by Allie Santos
Her boots crunched on the floor as she approached Roark. She stood between his split legs and bent to kiss him, all the while staring straight into my eyes. She knew how I felt. This was a warning. A dare almost. She didn’t have to worry about me making a move on her mate or whatever. I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole at this point.
She stepped back and said, “Out.”
I assumed she was talking to me, so I took off, Jasmine trailing behind me.
As soon as I stepped out, I searched for the burning fire, but there was none. I walked over to the remnants of the melted circle in sadness. It was still dark out, and snow was everywhere. My skin pebbled through my clothes. I barely made out where the blanket was tossed to the ground. I bent to grab it and wrapped the warm material over my shoulders.
Steps sounded behind me. I whirled, and Jasmine was staring at me, her lip curled. I tried to say something, but it wouldn’t come out. My mouth flopped open and closed, so I just stared down at my feet, shame eating me. Not long after, the tent flapped open, and Sabine stepped out.
“Here, take this.” I threw the blanket at Jasmine. She tried to push it away, but I tossed it back. “She won’t watch out for you. Please, take it.”
I knew she wanted to deny me, but surprisingly, she didn’t. Instead, she tugged it around her as Sabine reached us. Her hand wrapped around Jasmine’s hair and pulled. Jasmine gasped and bent at an uncomfortable angle as she was toted along. The pain infusing Jasmine’s whimper made my own heart pitter-patter in a rapid rhythm.
Before I thought about how stupid it was, I got to my feet, hoping Icefall hid the crunch of snow under my feet. I would try to offer Jasmine a chance to run. It was my fault she was being dragged off by that hateful thing. Or at the very least, Sabine would choose to take me with her instead.
“Let us go, little pet. We have a way to go,” she sang.
Jasmine grunted and followed, still at that bent angle. I took a halting step and then burst forward in a rush of motion. Putting as much strength as I could into my good leg, I pushed into a jump, aiming to bowl over Sabine.
I didn’t make it.
Arms wrapped around my waist, and a huff of air exploded from me. I grunted at the impact and opened my mouth to yell at Sabine, but before a word came out, a hand slapped over my mouth.
I was left watching helplessly until Sabine and Jasmine disappeared. Long after they were gone, I still stared. Hard arms around me loosened enough that I sunk to my knees. I stared at the frozen ground as I clutched my injured hand to my chest. The blood was frozen and crusted.
I’d failed Jasmine. It was my fault. That was a mantra inside me as I fell to the side, guilt slithering through my soul. Cold sunk into my clothing. I was for sure going to get hypothermia. I heard a curse above me, and his hard arms wrapped around me, and then I was lifted off the ground.
“You were on thin ice with Sabine. She would have killed you,” Roark said tersely as he rustled around. A heaviness settled on me and my body unconsciously relaxed.
They were the most words I had ever heard him say in one string. My lips wanted to stretch in a laugh. Hysterics were starting to set in. I was floating, my brain wandering. Then there was pain. A whimper escaped me as the numbness started to tingle in painful little jabs.
“You’re warming up,” Roark said from somewhere above me. I couldn’t see his face. His really nice face. I wanted to trace the scar that curved down to his lips, marring his beauty and yet somehow making him sexier. The giggle I’d suppressed finally escaped my stiff lips, and I closed my tired eyes.
“Rae.” I heard his voice call from far away. That was my name, wasn’t it? Did it matter? “Rae,” he yelled closer to my ear.
I groaned in irritation and whined, “What! Let me sleep.”
“You must not sleep, Rae,” he ordered. Ugh, even in my hallucinations, he was awfully bossy. “Rae.”
Was that my imagination, or did I hear… concern? I didn’t want to worry anyone. I hated that. Worry… I needed to worry about someone. If only I could put my finger on it. I made myself open my eyes one at a time. They blurred in and out until they focused on his tight expression.
“Yes, look at me,” he said cajolingly, and his hand caressed my arm. It shot a warm sensation up my limb, and I looked up in shock. His lips pursed and my brain fog started to clear. A glare formed on my face when I remembered who I had to worry about.
My sister. I had to survive for my sister.
8
I shot up and yanked my arm out of his reach. Then laid back down as feeling returned and bit at my limbs. Groaning, I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through the pain.
“It hurts,” I whimpered.
“It’s the warmth coming back into your body,” his voice replied. Roark was terse, but his hands were nothing but gentle as he rolled mine between his. At first, the ache was almost too much to bear as he massaged.
The soft ministrations lessened the sting in my hands. Sadly, my whole body felt like it’d been run over. Then whoever had been driving that car had put it in reverse and rolled over me again. I had a flashback to Sabine standing in the middle of the road. How I wished I had run over her multiple times until she was nothing.
Lesson learned.
I waited for my body to grow more comfortable before I opened my eyes. “I wanted to help her. Why did you stop me?” I was unable to hide the pain in my voice.
He glanced away. “I had already spoken to Sabine. She agreed to be… gentle with the other human.”
I gazed at him dubiously. I didn’t believe that. Sabine gentle? She didn’t have a gentle bone in her body.
He turned his expressionless face back to me. “And as I said, she had run out of patience with you. I have seen her kill for less.”
Above me, I recognized the material the tent was made from. Wiggling, I realized I was actually comfortable. I poked at the spongy bed under my body.
Looking to the side, I faced Roark, who was a couple of inches away from me. He stared at me unblinking, and after full a minute—I counted—I broke my silence. “Do you ever blink?”
“Yes.” He slowly did the very thing I asked about, and that was it. Roark sat back with my hands still grasped in his. His brow creased as he flicked his gaze up and down my body and then looked away.
“Okay,” I mumbled, drawing the word out under my breath, a little thrown off by his attitude. His tenderness warmed me, despite myself. Every time he touched me—he’d been gentle. From the careful way he warmed my hands, to putting me in a comfortable bed. Had he been… worried about me?
He mentioned he hadn’t wanted Sabine to kill me. Did that mean he’d stopped me from attacking her for my sake? It was too much for my brain to wrap around.
He stood, and realizing he held my hands, guided them to the edge of the bed and set them down. I swore the corner of his mouth quirked at my reply, but he turned away before I could say anything more.
He looked off in the distance. I followed his gaze. It was just the material of the tent. “Is there something there I can’t see?” I asked, trying to get a smile out of him. He rubbed his hand over his face. It had been there!
“We must get a few more moments of rest before we begin our travels.”
Sadness welled at his words. Damn, I had to go back into that cold. Jasmine had my magic blanket, and if that fire was out, I was for sure getting frostbite. I had barely escaped its icy grasp moments ago.
“All right,” I said and pushed myself up with difficulty. His hand pushed at my shoulder, and I fell back with a sigh.
“What are you doing?” he asked, angry now. “You will injure yourself. If I know anything about you humans it’s that almost everything can kill you. You must stay here and rest the cold away.”
“But…?” I began to ask and then wanted to slap myself. The Fae was willing to let me rest more comfortably than I had felt in longer than I could remember, even if I had been in their custody for three or so days. “Wh
y would you do that for me?”
He turned away. “I do not know,” he ground out and walked out of the tent. His exit was stiff, his posture perfect, but this time, I sensed his discomfort.
I pushed back the hair that had fallen into my eyes, grazing my sore forehead. I paused when I felt stiff flakes. Feeling around, I realized the dried blood from after I’d crashed, added to when Sabine dug my face into the ground, had crusted. Grimacing, I brushed as many flakes off as I could feel, staying clear from the actual wounds.
After he’d been gone a while, I relaxed into the bed, my anxiety dropping. It didn’t seem like he was returning. I laid back, confused, and moved my limbs little by little until feeling returned. I snuggled deeper into the bed. There was a rough scrape on my fingers, and I brought the hand up to my face. A strip of cloth was wrapped around my thumb and over my palm. He’d bandaged me? Questions swirled through my brain. Why? Sabine made it obvious they didn’t need us in top condition.
Every time Roark touched me, he’d seemed so gentle. Not very present but gentle, nonetheless. Except for earlier… I looked at my bandaged hand again, thinking of his hands on my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a breath as I tried to push the fear away, even if he hadn’t seemed aware. I felt the lingering ghost of his hand…
He was, without a doubt, dangerous. I couldn’t deny that fact but maybe he was more than that. What I knew for sure was he was the lesser of two evils. Maybe I should plead my cause to him? Tell him about my sister and dog. How Annie needed me. I had to make myself real to him, and then maybe he could help me. A grin stretched over my face.
Hope.
So dangerous and so beautiful at the same time. I drifted off with the first dreg of it swirling inside me, blooming and spreading through me like a freshly sown seed…
There was an earthquake. It trembled through me, rocking my whole body. I gasped, and my eyes popped open. Roark stared down at me with a curious expression.
“It is extremely difficult to rouse you from sleep. You kept trying to swat at me and yelled at me to go away.” He sounded almost fascinated. “And who is this Jeff?”
My face flushed. Of course, I would call him Jeff. The only person other than family who had ever had to wake me up from a dead sleep. And I hadn’t seen my family in years.
“No one important. Sorry I yelled at you,” I said with a yawn. My hopeful thoughts from before I fell asleep returned, and I grinned.
“We must begin making our way to a portal,” he said, still staring at me curiously.
I threw my hands over my head and stretched my body out with a groan. My bones cracked in relief. What a difference a good night’s sleep made. Noticing his gaze fall to my body, I blushed. His gaze was a caress as it traveled from my feet and trailed up. I tried to dismiss my reaction.
“Okay,” I chirped and stood with a spring. I walked out of the tent, and he followed. Looking around, I was struck dumb by the lack of snow. This world was crazy weird.
“You seem… different,” he said, testing out the last word.
“I know. What a difference a good night’s sleep makes, amirite?” I said and winked at him.
He crooked his head at me as if observing some curious new species. Well, I guess I was to him. I couldn’t help my good mood. My earlier musings were fresh on my mind. I could survive this. Whatever they wanted to do with me, be it sex trafficking or slavery, would stop as soon as he understood I was real and not just something to use. I just needed to find out how I could connect with him.
He gave me his back and turned his attention to taking the tent down and condensing it to scrap.
“How does that work?”
“It’s imbued with witch magic—” Shoulders tense, he clammed up, shot me a glare, and didn’t finish what he was saying as he started walking with me behind him. He pulled the sword over his head and stuffed the scrap in the side pocket of the scabbard. Witch magic. Witches were real. Questions flooded my brain, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t answer squat. I stuffed that tidbit to the recess of my mind. It was a thing I could deal with later. I was barely wrapping my head around Fae existing.
The ground beneath me was crisp with grass, not a snowflake to be seen. For whatever strange reason, sunlight brought a magical change to the weather, and I was just glad I wasn’t freezing.
His pace wasn’t fast like it usually was. I was even able to keep up with him or at least not fall ten feet behind. I cleared my throat, trying to muster up the courage to start talking. “So… What’s your last name?”
The only indication that he heard me was the pause in his step. I stayed quiet a little longer before giving it another try. “Can you tell me anything about this world?”
Nothing.
A rough exhale exploded out of me. One more try. “Where did you sleep last night? I was in the only bed.”
God, talking about the only bed, where they’d done the deed. Nausea threatened, and I grimaced in disgust.
“None of your concern,” he said. Getting answers from him was worse than pulling teeth.
“You know, you haven’t thanked me yet,” I said, cheeky, trying a different tactic. After all, I had plenty of ways to potentially get him to talk and nothing but time. He threw a pointed glare behind him.
“For trying to save your life. I mean, for all I knew, if she’d managed to use that pocketknife, there would be no more Roark,” I said.
His shoulders undulated at the mention of his name. “Thank. You,” he bit out, not sounding grateful at all.
“Anytime, Roark.” I said his name again and was pleased by the same reaction. “But, you could make it up to me by actually talking to me.”
His hand shifted through his dark hair. Even standing behind him, I could see strands sticking up. “I did not need to rest, so I sat outside the tent.” He was short in his reply. “And Fae only have one name.”
Ah, so it seemed Roark didn’t like to feel indebted. I picked up my pace, trying to catch up to him so we walked side by side, but I still couldn’t catch up.
He sighed, and I noticed his subtle slowing. Finally next to him, I looked up, wanting to smile at his short hair, which was sticking up in different directions, especially in the front. Silence settled over us as we walked and walked. My feet started dragging as they got heavier. The hunger that had been held at bay by fear roiled through me.
My stomach growled loudly. I clutched it as Roark glanced at me in surprise. He tilted his head. When he didn’t say anything, I flushed and muttered a disgruntled, “What?”
“Why does your stomach make that noise?” One of my eyebrows flicked up, and I gave him a look, hoping he wasn't serious. “Answer me,” he demanded. Wow, he was.
“I’m starving,” I admitted.
“Whatever for?” he said, the honest confusion on his face stalling me.
Feeling out of breath, I stopped walking as the world tilted a little. I blinked away the dizziness. “Food. I’m really hungry.” My stomach growled again, and my mouth seemed to realize how dry it was. Licking my lips, I stared up at him to meet his confused eyes. “Oh, God, and I would kill for some water right about now.”
He scratched his head. “I did not realize.”
Glancing around, he took our surroundings in, which consisted of lush green trees with sprinklings of auburn and yellow leaves. He kept quiet and seemed to go into himself again. When he didn’t say anything for around five minutes, his eerie eyes staring off, I continued walking.
I was uncomfortably aware of my hunger and thirst at this point. My lips felt extra parched, and I swallowed like I was drinking my own spit. The thought of that made me grimace. Before I knew it, the world tilted and hands grasped my arms, catching me before I hit the ground.
“Why’d you grab me?” I gasped.
“You were about to fall forward,” he said, eyebrows drawn together. Had I been? I tuned back into what he was saying when I realized his mouth was still moving. “Don’t know about your needs much, b
ut we will get to the human world soon. I can get whatever it is you need. For now, is this enough?”
He held his hand out. A wood bowl of what looked like oatmeal appeared in his hand. I frowned. This guy could conjure anything in the world, but he gave me oatmeal? Considering I was starving, I took it, tilting the lip of the bowl to my mouth since he couldn’t be bothered by a spoon. Grimacing, I swallowed.
“You do not enjoy this?” Roark asked.
“I mean, it’s all right. Beats starving.” I gave Captain Oblivious a half-smile. He reached up and tugged on his slightly pointed ear. It was so… cute.
I was for sure messed up in the head.
“Would this be better?” he asked and reached his hand out again. Right in front of my eyes, a plump peach appeared, and I almost tackled him, the empty bowl of oatmeal falling to the ground.
Taking a bite, I moaned in pleasure, lost in slurping the juices up. Seconds later, the ground moved from under me, and I found myself being held by strong arms. I looked at him in surprise. He merely kept walking and said nothing as I finished the fruit.
Tossing the core to the side, I smiled up at Roark. “Thank you,” I said simply. He nodded tersely. “If you don’t know about food and human stuff, how did you know about oatmeal and peaches?”
He mouthed the words, repeating them. “There are many humans I have seen eat those oats. As for the other, I saw a male eating one of those peaches while in your world recently. He seemed to enjoy it, and that’s about all I remember as sustenance from your world. Since I don’t partake, I tend not to notice what you humans enjoy.”
My lips form an O in understanding. Talking about those peaches… my mouth watered at the thought of it. I wanted more, but it felt almost gluttonous to ask him to conjure another up for me. Before I could agonize over asking him, another peach appeared on my stomach. I grinned and picked it up. He walked on without looking at me, and I settled into his arms, lulled into relaxation.
My mind wandered, and I stared up at his face, taking in the sharp edges of his jaw. He was a mystery. I knew I shouldn’t trust him any more than I could pick him up, which was not at all, but I felt undeniably felt safe with him.