“You’re going to what?”
“Get you out of here. This is no place for a kid like you. You’ll get trampled and eaten.”
“But…” If I leave, I’ll be able to run back to Robin. I’ll be with Robin again. “But what about you?”
“Don’t worry. I’m tough enough. I can handle—-
“But if you help me escape, Queen Preyuna will know. She’ll figure it out. She’ll be unhappy.”
“Doesn’t matter. She’s bound to this place. So, she can’t go chasing after you.”
“But she can hurt you. She will hurt you. And it will not be psychological games. It will be hurt.” His wings flittered. “Maybe the same way she hurt me.”
Jay scoffed. “I’d like to see her try it. I’ve never punched a fey queen before. It might be a novel experience.”
“Don’t joke about it. You don’t…”
She pinned him down so he couldn’t get away.
“You don’t under…”
She pushed herself on him.
“Isellta. Hey. Look at me.”
He drew his shoulders forward and shivered.
Her hands were all over him. Relentless.
He hid his face in his hands.
“I can’t. Please stop. Please. Please! STOP!”
He sank to the floor.
“Isellta. Look at me. Look at me.”
Why won’t she stop?
And suddenly Jay’s arms were around him.
Isellta clutched the front of Jay’s robe and held on.
“This is why you have to leave.”
Isellta pressed his face against Jay’s chest and shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” He burst into tears and his wings went completely flat. “I can’t.”
***
Robin struggled to escape, but the best he could do was a barely perceptible head twitch.
Tears fell from his good eye and rolled down his skin to the metal piece holding his mouth firmly shut.
How long am I goin’ to be trapped here? How long?
How—-
Isellta appeared in front of him.
Robin growled and tripled his efforts to break out of his restraints.
“You need to stop, Robin.”
He glared at him and screamed obscenities in the fey’s head.
Isellta winced at the mental assault. “All the same, you must stop. It doesn’t make sense to keep trying. You can’t escape.” He hesitated. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Oh, like you even care. Fey. He made that last word sound like a terrible vulgarity.
“I didn’t say I cared. I’m fey. My feelings are not like yours. I don’t—”
Shut your stupid face.
“Robin. I want you to understand one thing. What Olessa does…”
Shut up.
“I may help her, but…” He sighed. “The things she does to you—”
You mentally deaf or somethin’? I told you to shut your stupid face.
He approached the vampire.
Robin growled – a low, steady sound.
He touched the middle of Robin’s forehead. His long, delicate fingers traced the line down to below Robin’s eye.
Robin stopped growling. The fey’s cool, light touch felt nice against his ruined skin.
“I don’t like what she does to you.”
That don’t mean a thing if you always go along with it. I don’t even know why I’m talkin’ to you. Get out of here. LEAVE ME ALONE!
***
Robin opened his eye and stared at the wall.
Half clear.
Half fogged over.
Isellta.
It’s stupid.
It’s all so stupid.
Me missin’ you.
Me wantin’ you.
Me lovin’ you.
It don’t make a bit of sense. You should be with Raven with his dainty hankies and shiny white gloves. Someone who won’t blow up at you over freakin’ nothin’.
Someone who’ll make you happy.
I don’t know if I can.
But I want to.
I want to make you happy.
After I rescue you, I will do ev’rythin’ I can to make you happy.
He frowned as he remembered Isellta with that female fey.
The way they danced.
The way their wings touched each other.
The way they touched each other.
The soft way he yielded as she pulled him on to the bed.
Robin shook his head.
What am I even thinkin’? He don’t wannabe with me. Why would he? I’m just a mess of anger and nonsense.
She is fey.
She is exactly what he needs.
She would always be sensible and ev’rythin’ she’d do would make his stupid wings flutter with happiness. They’d spend their days loungin’ about, admirin’ each other’s amazin’ sensibleness.
Maybe he likes me.
Maybe he loves me.
But the truth is he needs her.
I ain’t good enough for him.
ambroseandelsie 