Stopping Time and Old Habits (Wicked Lovely 2.50)

She smiled at Irial, letting the illusion slip for a moment—and immediately regretted it. He lowered his book and leaned forward. The question in his expression made her heart ache. She didn’t belong in his world, not even now that he was no longer the Dark King. Talking to him was dangerous. Being alone with him was dangerous. It was a line she couldn’t cross—not and still retain her distance. If she were to be honest with herself, it was the other reason she’d invited her study group this week. She could speak to them, say things she wanted him to know without admitting she was speaking to him.

Faery logic.

He stood.

She shook her head and turned away. There were moments when she failed, when she talked to the fey, but not to Irial.

Never to him.

Jill was beside him now, and he spoke to her. No doubt he said something charming but dismissive.

Leslie stared at the page, her notes blurring as she tried to look anywhere but at Irial. Resolutely, she read over the words in her notebook. School was the one thing that helped her focus; it was how she had kept it together when she lived in Huntsdale, and it was how she had continued to hold on the past few months. She’d rather hurt and keep trying than hide from her feelings. Irial had helped her see that.

Seeing anyone else near him hurt. Seeing him hurt. Not seeing him hurts more. That was the challenge, the dilemma she couldn’t resolve: his nearness made her feel safe, made her feel loved and valued, but it reminded her of what she couldn’t have. Two faeries, arguably the two most tempting faeries in the world, loved her, and she couldn’t be with either of them—not without sacrificing too much. She couldn’t be a good person and be in their world. Maybe if they were part of any other faery court or if she were a different sort of person, she could build a life with them, but the future she’d have in the Dark Court wasn’t a future that she could accept. Monsters don’t become house pets, and she didn’t want to become a monster.

“Well”—Jill plopped down in her s

eat again—“that was interesting.”

“What?” Leslie’s heart sped. She might have the Sight, but that didn’t give her faery hearing or reflexes.

“He said—and I quote—‘Tell Leslie that I send my love or anything else she might need.’” Jill folded her arms over her chest, leaned back, and studied Leslie’s expression. “Gorgeous guy, apparently loves you, and you—”

“Drop it.” Leslie’s calm faltered then. Her hand started shaking as she gathered up her notes. “Seriously. He’s…a part of my past. He’s why I moved here. To be away from him.”

Michael put a hand on Leslie’s arm. “Is he threatening—”

“No. He isn’t here to hurt me. He…he’d protect me at his own risk. Our situation is just”—she looked in Irial’s direction and caught his gaze—“complicated. I needed space.”

She didn’t look back at her study group. No one spoke, and she couldn’t think of anything else to say. The awkwardness of the situation was more than she wanted to deal with. How do I say that I love and am loved by…Dark Kings? Faeries? Monsters? There weren’t words to explain—and the only one there who deserved her explanation already knew it.

She stood. “I’ll catch you in class.”

She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked away. She paused after she passed him and whispered, “Good night, Irial.”

“Be safe, love. I’ll be here if you need me,” he promised her. There was no censure in his words; he gave her the reassurances he knew she needed: that he loved her, that he protected her, and that he did so from a distance.

Faeries don’t lie, he’d once told her, so listen carefully to what we actually say.

By every mortal standard, the worst faeries in the world were those in the Dark Court. They fed on the baser emotions; they engaged in activities that the other—also amoral—faery courts repudiated. They were also the only ones she truly trusted or understood.

Irial watched her walk away until he was sure that she was within sight of her guards. She grew stronger every week. If any mortal could’ve survived the Dark Court, it was his Leslie. Her strength awed him, even as it manifested in choosing to continue loving two faeries but to be with neither of them. Few mortals had the mettle that she did.

But being strong didn’t mean that she should hurt. If he had his way, she’d spend the rest of her life cosseted. And that life would be as long as Niall’s. Irial had learned centuries ago that the world didn’t always bend to his will. Unfortunately.

After he was sure Leslie was far enough away that she wouldn’t think he was stalking her, he walked away from the coffee shop. There were always guards near enough to hear her if she cried out for help. He’d prefer that there were guards walking alongside her, but she would suffer more for that. Their visible presence saddened her, so the guards had been ordered not to crowd her. At least not all of the time. It was a delicate dance, watching her but not being too present. In this, as in so many other things, Leslie was an anomaly. She accepted their guardianship, but not their omnipresence. She accepted their love, but not their companionship.

Everything on her terms or not at all. Just like Niall.

He walked only a block before he saw Gabriel leaning against his steed, which was currently in the form of a deep-green classic Mustang. If Irial asked, Gabriel could spout off the year, engine, and modifications his steed was currently adopting, and for a moment, Irial considered doing just that. It would be more entertaining than a lecture.

Gabriel pushed away from the car. “What are you doing?”

Irial shrugged. “Checking on her.”

“And if Niall finds out…your king who told you to stay away from her? What do you think he’ll say?” Gabriel joined him, walking in the direction Irial had already been going. The car didn’t follow.

“I suppose he’d be angry.” Irial smiled to himself. Angry Niall was far more fun than sulking Niall. If it wasn’t so counterproductive, Irial’d spend more time actively trying to provoke his new king. My only king. Sometimes the fact that he had a king amused Irial to perverse degrees. After centuries of leading the Dark Court, he was monarch no more. He’d returned to what he was before, a Gancanagh, fatally addictive to mortals, solitary by nature—except that Irial had never really been one to follow anyone’s conventions but his own. Rather than resume solitary status, as was typical of former Dark Kings or Queens, he swore fealty and stayed in his court as advisor to his new king.