It must already be starting because I can feel the thin flesh around my eyes wiggle as I narrow them at him in anger.
He chuckles a little. “Don’t worry, I’m not upset with you…much. Or at least I’m not anymore. Since you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, we may as well get things straight where he’s concerned.” Jareth nods at Sayer, who is snoring, sprawled out across most of the bed without a care in the world. A flush of affection spreads throughout my body. If I had the ability to frown, I would.
As though he can read the emotion in my eyes he says, “Yeah, I get the feeling. It would be a lot easier if he weren’t so easy to like.”
At least that we can agree on.
Much as I’d like to clarify this…relationship, for lack of a better word, I want to do it on my own terms. Preferably while I’m fully in control of my body. Scratch that, preferably never.
“You know, I was a lot like you when Sayer and I first became mates.”
The effects of the toxica must be wearing off, because I find myself able to sigh heavily and roll my eyes. No way in hell he’s been through what I have. He didn’t wake up in a strange place pregnant with someone else’s baby and unable to do anything about it.
Jareth relaxes into his chair and props an ankle on the opposite thigh. “I didn’t say we were exactly alike and I’m not oblivious to your plight, but I never wanted to like Sayer, let alone love him.”
I wiggle my newly unfrozen eyebrows in a signal for him to go on. If I’m going to have to listen to him, I may as well get answers. The more information I have about Jareth and Sayer, the more prepared I’ll be when I have to deal with them.
“We were friends before The Rades took most of our people. We grew up together as mortlings.”
The thought of the two of them as kids makes me want to smile. No doubt they inspired terror wherever they went, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. I wonder if the little one growing inside me will be like Sayer, strong and gentle. Quiet and fierce.
Jareth continues, “After—” His eyes grow misty and his voice roughens. “After, Jareth and I grew closer than ever before. Near the end, when we knew Breccan had no other options at his disposal, we morts knew we were facing the extinction of our kind. I can’t describe to you how hopeless we all felt. How alone.” He smiles, causing the tips of his double fangs to glint in the half light. “I remember we’d been arguing. I was trying to convince him to live without me. He’s always been the stronger of the two of us and I’ve always been exceedingly fatalistic.”
My hands twitch by my sides, but Jareth doesn’t seem to notice, lost as he is in the memories.
“He was trying to convince me to keep fighting, but I was so tired of it. Not to survive, I’ve never minded that, but I was exhausted trying to hide how I felt about him.” Jareth’s eyes refocus on me. “None of our kind have ever mated with their own sex before. After The Rades, the notion was unthinkable. Knowing none of us would ever find pleasure or love destroyed me. And it made me angry. So angry. Of course, I took it out on Sayer.”
He notices my hand fluttering and he leans forward, crouched over me in such a way that blots out the light around him. Jareth takes my hand between his two massive ones. “Just like I’m taking out my anger now on you.”
The way his eyes soften makes me want to run. It was one thing to have sex with an alien—it’s another thing altogether to feel something for them. Let alone two of them.
Things couldn’t possibly get more complicated.
“I’ll do anything to make this work—to keep Sayer in my life. Even if it means sharing him with you.”
This isn’t what I want. This was only supposed to be a one-time thing to sate the burning hunger inside me, but even now I can feel the heady thrum buzzing beneath my skin at Sayer’s mere presence by my side. Will this need for him continue until I bear his child? What about after?
I hadn’t thought about the consequences when I bolted to Sayer’s room. I’d only been concerned with making the ache go away. But it’s not just Sayer’s life I’m affecting by having his child, not even just my own. It’s Jareth’s as well.
And he’s handling it a hell of a lot better than I would if a stranger invaded. An alien stranger at that.
The muscles in my neck have regained enough feeling that I’m able to nod at him to continue. We may as well figure out what we’re going to do about this now, while I can still think somewhat clearly and Sayer’s not conscious to distract me.