Page 38 of Fey Sovereignty (Fey Lords #4)

Chapter thirty-eight

I ’m gasping and fighting the covers. The last remnants of the dream fall away, and I find myself sitting up in bed. In the middle of the night. Alone.

My heart hammers. Where is Llywelyn?

I clamber out of bed. There are guards at the door, to keep Llywelyn under house arrest, but I’m sure they also wouldn’t let anyone in.

Nevertheless, terror claws at me. I hurry into the main room and see him, sitting curled up in the window seat, watching the waning moon.

Relief rushes through me. Hard enough to make me shake.

I walk up to Llywelyn, and he turns his head at the sound of my soft footsteps.

“I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to disturb you,” he says.

I smile and join him in the window seat, facing him. He goes back to staring at the moon. My gaze stays on him. He looks amazing in the moonlight. His gauzy white nightgown looks as if it has been painted in silver. It could be spun out of moonbeams. His golden hair looks pale, and the sharp angles of his face catch the sparkling light.

He really does look ethereal tonight. A magic being from another realm. A fey from the old tales.

My lover is woven of myths and legends. Magic. Majestic. I’m proud and honoured to have caught his attention. Me, a mere mortal .

As I drink in the sight of him, my eyes track over his pointed ears, and then the absent antlers. I see the sad droop in his shoulders, and my heart twists.

He may be magical and otherworldly, but far more importantly, he is very… human? I guess that’s the wrong word for it, but I can’t think of another. Humans have known no other sentient beings, at least not for thousands of years. We don’t have the right words for it in our languages.

Saying that Llywelyn is a person, doesn’t convey what I mean. Whatever the terms for it, I’m feeling it so very strongly. Despite the things that seem different about us, we are the same. Two souls who feel the same emotions. I hate that I ever thought of him as something ‘other’.

I watch him in the moonlight and my heart swells. I could stare at him forever.

“I’m in so much trouble,” he whispers sadly, startling me from my silent adoration.

I shake my head to clear it further. “Everything was fine when you killed the servant.”

Llywelyn sighs despondently. “That was different. It was just a servant. And I didn’t stab him in the back.”

I ignore my flash of annoyance at his ‘just a servant’ comment. Llywelyn is a fey prince, he has been brought up with some truly awful ideas. Now is not the time for a lecture on equality. I have the rest of my life to teach him better ways. Right now, I need to focus on the very big problem in front of us.

Llywelyn murdered Prys in front of hundreds of witnesses and is facing trial tomorrow.

I swallow. Stabbing someone in the back is considered extremely dishonourable amongst the fey. I sincerely think everyone is more pissed off about that, than the actual murder itself.

“I stabbed him a lot,” Llywelyn says as he turns to me with wide eyes.

“You did,” I agree calmly. “He deserved it. ”

Llywelyn breathes in deeply. “Sorry.”

My brow furrows. “What for?”

“Your overlords are going to be angry. I’ve got you into trouble.”

My lips curl up into a wry smile. My handler would love being called an overlord. It would make her day. I’d never hear the end of it.

“Everything will be fine,” I say. “We will figure it out.”

I hate lying to him, but he needs my reassurance. He needs me to be his rock.

Llywelyn sighs sadly and turns his attention back to the moon. I wish there was something I could do to cheer him up. Tomorrow is going to come soon enough, so spending these last few hours fretting is a waste of time.

I already fucked him vigorously earlier in the evening. If that didn’t tire and bliss him out enough to sleep through the night, I doubt a second go will do anything. Even though it will be fun to try.

I bite the inside of my mouth and use the pain to chase away my dirty thoughts. Not everything can be solved with sex. And he deserves more from me than that. I may be addicted to him, but I also love him. In ways that go far beyond sex.

I sit in silence for a moment while I try to come up with something. I like the idea of hot chocolate. It is what my mum used to make when I was feeling down.

But I don’t want to wake Tae up. And It is startling to realise I have no idea where the kitchens are. That lack of knowledge makes me feel like a big dependent baby. I can’t even make myself a drink.

I scowl, and then shake it off. I don’t even know if the fey have hot chocolate. There is no point in wandering around the palace in the middle of the night, trying to find out where Tae goes to make tea. I’m going to have to think of something else.

As my mind whirls, drawing blanks, Llywelyn pulls his knees up and hugs them, turning himself into a tiny ball .

“Everyone saw. Everyone heard the rumours he was spreading. Everyone watched him turn his back to me,” Llywelyn says quietly.

I breathe in. Maybe what Llywelyn needs from me is simply for me to listen. To be here for him.

“You can still tell the truth,” I suggest.

“That he was going to challenge my brother to a duel? That is honourable. There is no crime in that.”

My stomach twists. Cold seeps in. I’ve been doing a very good job of staying calm, of not allowing myself to freak out about the trial. But I think all my emotional defences are crumbling.

“What would have been his grounds for a duel?” I ask.

Llywelyn shrugs. “A challenge for Ollie would have done. Any excuse to get Tristan in the ring so he could kill him with no repercussions.”

My stomach churns some more. What if Llywelyn hadn’t stopped him? Tristan would be dead and Ollie would belong to Prys.

“I’m glad you killed him,” I say.

Llywelyn looks at me with doubt in his eyes. He thinks he acted rashly and fucked up. I think that he acted with heart and passion. And honestly, I don’t know how else he could have stopped Prys. There was no time to think of anything clever.

Once again, Llywelyn has put the needs of his family above his own. I’m damn fucking proud of him. I need to find a way of telling him this, in a way he believes.

“He was an asshole who deserved to die,” I try.

Llywelyn looks unconvinced.

I take a deep breath. “Fuck the mission. Fuck my overlords. I no longer give a shit about any of that. The only thing I care about is you.”

Something gleams in his eyes. A flicker of joy, but it is soon drowned in the sea of sadness. My words haven’t cheered him up at all .

“I’m facing trial tomorrow. I don’t know what is going to happen,” he says as he stares at me intensely.

I see the worry in his beautiful eyes and suddenly it clicks. He isn’t worried about himself, he is worried about me. I’m his pet. If he is punished, he doesn’t know what my fate will be.

I reach out and place my hand on his knee. “Rhydian is the judge.”

I’m not going to spew bullshit like, ‘I can take care of myself, don’t worry about me’. Because I’m one human man. Alone in the middle of the fey court. If they decide to put me down, or give me to someone else, there is fuck all I can do about it. We both know that.

Therefore, the best way to reassure him, is to remind him his brother will not be harsh on him.

Llywelyn frowns. “He doesn’t like me. None of them do.”

He says it without self-pity. There is no whine in his voice. Just a simple statement of fact.

My chest constricts. To be disdained by your own family has to sting.

“Dyfri likes you,” I remind him.

That has to be true. Dyfri brought him back from the dead. That doesn’t strike me as something that is done idly.

Llywelyn scoffs. “Dyfri is too soft for his own good!” Then he freezes and turns back to me with wide eyes. “Don’t tell him I said that!”

A chuckle bubbles out of me. “Too soft, but you are scared of him?”

Llywelyn scowls. “You’ve met him.”

I laugh, even though he is right. Dyfri is scary and lovely. Both at the same time. I’ve never met anyone like him.

Suddenly, Llywelyn makes a pained noise and thumps his head back against the windowsill behind him. He closes his eyes and grimaces.

“I destroyed Dyfri and in return, he saved me. ”

I watch, lost for words, as anguish flows across Llywelyn’s face. Then a single tear rolls down his cheek, sparkling like a diamond in the moonlight.

I lean forward and gently brush it away. “You were trying to help.”

Llywelyn opens his eyes and gives me such a sad, despondent, broken look that I nearly burst into tears of my own.

“All I ever do is make a mess of things,” he whispers.

My lungs fill with ice. It feels like a thousand tiny daggers stabbing me inside my chest. I can’t stand this. I grab him and pull him onto my lap, pressing his back firmly against my chest. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. Savouring the warm weight of him.

“It’s going to be fine,” I say with confidence. “As long as they don’t separate us, we can face anything. You and me together. That’s the only thing we need.”

He stiffens in my arms. He doesn’t say a word, but I hear him nonetheless. That’s exactly what he is worried about. That they are going to separate us.

I fall silent too. I simply hold him even tighter. There is nothing else I can do.

We stare out of the window together. Until long after the moon has set and the sun has risen.