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Aislinn had listened patiently.
Well, perhaps patiently was not the correct term- it was more like she was in shock. Seth, her boyfriend, had left for six agonizing months without so much as a word that he was safe, or okay, or that he still cared for her and that he was returning. Half a year of worry, and half a year of silence. She had even gone to Niall, someone who called her beloved his brother and who- until recently- had been her friend, and threw herself at his feet, at his mercy.
She had known too little of the Faery ways and world; it was all she could do. And now Seth was here, berating her for her choices. Saying she had been foolish to go to Niall when she knew that he was upset with the Summer Court.
The man she loved was back, and she felt nauseous, wishing so badly that he had just hugged and kissed her and they could have figured everything out. Seth from before he was a Faery would have done just that, she knew. He would have understood.
But now Seth Morgan was here, a Faery with the High Court, and thinking he was being kind when he was displaying the same cold, calculated cruelty of the High Court that other Fae had warned her of, watching her cry and yet relentlessly piling on his point of view.
“Come find me when you’re ready to tell me I’m the only one,” he finished, and he stood up, turning to walk away.
He hadn’t made it halfway to the door when the room changed. Aislinn used to be more level-headed, but as the Fae world had taken her- when Keenan had changed her- the impulsivity of Summer had begun to grip her, and though he saw her work hard to train herself, it had her on a lead more than she had it. The room suddenly darkened as thick storm clouds darkened the overhead lighting and a fierce wind whipped up, casting rain sideways in the room. “I never asked for this,” Aislinn hissed slowly, in a voice that exposed a pure, fierce anger Seth had never once heard from her mouth, and half-turned back to see her face still streaked with ears, but hurricanes and monsoons in her eyes, face contorted with rage and betrayal. “You know I would choose you and only you if it were that simple. But you come to me, now a Faery, and you still can’t understand why I need to weigh my court so heavily?”
She stood, and as she did, lightning ripped through the room, cascading down around both of them. There was a period where Seth had been intimidated by his girlfriend turned not just any Faery, but a regent, but this was the first time he actually felt scared of her, like she could evoke fear as well as Donia or Niall could. And she’s not at full strength. “Aislinn-”
“No,” she cut him off, taking one dangerously slow step towards him. “You spoke your piece, and now it is my turn. You were gone for half a year. I woke up one day and you left. Niall and Keenan apparently both knew where you were, but you put down Keenan for the same reasons that you raise Niall- looking out for the Court, having his own targets of anger and end goals?” The wind whipped her hair furiously. “How are you being any less manipulative than Keenan?” That one stung, and yet though he knew he could argue less, the words would not form that he had not manipulated at all, even if it was unintentional, because it was a lie. “You call Niall your brother, yet your brother let your beloved suffer. He let me suffer, and you’re letting him get away with it,” her skin glowed and Morgan was suddenly acutely aware of the humidity causing his whole body to sweat. Or was it from fear?
“It’s not that straightforward.”
She took another step towards him. “You know what is straightforward? You left with the most vague message you could have given. You left for six months. I waited for almost as long as you waited for me when we were both human, but under much harsher circumstances. I am a regent manipulated by every Court, it seems, including my own, but you only blame the person you see as your competition. I did not choose this, Seth,” she reiterated. “You waited seven months for me but I never ran away from you. And your brother was cruel to me. And Donia was cruel to me. And my own King is cruel to me. I don’t know right now if or when I can forgive them.”
There was more she wanted to say about Niall, but even in her rage, she knew she shouldn’t say anything that could get back to another regent. But her fury at her lover- was he still her lover?- was cresting through her body.
She stepped towards him to close the gap between their bodies and, even as a Faery, she glowed so brightly that he could barely see the way her hair whipped and lashed out at his face. No doubt what she felt was fed by Keenan’s hatred of him, in their immortal link. “I expected that from them. I just didn’t expect it from you.” The inside of Seth’s mouth tasted metallic as the weight of his words and accusations washed over him- and then, suddenly, his mouth was dry. It was parched; the wind and rain had subsided, the clouds had gone, and the room suddenly had the extreme dry heat of the desert. Only Aislinn’s eyes, red and filled with tears of both grief and anger, held any moisture in the room. It was the first time Seth had seen what Summer could truly be capable of, if they were strong.
He had no words.
Aislinn, however, did- her voice at a dangerous whisper, no longer needing to yell over the thunderstorms she created. “Leave,” she ordered, “and do not return until you consider me the way you insist I consider you.”