by Allie Santos
My feet settled on the ground, but my arms remained hooked around his shoulders, the difference in our height emphasized. His gaze held mine, serious and searching as I became incrementally more breathless by the second.
This time it was me. I couldn’t help it. I was drawn to Roark. His lips needed to be on mine. The memory of his deep laugh reaching down and making my stomach erupt with tingles was all I had at the forefront of my memory when I reached up. I curled a hand around his neck and tugged him down with no resistance. A thrill shot through me at the idea that a Fae so powerful was letting me handle him.
Our lips came together, connecting us, lighting me on fire from head to toe. A short moan escaped into his mouth. His hands wrapped around my waist at the sound, yanking me close and smashing our bodies together. His hands wandered down my sides and caressed my skin, raising goosebumps where his rough skin skimmed over my soft curves. From my arms to my back. Everywhere my skin was exposed. They seemed to be staking a claim as they roamed.
I rubbed my tongue against his, and he responded by gracing me with his own deep guttural moan that sent tingles down my body. Trying to grab onto a shred of sanity, I pulled back with a gasp. I needed to remember myself.
As much as I craved him, he was dangerous. He could offer me no more than sex, and I knew that, but I still desired him. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and forget about my morals. Forget about him belonging to another, and just give in to this deep need for him that had nestled within me.
But that would be stupid. This wouldn’t last, and I would be left abandoned or worse after giving him everything.
Yes, he wanted me, but he also had a motive I didn’t know about. I needed to tread carefully because he could easily make me lose myself and give in to every desire I had.
“You are captivating, human,” he rasped, but this time, when he called me human, there was a softness to it. As if it was an endearment.
He leaned down, kissed the top of my head, and released me. I gaped up at him as he stepped back and stretched, moving his neck from side to side. There was a certain spry air to his demeanor.
“Wow, that pond really is healing,” I commented, still a little breathless from the kiss.
“Enough that we should get to where we should be by mid-day tomorrow. And only because we are stopping for the night. Your frail body will not be able to handle the ache of the cold.”
Wow, how one person could sound concerned and disparaging at the same time had to be a skill. I nodded but felt a pang of disappointment. I had been hoping we could take a moment to rest. I started forward and stumbled to a stop when I realized my ankle felt better. It felt normal. Pausing, I lifted my leg and rolled the ankle, testing it out. Before my excitement got out of hand, I remembered what he said about the effects eventually wearing off, and my shoulders slumped. It must have been the defeat on my face that made Roark shuffle from foot to foot.
“Let’s rest a bit,” he said abruptly and dropped to the ground with a groan, fully and unabashedly naked. He patted the ground next to him. I tried not to look at his man bits as I settled near him. The sand was surprisingly comfortable under me. I curled my arms around my knees.
There he went being kind again. I looked at him from the corner of my eyes. He truly was becoming irresistible to me.
“So, how is it?” I asked, unable to keep myself from needling him.
“What?” he asked evenly as he stared off into the expanse of the river.
“Being so old.” I cackled at my lame joke.
He paused and looked at me from the corner of his eyes, his gaze pinning me with a curious expression to his face. “Why do you laugh?”
He was too serious. Did he not understand the concept of a joke? I rolled my eyes and laid back with a sigh. “Never mind.” I closed my eyes and tilted my face up at the suns.
“Lonely.”
My eyes popped open at his answer. Turning my head, I watched him as he angled his knees up and laid his arms over them, so they hung limp. He seemed contemplative as he started going into what I had dubbed his detached state. I squeezed my lips together, mulling over the sad-infused word he’d spoken.
“But you have Sabine,” I said, confused. Just saying the psycho’s name ruined my good mood.
“You have the wrong impression of what our relationship entails,” he said with a sardonic edge. “We use each other. That is why we stick close. We both have our reasons.”
I didn’t like the coldness that returned to his voice as he talked. “What about family? I mean, Fae have parents, right?”
“Of course. Mine were murdered when I turned eight. Along with my three siblings. One of the Queen’s Fae Guards stopped another before his sword sliced my neck as well.”
Horror coursed through me. “They left just you alive. Did you grow up alone?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Yes,” he said bitterly. “The Queen visited me after her guard doled out their deaths. She claimed to have not ordered my mother and siblings’ deaths.” I blinked up at him, worry furrowing my brow. I could tell he wanted to add more, so I stayed quiet. “She’d already assassinated the King, my Grandfather, and destroyed all of my family’s supporters. She thought it would do me well to go live with a family she trusted. More specifically, away from the castle grounds.” Roark scoffed. “As soon as I arrived… everything was taken from me. Even the clothes off my back. They locked me in their cellar for a year.”
I swallowed, the saliva feeling like a boulder as it went down my throat.
“After that, as if realizing I could be useful. They released me from that prison and made me their servant. Put me in too-tight rags to wait on them hand and foot. That went on longer… although it seems so short in the grand scheme of things.” He smiled wistfully.
I scooted closer to him but didn’t dare reach out like I yearned.
“It was calm for a while, but everything changed when I reached my fifteenth year of age. The daughter of the house began taking notice of me.” A grimace flashed over his face. Oh, lord, I did not want to hear what he was about to say. “She began making me do things. By cornering me or sneaking into my dirty little servant room. I was too weak to fight her off. She had already reached maturity, so I had no chance,” he sneered. “It wasn’t just the daughter that had her way with me. Sometimes she sent serving women. When I attempted to speak to the head male about what his precious daughter was doing”—he snorted—“he had me whipped.”
I wanted to throw up… the abuse and loneliness he’d been subjected to. Unable to help it anymore, I wrapped my hand around his, and he startled, trying to jerk away from me. I quickly released him and waited patiently as his gaze cleared. He shook his head, and a blank expression crossed his face as he got to his feet.
He reached a hand down. When I slowly reached up my own, he yanked me up and brought his lips down on mine roughly. He shoved his hands into my damp hair, brushing it back before releasing me, and just as quickly turned on his heels. I felt like I had whiplash, but I followed his lead in donning clothes, or, in his case, just the pants since his shirt was destroyed. I tugged my top over my body, glad he hadn’t smeared dung into the threads.
I quickened my stride to keep up with him, and he slowed to accommodate me. He had his walls up again, but now I understood. I knew why he was so unfeeling. Why he barred himself away with his cold front. His hurt was palpable as he looked forward, expressionless.
“Couldn’t you have used magic? This was before it was bound, wasn’t it?” Unable to help myself, I reached out to him. He froze mid-step. I tugged on his arm until he turned to face me.
“I was an untaught child. Magic doesn’t fully come in until maturity on our twenty-second year of life. Some Fae don’t even have a drop until then. I was one of the few that had a hint but being untrained made it unpredictable. Otherwise, I would have killed them all.” His expression was tight, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Giving him no chance to react, I le
aned toward him and wrapped my arms around his torso, splaying my hands on his back. He remained tense for a long moment. I leaned my cheek against his chest. The skin was silky under my face.
When he finally relaxed, he returned my embrace and nuzzled the top of my head. Warmth for this Fae infused me, and I wanted to wrap myself in him. I finally released my hold and stepped back, trying to evade his glance, feeling shy all of a sudden. Clearing my throat, I trampled through the greenery ahead of him. Moments later, his steps followed after me.
“I’m sorry,” was all I muttered under my breath. No wonder Roark hated the Queen. He must blame her. She probably knew what was going to happen. How he was going to be treated. Anger toward this faceless Queen grew inside me like an infection.
“It was years ago. Three hundred and fifty since my family was killed. I only had to deal with those Fae for ten short years. I survived,” he said almost flippantly as if trying to excuse the damage it had caused. I added eight to the big number and tried not to dwell on his age overly much. He’d told me he was old, but jeez.
“On my eighteenth year, I escaped and met Sabine while training to join the Fae Guard under an alias. After all, I couldn’t have the Queen knowing she had killed my parents. She would have never let me join the guard otherwise. I wanted to learn everything I could about her and hone my strength before I destroyed her. But before I could enact my revenge, she bound magic.” He snorted. “She did that a hundred years after I joined her guard, right when I felt prepared and strong enough to take her down. Sabine and I have plotted the return of magic ever since. It has been a long journey, to say the least.”
Wow, hundreds of years with that crazy psycho? I wanted to ask him if he had ever loved her. If they had ever been more than just allies or a convenience, but I didn’t. I didn’t know if it was fear or worry about what he would say, but I knew I’d feel hurt regardless of the answer. They’d been in each other’s company for years, period. They probably knew things about each other—
I stopped my train of thought before jealousy and anger turned my stomach and made me burst into tears. God, I hated crying when I got angry. The good thing was that it took a lot, and I do mean a lot to make me mad. Like Jeff cheating, which felt so in the past but was, realistically, mere days ago. Right before Sabine dragged me into this world.
I blamed my parents for teaching me how to harden my emotions. The environment I grew up in was the furthest thing from conventional. At least, I’d had a roof over my head. I snorted.
My snort drew a glance from Roark. I expected him to turn away from me, but a wrinkle of concern appeared by his brow.
“Are you…well?” His question came out a bit awkward as if he weren’t used to asking after someone’s welfare. I smiled to reassure him as my mind was drawn into my memories.
I guess I was thankful that the environment I was raised in had taught me levelheadedness and control in intense situations. Really came in handy when being kidnaped.
He scratched his neck and then took a few short steps to stand in front of me. He dipped and scooped me up, so I was held like a child. He made me feel protected as he engulfed me in his arms—not that I’d ever admit it, of course.
“Since your body was able to withstand my speed, I will run. We will arrive quicker.” I’d forgotten he’d had to run at Fae level when we were being shot at—and I hadn’t imploded.
Part of me felt a pang of disappointment at his words, and I nodded, remembering the feeling of being whooshed around. The breathlessness. The headache. I braced myself and held my breath, but before he could take off, there was snorting to the side of us, accompanied by a thump.
Leaves rustled, and a black hairy tail whooshed out as it flicked from side to side. I squinted at it. Arms squeezing me to him tighter, Roark took a step away, but it caught the attention of a… horse?
The large curving rump of a horse’s butt emerged from the brush, the tail flicking over its reddish pelt. The long middle was exposed, and my eyes traced its body upward. When I got to the top, I gasped and jerked in Roark’s arms.
“Is that a centaur?” I whispered in awe. I felt his chuckles through his body’s movement. The long body stretched up into the torso of a man, the limbs defined and lean in the same reddish pelt the rest of it was. Two horns twirled outward atop its head. Instead of turning to look at us, it used its hands to pick at some of those multicolored leaves and shove them into its mouth, blankly masticating away.
“It’s a Taurus. Centaur must be a human term.” He didn’t move away from the large animal as it grazed away.
“I thought they were able to talk?” I said dubiously as I stared at it munching.
“They are. They are also not solitary creatures. This is what magic being gone did to the species. Reverted them to a mindless animal form.” He shook his head and turned away from it. What else existed? A little part of me wondered about unicorns.
Roark walked on at a steady pace, and I stared at him, tracing the sharp lines of his face, unable to tear my eyes away from him. A warmth entered my chest and spread outward. As I did, he slid me glances. The smile at the corner of his mouth tipped up slightly as if he found me funny.
“Do you have family?”
My eyebrows flew up at his question, but I felt a little wiggle of excitement that he cared enough to ask. “Yep. Parents, a sister, and my dog.” I could hear the sadness in my own voice.
He shot me an expectant glance, similar to the one I had shot him when I’d wanted him to tell me more.
“My parents weren’t the best. They were neglectful. Since I can remember, I’ve always done everything for myself and my sister. Honestly, before that, I wonder who helped me survive until I was at an age where I could help myself.” I shrugged.
“They hurt you,” he stated more than asked. The words came out on a growl, and his grip tightened around me.
I hesitated before answering, the warmth turning to an uncomfortable burn in my chest. “My dad had always been heavy-hand. I had to learn from an early age how to talk him down.” This walking on eggshells routine had been well used in my childhood. “He’d use anything as an excuse to smack me. I was just relieved that he didn’t target my little sister.”
My brain was tugged into a memory of the one and only time he attempted to hurt Annie.
I threw myself forward, grabbed Annie’s five-year-old arms, and thrust her behind me. “Daddy, that’s not smart of you to do.” The meaty hand attached to the meaty man paused. He was about to open his mouth to spit something at me when I interrupted him. “Dad, she’s starting school. You wouldn’t like them to ask questions, right?” I said softly in the way I had trained my voice to be calm and collected whenever talking to him like this.
“Go to your room,” he spat at a frightened Annie, who clutched my old ragged shirt from the back.
“R-Rae,” she stuttered.
I detached her hands from my shirt and nudged her away with a smile, hoping she wouldn’t see the tight fear on my face. “I’ll be right in, Annie. If you go and stay quiet, I’ll take you to the park,” I said calmly, and she wobbled off.
“You and your mouth,” Dad bit out, and the open-palmed hands started flying at me…
“I will kill him for you,” he said with a growl.
I jolted out of the memory, realizing his expression had darkened in a deadly way. Instead of fearing his declaration, I was surprised I wanted him to do the very thing he threatened. I slowly reached out to touch his neck and caressed it. I smiled up at him.
“It wasn’t the first time or the last time he beat me. The worst was after he found me with Bernard.” I shivered at the remembered pain. He’d sprained my arm that day. It had also been the culminating event that caused him to kick me out.
Roark tensed beside me at Bernard’s name, his eyes narrowing.
I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I was… doing things with him.”
A growl sounded in his chest, and I stared up at him, wide-eyed.
What I saw on his tight face surprised me. I could have sworn it was jealousy. Unable to help myself, I reached out and set my palm on his shoulder and soothed it down the side of his arm. He automatically calmed.
Pulling back my hand like it burned, I nervously tucked my hair behind my ear. “Dad found us, and Bernard ran when he started hitting me. Dad told me I was a whore, and a whore was not welcome in his house. He said if I didn’t leave, he’d make sure Annie suffered the consequences.”
Pain speared my chest. I had graduated by then and had a steady job at the diner in town. Thankfully, I’d hidden some money away, or else I would have been screwed. I didn’t even want to consider what I would have had to do for a living. But I’d comforted myself with the knowledge that Dad never hit her. She was always his favorite.
“I didn’t tell her why I left. She didn’t know Dad still smacked me around. I got really good at hiding the bruises.” But he was smart, he always worked to not leave any. “I knew a little part of her hated me for leaving, but at least she kept in contact with me. Until last year. She stopped talking to me after she begged me to come visit her and I said no.” I startled when he squeezed me closer to his hard chest. Roark was soothing me. From the look on his face, it was new to him. I cuddled my face into his chest and kept talking. “I don’t know what Dad told her, but it drove a wedge between us. She wouldn’t answer any of my calls, and after a while, I stopped trying.”
I didn’t say the part that added to my guilt. It was around the time I met Jeff and he had become a distraction that kept me from trying harder.
I closed my eyes. “When Sabine took me, I was actually on my way to her. I gave up on her when all I wanted was to protect her,” I said as familiar guilt settled.
“You protected her your entire life. It sounds like you raised her. Do not feel guilty for being forced to leave.” His words offered such a simple solution.
I smiled up at him. He was sweet to say that, but he was coming from a protective place, whereas I knew how cowardly I had been. I could have tried more. Now all I wanted was to find out why she’d called sounding so scared.