Page 117 of How Does It Feel?

It wouldn’t matter. Not now.

The half I did carry had died with Mendax.

I flinched at the thought of him hunched over with my blade still lodged in his back.

Perhaps it was because Queen Saracen had taken too much of my heart as a down payment? We had all agreed that she would hold a piece of it until I showed my allegiance—maybe she took enough to make me truly vicious.

I felt vicious. Dark.

I wonder how much I could’ve loved him with a whole heart?

“She’s not evil, Calypso. She’s not Unseelie,” he growled. His amber eyes darkened slightly. “She already blessed you once, Cal. What do you want?” Eli said indignantly.

His skin glowed under the lights. He had dulled it slightly with a glamour as the Seelie always did when they walked among the humans, but even with the dimming, Eli stood out like a god among men.

“Taking half of my heart is hardly a blessing, Aurelius,” I bit out, using his full name instead of the familiar Eli I had called him since we were kids.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Besides, you offered that yourself as a show of your seriousness when you asked to live with us—with me.” His honied eyes grew tender for a moment. “I’m talking about the animal blessing. That’s a Seelie royal trait that she bestowed upon you after you saved her in that field. To be honest, I thought it would help you out more than it has.” He suddenly found something very interesting on the floor. “Had you not been there to save her against Queen Tenebris, she would have never survived. You saw how tiny she had grown—how much power she had lost fighting the Unseelie queen.” He worried the bottom of his lip.

He loved his mother so much—we both did. After my mother and sister had died when I was ten, I had no one.

Queen Saracen often visited then, her and Prince Aurelius. Always thanking me for saving her that day. Their kindness was unmatched in my times of need. The queen even went so far as to dispatch one of her wet maids to take care of me when my mother was gone.

They were the only family I’d ever known.

But Fae and humans were very different.

Eli and I quickly became best friends spending all our time together well into our teenage years. Queen Saracen often commented on how cute it was. That is, until Prince Aurelius kept skipping his royal duties to come be with me, the human.

Fae customs were very different. They don’t believe in humans entering their realm without a title of ownership or unwavering proof of their allegiance. So when a few years passed and I had practically gone mad trying to figure out how to find a portal and see them again, Eli’s mom, Queen Saracen, threw me a bone.

I wasn’t just a human hoping to live in the outskirts of Seelie. I had wanted to be as close as possible to my fami—to the queen and Eli as I could be. Which meant a human paying allegiance to the royals. Much different stakes than paying allegiance to a commoner.

I didn’t care though. I would pay any price to be with the only people I had left.

I pleaded until the queen accepted. As any Fae did, the queen had enemies, and somehow along the way, I ended up being trained to execute her killings in the human realm. I was human, and therefore, her kills in the human realm were overlooked as she wasn’t breaking any Fae laws.

Most Fae in the human realm were easy to kill. They never suspected it of me, and over the years, I had stopped using brute force and started to use my science background to help make the kills easier. It’s why I had taken so many classes on botanical poisons.

I didn’t care. I would have done anything for them.

I had done anything for them.

Eventually, it led me to Mendax. He was my final test of allegiance, my big fish to freedom.

She gave me no details of when or how it would happen, only that I needed to distract and kill the Unseelie prince to get back at his mother, Queen Tenebris, for nearly killing her in that field when I was a kid. It was poetic. It was my final payment and ticket to the Seelie court, where I would be made whole again, heart and soul, quite literally.

“So that whole time you were Earl, you couldn’t have found one single time to be honest with me? How though? They all knew you?” I pointed at the door, thinking of all the small things I should have picked up on but had missed.

“It’s a glamour, Calypso, a little bit of magic in their minds,” he said as if I should have known.

“I’ve missed you so much since she quit letting you come to the human realm.” I huffed angrily, and suddenly all my frustration felt clear and loud. “How do you think I felt seeing you at the Faerie court? The first time I see you in years, and it’s sprung on me like that? There?” I shouted at him.

I was angry for being kept in the dark. It had an aftertaste of betrayal in and of itself.

He was in front of my face and grabbing my arms before I could even register he had moved.

“Do not talk to me about the tortures of that night, Calypso,” he snarled, and I found myself suddenly unfamiliar with the man in front of me. My childhood best friend was replaced with an angry titan. “I had to school myself the moment my eyes landed on you in that ballroom. It took everything—everything—I had not to run to you and hug you, to take you away from that . . . that devil! Do you know what it did to me watching that monster bond to you? To watch him kill my brother and then attempt to kill you?” He was shouting now. “I had to watch you in the trial the entire time and act like it was fun!”

I immediately regretted whatever I said that had gotten him so upset. “It doesn’t matter now,” I reassured him. “The bond is disintegrated, and Mendax is . . . dead.” My face fell with the horror I couldn’t seem to mask as I said the words aloud.

I tried to push it from my mind, but the feeling sat on my chest like a heavy iron weight.

I had killed several Fae, so I knew that to kill a creature as powerful as him, I would have to get close. Close enough that he would let me see all of his weaknesses.

I just had no idea I would become one.

Eli’s amber eyes darted back and forth between mine as they studied my face.

“He is dead, right?” he asked, suddenly looking weary and unsure.

“Mendax is dead.” The words crackled in my throat as if my own body refused to believe them.

“You’re sure? Because if he’s not dead like you promised and the queen and I take you to the Seelie court, it will be your death, and there’s nothing anyone could do to stop it, Calypso.”

I nodded my head.

Eli continued to stare at my face. “Good. Now come with me to the Seelie castle, and we’ll get the queen to make that heart of yours whole again.”