Headed Either to a Wedding or a Mafia-style Execution

Have you ever smelled incense so sweet it becomes acrid? Burning your nostrils and throat and squeezing at your brain until your entire head is throbbing in painful protest. That is what it was like to have Titania’s blood spattered right against my face. I couldn’t even feel the tightness in my stomach or the aching of my jaw or realize I almost broke my teeth by clenching them so hard into that root, not until hours later. My vision was just a haze of red, my mind a throbbing pulse of painful need, until the blood had long since dried and my thrashing finally ceased.

I was still shaking and incoherent, but I was also conscious of the fact that my broken arms were realigning. I pulled so hard against those coarse restraints that my own blood made a gory mess across every line of my limbs. I still never got free of even one loop of these constricted roots wrapped around my entire body from ankles to forehead. Those lines of inky burgundy that resulted from my struggles are still wet in places though, unlike Titania’s sanguis, flaking off my cheeks as I scrunch up my face and try to get a full breath in through the gritty gag shoved between my aching teeth.

Then my burning eyes fall to Luc, and all care for my own suffering vanishes. His hair is straight white now, his cheeks sunken in, and his eyes clouded over with cataract. My thrashing resumes all the fiercer, and I feel my eyes flooding with tears. He is not dead. He is immortal, forever. This love was forever, and that evil bitch never could have taken it away…

“The rabid beast weeps,” a cold voice notes, and my red-rimmed gaze lifts to finally notice that the bars of this cell have opened right up. Leah’s father is standing right outside with a host of silver-armored knights. “Does that mean he’s returned to his senses?”

The roots pinning me withdraw, and I drop to the ground, consumed by the need to charge my callous questioner and suck him dry, exactly like Luc did Titania. I strangle that urge. I clutch at Luc’s body and just hold him close instead, stroking at his face and forcing out the ragged call, “Luc?”

He doesn’t stir, but he’s still warm to the touch, the effects of fairy blood circulating through his heart and bringing flush to his skin even while it drains away his undead life.

“Not a drop left in her, sir,” one of his guards shakily assesses, holding up Titania’s limp, gray colored wrist. “It’s all soaked into the soil or been sucked up by those monsters.”

“Bury her in this ground, feed her head some godly nectar, and she’ll be reborn within a cycle,” Oberon uncaringly dismisses. “Then I’ll exile her to the wilds. She was a fool to consort with demons, and being willingly defiled, she deserves no lighter a sentence.”

“Yet your daughter has also been defiled by these beasts, sir,” one of his men mutters, and Oberon’s eyes flare. “And her mother, your wife, is a literal witch. Not to mention the fact that your new grandson is also a vampire--”

“A half-breed. Basically human. Not a vampire. And my Elizabeth was not a witch when I first married her. She was and is a human woman, and the vow is forever come what may! I consider her current hostage situation having a bargain with a demon to be a tribulation we shall overcome. The power of my love shall mend it, just as my affections mimic a soul for her regardless of her infernal pact. Now do not speak of this again.”

“Of course, your majesty, I apologize.”

“Now as for you.” Oberon turns his eyes to me, still cradling Luc’s body while trying to slow my breathing and keep my fangs at bay. “Tell me every detail of what happened here.”

I do. I fill him in honestly with every word and sick action his wife took with us that brought about her end. “And you shouldn’t bring her back,” I raggedly conclude. “She’s not a god. She’s a monster. Let her rot in the ground. Luc’s the one who deserves to be saved. He’s been punished enough for his sins. He’s confessed them all, and he is not evil. He never was.”

“His humanity was so long ago lost, that he most certainly is,” Oberon rebuffs. “He’s not like you, Julian. He’s not still clinging to his stolen soul, remembering sunlight and a proper upbringing. He was a lust driven predator--”

“You do not know him,” I jaggedly retort.

Then I see Leah. She’s there at the head of the passageway, cradled in the arms of a tall fairy gentleman, and sitting cupped against her chest is the most glorious, beautiful child that I have ever seen. I can’t see a single detail of his features from this distance, but he remains the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I just know it. And gone is all my sadness over Luc. I forget about him entirely, as Leah orders her green-skinned chauffeur to carry her closer and set her down.

“You should not be here, not either of you,” her father protests, but it’s such a gentle, absentminded objection that there is zero authority behind it. “It’s dangerous…”

“My baby is not looking at or understanding the scene of your murdered fairy queen, alright?” Leah snaps, eyes darting between me and Luc. “Now what the hell happened?”

I blink, following her horrified stare toward the man in my arms and coming out of my trance long enough to fill her in on the important details of our imprisonment and its consequences. Then I mutter, “He’s still alive, but not for long. He’ll keep aging in his sleep, just like last time. But I don’t think we have an entire month this time… I don’t think he’s waking up.” My voice breaks, but then I look away from him and back toward that baby for just the briefest second, and my mind instantly starts to drift. “Did you name him yet? He deserves an epic name. Like Adonis. Or maybe something luckier...”

“His name is Ben,” Leah offers.

“Little Benji…”

“No. Just Ben. If it’s short for anything, it’s Benedict, which means blessed, but stop staring at him and focus.”

I lift my eyes to lock with hers and feel an instant flood of warmth. “Leah. It is so good to see you again. Did I say that yet?”

“No, but it doesn’t mean much when you’re naked, grieving, battered and under a serious enchantment.” She sighs down at her son. “Now look, I have to marry Luc to save his life right now, so do you think you could maybe get him cleaned up and help me with that?”

“Save him? You can help him?”

She explains it all, how making him a son-in-law of this fairy clan will erase all curse upon him, and I try my best to focus on her words and not the baby in her arms. It becomes easy once the little guy nods off, and all of us snap back to our sense, though Oberon and his men seem to have blacked out entirely the last few minutes of our conversation since Leah arrived. Vampires are far less vulnerable to compulsion than even fairies it appears.

Even without her little ball of charisma awake to aid her, Leah still manages to convince her father to let her marry Luc. “I love him, dad. I can’t let him die. I will never forget, and I will never forgive you, if you just let him die.”

“Fine.”

He orders his most trusted servants to get us cleaned up and dressed. I don’t let them carry Luc. I handle him myself, keeping vigilant watch over his condition, even as I’m escorted way out into the middle of the misty woods with zero witnesses other than Oberon. There’s no sign of Leah yet. It’s pitch black and eerily silent, with only the moon to light our path…

Not sure if we’re heading to a wedding or a mafia-style execution to be honest.