Chapter 24

Loreto was rendered speechless. The dryness in her throat stole her words. She looked at Nuada in the eye so close to her crouched before her. There was no place to hide. In any other situation she would have quickly thought of any sarcastic blunder to save herself from the moment, but now ideas abandoned her. The dilated irises inside his golden pupils looked at her, piercing deep into her soul. She swallowed hard. Perhaps she couldn't read minds like he did, maybe the wounds in her heart clouded too much her vision with a cynical look at the mere innuendo of love, yet somewhere within his amber eyes, Loreto believed to have found truth. With effort, she cleared her throat and licked her lips. They trembled as she attempted to speak.

"I don't know how to respond to that, forgive me," she mumbled and lowered her head.

The Prince softly kissed the back of her hand and stood up.

"Let's take a walk," he said and walked towards the exit of his home.

Dubious, Loreto followed him.

Nuada guided the road along paths and nooks. The ancient city foundations looked dark and eaten away by humidity and coldness. The stench of stagnant water mingled with that of fungus and garbage. It was almost pitched black. Loreto tripped and almost landed headfirst on the floor. Quickly, the Prince caught her in his arms and offered his hand for the rest of the walk. He seemed to know every route by memory. His eyes reflected the scarce light coming from some skylights high above. They shone like the alert and daring gaze of owls in the night. They arrived at the stairs that looked above the Troll market. They sat down on one of the steps. The busy underground bazaar knew no rest. Through its paths and aisles wandered creatures studying the offers by the shop owners while others shortened their roads to go directly to the stands. Like the first time she had entered there, bullet-wounded in the arms of Nuada, the air smelled like a mixture of incense, fries and sewers and the slow and constant melody of a hurdy-gurdy creature gave a strange festive and bizarre air to the landscape from above. Three small creatures of two heads ran upstairs and approached the Prince screeching. He stretched his hand, and smiling, he caressed their faces. The little ones neared Loreto and screeched among them, looking at each other puzzled. Then they returned to their way upstairs.

"Why do other humans speculate about you?," Nuada asked suddenly.

Loreto shook her head entranced watching the market and had to make an effort to focus. She took out her cell phone and checked again the pictures and articles about her. Some journalists even dared to connect the appearance of Loreto with Nuada the previous early morning with her disappearance a month ago. Others attributed a sectarian profile to the mysterious tall man of pale skin and white hairs with whom she had been seen. Loreto sighed exhausted and rubbed her face with the hand.

"Because people believe that, because I'm famous, they have a right to know all about me at all times," she said annoyed. "At first I enjoyed everything about being recognized on the street, getting favors and preferential treatment but with time it has become a prison. There is no place I go where I don't find paparazzi pointing their cameras at me," she sighed tiredly and hunched herself over her knees. "I only want to make my music in peace."

"What's a paparazzi?," the Prince asked and faced her frowning.

Loreto smiled at his expression of complete cluelessness. She wished to erase the slight furrow in between his non-existent eyebrows. She refrained from the idea.

"Paparazzo singular, paparazzi plural. It's Italian for a despicable son of a bitch lacking all ethics and morals who makes profit taking pictures of famous people's private lives and selling them to the best bidder. At this moment my house is at the aim of this kind of rat. Maybe they have already surrounded my parents'," she muttered with anger and a sigh of frustration. "They're like vultures. Fame elevates you to a demigod status to the point no one dares to contradict you nor deny you a single thing, but should you make a mistake, oh poor you! They'll hit you when you're down like the vultures they are... They'd be capable of taking a photo of your own agonizing self if there's a good payoff." Loreto rubbed her face several times and scratched her scalp insistently. She let her head fall and let out a defeating sigh, desperate to escape her throat. "I'd ask you to use such a useful spell to help me camouflage my real look so I could take a taxi to the Upper East Side but that wouldn't solve the real problem and in any case I'd be a prisoner in my own four walls."

"You can stay here for as long as needed," the Prince said.

She looked into his eyes. She caressed his cheeks, barely brushing her hand through his skin, and whispered a thanks. Nuada closed his eyes and clung to her hand like a feline lacking love and cuddles. Loreto brushed his dark lips with her thumb and noticed she couldn't stop staring at them. The Prince opened his eyes enough and shortened the distance between them. He imitated her gesture and cupped her jaw and neck. To merely feel his touch on her skin shook her with a delicious chill which nested in her lower abdomen. He pulled her towards him with measured strength and they merged in a sweet, innocent, almost adolescent kiss. His warmth enwrapped her completely. The Prince licked her lips, kissing her deeply and slowly like that early morning in her apartment. Her heart inside her chest accelerated, beating against her vocal chords. They tangled their fingers in each other's hairs, completely lost. Suddenly they were no longer underground but floating far beyond the stratosphere. His flavour was intoxicating. The perfume his skin emanated was a raw natural force that blew her mind. Loreto lightly tugged at his hair, Nuada replied by venturing a hand under her hoodie to cup one of her breasts. She groaned from the back of her throat at his touch. She was melting away for him. They broke the kiss. They both panted heavily for air, still brushing their irritated lips. Nuada drew a devilish smile and fixed her with his gaze. His eyes shone bright of lust. The high-pitched screech of the tiny creatures going downstairs by her side woke her up from the spell and brought her back underground. They both laughed. The Prince said something in his native language. The creatures took a dramatic bow and continued their road towards the market.

"Bogarts," he said with a raspy voice and combed his hairs behind his slightly pointy ears with his fingers, "that's their name," and pointed at the tiny beings who in that moment were climbing on the hurdy-gurdy creature.

Loreto observed them. They seemed the magical equivalent to a puppy or bunny. They were playful and seemed to communicate through high noises like soft screeches.

"What did you say to them?," she asked and touched her cheeks with the back of her hands. They were still burning.

"Not to come up here, for their Prince wished to be alone with his guest."

They looked at each other. Nuada took her hand and kissed it by the wrist, then placed it on his cheek. Loreto swallowed hard, totally moved by the image before her eyes. From her chest an expansive warmth manifested, spreading to every corner of herself. It was an overwhelming sensation that bulged tears in her eyes. She leaped in his arms and squeezed him tight against her. If her idea to negotiate the return of Bethmoora to the surface would mean a risk for his people but specially for him, Loreto wouldn't be able to forgive herself. The mere idea to lose him pressed her heart with dread. Nuada embraced her by her back and waist and nestled her to his chest. He buried his nose in her hairs and took a deep breath. He reached her ear.

"I'll be fine, nothing will happen to me," he whispered and kissed her earlobe.

The tingling now was a shock wave and made every pore in her skin stand up. Loreto tangled her fingers in his long hairs and slowly they separated to face each other. She kissed his dark mouth with eyes tightly shut. She was ruined. There was no turning back. She didn't know how or when that feeling had grown within her, but she acknowledged it as real and true. It existed. It was a reality. She loved him. Logic dictated dopamine and endorphins were drugging her, her brain insisted in convincing herself that she could not love a being of another species so different from hers and who she knew so shortly. Every scar in her heart shrunk with fear at the memory of the pain of treason and disappointment. She didn't know whether she had any strength left to love like she did the first time. She had wasted her best years on men who never knew how to cherish her. She had wasted so much love in the wrong arms. Every past heartbreak, every betrayal, lie, and treason throbbed the open wound and warned her loudly to run away from him. She couldn't. For the first time in her adult life she felt she had come home. And her home was Nuada.