The Deaths of Me (NEW ADULT REWORK)

12. Dane's Fairy Secret

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

--G.K. Chesterton

"It wasn't my idea to meet in a public place," he said, hoping that Rory would believe him. She nodded, but she was distant, aloof. He hated when she turned in on herself and drifted like a loose buoy. He wanted to grab her hand and be that anchor for her.

Instead, he nudged her a bit with his elbow until she looked up at him. "If you don't want to go with her, no one in my pack would make you." A hungry vibration rattled in his words. He would gladly let his lycan side pick a fight with Ivy if it would stake claim over Rory. For her own protection, of course. He kept his hands at his side, an instinct that he'd never had to fight before.

Her eyes widened to take on a bewildered, wondrous look. He tried to steel himself against it, but a warmth spread, pressing hard on his sternum. It was hard to breathe.

"Oh, no," she insisted. "It's not Ivy. I'm sure she'll keep me safe."

Rory looked distracted, and that didn't sit well with him. He couldn't imagine any of her recurring thoughts being pleasant ones. Was she thinking about the torture she'd endured at the hands of those cult members? Was she not coping well with the loss of her last guardian? He'd noticed that she wasn't a sound sleeper by any means, and he briefly wondered if her time being used and beaten was the cause. Those images came to him in his dreams, too. The pain sliced through him at night, forcing him under a sea of blinding agony that Rory had drowned in just days before. How was she still standing?

He wanted to believe that the reason he couldn't get her out of his mind was due to the fact that he'd very recently been in hers. But then he'd see her smile, or bite her lip as she read her books, or shove her tiny feet into his boots, and he knew it had nothing to do with the night they met. It was just the night it started.

"I'd rather be able to be close if you need me." He flinched at the sincerity in his own voice. He was embarrassing himself. He had to stop pledging himself to her like a loyal subject. And yet, he knew he couldn't.

"There she is," Rory whispered as if she hadn't heard him at all. Her lips formed a semi-smile that managed to stop him in his tracks for a split second. He turned in time to see Ivy's hunched over form. She was bundled up, even though it couldn't have been cooler than sixty degrees. Her assassin's boots were strapped extra tight, or maybe her ridiculously heavy sweatpants bulging over the tops of her boots made it seem that way. She also wore that practiced scowl that she apparently brought with her everywhere she went.

The petite vampire came to a harsh halt in front of the pair and glared at them both. "What did you do now?" she spat. If Dane hadn't known better, he could have sworn spittle was forming on her bottom lip.

He felt a growl surface from deep in his chest, and he put Rory behind him. Ivy all but ignored his territorial display.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rory squeaked, shrinking two sizes into her already ill-fitting, borrowed clothes.

"Well, don't just stand there. Come on. We need to find out." Ivy sighed into a lesser version of her tense stance and spun around on her heels. "We've been summoned."

Dane jogged after Ivy, but not before letting Rory pass him. "By the Council?" he asked, glancing past Ivy to gauge Rory's expression. It was calculating and focused.

"Not quite." Ivy looked like she was walking, but she was moving at a jogger's pace. He'd never get used to vampires. "By the queen."

Dane could feel his eyebrows almost levitate right off of his face. His feet seemed to be confused as well, because they tangled with each other and sent him careening into Rory's side. She caught him and remained upright where he would have crashed. She offered him a smile that was both gentle and concerned before standing him back up on his own. He huffed out a noncommittal apology and moved to catch up to Ivy, who hadn't so much as looked over her shoulder.

"What does she want us for?" he asked once he was back on equal pace with the vampire.

She shrugged. "She's too good at being vague. Her wood sprites wouldn't give me any specifics. All I was told is that she has some information about the phoenix."

"You can call me Rory, you know," Rory tried, lightly pumping her arms to keep up with the vampire. She looked at Dane and jokingly rolled her eyes.

He struggled to keep his expression as lighthearted as hers, but his mind was whirring with panic. He and the queen had a history. Not one that he would ever share with Ivy or Rory, but now that they were on their way to her underground palace, he couldn't help but relive it in his head.

When he'd made his first shift three years ago, he'd gone hunting as he'd been instructed to. In the weeks leading up to his first shift, Shep had pointed out that rabbits, squirrels, and raccoons were all acceptable game. But none of those animals smelled right to him. In fact, he couldn't even locate the hunger inside of him that he was supposed to feel. But he couldn't shift back, either. It was painful staying in that form, trapped. He whimpered and ran around the rural fields of a town called Tifton, far enough from home that even if he did mess up and hurt a human, it wouldn't cause too much of a stir.

He was bored, sore, and getting more frustrated by the hour. Until his nose caught wind of something sweet and sharp. It was only later, when he'd told his brother how things had gone, had he been informed that it was fae that he'd smelled. And, that he'd spent the night with the Queen of the Southern Fairies.

He'd tracked down that sweet, luscious, poignant smell for what felt like days, but could have only been hours. His nose burned and pricked at trees on which he could smell the touch of a fairy. When he finally fell to all fours, howling out in desperation, she had come to him, bearing flowers and tree sprites to soothe his aching muscles. Her smell had been so light and so permeating at the same time, it felt like his head would have exploded if he didn't catch her and hold her forever. She'd glowed. She'd smelled like his homeland, daisies, and summer. She had taken the pain from his trembling, tired body with a sweeping touch, and held him until he fell asleep in the middle of an empty field.

When he had awoken the next morning, Cayleigh was gone. He couldn't even find the beginnings of a trail of a scent to track her. For the next two years of his life, each time he shifted, he would go in search of her. Nearly every time he shifted, she would let him find her.

Her fae medicines were bountiful and freely given. The herbs and salves helped with the soreness in his changing body until he learned for himself how to properly adjust. She would sing Celtic lullabies that reminded him of home while her attendants worked on her fire-red hair. They would stretch out in the grass and she would rearrange the stars for him.

Cayleigh was kind to him. She never looked at him like he was a monster. At the time, that had seemed like the most important thing. He knew that if he ever shifted in front of any of his non-lycan friends, they would have screamed, cried, ran, and then the real terror would have started. They would have hunted him down. They would have shunned him. But not Cayleigh.

She was there for him when he felt his ugliest, which pushed him to realize that his lycan form was his best form. He was faster, stronger, and surer of himself. He knew that the queen liked that side of him. She fell asleep against his furry side once in the summer. They'd taken shelter under a large weeping willow after they'd exhausted themselves with a rigorous game of hide and seek that had lasted five hours. He'd tucked her under his heavy arm and lazily nuzzled her hair. He had wondered if that was what love felt like.

Dane should have realized that it was all just a game to her.

The queen was married and had no intention of abdicating her throne for a were-ling who had barely learned how to control his shifting past the moon's wishes. Actually, Dane had discovered just why he never saw Cayleigh when he wasn't in full lycan form. She hated humans. In turn, she hated him whenever he looked like one. She couldn't stand the sight of him when he 'looked so helpless', so he'd decided spared her the sight of him ever again.

Until recently, when his charge of watching Rory had brought them nearly face to face again. He shuddered at the memory. The queen had certainly been the most adamantly opposed to his involvement in Rory's protection. And Ivy labeling them as 'love birds' in front of his first Underdwelling flame had done nothing to alleviate the pain of the situation. He had a terrible feeling about all of this.