Chapter 133 A shared wife
I pulled my hand from my pocket and held it out. Hale turned his attention from his fairy to stare at my hand suspiciously, as though it would morph into a viper if he even blinked.
And then he slipped his hand into mine. I raised it up and pressed my lips to the soft of his palm.
“I missed you.” I turned to face the window with him.
“I know.” Came his flat response. “Which explains why you have been such an ass this evening.”
“You’re cursing.”
“Occupational hazard of being your husband.”
“You have begun to say that a lot lately.” I kissed his fingers this time, running my lips over the wedding band we exchanged four years ago.
A sharp inhale was his only response. We went quiet for a while, watching the hotel guests begin to move away from the courtyard.
I felt him shift, and I turned to find him bright-eyed, eyes liquid with emotion.
“Finn… “ He paused. “Finn and I… are together.” His face broke into a smile so bright, so wide, like he could not contain his excitement anymore.
And then silence followed, the natural one that came in the wake of a good news announcement. The space where any decent person was supposed to say, That’s wonderful, good for you, congratulations.
But I was a rotten creature, vile, possessive and jealous. I could not speak, could not even move. My grip went slack around his, and then slipped away.
Hale caught my hand, holding it tightly between his as panic jumped into his eyes. “I thought it was OK.” those blue eyes searched mine.
I remained silent, and pain bled into his eyes, staining them like ink. “We had….”
“An agreement, yes.” I turned away from him, curling my fists as the lava in my core started to heat up. That same internal expansion around the chest I was teaching my wife to control was not threatening to break my own restraint. “Our marriage is open to Finn and… your fairy.”
“The speed with which you switch from your to mine when it suits you, needs to be studied.” Relief softened his features. “Why do you look like you’ve been sucking on sour candy if our relationship is truly OK?”
“Hale….” I caught his hand and squeezed. It felt like I was drowning in an ocean of these contradictions that were my emotions. Drowning in the dark sea that was our relationship. “It really is OK.”
“And in all honesty, I am pleased for you. But that emotion does not override my love. And my love comes with extreme jealousy. You’re no stranger to that.”
My eyes moved from the glass-walled fireplace back to him. “I love them enough to share you with them, and love you enough to share them with you. But the urge to burn you all for daring to share your body and hearts with anyone other than me is painfully persistent. You are mine!”
I ran my hand over my face, cursing. The sky outside the window was a deep shade of purple even though it was only eighteen hundred hours.
“All three of you. You belong to me.”
Hale surprised me then, by leaning forward to wrap his hand around my waist as we remained standing shoulder to shoulder. “Minutes ago,” he began in a quiet voice. “I barely held myself from punching you when you said you loved her.”
My head jerked sideways, and he gave me a sad smile.
“I understand you, Draki.” His hand came up to my chest, resting flat where my heart beat loud and hot. “We are technically the same person, remember?”
“You are a better man than I will ever be.” I moved my eyes, unable to maintain our shared gaze. “I am not even a man. I cosplay, and at times like this, it becomes evident that I am still a beast.”
He pressed his hand more firmly against my chest. “Don’t you think it rude talking about beasts in front of Hale Denver. The Hale Denver.”
“Oh, stop it. What happened was no fault of yours. Why can you not just forgive yourself? It's been centuries.”
“Faults or no…” he swallowed hard. “I did that. I committed atrocities that make Hitler look like a saint.”
It crushed my heart to watch him like this, to be powerful enough to do anything for him but this. For almost two hundred years I have been unable to pull these heavy chains of guilt off him.
“It's all in the past, Mon amour.” I tapped my foot on the floor, my jaw working. “All in the past.”
“Yes.” He said. At least we would agree on that. And for the first time in a long time, I felt my age. I felt all my five hundred and forty years in my old bones.
This was a mess. All of it. It was supposed to be Nymphaea and I, just us. But that damned elemental Senate screwed me over. This reincarnation cycle… The woman Lys was supposed to be Hale’s, she had chosen him, loved him, almost wed him and the whole time I was oblivious to the fact that she had even reincarnated.
My chest was hurting now.
If I cannot find a way to fix this before we leave Korea, we would be in real trouble. The moment Finn learned who he was, the truth about Julien and especially Tarek, he would hate me. And then we would be back to fighting over my wife’s heart.
Maybe Hale would stay with me. He would crash out no doubt, but he would stay. Till next year rolled around, and he had to choose between protecting our city or sacrificing her.
He would not choose her.
The grief of it might kill him, but he would not choose her over doing the right thing. Where I, on the other hand, would watch the world burn, or burn it down myself before I let a strand of her hair fall to the ground.
“Is it Pale King?” Hale broke the silence, kissing my shoulder.
“I will not allow you honor that idiot with a title. Aionis. Call him by his given name.”
“Yes boss.”
I smiled for the first time, even as my heart began to hammer in my chest. This was the second time in a few minutes Hale was heading towards the truth. This would be much more difficult than I imagined.
“Was it him? In the sky?”
“Mm.”
“Why?”
“Finn.” I lied easily. “He was testing Finn. I presume his plan was to provoke Nymphaea to show herself.” I shot a glance in his direction to see how he took that. There was a bitter frown on his face.
“It was bad,” Hale said now. “It was difficult to watch Finn and be unable to help.”
I gave him a nod. He had told me all about it the moment I got off the plane. Just like us, they had experienced that turbulence, and just like Lys, Finn had suffered through it.
But where the ballerina was struggling not to burn down my aircraft, Finn fought not to attack other passengers and suck them dry. His bloodlust was so intense Hale had been forced to knock him out and then restrain him.
I held myself from kicking the wall then. I hated that Finn would suffer until Aionis knew who between him and Lys was actually Nymphaea. But it could not be helped. Either that or a count-down to her death the moment Aionis confirmed Lys was Nymphaea.
“About Lys,” Hale said, and my spine stiffened. “I hesitated to bring this up in the past, but now that you are also in love with my Luna,” he gave me a wry smile. “I believe we now had a shared desire to keep her alive.”
I stared at him, waiting.
“I found a solution for her in Osaka.”
“What?”