Before

“There is something that I need you to know before we can do this.”

The room’s lighting had dimmed some short time after Abbi had returned to the room. She’d said that she had to gather a few things before they could form their mate-bond, and had been away for some time. For a long time, Eddus sat waiting, expecting at any moment the door would open and she would enter, accompanied by some sort of priest or holy man.

Abbi was gone for what seemed like hours, which allowed Eddus time to be alone with his thoughts. Those thoughts took no time in flooding his mind, making him question his decision and wonder if he was doing the right thing.

‘Consider marriage as an escape from punishment? How could you possibly...? What kind of person could do such a thing?’

The whole situation was impossible. His inner voice brought up everything from the comparison of someone marrying out of convenience, to the fact that he still saw the young woman he’d just agreed to marry as hardly old enough to really know what marriage really was, even in light of how old she said she was.

Eddus had, of course, fought back against that inner voice, arguing mentally that not only had it been Abbi who’d suggested the union, but also that the only real convenience of the situation was that there was a chance that he might not be put to death. Although still confused, he had no reason not to believe her about the danger to his life, or her age, for that matter. In the short time he’d known her, Abbi had only ever spoken the truth.

When she returned, Abbi told him that everything was ready and that she had been to the human realm. With her, she had a small cloth sack containing some food: two bread rolls and two pieces of fruit. Besides the food, the small sack contained a length of thin, white linen and a small double-edged knife made of some sort of black glass. A solid piece of glass, its blade’s length was almost as long as a hand’s width, its hilt wrapped in a braided rope.

They sat in silence as Eddus ate, Abbi watching him with a little smile on her face. When he finished, she pulled the small chair in front of the other. They sat as closely as they could manage, facing one another. Abbi took the knife and the linen out of the cloth sack.

Eddus watched as Abbi laid the knife in her lap, and then unrolled the long strip of linen, which she also laid across her thighs.

“I need to tell you that I love you, Abbi.”

When Eddus spoke, Abbi paused, looking at him in the shadowy dusk of the room’s dimmed lights. She leaned forward, taking his hands.

“And I love you.” Abbi smiled, her eyes flashing in the hushed light.

Eddus shook his head.

“I have to say this. I need you to know it,” he said. “You need to know before we go through with this that I do love you. I do truly love you. I know I told you before, but I need you need to know it. I am in love with you. You have to know that I would not marry- or mate- to you for the sole purpose of staying alive. I want you to know that. I need you to know it.”

“I do know it, Eddus Brandt, I do. I know it because you’re here.” Abbi’s face became somber, and she swallowed hard. A tear rolled down her cheek. She closed her eyes for a moment. “I know that if it weren’t for what I said to you that night, you never would have come here. But the fact that you’re here-”

“I need you to know that it is more than that,” Eddus said. He inhaled deeply, studying every detail of her face. During her absence earlier on, he had come to a realization that had helped him to argue reason with his thoughts.

He could see himself asking Abbi to marry him, had their relationship continued. He didn’t know if he actually would have asked the pixie, or even if he could have, but at some point, their relationship could have progressed to that point.

Eddus squeezed her hands gently. Watching her silently as she sighed, opening her eyes, he waited for her gaze to meet his. She looked down at her lap and then back to his face.

“And now, there’s also something I have to tell you, Eddus. Please, don’t think that I ever tried to trick you,” Abbi said quietly. She inhaled deeply. “It’s something you have to know before we can mate-bond.”

Eddus’ brows knit together in concern as he watched as she quickly turned her face away from him. She pulled her hands from his grasp, using the back of her left hand to wipe her tear-streaked cheeks.

“What is it, Abbi?”

“Issabella...” Abbi said.

“What?”

“Eddus, I promise you that I wasn’t trying to deceive you.”

“You just said that, but I don’t understand.”

“My name, Eddus,” Abbi said, avoiding eye contact, “is not Abbi.”

“It’s not?”

“My name is Issabella.”

“Abbi.”

“Issabella.”

Eddus leaned back in the chair, staring through her. His head began to ache. Between this idea of marriage, Abbi’s age, and now this, it actually hurt to think.

“Eddie, I’m so sorry...”

“You always tell me not to apologize,” he said blankly.

“Eddus...”

“What? Why? How can you say that you weren’t trying to deceive me?” The question was uttered before he even realized what he was saying.

“Eddus, I couldn’t give you my real name.”

Eddus ran his hands through his hair, massaging the back of his skull, the dull ache becoming a throbbing pain.

The young lady sitting across from him shook her head, her eyes finally meeting his. She reached forward, touching his knee. Eddus’ gaze shifted to her hand, which she slowly removed.

“I couldn’t give you my true name, Eddie. It was never meant to mislead you.” Abbi could see the hurt and confusion in his eyes. “You don’t understand. Names hold power. To give someone your name gives them a certain power over you. So to protect ourselves, we don’t give our real names.”

Eddus shook his head, bewilderment on his face.

“No one in this realm will ever give you their real name. The guard you met is not named Dain. The faerie you spoke to is not Beagan. We protect our names so that they cannot be used against us.”

“But you know my name.”

“I do. I know I do, Eddie. And it is one of the things that most drew me to you; your trust in giving me your name so freely.”

“You said your name is Abbi. You told me the night we met. You even told Stiles it was short for Abigail.”

“I told you to call me Abbi.” The young lady looked uncomfortable as she spoke. “And when Stiles asked if Abbi was short for Abigail, I did tell her that it was, because it is.”

Eddus didn’t speak. He didn’t move. In his mind, he replayed the night he’d met her. Every detail of the encounter he’d committed to memory. What she’d just said was true. After having asked him to guess her name, she’d told him to call her Abbi. She never actually said that it was her name. Still, he couldn’t help feeling in some way deceived.

“Is... Issabella... your real name?”

The girl sitting opposite him, with her head down, fidgeting with her hands, was the reason he had come to this place. Now she was supposed to somehow become linked to him in a way that was stronger than marriage, and for the rest of his life, and he hadn’t even known her real name. He really did know nothing about her.

“It is, Eddie. I promise you that it is my name, my true name. And you knowing that name is giving you more power over me than anyone has ever had. The giving of our names to one another is the first step in the mate-bond. I’m surrendering to you. I’m giving to you the only thing that is truly only mine, in the trust that you will never misuse it.” Issabella raised her head. “You don’t know what it meant to have been freely and openly given your name. Apart from my own, it is the most treasured thing in my possession.”

“What is your last name?”

The pixie shook her head, not breaking eye contact with him.

“Your family name.”

“Eddus, I have no last name, no family name.”

“How is that even possible? Everyone has a last name,” Eddus said. The ache in his head intensified. He did not understand at all. “You just said that your name isn’t Abbi, and now you have no last name?”

A knot formed in his gut, and Eddus began to wonder if all of this had been a foolish idea.

“I don’t have a last name,” tears fell from her eyes onto the linen strip across her lap, as the pixie leaned toward him. “I don’t. I’m Issabella... just Issabella...”

It was impossible to comprehend that the woman he loved, whom he had crossed into another world for and now may be facing death for, had withheld her real name from him. It should have been a deal-breaker, no matter the circumstance.

“That’s a custom of your realm, Eddie.”

“Nobody here has a last name?”

“No.” She looked so small, sitting across from him, looking at him in worried guilt. “Eddie, I’m-”

Taking her hand, Eddus nodded. He looked at her hand in his, his eyes travelling up her arm, her neck, to the membraned wings behind her. He put thoughts of the dishonesty he’d been subjected to and the feelings that accompanied them aside. Everything he knew and everything that he was struggled to push those thoughts and feelings again to the forefront, but he knew that he had to look past them.

He had to tell himself that there was nothing about the situation he was in that he thought or knew. He had stepped from a spot in the park he had visited all of his life, into a whole different world. The beautiful young woman in front of him was not young at all, as he had thought. She had wings, which was impossible, but was physical proof that he could not let what he thought he knew be the deciding factor.

He Abbi as she tried to hold his gaze, tears running down her face. His brows knit slightly for just a moment as he tilted his head. She glanced away as he leaned toward her.

“There’s a bit of green in your left eye.”

“W- what?” She quickly met his gaze again, with a bewildered look.

“Your eye...” Eddus had been searching at her expression, and there was no deception that he could detect. He wasn’t sure why he’d voiced the observation.

“Eddus, I-” Shaking her head in confusion, the pixie lowered her gaze, looking from left to right.

“Abbi.” Eddus took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment, then corrected himself.

“Issabella,” he said, the name sounding as foreign to his ears as it felt to say it, and as foreign as his next words. “Marry me.”

Upon hearing him say her name, Issabella slowly raised her head.

“Mate with me.” Using the words she had spoken to him earlier, Eddus’ heart pounded within his chest. He struggled to keep his breathing normal. His feelings were in a storm of conflict, but his mind was made up.

The woman in front of him was silent. For a moment she didn’t move, before throwing herself forward and embracing him, the items on her lap falling to the floor.

Eddus put his arms around her as she held him tightly, leaning against him. Again, his mind raced as he took her onto his lap, gently rocking her as she sobbed quietly, her forehead tucked firmly into the crook of his neck.

Gently stroking the back of her head, Eddus closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. The smell of her hair, the warmth of her body – it felt right to hold Abbi, even if it was not her name. She was still the same woman he had held her every night for weeks, falling asleep with her in his arms and many times waking in the same position.

He still couldn’t wrap his mind around anything that was happening. He was here, in another world, a young woman with wings on her back sitting on his lap. He struggled to believe that any of this was actually happening to him.

The only thing that did not seem surreal at this point was the feeling he felt at this moment, while his eyes were closed and he held her...