Orphan Lost, page 9
Sucking in a breath, he grimaced, glancing over at me. "It's forbidden."
"Well, I'm going to assume that whatever he did to my cheek is forbidden too," I said, angry now. "What's going on?"
He swore, slapping the wheel. "I want to tell you, but if I tell you, I'll be in a ton of trouble; trouble of the sort that makes missing-person cases," he grated out.
I blinked.
He was serious.
"Well," I said cautiously. "How about you tell me what you can?"
He thought about that, jaw flexing as he ground his back teeth. Why was he angry at me about this? "Okay," he finally said. "We'll stop at your place and sit in the truck so Anna can see you got home promptly and I'm not ravaging you."
I snorted at that, my cheeks heating. "Deal. There's not much chance of that happening."
"You'd be surprised," he growled, and the sound did interesting things to my insides, sending a shiver down my spine. I couldn't be entirely sure the sensation was a pleasant one either, though I was sure it should've been.
Ravaging brought wolves to mind, and with his freaky unhinged smile from earlier, I couldn't help but wonder if I was seeing his true face.
"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly into ravaging," I said lamely. It wasn't much of a comeback, but I realized it was true as I said it. As good looking and charming as he was, I wasn't ready for anything with him. The level of rage and loss of control he had shown me was what red flags were made of.
I couldn't understand how I was sitting with him so calmly, half smiling, when I could feel the throbbing bruises he'd given me forming on my arm.
"Just sit tight," he said with a sigh. "Let me think this over."
"Okay," I agreed, carefully taking my hand away from my face to see if it had slowed its bleeding yet.
Surprisingly, the handkerchief was entirely clean.
I felt my cheek, and there was no sign of an injury. No scabbing, no blood, no pain.
"Am I crazy?" I demanded, checking my handkerchief again. It was wrinkled but unstained. "Where did the blood go?"
Calix just laughed, almost maniacally, and it sent chills up the back of my spine. I liked Calix well enough but, although I trusted him, it was moments like this where I couldn't help but wonder if that was wise. Then I considered whether I was just being paranoid. "You have no idea what you've gotten into. Just sit back. I'll tell you what I can… when we get there."
I wasn't one to do as I was told, but I knew a losing battle when I saw one, and figured it was to my advantage to wait.
So I settled back, handkerchief in my lap, and waited.
Chapter 3
We pulled into the farm driveway, rattling across the well-worn dips and ruts, and he pulled up to the barn, parking there rather than in front of the house. Donna's head popped up out of the garden, and he casually waved at her.
She lifted a hand in acknowledgment and went back to picking whatever she was harvesting in the jungle of plants surrounding her.
The curtains in the dining room twitched inside the house. Probably either Anna or Graham.
"They know we're here," I said into the silence between Calix and me. The space between us was oddly uneasy. Something about his demeanor had shifted, and I wasn't sure I liked it.
"Yeah, they'll watch us," he said, switching the truck off but leaving the key in the ignition. He turned to me, and my breath caught in my throat, the gap between us suddenly feeling far too small. "So, try not to freak out, okay? I don't want them to come out and beat me into a pulp for being a creep or something."
"They would do that?" I asked doubtfully, but relief licked at my insides. They might not be my real family, but if he thought they had my back, he'd behave himself.
"Anna would, 100%," he said with a stark laugh. "That girl-next-door smile and friendly face? She'd drop them in a second if she thought I was hurting you."
I weighed his words for a moment, thinking things over.
"Okay, spill," I finally said, holding the handkerchief up for his inspection, spread between my hands so it was clear none of it was hidden. "The blood's gone. What's with that? Start there."
He blanched, glancing at the pristine cream fabric. "Figures Princess Juniper would have a spelled snot rag. Entitled much?"
"Spelled," I said flatly. The degrading way he talked about Juniper grated on my nerves, but he told me he'd give me answers so I held my tongue. "What, you're claiming everyone is a witch or something?"
He blew out a breath, tapping his fingers on the wheel and turning the truck back on a moment so he could roll the windows down a crack and then off again. In the silence after, I could hear the engine block ticking as it cooled.
I could practically hear the wheels turning in his head while he weighed the risks of telling me whatever terrible secret they were hiding. Either that or he was lining up his lies so they'd sound as believable as possible.
"No," he finally said. "But, Stella, you can't tell anyone this. No one. I could die for this."
"So why trust me at all?" I retorted. "If me knowing is a danger, how do you know I'm not going to betray you?"
"Because you're already in hip deep," he said with a groan, staring out the windshield, the side window, anywhere but at me.
"Okay," I said, watching him avoid looking at me. "So the handkerchief is spelled to, what, repel blood?"
"Probably just to not get dirty and repel stains," he said distractedly. "Juniper is fastidious and tries to look as put together as possible. It's just convenience, but spells are hard to get and expensive, so it says she's rich enough to waste money on it too."
"Okay," I said slowly this time, filing that away for later. The Boreas family had money, but I knew that already. If I had enough money for cleaning spells, I'd pay through the nose for them so I could skip out on life's messes too. "Let's start with my cheek, then. Why did it bleed? All Rhodes did, I swear, was kiss me. It's not like he had a knife or something. It didn't hurt."
He hesitated, glancing at me with an eerily calculating look for a moment and then away before sighing. "It's a mate bond. He said as much."
"Mate bond," I said flatly. "What is that? Start with that. Seems important."
"Heh, yeah," he said ruefully and raked his fingers back through his red hair. "It's something you could call magic—"
"I guessed," I cut him off. "Treat me like I'm stupid, but not that stupid. Spell it all out, but assume I can understand the basics. I read enough fantasy when I was growing up." He groaned again and scrubbed at his face. "Okay. So we're not human."
"I got that," I said, tone cool. "From their mother calling me human, if nothing else. So clichéd."
"We're fae. And Rhodes is engaged," he said, plowing onward despite my tone. "But a mate bond, chosen or fated, has more, um, weight than any arranged marriage, supersedes it so to speak."
I nodded to show I was following, keeping my expression as neutral as I could manage while waiting to see where this would go.
"So, his solution to an arranged marriage he doesn't want is to set up a marriage bond with a random human." He glanced at me. "This is just speculation, because I wasn't there, and you said you don't remember. But it's totally his style. He's got everything in life, and he wouldn't want to be slowed down by an arranged marriage, and you're just human, so… so what?"
I nodded again, but something about the way he said the word human like it was a disease left me uneasy. Where was my spine? How was I staying so calm in the face of this right now?
"But something goes wrong, and now it's a mate bond. A mate bond is for life and we… we live a very long time," he said. "Beyond that, he's spoiled and doesn't want to be tied to my sister in marriage for centuries. Like I said, we live a really long time."
"But humans don't," I agreed, just to see how deep a hole he'd dig himself.
From everything I'd ever read, mate bonds were a blessing. This was assuming that fae were real, so some of those stories I'd read had to have basis in fact. Mate bonds were a gift from the fates, the individuals in the bond had no agency over it or whether or not it appeared. You were either blessed with one or you weren't. Why was he trying to make it sound so sinister?
"Right. So the bond would only last as long as you lived, and then he'd die too, but he had a work around built in to prevent that. Clever. Cruel, but clever. You're bonded to more than just Rhodes, so if something happened to you they'd both still live."
"And they cut the bond into my cheek?" I said, to be sure I was understanding. But if I had more than one mate, hadn't fate rather than Rhodes decreed it so?
"Yes, sort of? It's a spell. It should have only bled when it was first set, but someone must have done something to put it to sleep so your emotions wouldn't pull at him—them."
"Them?"
He waved at my cheek. "It's a star, which makes me think he included all of his court for some reason. One point for you, one point for him, and one point for each guy in his court."
I blinked at him, Rhodes had mentioned that Oakley had tampered with my memory of that day. "So I'm… mated… to all four of them."
"Yeah, but it makes sense to do it that way," he insisted, leaning in, and I shifted closer to the door reflexively. "It gives him a safety net. You'd be out in the wild blue yonder, nowhere near them, so far as they knew; maybe in danger, maybe not. So if you died, having four other mates means the guys would survive. If Rhodes died, you and the three guys would survive. It's so everyone would be safer. I mean, he intended it to be for a marriage bond, superseding an arranged marriage, but a mate bond makes all of this a matter of life and death."
"So if Rhodes and I had, uh, mated just the two of us, when I died, he would have died?" I asked, just to be sure I was following along. It seemed like an enormous risk to take, mating a stranger and then losing them. Had I been a stranger to them? Or had I known them and they made me forget?
Had they lost me or had they left me? Either way, I wanted to know why we were separated when we were connected by such a permanent bond.
"Exactly," he said in a resigned voice. "But I just don't know why they wiped your memory and then let you just vanish. If I had a mate, I'd keep her glued to my side, where I knew she was safe. And I don't think I'd be willing to share with all my closest friends. I'm not that kind of guy. But a marriage bond for five people would mean that all five people would have to consent to creating it. It also means everyone would have to consent to having it broken, and that would be impossible to do if you weren't there, so he was safe even without it becoming a mate bond. At least until you showed up."
I sat in silence, rolling this idea around in my head. Mated and abandoned. If it was a story, it was a real tall tale. But if it was true, why would they set me free to leave them?
"For my protection, maybe?" I wondered out loud. "If no one knows who I'm mated to, then no one can use me against them? It seems like they have money."
"There's that," he said, mouth twisting as if he had taken a bite of something sour. It was as though the plausibility of my musings seemed unpalatable to him. "And it would have let Rhodes go on with the fiction that he was agreeing to the arranged marriage his mom set up. So he wins all around, no matter what happens."
"Less danger, if no one knows to look for me. The mark is only on my cheek, not theirs," I said slowly.
They had intended to use me and, instead, they'd been tied to me, by accident or fate.
"They'd avoid wearing one, especially since he and Juniper didn't always get along. Her gift is seeing spells, and a bond is a sort of spell."
"So what, she would have told her mom that Rhodes was mated, and it would have set off a chain of events he didn't want?" I said. It made a sort of sense. "If I'm not there, he isn't at risk."
"Maybe. She obviously didn't want to out Rhodes now, or she would have told her mom yesterday when she first saw you." He scraped his fingers through his hair again and glanced sideways at me. "I'm going to be honest with you. My sister needs to marry Rhodes. Needs to mate him. It's vital. My family would never have agreed to an arranged marriage if it wasn't important. Money is one thing, but their bloodline is invaluable."
"So, what?" I asked, a chill running down my spine at the intensity in his gaze, and I realized suddenly how far Donna would have to run to reach me. "Am I in danger, then?"
"Yes?" he said, tone questioning. "I can't imagine someone won't come up with the obvious solution of offing you."
"Am I in danger from you?" I whispered, my gut telling me that he was a threat, that I should open that door and back away.
"No," he blurted out, raising his hands appeasingly between us. "Never. No. My sister is awful. I wouldn't put her before anyone. I'm just angry Rhodes was so selfish to bind you and then kick you to the curb."
I studied him cautiously. He seemed genuine enough, but the pit in the bottom of my stomach wasn't having any of it. It felt like he was lying. He had a very personal stake in ensuring my mate bond was broken. How had I continued to stay calm through all this?
I licked my lips, pulling my backpack into my lap. "So she was crying because, what, she can't mate Rhodes and now this is a crisis?"
"Yeah, basically," he said, pressing his back to the door and giving me space and a weak smile. "It's life or death for her."
"Everything here is life or death," I muttered, and then my mind shifted tracks as something clicked in place. "Juniper can see spells. Oakley can wipe memories."
"Yes?" he said, cautious now.
"What can you do?" I asked, on the fence about whether a demonstration of some magical power would be proof that this was all real or not.
He outright laughed. "I am so not telling you that. You'd never look me in the eye again."
I swatted his shoulder, and he mock cringed, the seat creaking as he shifted his weight.
"You don't know me. Maybe I'd see you no differently."
"Nope. I know people and how they work," he said grimly.
"Tell me what Rhodes can do then," I demanded, having decided that a demonstration would need to be in order, but not entirely sure how to get one if Calix wasn't folding.
"That's a super rude question," he protested, glancing out the window towards Donna.
"Like asking if you're a virgin. Just ain't cool."
"I am a virgin," I told him, almost compelled to do so, cheeks heating, but I refused to back down. Why was I telling him this? My gut twisted, but I kept my expression calm. It was like my brain had gone on vacation, and I was just running off at the mouth. "So tell me. You or Rhodes."
He groaned, scrubbing at his face. "Rhodes then. His talent is the reason for this whole mess."
"What, making mate bonds?" I asked, hazarding a guess.
"No," he said and dropped his hands into his lap, twisting his fingers together. "Any fae can make a mate bond if the Stars approve their match. No, he carries his dad's talent, and it's beyond rare and beyond valuable. Think marriages with dowries in the millions of dollars being offered."
"He can turn things into gold, maybe? Like Midas?" I guessed, intrigued now. There were a lot of things that could be worth money if you could do them magically.
Calix gave a half grin at that. "Just… don't tell anyone you know any of this. I could literally die for having told you, Rhodes would have that right, ignoring that I'm breaking every restriction ever by telling a human any of this."
"Promise," I said, miming zipping my lips and throwing away the key. "You're already invested. Go all out."
"Fine," he said with a huff. "He can turn one human fae."
I blinked, trying to put that in context. "Like, fae like him? One day human, the next day fae?"
"Yes, fae, immortal, like him," he said in a rush of words. "My sister is a throwback. She was born mortal to a fae family."
My mouth dropped open. "You mean she'll live a human lifespan and die before the rest of you? How is that even a thing?"
"And she has no powers," he said. "But if Rhodes changed her, she could possibly inherit a variant of his power which would be hugely valuable. So, she'd be fae and live as long as the rest of us, and she has the chance of getting a valuable power out of it."
A little flurry of breeze cut through the truck, lifting my hair and cooling the sweat on my temples while I thought. "Let me get this straight," I finally said. "Rhodes just happens to have a power that's only valuable to humans, and I'm a human that he mated. So why am I not fae?"
"It's, uh, not a completed mate bond. I mean, you can still complete it, especially if you're a virgin, the Stars smile on that," Calix said, looking entirely uncomfortable. "But the thing is he can only do this once, and I don't think he intended to do it to you. He just had you as an out so he wouldn't have to marry my sister, I think? And then things fell apart."
I barked out a laugh then, incredulous. "He has the power to turn anyone fae, and he wasn't ever going to tell me or change me?"
"Yeah, that's what I suspect," he agreed, wincing, and then hurried on. "I assume that having met you, he'll want to finish it now because you're exceptional."
"Nice save," I told him dryly. I couldn't help my gut feeling that he had an agenda in the way he presented it. "10 out of 10. Anyway, no one asked me if I wanted to mate his spoiled self. This is all a theory. Supposition."
"I'm just guessing, yeah, but it makes sense. You can see that it makes sense, right?" He met my gaze head on, and I could all but taste the sincerity in his voice, see the turmoil lurking in his pale eyes. Handsome. Genuine. Enticing.
The hair rose on the back of my neck, and I swallowed hard while I scrambled for what to say. "Well, I don't want to mate with him," I said firmly, and he relaxed a bit. In turn my system calmed down.
He was a threat, whether he meant to be or not, and my lizard brain was finally picking up on that. Given the way he calmed down when I said that I didn't want to be mated, he clearly cared about seeing our mate bonds broken, whatever his reasoning or motivation.
