Perigee - Chapter 16: Chapter 16

Jaylin was returned to the crowd and after moments of quiet evaluation and hushed chatter among wolves, the festivities resumed and the crowning ceremony was completed; twelve of the thirty wolves were given rose crowns, the rest daisies. Before Quentin could even reach Jaylin, he was pulled aside by Imani and Acadia—the alpha of the Mid Atlantic USA.
Acadia was like Imani in a lot of ways—fierce, muscled. The kind of woman who could either kiss your wounds or make knew ones, depending on her mood. But unlike Imani, Acadia held influence over the East. She was undeniably the most frightening of all the Eastern alphas—not for her strength or the crude look of her high German cheekbones, but because Acadia was a weaponry genius. She was an artisan, a credible blacksmith and a renaissance enthusiast. She played five-finger-fullet over the last cut of steak, and nearly sliced Felix's nose from his face once when he'd cat-called her from across a bar. Of course he'd been smitten with her since.
But Acadia wasn't a romantic; she was a pirate on land. She drank and she laughed and she treated her pack in a way Quentin respected—like a crew, not a kingdom. He supposed that was why she'd stared him down during Jaylin's crowning, why she'd prowled toward him through the crowd with a few hidden knives surely tucked away in her knee-high stilettos.
"What was that, Bronx?" she asked, boots stamped to the ground. Her coal-black dress cut off above the knee and billowed behind her like a cape. "Are you stepping down? Withdrawing from alpha? We have an alliance here, if you're giving your position away, I—"
"Acadia," Imani said. A gentle hand stopped her at the stomach. "He hasn't given anything away, have you, Quentin? This is something else at work, isn't it?"
"Ay, giv'm a break." He recognized Leo not by his voice, but by the broad arm that swung down around his shoulders. "The old woman's just losing her touch."
His eyes snapped to the bulbs of baby's breath, sticking out from Jaylin's crown. He stood beside a table of refreshments, laughing at one of Matthew's stories. It was when he recognized the bowing nose and angular profile of the figure beside them that Quentin untangled himself from Leo and pushed past Imani.
"Ahh, Quentin," Nicon greeted him cheerily as he approached. "I was just telling him about my first time crowned alpha."
Quentin knew Nicon's game. He didn't hold back—not for the sake of acting professional before his wolves and his queen, not for the sake of how it might look to Jaylin. He shoved Nicon hard at the chest—hard enough to barter a crushed sound from him. He felt an upsurge of eyes on his back—felt them crawl up his nerves like there were ants tramping his skin, and before he could advance further, Jaylin was pressing him back—putting out his flames with that gaze.
God, those ocean eyes.
"Quentin," he said once he'd put a stretch of space between them. "What's wrong? What's going on?"
Quentin stepped away from his hands, watching Nicon dust off the chest of the shirt. He leered back from two canopies down, with that stupid illustrious glare of his; chin tilted to the sky, watching from beneath his pretentious lashes. That was the way Nicon looked at everyone, like he was a man dipped in gold and they were all put on his earth to watch him glitter.
"There are people here I don't trust. Not with you," Quentin said, in a breath that burned his chest. Nicon was walking off, but his eyes still linked to Quentin—black as tombs. "I don't trust him with you."
Quentin felt fingers on his chin as Jaylin physically turned his attention away from Nicon. "Are you going to let me in on why?" And suddenly it was a different fire burning him.
"I told you. There are people here I don't trust."
"And why don't you trust him?" Jaylin asked. When Quentin didn't answer, he moved a step closer. "Why don't you trust him?"
Quentin took in a deep breath and leaned away from the pressure of his gaze. He could feel eyes on him—he knew there were prying ears all around them. The girl who cooked fish on a grill in the next tent over and the man who'd been spending too much time pouring himself a drink to not be eavesdropping. So Quentin drew him by the wrist to a bench, where their words would be out of reach. He sat, and Jaylin stood in front of him—that flower crown still nested on his head. He hadn't wanted to talk about this. The last thing he wanted was to bring her up when he could still feel that pulse against his lips. But he told Jaylin anyway, "Nicon was the one who turned Anna."
Jaylin stood there quiet for a moment. Then he took a seat beside him. "But he's an alpha. I thought that was taboo."
Quentin watched the flare of dresses, spinning like ribbon around the mosaic bricks. "It was. But reporting him to Qamar meant reporting Anna. So I never did."
"Okay," Jaylin said.
"Okay?" Quentin asked.
Jaylin gave him a small smile, the whites of his teeth glinting in the flame of a mosquito torch. "I'll stay away from him."
It wasn't fair to ask him these things and Quentin knew it. It wasn't a simple possessive urge, though. It was knowing Nicon had obsessions, ulterior motives. Knowing that he couldn't feel Jaylin's heart anymore. His intuitions were blind to him now. "Just be careful around him," Quentin reiterated. "That's all."
Then Tisper dropped in beside them, Alex's jacket still hiding the complimenting cuts at her waist. She sat there, arms folded over her chest, one leg crossed over the other and grumbled, "This music's giving me a headache. By the way Matt may or may not be dying. I'm still foggy on the details."
Then the long, limber body of Felix fell in beside her—roses stuffed into every pocket of his jacket and a bottle of beer between his fingers.
Quentin counted all the roses jammed into every crevice of his suit. Twelve. A dozen roses.
He'd forgotten to tell Jaylin about the roses. That courting roses were offered every year as a means of sexual invitation. Giving someone a rose was essentially saying, "I want to sleep with you", but in a more comfortable approach. And every exposition, Felix made it a goal to acquire more than the year before.
"Are you collecting women, Felix?" he asked.
Felix looked down to the dozen-or-so roses and frowned. "Seems to be a bit of a flaw in the system. Remember the roses—can't remember the women who gave'm to me." Then he glanced to Tisper and brought his beer to his lips. "You look nice."
Tisper slapped the beer from his hand and it toppled into the grass, and Felix sat there with a muddled look on his face, his hand still holding air where the bottle had been.
"Come on, Jaylin," she said and wrenched him up by the hand. "Let's go dance."
And once they'd disappeared into the crowed, Felix leaned down to pick his beer from the ground, watching the last drop fall from the neck. "The hell'd I do?"
Quentin stood from the bench and left Felix there to leaf through the possibilities alone.
Over the next hour, Jaylin vanished with Tisper. Quentin had been dragged to a table by Leo, who was telling stories of his younger days—a time before the queens, when dens of rogues worked a lot like functioning businesses.
"We worked for our place," he was saying. "Wasn't one of those dog-eat-dog sex-caves like it is now. We lived in pubs and gambling houses. I washed dishes for my place with those men." He took a hefty swig from his glass and slammed it back to the table. "Disgusting how time changes things."
"Really, Leo," one of his sentinels said. She had the short, trim haircut of a soldier, the strong square shoulders to match. "How different could it be from this? Everyone's just here to drink and fuck in the end."
A redheaded boy who'd been playing with a stack of cards fanned the deck from one hand to the other. "Most of us. Do you see a rose in my pocket?"
"Ignorance is bliss," grumbled Leo. "You two are lucky ya' found my pack. The den would have eaten you alive. Ain't that right, Quentin?"
It was the first time he'd glanced up the entire conversation—the sound of his name. The question pushed into his arms, like he had any part in this. He was relieved when he caught sight of Tisper, parting her way through the crowd.
"We'll catch up later," he told Leo and he rose from the table.
He made his way towards Tisper, who was leashing Jaylin behind her. She flung him forward and he slammed into Quentin hard enough to knock the wind from him. Quentin held him steady and it took a moment to register that it was bare skin he felt in his hands.
"I couldn't control him," she said. "He's slippery. He's like a... he's like a frog. Just pops right out of your hands and it's twenty minutes before you can find him again." She tucked a flurry of hair behind her ear and crossed her arms. "He had a bit of that blue stuff. I don't know what that was, but I finally got him down from the trees."
"The trees?" Quentin murmured.
Jaylin rocked back, two more steps than he meant to. "I just wanted a nice view."
"Of what?" asked Tisper. "More trees?"
Quentin found himself stuck to the sight of him. Moonlight brought out every one of the slight muscles in his stomach. The curves of his bicep—the fine, thickened neck that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about since he'd felt it on his lips. Then it registered.
"Where's his shirt?"
"I don't know," Tisper said, exasperated. "He does this."
"Wait. I have something for you. Wait here," Jaylin said, pointing to the grass. "Wait, okay?" And then he turned, and not a second later he was gone into the crowd.
"Well, you touched him last," Tisper said in another exhausted breath. "He's your problem now." And then she stalked off toward the beer garden.
Quentin did wait—though reluctantly. He wanted to chase after, to reel Jaylin back out of the crowd where he could keep an eye on him. But instead, he sat back and waited. And when Jaylin emerged, it was with a rose in his hands.
"Izzy told me what they're for," he said, tilting a bit to one side. "Did you get any tonight?"
"I declined them," Quentin said, watching the petals of the rose as Jaylin twirled it slow between his fingers.
The boy gave a snort and adjusted the the crown that had gone canted on his head. "Prude." Then he held his rose out to Quentin. "Would you decline mine?"
He looked to it, the shaved thorns and the gentle bruises on the delicate petals. "You're sure you know what the rose means?"
"She said... it was an invitation. To give it to the person you want to spend perigee with."
"Jaylin—"
"I know she means sex, Quentin." He urged the rose forward again. "Take it," he said, "or don't."
"It's not a finality," Quentin told him. "It doesn't have to be anything more than a rose."
"Oh?" Jaylin said, observing the rose studiously. "If it means so little to you then maybe I'll give it to someone else."
So Quentin reached out and took the rose between his fingers.
Jaylin must have snuck a bit more midnight when he was retrieving his rose, because by the time Quentin had helped him back up to his room, it was like his bones were rubber. And as Jaylin fell back into his bed, Quentin could tell by the look on his face that his world was rolling out from beneath him.
"How much did you have?" he asked, setting his lavender crown on the nightstand. "You need to be careful with midnight."
"I don't know," Jaylin groaned. "Two?"
"Two what?" Quentin laughed and reached out to pull bits of the crown from his hair. "Two shots and we're fine. Two glasses, we might have a bit of a problem. Two bottles and I should probably take you to a hospital."
"You didn't used to laugh," Jaylin muttered it, in a deep and dreary voice that caught Quentin off guard. He forced his eyes open and looked up to him, something warm and heavy about his gaze. "I like your laugh."
Quentin drew the sheets over him and shut off the lamp beside the bed. "Get some rest, Jaylin." But as he turned to leave, Jaylin caught him by the shirt. He sat up just a bit, pulled Quentin in until he was close enough to reach up, to slide his arms around his neck.
"Stay," he said, his fingers in Quentin's hair. But it was the way he said it, like that New Years Eve night. The way his voice scraped the speakers, the sound that put a flutter in Quentin's stomach. Stay.
"I can't, Jaylin." Quentin could feel his breath against his lips, and he wanted so badly to fall into the feeling, but he reached up instead, drew Jaylin's arms down from his neck. "You're drunk."
"I don't care," Jaylin said.
Quentin wanted to taste the liquor on his lips, wanted to press him back into the bed and kiss him until he was just as drunk on it, but he wouldn't. "I do."
Jaylin fell back into his pillow, a hand still reached out, fingers hooking Quentin by the waist of his slacks. "I wouldn't regret it. Not with you."
"Jaylin," he laughed, taking his fingers gently away. "Not yet. Not when you're like this."
"I'm not that drunk."
"You definitely are."
"How not-drunk do I need to be? Give me ten minutes or an hour—"
"I can't," Quentin told him again. "Not yet."
Jaylin sighed, a soft, disappointed sigh. "Because of Anna?"
There was that sharpness in his ribs. It wasn't because of Anna. Apart from the friction with Nicon, he hadn't thought about her, not once tonight.
"Do you think about that a lot?" he asked.
Jaylin, with his small drunken smile, nodded once.
"No, Jaylin," Quentin assured him. "No, it's not because of Anna. We'll talk about this tomorrow. Just—"
"I know," Jaylin said. "Not yet."
Quentin smirked at the dreary way he'd said it and echoed, "Not yet." Then he turned to the door.
"I love you, you know."
His feet stopped beneath him, and he looked back to Jaylin while the sound of it settled in his ears. He found those eyes—the glint of gentle blue, gazing up from beneath heavy lids. The slight, content smile still on his lips.
"I love you," Jaylin said again. "And do you want to know something?"
A smile found Quentin, and like the others, he was helpless to fight it. "What?"
"You love me too," Jaylin told him, voice drifting now, "and one of these days you're going to say it."
Quentin drew back towards the bed, his palm finding warmth on Jaylin's chest. It rested there over his heart, feeling the steady beat beneath it.
Jaylin was fading, his eyes closed now, his head rolling slowly to the side. Somehow he still managed to mutter a nearly unintelligible "say it" as sleep dragged him nearly beneath the surface.
And he would have. If Jaylin had been sober. If he'd been awake. If Quentin knew for certain that he'd meant it. That it wasn't the curse, conning him into emotions he didn't have.
Instead, Quentin told him once more, "Not yet."
Jaylin's chest rose beneath him with the long, first breath of a deep sleep.
He waited there for minute longer, watching the passive look on his face while moonlight blanketed him through the hotel windows. When he'd finally rolled over and buried his face into the pillows, Quentin left silently through the door, twisting the lock behind him.
The courtyard yawned with Charlie's gentle violin, but he was only testing his strings. The dancers had vacated, the drunks had retreated inside and those still drinking were working down the last of their glasses.
It wasn't hard to find Devi's tent; she carried her arachnid dream catchers wherever she went. He gave the bells on the tent a gentle rattle, and he heard her old voice beckon him in.
When he crouched through the curtains, he found Devi sitting across from one of her young witches, shaking quartz stones into her palm.
"Quartz is a versatile stone," she said. "You can rely on it for most things. Don't lose them, sweetheart. I'm running low on these."
The little witch nodded and squeezed out beside Quentin, with a polite, "'Scuse me, sir."
"I told Cora you'd be coming," Devi said, tapping her stones fragments back into their proper vials. "She's an old woman, dear. She's in bed by seven most nights."
"Please," Quentin urged her. "I need to know about—"
"About the boy," rasped a voice—harsh and threaded with age. From the curtain behind Devi, Cora shuffled in—pulling her way with a short walking cane. She had to be nearly a century old, but she managed to crawl through the conjoined tents much easier than she walked.
She sat by Devi and laid her cane out in front of her, smiling at Quentin with a toothless smile—deep-set wrinkles folding over her kind eyes. "My, your presence is a hard thing to shake."
Quentin moved further into the tent and took a seat in front of them—across from Devi's collection of stones. "I'm sorry to bother you so late, Cora."
Cora gave a slight nod, her toothless smile widened. "I understand," she said. Her words were so sheer—like a dying breath, or the sound the wind made when it jostled the willow tree outside of the manor. "You want to know about the alpha."
"Are you sure there was no mistake?" Quentin asked. "There are no orphaned packs right now. No change in territory lines or secessions. There's no reason for a new alpha."
"There's no reason for wolves, either," said Cora. "Sometimes the reasons come after."
"But he's one of mine," Quentin protested. "He's a member of my pack. I've felt it. I know his heartbeat."
"Do you still feel it?" Cora asked. "Do you still know his heartbeat?"
He glanced to Devi, who shied back to her collection of stones once he'd caught her staring.
"I don't."
"Do you feel him when he's near?" asked Cora. "Does he obey you?"
Quentin brought his eyes down to the lapis in Devi's hands. "No."
"Then the answer is clear," Cora said. "The boy no longer belongs to you."
The words sat heavy in him. No longer a part of his pack. No longer his wolf. No longer his lichund.
If Cora was right—if he was a rising alpha, then it was true. Jaylin was no longer his.