was pulling me into the deep.”
“Water sprites.” I clench my jaw. “I’m sorry for not getting to you sooner.”
“Mm…” Her arms are loose around my neck and now they tighten a little. “But you came.”
“Of course I came. I always come when you call.”
“Why?”
I don’t really have an answer to that, except for that gut-wrenching feeling of needing her, wanting her, making sure she’s safe.
“I don’t know,” I say instead. “Hold on. We’re almost there.”
We’re in the shallows, rocks scraping against my tail, against the weeping wound. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I swim farther until I can pull her out of the water and drag her up the bank to solid ground.
She’s cold and shaking, her hair sticking to her face in long dark strands, her lips turning blue, her hazel eyes red-rimmed and wide.
“You saved my life,” she whispers.
“Is that so hard to believe?” I shake my head at her. “You wound my pride.”
“Is pride why you saved me?”
I open my mouth to say yes, but I find myself unable to lie. “I couldn’t let you perish.”
“Why? I was… not nice to you last time.”
