To Love A Villain

Chapter 213: The Wait

>>Enya

The morning had been hollow without him.

I’d woken up too early, listening to the stir of boots against the marble floor outside our wing, and when I peered out through the curtains, I caught a glimpse of Emrys—dark cloak, silver-fastened gloves, and Ahin beside him, already dressed and ready.

He didn’t look back.

I pressed my palm against the cold glass.

By the time the sun began its climb, they were already gone.

Now, it was noon, and the garden stretched in painful quiet around me. The warmth enchantments still kept the winter away in this small pocket of the mansion’s grounds. Snow hadn’t dared settle here, but the rest of the world was blanketed white—poisoned, slowly suffocating under the creeping veil of miasma.

And they had gone into it.

I sat on the stone bench beneath the tree, my arms wrapped around myself though it wasn’t cold. The warmth in the air did nothing to thaw the coil of dread tightening in my chest.

Einar was painting again, of course.

His canvas was propped near the wall, the faint swish of his brush offering the only sound in the world. He always worked quietly, but today it was too quiet. Like even the birds didn’t want to disturb me.

I knew he was watching me between brushstrokes.

He didn’t speak until the silence had fully wrapped around us.

"You’ve been sighing a lot," he said, not looking up.

I blinked. "I haven’t."

"You have," he replied easily. "At least seven times in the last hour."

I scowled at the tree branches. "Why are you counting?"

"Because I’m your brother," he said with a shrug. "It’s my duty to observe the ridiculous things you do."

I didn’t answer. I just hugged my knees tighter and stared at the sky. It had turned gray at the edges. My heart sank with it.

Still no sign of them.

Einar set his brush down on the edge of the easel. Then, with that impossible calm of his, he spoke again.

"Did you fall in love with him?"

!!!

The words cut sharper than I expected.

I froze, my fingers tensing around the hem of my sleeves. I didn’t look at him right away. I just stared at the space between my boots, heart beginning to thunder like a wild thing.

"...How did you know?" I asked finally, my voice small.

He chuckled gently behind me. "I always know what’s in your heart, Enya."

I turned toward him slowly, breath catching at the kindness in his expression. Not teasing. Not smug. Just... warm. Gentle.

It was a strange thing, love. It didn’t hit me like lightning or sweep me off my feet the way the novels promised. It had grown slowly, like moss in shade. Like the sun warming through frost.

I looked back down at my hands.

"It’s not supposed to happen like this," I whispered. "He’s... he’s just supposed to be safe. Free. I promised him I’d get him out of here. I shouldn’t be—" I paused. Bit the inside of my cheek. "I shouldn’t be the reason he stays."

Einar tilted his head slightly. "Is he staying because of you?"

I didn’t answer.

Because it was at that moment, I realized, these feelings were mine, not his. He doesn’t have any reason to stay behind for me.

I looked away in the distance, leading towards the woods

I had spent my life walking tightropes in a house that never wanted me. A girl too human for the fae, too fae for the humans. Too different to belong anywhere. I had learned to smile at people who wanted me gone. I had learned to stay silent when their eyes cut through me.

There were many times I wondered if we could run away and go to the fae. But there isn’t a race out there that likes humans, so deep down I knew the fae would never accept a half human either.

...

There was no hope anywhere. I always knew being accepted somewhere and falling for someone would never happen.

Where would I find someone like me anyway/

But then there was Ahin.

He didn’t say much. He didn’t have to. He was like me. A life born between two worlds, with no home in either.

That was what initially drew me to him. The way his existence echoed mine. We were different kinds of broken, perhaps—but broken in ways that could recognize each other.

And somehow, without even trying, that made me feel less alone.

But slowly, I noticed it wasn’t that what made me fall for him.

It was how sweet he was... I guess this was inevitable... This was bound to happen to someone like me who had never received such emotions before. Or such simple sweet days

"I think..." I began quietly, "what drew me to him first wasn’t anything big. It was just... comfort. That he’s another half. That he knows what it’s like to live with pieces that don’t fit."

Einar said nothing. Just listened, as he always did.

"He’s gentle," I went on, "and calm. But it’s more than that. He doesn’t pretend to be more or less than he is. He doesn’t want power or praise. He just... exists. And for someone like me, someone who’s always had to fight to breathe in this family..."

My voice caught, and I looked away. "...Being around him makes me feel safe."

It felt like I was confessing something sacred. Something fragile.

Einar finally set the palette down and walked over, brushing imaginary dust off his coat as he sat beside me on the bench. He said nothing for a while.

Then, with a small smile, "That’s a good reason to love someone, you know."

I looked at him, startled. "Really?"

"I think it might be the best reason," he said simply. "We don’t always get to choose the people who make us feel like home. Sometimes they arrive quietly and make everything else less heavy."

My chest tightened again, but this time not from dread.

From longing.

I turned my face toward the gate beyond the corridor, toward the horizon where they had gone. And I whispered a prayer I hadn’t dared speak aloud.

Come back, Ahin. Please.

Because I wasn’t sure I could go back to the world I had before him.

***

The sound of hooves thundered against the earth, too many for a calm return.

My heart seized.

I was still by the open corridor when I heard it—steel against gravel, the distant crunch of feet dismounting too fast, the low voices of guards murmuring with unease. The air shifted. Even the birds fell silent in the trees.

They were back.

I dropped the blanket from my lap and stood up without thinking.

My legs moved before my mind caught up. Across the corridor. Down the steps. Past the sculpted hedges. And as I rounded the corner toward the gate—

I saw them.

Emrys, bloodied down one side of his coat, walked ahead with clenched fists. His face was unreadable. Cold. Behind him—

"Ahin—!"

He staggered two steps into the courtyard before his knees buckled.

"No—!"

He collapsed to the ground in a heap of black and crimson.

Time fractured.

His sword clattered beside him. Blood pooled beneath him too quickly, too much. His shirt was torn at the side—slashes across his back, fresh and gaping. One of his arms hung limply, like it had been dislocated. And his breathing—

Ragged. Shallow. Barely there.

I lurched forward, but Einar caught my wrist. "Wait—"

"What?"

"You can’t help him if you panic," Einar whispered, calm but firm. He stepped in front of me, shielding me from the scene just enough, and raised his voice toward Emrys. "Are you satisfied now?"

Emrys stopped.

And I paused as well.

Right. I can’t act this desperate in front of Emrys. I can’t let him know I’ve fallen in love. And that it’s not the other way around.

He didn’t answer right away. His boots crunched on the gravel path as he turned slowly to face us, the wind brushing his hair back from his face. Blood stained his gloves and the corner of his jaw. He looked tired. Unusually so.

But his voice was cold and sure.

"Yes," he said simply. "I am."

My breath caught, fury prickling up my spine.

Einar stood beside me, unmoving. "He’s barely alive."

Emrys nodded once. "And yet, he didn’t run."

He took a slow breath, as if replaying it all again. "The miasma in the wilds has thickened. Our path was clear for the first hour, but deeper in, something changed. The trees twisted into each other. The ground groaned. And then... it came."

My fingers trembled. "What came?"

Emrys met my gaze, grim. "A Bonebeast. Nothing like the ones we’ve seen before. This one... it stood several times my height, all ribs and bones. It had a weird body structure. It should have killed us both."

He looked down at Ahin’s still form on the ground. The sword lay just out of reach of his fingers.

"But he stood between it and me," Emrys said.

Einar’s expression darkened.

"Even after I ordered him to leave me behind," Emrys continued, quieter now. "Even when the path to escape opened. He refused to run. He fought it. And when I collapsed, he carried me."

I could hardly hear over the rushing in my ears.

"He dragged us both out of the miasma until the guards found us. He shouldn’t be alive," Emrys said, eyes locked with mine now. "But-"

His voice was heavy with something I couldn’t name. Not pride. Not guilt.

Maybe sorrow.

"If the imprint wasn’t real, he’d have fled. He’d have chosen himself," Emrys said, and for a flicker of a moment, I thought I saw a shadow of pain in his eyes. "But he didn’t."

I shook my head slowly, tears blurring my vision. But I didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t

I had to keep it together.

Emrys coughed a little and the guards urged him to get himself checked. So he turned around and walked away