Seconds that felt like hours passed before Marlowe barked, the sound shattering the moment. River shook her head, pulling her gaze away from Nikhail. She shouldn’t be looking at him at all or imagining a life with him.
They still had to talk, and once she made him understand the depths of her curse, she was certain he’d leave. It was the only smart thing to do. The night in the solarium would become a treasured memory, nothing more.
Atlas coughed, his knowing eyes sliding between the two of them. The knowledge that he’d just witnessed… whatever that was, had River’s cheeks blazing and her magic swirling in her veins.
She mumbled a greeting, waving awkwardly before boltingup the stairs and through the front doors. She shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have let herself drown in Nikhail’s gaze. In the end, it didn’t matter how handsome he was, nor did it matter how he made her feel.
She was cursed, and she would always be alone.
That was how it had to be.
CHAPTER 27
I’ve Been Looking for You
“Do you remember when I was four, and you brought me to Icar and Myan’s bonding ceremony, Daddy?”
River was perched on the edge of her father’s hospital bed. She held his hand, trying to ignore how much lighter it had become.
There was no response, and River tried desperately not to think about what his silence meant. She’d checked Cyrus’s chart when she came up here after seeing Atlas and Nikhail in the driveway, and even though nothing appeared out of sorts, she couldn’t shake the feeling in her gut that something was wrong.
River wasn’t hiding from Nikhail, she reasoned with herself. More just… preparing to see him again. She had to get her thoughts in order before they talked.
She’d put it off, but the time had come to break her own heart. She’d do it today, because tomorrow belonged to Ryker and Brynleigh. She wouldn’t do anything to ruin their bonding day.
When the silence became overwhelming, River directed her attention to the frame she’d grabbed on her way in. It housed an old picture, from before the Stillness. River had been so young; her head barely reached her father’s hip.
“You drove the black convertible and kept the top down the whole way there,” she murmured, studying the snapshot of her and her father. “It’s a good thing you brought my brush, because my hair was a mess after that.”
It had been worth it, though. She’d loved sitting in the car, laughing with her father as the wind tickled their faces. Ryker had been away at school, and Tertia had been working, so she and her father had attended the bonding ceremony together.
The fae on the hospital bed was so far from the tall, smiling man in the picture that it was hard to reconcile that they were the same person. In the image, Cyrus was grinning as he held River’s hand, and he stood beside two handsome fae males dressed in black suits and matching green ties.
Icar and Myan Bloomdale, an earth and air fae, had been friends with her father for decades. The trio had met at the all-boys private academy they attended in their youth, and by all accounts, they’d become fast friends.
River’s lips creaked into a small smile as she traced the frilly pink dress she’d worn for the occasion.
“I felt like a princess the whole day,” she admitted. “Like I was in a fairytale.”
A machine beeped, the only response to her words. The silence in the room grew heavier—a thousand-pound weight pressing down, down, down on her chest. A tear slipped down her cheek, leaving behind a salty trail of pain and hurt.
The Stillness struck a few months after Icar and Myan’s bonding, and this day was one of the last memories River had of her father before he got sick.
“What’s so special about a bonding ceremony, Daddy?” River craned up her neck to look at her father. He was holding her hand, leading her up the steps to the Carinoc Gardens. They were attending a special party, and he was wearing a fancy black suit and tie. River thought her dad looked like a handsome king from her storybooks. “Why don’t they just get married?”
River’s mom and dad were married. It seemed to work for them, even though her mother wasn’t always the nicest. One day, River thought she might like to be married, too.
Maybe.
Or maybe, she’d be a princess. She really liked this dress. It swooshed and made her feel so special. This seemed like the type of thing princesses got to wear every day. They had princesses in the Four Kingdoms, right? When she got home, she’d read more stories about them.
Her father crouched, his pants wrinkling as he knelt in front of her. He took her hands in his, and when he looked at her, his expression was so full of love, it felt like her heart would burst.
“My darling girl.” Daddy always called her that, and it made her feel like she was his entire world. “Sometimes, a fae will find a partner that’s special.”
River frowned, her brows knitting together. “Special like what you and Mommy have?”
Even though her mother was kind of mean, Daddy seemed to love her. And that… well, that seemed nice of him.