A Strange Hymn by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 10

The next morning, I wake inside our suite in Phyllia to the tickle of Des’s hair against my back and the press of soft kisses down my spine.

I stretch languidly, a small smile spreading across my face.

After a magical evening exploring Phyllia last night, the two of us checked into a hotel just off of the main plaza that boasted rooms that change color and theme.

Neither of us mentioned the fact that Des must surely still be camouflaging our appearances. Staying at a hotel like a normal couple is just not something kings can usually get away with.

The kisses down my back now pause. A moment later, Des nips my ear. “Have I mentioned how well you wear bedhead?” he says, his voice low and husky.

I laugh into my pillow, reaching out with a hand and pushing away his meaty body. He rolls, dragging me with him, stealing kisses from my lips. I blink my sleepy eyes open.

“This is my favorite thing,” he says, looking up at me.

I’m still trying to drag myself awake.

“What is?” I ask.

“Waking up to you each morning.” He taps a finger to my nose. “Especially when you’re sleepy and adorable.”

I suppress a yawn. “How are you so ... awake?”

Rather than answering, he slides out from under me. I plop back against the mattress, my eyes already beginning to close.

Once again I’m roused by his touch, his hand warm on my back. And then I smell it.

Deliverance—a.k.a., coffee.

I pry my eyes open, and there it is; the steaming mug of coffee is only inches from my face.

I reach for it.

“Ah, ah,” Des says, moving it just out of my grasp. “If you want it, you’re going to have to get out of bed.”

As if to encourage me further, my covers slide off my shoulders of their own accord, slipping down to my ankles.

I grab the edges of them and haul them back up.

They slide off again.

More forcefully this time, I yank the covers back up.

You know what? Screw Des and his coffee.

Just as I’m tucking the blankets under my arm, they begin to slip away once more. I grapple with them, playing some ridiculous game of tug-of-war with an inanimate object.

“Oh my God, Des, seriously?”

He leans against one of the bedposts, taking a sip of what’s supposed to be my coffee. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

That lying bastard.

“Fine,” I growl, rolling myself off the bed. “I’m up.”

I stomp over to him. Studiously ignoring the fact that he’s gloriously shirtless and his hair is tied back in a stupidly sexy manbun, I snatch the mug of coffee from his hand and head out onto the balcony that branches off from our room.

“A thank you would be nice,” he says, following me out.

“So would an apology,” I retort over my shoulder.

Big surprise, he has nothing to say about that.

Breakfast is already laid out on the tiny mosaic table that takes up a good portion of the balcony, and it smells so good.

I take a seat, leaning back in my chair to sip my coffee. Lord, does it taste good. It’s almost worth losing sleep over.

Across from me, Des sits, his large frame dominating the little bistro chair. He picks up his espresso cup, sipping delicately from it.

Normally the sight of that tiny cup in his hands would make me laugh. Right now, however, I just glower at him over the rim of my mug. It doesn’t help that he has a painfully pretty face. Or that his massive chest and corded arms are on display.

Why does he have to always look so goddamn good? Especially when I’m pretty sure I look like roadkill.

This is just one more reason why the world isn’t fair.

Des stares pointedly at my plate, where a steaming breakfast burrito sits. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Why did you make me breakfast?” I ask suspiciously.

He sets down his espresso, his eyes guarded. “Is this a trick question?”

“It seems unusually nice,” I say.

“Now you’re just trying to be mean.”

Maybe I am. In the past, Des would take me out to breakfast, and there were never any strings attached.

So why do I feel as though this time there are, indeed, strings attached?

I take another gulp of my coffee before placing it on the table. “Did you seriously wake me up early just to feed me?”

“It’s not that early,” Des says, sidestepping the question.

He might be right. The stars twinkle above us just as they did last night when we fell asleep.

“Why did you make me breakfast?” I repeat.

“Because I love you,” he says. “Does everything have to come with a price?”

My gooey heart melts a little at his admission, but I’ve known him just a little too long and a little too deeply to trust those wide silver eyes of his.

I look at him skeptically. “With normal people, no. With you? Absolutely.”

He smirks over the rim of his espresso, the first sign that I am right. He does have something up his sleeve.

“So what is it?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

I do find out soon enough. The moment we re-enter our suite, my training leathers appear on our bed.

I groan. “But I thought we were on vacation?”

“Your enemies don’t care about your vacation.”

He does have a point.

It’s no use fighting him on this; I can already feel Des’s magic compelling me onwards. Grumbling, I don the clothes, and the two of us head out of the room.

The two of us leave the hotel and trek towards the dark wilderness that borders the city center. And it is wilderness, pretty though it is. I trip over loose roots and have to push ferns and exotic, flowering plants out of the way as we bushwhack a path through the overgrowth.

The farther we walk, the more sluggish my movements become. I think it’s just simple exhaustion from last night until the sensation becomes so extreme that it feels like I’m in a slow motion action sequence. Des, meanwhile, seems to be moving just fine.

The wilderness opens to a clearing, and Des stops, turning towards me. He tosses me a sword, and it takes a ridiculous amount of effort to lift my arm up and snatch it out of the air.

Mirth dances in his eyes. “Sword up, Callie.”

I tug the weapon from its sheath, my limbs heavy.

It takes forever for me to lift my sword, and by the time I do lift it he’s already coming at me. It’s all I can do to duck and dodge his blows. And he’s going easy on me. So pathetically easy.

“Faster, Callie.”

There is no way in heaven or earth that I can move any faster. I can barely move as is. It’s like trying to swim through honey. Not even the kick-ass leather outfit I wear makes up for the particular torture of training today.

Des, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be afflicted with the same issue I’m having. Whether it’s because the place doesn’t affect him, or he’s using magic to counteract its effects, he moves swiftly, coming at me so much faster than I can defend myself.

I don’t know how he does it with such accuracy, but each time Des nicks me with the sword, he strategically slices into my outfit, making little cut-outs in the leather. I now have dozens of tiny triangles speckling my upper chest and my outer thighs. And not once have I landed so much as a blow on him.

Not once.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Des announces that training’s over for the day.

I fall into a heap, the sword clattering to the ground next to me.

From the ends of my hair to the tips of my toes I’m tired, my outfit looks like a cut-out snowflake, and right now, I don’t give a damn about pretty much anything.

Day: 1, Callie: 0.

“You did good,” Des says, coming over to me. “This place is enchanted to move slower than the rest of the world—it’s said to mimic a slow-motion dream.”

That would’ve been helpful to know beforehand.

Of course, I notice it didn’t affect Des the same way it did me.

Sneaky fairy.

I lay my cheek on my knees, exhausted from the training.

He crouches next to me, his knuckles stroking my face. “We can’t rest just yet. We’ve got to move on to the next island.” His voice sounds half apologetic.

There’s just no way I’m dragging my butt off this patch of grass.

Des must see that because rather than trying to coax me back to my feet, his arms slip under my wings and the backs of my knees.

He lifts me against his chest, cradling me to him. His talon-tipped wings spread wide around us, and then he leaps into the air, the two of us ascending into the night sky.

As the cool air whips my hair about, Des cups my face to his chest, shielding me from the worst of the wind.

I lean my head into him, breathing in his masculine scent. I don’t understand how even out here in the middle of a foreign world’s night sky, I can still feel right at home pressed against this man. But I do.

My eyes drift close, and I let the beats of his wings rock me to sleep.

My stomach dips, and I wake with a start. A thousand stars sparkle around me as I blink my eyes open.

When I try to sit up, I feel Des’s arms tighten around me. It takes me a moment longer to realize, one, we’re still in the sky, and two, Des makes for a surprisingly good bed.

I glance beneath us and notice that we’re beginning to descend onto yet another floating island that is not Somnia.

Now Des’s earlier, cryptic questions about my interest in his kingdom become clearer. He’s taking me on a tour of his realm.

I try to remember just how many floating islands he rules over, but at the moment I'm totally drawing a blank. All I manage to piece together is that we’re going to visit several of them.

This one looks fun. Even far away, I can already see that. Everywhere I look, there are strings of colorful lights illuminating the buildings—not like the lights you might see at Christmas, but the kinds you might find outside a cantina.

The bright, flowering plants and trees that grow here have a tropical feel to them—as does the balmy night air.

It’s not until we get closer that I make out a series of bar fights happening in the streets. Those fairies who aren’t fighting are drunkenly staggering on and off the pavement—except, of course, for the lovely couple that might or might not be getting it on against the side of one of the buildings.

Allllriiight.

We land outside what looks to be a gambling hall, the fairies inside clustered around several tables where more fae are rolling sets of dice.

I slip out of Des’s arms, looking around me. “What is this place?”

“Barbos, the City of Thieves.”

Of course Des rules over an island fondly known as the City of Thieves.

We start walking, and oh God, everything hurts. I mean everything.

Whatever that horrible place was in Phyllia where we trained, it worked me over good.

I groan as we walk, rubbing my backside. “Des, I think you broke my ass.”

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather pants. “Cherub, you’ll be making different moans when I break your ass.”

Sweet Lord of heaven and earth. Blood rushes to my face. To my horror, my skin begins to brighten.

Bad, siren. Bad.

I guffaw. “That will only ever happen in your dreams.”

Des stops and catches my jaw in his hand, forcing me to look in his eyes. “You know, the endearing thing about you is that you still say things like that, even though you owe me a wrist full of debt.” His thumb strokes the side of my face.

I swallow, not sure if the excitement I feel is from dread or anticipation.

He pulls me in close. “Careful with your words, mate,” he says, his voice more serious than before. “I’d gladly take them on as a challenge.”

He releases my face, strolling forward once more.

I stand in place for several seconds before I pull myself together.

“I want a divorce,” I finally declare.

“Sorry, cherub,” he says over his shoulder, “but that sore ass of yours is mine whether you like it or not.”

I make a face at his back.

“Saw that.”

“Good,” I say, and then I proceed to ignore him.

I don’t know whether Des is still working his illusionary magic because people aren’t fawning over him, but me … me they’re checking out.

Their eyes linger on my wings and my forearms, but I don’t see fear or pity in their eyes. If anything, they look … intrigued.

Self-consciously I reach around me and run a hand over one of my wings.

“They don’t see your features as you do,” Des says, still not turning around from where he strolls ahead of me.

I furrow my brows.

He stops, waiting for me to catch up to him. “Fae come in all shapes and sizes,” he explains. “Seeing someone that looks as you do does not seem strange to us. To us, you’re a beautiful human with wings, and that’s both exotic and appealing.”

I glance down at what I can see of my dark wings, the iridescent feathers shimmering green under the light. It’s hard to wrap my mind around what he’s saying, and even harder to try to reframe how I see myself.

Exotic. Appealing. Those words are a far cry from the ones that come to mind when I look in the mirror.

Monstrous. Mutated.

I’m ashamed to admit that those appreciative stares soothe a part of my broken self-confidence.

“You should really remember that, cherub,” Des says, “especially when you meet some of the elites from other realms. They’ll find you just as attractive as all of these fairies do—perhaps more so because you’re mine—but they will try to mask whatever they feel with disgust or some other emotion made to make you feel small.”

These fae sound like charming people …

Wait.

I glance at Des. “When I meet other elites?”