Because it feared losing its hold on him.
That hit him like a thunderbolt.
He feared the darkness, but the darkness feared the light. It feared Shaia and her love for him, and the light that grew a little brighter inside him whenever he was with her. Vail had said he was different now, and he felt that deep in his soul. Since Shaia had walked back into his life, softer feelings had been trickling back into his heart, ones he hadn’t experienced since the darkness had taken hold of him. Ones that tempered the violence and his black hunger to inflict pain, and experience it, and to shed blood and revel in it.
Was it possible that simply being around Shaia would be enough to help him ease the grip the darkness had on him?
When he looked to Vail, that question balanced on his lips, he found the male staring at the cottage with darkness in his eyes. Black spots coloured his irises as his lips peeled back off his fangs and his pointed ears flared against his wild short blue-black hair.
Fuery focused and stilled as he sensed the magic, but it didn’t feel like Rosalind’s.
It felt darker.
Vail shot to his feet and his armour swept over him as his clothing disappeared, the tiny black scales covering him from toe to neck, and forming sharp serrated claws over his fingers.
The magic humming in the air disappeared, together with the second heartbeat Fuery had just locked on to in the house.
His ears twitched as a door opened, and he sensed Rosalind approaching.
The darkness in Vail’s eyes only grew as he narrowed them on her.
She stopped just short of him, huffed and planted her hands on her hips. “He knows you hate him, you know?”
“Who knows?” Fuery looked from Vail to Rosalind.
She sighed, let her hands slip from her waist and her shoulders slumped. “An old friend… Atticus Darcy. He’s a witch. Vail made it very clear the first time he visited that he wasn’t welcome.”
“The male is a damned lothario.” Vail flexed his claws and scowled at the cottage, as if the male was still there. “He hardly has the appearance of a witch. Am I to sit idly by while he seduces you out of my grasp?”
Rosalind’s eyebrows rose. “Lothario? Where did you learn that word?”
“The television.” A flicker of unease crossed Vail’s face. “It is the correct usage of the term, is it not? He strikes me as a male determined to seduce females.”
“Well… yes… that is the right definition… and I don’t want to know what sort of TV you’ve been watching to learn it… but… hang on.” Her eyes narrowed on Vail. “What do you mean he doesn’t have the appearance of a witch?”
Vail looked away from her now, fascinated by his feet. “He is too handsome.”
She huffed, and bit out, “So witches are meant to be ugly?”
His eyes shot up to meet hers and he took a step towards her, his right hand lifting to reach for her as his eyebrows furrowed. “No… I… you are beautiful… and you know that is not what I meant, and it is not my fault I do not like the male. It is his fault. He looked at you.”
She frowned at him, her lips settling in a mulish line. “He has eyes… that tends to happen when people have eyes!”
“Not like that. He looked at you.” Vail ran a pointed and lustful glance up and down her, as if to illustrate the way the witch had looked at Rosalind.
She turned her gaze towards Fuery, clearly seeking his support.
He held his hands up. “I would have killed him if he had looked at my mate like that.”
Her eyes brightened and she leaped on the change of subject like a fiend possessed. “You thought you had killed her?”
He nodded, weathered Vail’s growl of displeasure as the male glared at him for allowing his mate to divert the course of their conversation, and said, “I think the darkness muddled things. Even when she came to the guild to find me, I thought her a ghost, an apparition sent to torture me with my sins. Sometimes, I still believe I have killed her.”
Vail slumped back onto the grass, crossed his legs and grumbled, “It happens.”
“She thought I was dead too.” Fuery picked at the grass, idly plucking a few stems, and wove them together as he talked. “When I became tainted—”
He cut himself off as Vail tensed.
Rosalind was swift to sit beside her mate, her hands gliding over his stiff shoulders, massaging them as she whispered sweet things to him. The darkness in the male’s eyes slowly receded, but the hurt lingered, pain that Fuery had caused with his careless words.
“I am sorry,” Vail whispered. “It is my fault.”
Fuery shook his head. “The darkness was always there in me. We were trained to use it, and I allowed it to take hold of me like that.”
He leaned towards Vail, placed his hand on the male’s leather-clad knee, and waited for him to look at him before continuing.
“I hold nothing against you, my prince. You did what you had to do in order to save the lives of everyone else in the kingdom, including my Shaia.”
“Pretty name,” Rosalind murmured softly as she rubbed at her mate’s shoulders, kneading the tension away. “I bet she’s a looker.”
Vail tilted his head towards her, his amethyst eyes clearing as they sought her. “No one is as beautiful as you.”
She pushed his shoulder, jerking him forwards, and grinned. “Charmer.”
Fuery wanted to say that Shaia was even more beautiful than Rosalind, but he liked being alive now that she was back in his life and was sure Vail would kill him if he dared to voice that opinion.
Rosalind settled beside her mate, her left side leaning into him as she pulled her knees up to her chest. Vail slipped his arm around her and pulled her closer still, his fingertips pressing into her arm as he clutched her. Blotches of black still marred his eyes, a sign that he was still thinking about the male Rosalind had been meeting with at the cottage.
Fuery made a mental note to look into Atticus Darcy and see about eliminating him.
“Hartt believes my bond with Shaia might have been holding back the darkness all this time, stopping it from taking me completely and bringing me back.” He inspected the braid of grass, plucked a few more stems, and began weaving them into the others to extend its length.
“It is possible,” Vail said, a thoughtful edge to his eyes as he frowned. “My bond with Rosalind does much the same. Even when she is away from me, I am affected by it.”
Fuery sighed and lowered the braided grass into his lap as he thought about Shaia, and the hope in his heart threatened to shatter. “There is blood on my hands though. I am not the male I once was, and though she says she still loves me, I know I am changed. I’m no longer noble or good, and I’m not sure she will be able to say she loves me if she witnessed the things I did… the person I become. How can she love a monster?”
The heavy silence that descended on the orchard pressed down on him.
Rosalind broke it before the weight of it became too much.
“If Shaia loves you… truly loves you… then she loves all of you. The things you have done will not stand in the way of that love. She will understand and she will still want to be with you.” The witch brushed dirt off her knee and fixed him with a soft look, one filled with warmth and overflowing with understanding. “You say she came to you at the guild?”
He nodded.
She smiled. “Then she knew you are an assassin, Fuery. She knew the things you did and yet she still came to you… she still wants to be with you.”
He had never thought of it like that.
Hartt had told him that she had travelled the free realm looking for him, had visited several guilds in the course of her search, and she must have learned of his reputation in that time, and yet she had still come to find him.
She had stayed when she had.
Even when Hartt had turned her away, she had refused to leave, had remained close to the guild.
For his sake.
Because she wanted to be with hi
m.
“If anything,” Rosalind said, pulling him back to her, “she will want to be with you more, because she will want to help you, as I have helped this heavy-handed somewhat-grumpy and hellaciously-jealous man beside me.”
Vail’s eyebrows knit together as she spoke about him and then his expression softened as he smiled and corrected her. “As you continue to help me.”
Fuery reached for the connection between him and Shaia, needing to feel her, growing aware of the vast distance between them as he watched Vail and Rosalind, and the witch’s words sank in. The link was weak, but he could feel her, and warmth spread through him, feeding the hope in his heart.
Hope that whispered that Rosalind was right.
Shaia had come to him knowing of his past, knowing what he was, and she had remained. She had taken care of him when he had come to her, hadn’t pushed him away or looked at him with disgust in her eyes. She had embraced him.
She had still wanted him.
Even when he had been thinking dark things, wicked things.
Things he had thought would horrify his delicate female.
The desire he had sensed in her had only grown stronger. She had responded to him so beautifully, but he had failed to see it at the time, had been convinced she wouldn’t want him if he was unable to control his passion for her and became rough with her.
Gods, he had been so blinded by fear that when he had been kissing her, gripping her so fiercely, drowning in the urge to take her in a frenzied outpouring of his need, he had mistaken her excitement for his own. She hadn’t been shocked or horrified by him using his strength on her, trying to bend her to his will and dominate her.
She had been thrilled.
He needed to return to her, needed to see if she was still willing to embrace him like that, accepting all of him.
Loving all of him.
Because he was sure being with her in that way, both of them made vulnerable and trusting each other, was the key to overcoming his fear of hurting her.
The link between them flared.
Fear swamped it.
Not his.
He shot to his feet and black stilted smoke stuttered over his body as the desperate urge to teleport rushed through him.
“Shaia.”
CHAPTER 23
Shaia paced the banks of the river, the soil soft beneath her boots and the gentle sound of running water soothing her. Her heart thumped at a fast pace against her ribs, refusing to settle. She gazed at her footprints as they merged together, marking the passing of time and revealing how long she had been waiting. She clenched and unfurled her fingers, shook them in an effort to expel her nerves, and turned, walking back the other way.
She lifted her head, glancing at the water that flowed around the bend in the stream and glittered in the light from the portal. It wetted the rocks on the other side, where a cliff rose high to shelter this small part of the elf kingdom.
Was he not coming?
He was coming. She was sure of it. He hadn’t missed one of their meetings yet. She had time and could wait for him. Her family thought she was visiting one of her friends and didn’t expect her back for hours yet.
Perhaps she had the wrong place?
She shook her head at that. She had followed his instructions to the letter, and this place, with the cliff on one side and a thick forest on the other, matched his description of the one where he had asked her to meet him this time.
Maybe he had been detained.
“Sorry I am late.”
Shaia gasped and turned, her heart lodging in her throat and trembling there. A warm, teasing smile tugged at his firm lips and sparkled in his amethyst eyes, causing the flecks of lilac in them to brighten.
“Lost in thoughts of me?” he husked, a wicked and tempting note in his voice that had her quivering and caused heat to ignite inside her.
It spread as she looked him over, taking in his crisp black tunic and matching trousers, and his perfectly polished riding boots. The uniform hugged his lithe figure, leaving little to her imagination.
Her imagination still did a very fine job of picturing him as he had been that day years ago by the stream when he had come to her shirtless and fresh from sparring.
His eyes darkened, his pupils devouring the violet as he stared at her, and she stretched with her senses, pinning them on him. Desire. She could feel it beating inside him just as it beat inside her, pounding in her veins, filling her mind with images of them entwined in an intimate fashion.
Her body tingled, the heat pooling lower, at the apex of her thighs, as she recalled the way his hand had felt against her flesh, how he had given her pleasure that had left her shaking, her strength stripped from her.
“Shaia,” he croaked and a pleading look flitted across his handsome sculpted face as his black eyebrows pinched. “You’re killing me.”
She tamped down her wicked thoughts, brought her body back under control and breathed through it to expel her need, not wanting to torment him when they had made a promise to wait until he was in a position to speak with her parents before they did anything intimate again.
It was sheer torture.
He had awoken something in her and she couldn’t put it back to sleep. Whenever she was in his presence, her body came alive, need spiralling through her that robbed her of her breath and had her trembling for him, aching to have his hands on her again.
A pained growl left his lips, his face twisting in agony, and he paced away from her. He stopped a few metres away, his back to her, and remained there for long minutes that felt like hours as he wrestled with himself and she fought her desire, struggling to bring it back under control so she could be with him.
She didn’t want him to leave.
He had done so once, the need to touch her becoming too much for him.
When he finally turned back to face her, he was calm again, no trace of desire in his eyes. She held hers back, reminding herself that it was best they waited, even if waiting was killing her.
He went to a large smooth flat rock that was half on the bank and half in the river, stripped off his boots, rolled up his trousers, and sat on it with his feet in the water. He stared down at them, watching the clear water rushing over them, and then looked over his shoulder at her and held his hand out to her.
She went to him, peered at his feet and up at the sky, and made a decision. It wasn’t ladylike of her, and her family would be horrified if they saw her, but she didn’t care. It was hot today, the air humid, and though she had chosen her lightest summer dress, a pale lilac one that fitted well enough that she could forgo a corset, she needed to cool down.
She unlaced her boots, placed them beside his on the dirt, and then stepped onto the rock. It was warm beneath her soles, but cooled as she neared the river and Fuery.
He looked up at her and offered his hand. She slipped hers into it and allowed him to help her as she neared the edge of the rock and sat down, taking care not to slip on the damp stone. When she was settled, he released her, and she sighed as she hitched her dress up a little and sank her feet into the water.
“Gods,” she whispered as she instantly cooled and flames licked at her cheeks as her eyes widened and leaped to Fuery.
He didn’t seem to care that she had cursed, or that it was very unladylike of her. His eyes remained locked on her hands. Not her hands. He was staring at her legs.
“It’ll break soon,” he muttered, his voice distant, as if he wasn’t quite with her. “It’s almost harvest time.”
“Harvest time?” She frowned at that. There were a lot of different harvests, so which one was he speaking of? Which one did he know about, and intimately by the way he suddenly blinked and looked at her, a flicker of shock in his eyes and something else.
Embarrassment.
He had no reason to be ashamed around her.
She didn’t care about his lineage.
She did care about learning more about him though, and this seemed like the perfect
opportunity. He hadn’t told her of his family, had kept so much to himself, and now she could see it was because he thought she would react like her mother and be horrified by whatever upbringing he’d had.
“Are your family farmers?” She meant that as a gentle prompt, one designed to ease him into talking to her about them, but he clammed up and turned his cheek to her. While she enjoyed taking in his noble profile, she much preferred him talking to her. “Millers? The millers in my village are one of the nicest families I know. Their son recently joined the legions.”
“Farmers,” he muttered beneath his breath and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
Gauging her reaction?
She smiled at him and smoothed the layers of her dress as she arranged them so they wouldn’t fall into the water and she no longer needed to hold them. “So… at this time of year… they would be farming… um… some sort of grain?”
He nodded and relaxed a notch. “They farm and mill wheat and barley that we sell to the demons for their brews and bread. Our land is close to the border with the First Realm. It is a beautiful place, a quiet place, but I did not want to live my life that way. I wanted something different for myself.”
Adventure. It was there in his eyes as they sparkled at her, a trickle of excitement running through their tentative connection.
“So you enlisted in the army.” She looked from him to the sky, and wondered what adventure was out there for her.
“My family always spoke of me learning how to farm, how I would join their business and become like them… because that was what my father had done, and his father before him.” He sighed and lay back on the flat rock.
Shaia looked down at him as he folded his arms beneath his head and stared at the sky, his words striking a chord in her.
She hadn’t thought it possible for them to be similar in any way, but they were more similar than she could have imagined even in her wildest dreams.
“Your mood changed.” His violet eyes slid down to her and narrowed, curiosity shining in them. “Why?”
Unchained by a Forbidden Love Page 24