My chest tightens and I feel like I can’t breathe. “I’m so sorry.”
“Do you hate me so very much?”
“What?” I ask in bewilderment. “I don’t hate you at all. Kallen, you have to believe me. I didn’t do this on purpose.”
“Every Fairy but you can control his or her magic.”
I hang my head and my tears start to fall again. I turn away from him and sit on the floor with my knees pulled up to my chest because I can’t face him right now. I can’t stand to keep looking at the fear and accusation in his eyes. “Maybe,” I begin but I have to stifle a sob before I can continue. “Maybe you were right when you came here. Maybe I am too much of a threat to both realms. I don’t want to destroy anything, Kallen, but I can’t control my magic. I would rather die by your hand than open the gateway with my dying blood.”
Kallen doesn’t say anything for a long time as I continue to stare into the fire. For all I know, he went back to sleep. I continue to hug my knees not even feeling the warmth of the fire as my tears continue to flow.
“Xandra,” Kallen says softly.
“Yes?” I say but I don’t turn around. I’m scared of what he’s going to say.
“Will you please stop being so dramatic and come here?”
My brows slam together in mystification and I let go of my knees so I can turn around. He’s still sitting on the cot with his back against the wall. He’s still pale but not as pale as he was. “What did you say?”
“I asked you to stop being so dramatic and come here.”
I search his face trying to understand what he’s saying because it’s not making sense to me. I nod numbly and I stand up walking towards him slowly. When I reach the cot, he stretches out lying on his side and he pats the empty space on the narrow cot in front of him. Is this some kind of trick?
“Why?” I ask stupidly.
He sighs. “Because I am tired and I want to go back to sleep and that will be a lot easier if I do not have to hear you cry. It is much more pleasant when you are lying quietly next to me.”
“You want me to sleep with you?”
“I am always amazed by your brilliant deduction,” he says sardonically. “Yes, I want you to sleep with me.”
“Why?” I ask again.
“Xandra, please stop talking and lay down. You’re making my headache worse.”
I have no idea how to respond to that so I do what he wants and I lie down next to him. The cot is almost too narrow for the two of us but Kallen wraps his arms around me like he did when we were in my sleeping bag and he pushes my hair aside so it’s not in his face. He dumbfounds me even more when he lifts his head to kiss my cheek leaving my skin tingling. “I lied to you,” he whispers in my ear.
Any other time I would have been angry about him admitting to another lie but I don’t care right now. “It’s okay.”
He chuckles softly. “Do you not want to know what I lied about?”
I shake my head. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
I feel him smile against my cheek. “I’m not sure I like you this forgiving, it takes the fun out of teasing you. I lied to you when I said I would stop underestimating your power and overestimating your control over it. You were right when you called yourself an enigma and I’ve been treating you as a Fairy instead of a Witch Fairy. I need to admit that I have no idea how strong you are or how wild your magic is. And that I have no idea how to teach you to control it.”
“Then you should do what you came here to do,” I whisper back.
He sighs. “I recall telling you to stop being so dramatic and I did not come to this realm to end your life. I came to assess if you would willingly allow the gate between realms to be open and I know the answer to that. You would not. And, you seem to be strong enough that no one could force you to do it. Just because your magic is wild and untamed does not mean you are going to use it willy-nilly and cause mass destruction. You can simply choose not to use it unless provoked as you have your entire life.”
“Willy-nilly?” I ask with a tiny giggle. “You are old.”
Kallen nips my ear lobe. “Out of that entire speech, the only thing you heard was my use of an antiquated term?”
I turn my head and kiss his lips softly. “I heard everything you said. Thank you.” And then I turn my head back and snuggle my body closer to his pulling his arms tighter around me and feel myself begin to relax, truly relax, for the first time since we started our journey together.
Chapter 17
I wake up a short while later because Kallen is awake and taking a huge interest in my neck and ear. “Mm, that tickles,” I complain hoping he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t.
“I would find you just as beautiful if there were a million Fairy women for me to choose from,” he whispers making me smile. I still don’t know that I believe that but it’s nice to hear. Especially after the day we’ve had.
“May I kiss you?” he asks as his lips graze my ear.
“You are kissing me,” I can’t help but saying which causes him to nip my ear as he had earlier.
“Fine,” I say with an exaggerated sigh as I maneuver myself so I am facing him.
He gives me a sour look. “I would hate to put you out.”
“Well, I did almost kill you today, it’s the least that I can do,” I tease not quite sure if it’s too soon to be making I almost killed you jokes.
“Are you telling me a kiss from you at this point would simply be out of remorse?” he asks with a glint in his eye that tells me it’s not too soon. At least I hope that’s what that glint means.
“Of course, would there be any other reason?”
With a growl of annoyance, he shifts so quickly I hardly know what he’s doing and suddenly I’m flat against the cot with him lying on top of me. “Tell you what,” he says holding himself up by his elbows so he doesn’t have all of his weight on me. “I will start kissing you and you let me know when it is no longer about remorse but pleasure.”
I purse my lips as I pretend to think about it. “Is there another option?”
He’s having a hard time keeping his face serious as I continue to tease him. “Yes, you could simply admit that you would find it pleasurable if I kissed you.”
I feign being shocked. “I could never admit that.”
“You are the most stubborn, aggravating, and mouthy Witch Fairy I have ever come across.”
I snort. “I’m the only Witch Fairy you’ve come across.”
“You do have a point. Regardless, I am afraid I am going to have to go back to kissing you for my original reason.”
“Oh? And what was that?”
He grins. “To shut you up.” And then his lips are on mine and they’re demanding and sexy and I open my mouth to him and there is absolutely no remorse in this kiss. I wrap my arms around his back and he moans softly when I slip my hands under his shirt to feel the skin of his muscular torso.
“Get rid of this,” I murmur against his lips and then his shirt is gone leaving my hands plenty of space to roam without being inhibited.
“I have wanted to kiss you like this since the moment I saw you,” he says as he kisses a trail down my jaw to find a sensitive spot behind my ear.
“Liar,” I say and then inhale shakily as I feel his hand on my skin under my shirt. I spend about half a second deciding if that is okay and I come up with the answer definitely. I pull his mouth back to mine and relish in the feel of his touch as his hands explore the contours of my body.
I groan loudly in frustration when Kallen pushes up from me closing his eyes and breathing heavily. I try to pull his mouth back to mine but he’s like a slab of marble and I can’t. “What’s wrong?” I ask utterly perplexed. And then I narrow my eyes and stare hard at him. “Is this because I’m a half-breed?”
His eyes open and they’re jumping in amusement. “No, it is not. As a matter of fact, I have experienced a complete turn around in my opinion regarding the attraction of a full-blooded Fairy. It seems that I h
appen to prefer half-breeds.”
Now I’m really confused. “Then why did you stop kissing me?”
“Because, my beautiful Witch Fairy, ironic as it may be since I was the one who initiated this, I fear that you may truly only be kissing me because of what happened earlier today.”
“I’m not,” I assure him and try to pull him back to me but he still refuses to budge. He chuckles which makes me want to hit him more than I want to kiss him. “You’re laughing at me again.”
“I assure you, I am laughing in joy for your enthusiasm,” he says and he leans down and kisses me lightly. I want to deepen the kiss but he pulls back again and rolls onto his side next to me. “But it would be wrong of me to let things go any further until we both know for certain this is what you want.”
I turn onto my side in frustration and mumble under my breath, “Who died and made you the kissing police.”
Smoothing my hair back from my neck, Kallen kisses it lightly. “I want to continue what we were doing just as badly as you seem to right now, but I fear we were heading toward committing to something I am not certain you want and I will not take advantage of our unusual circumstances. You’re emotions are running high and I’m not convinced you are of the right frame of mind to make this decision. It is important to me that you truly want to kiss me out of sheer desire not because of some misplaced guilt.”
I really, really want to be mad at him. I do. But what he’s saying makes perfect sense. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I had no intention of kissing him ever again and now I’m upset because he won’t kiss me. I guess I can’t have it both ways. I really do need to decide what I want my relationship with Kallen to be.
I sigh and relax next to him again and he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close to him. “And just so you know,” he whispers softly, “if we ever made love, according to Fairy law, we would be hand-fasted.”
I remember what that means and my body instantly tenses again. If Kallen and I were to have sex, he would consider us to be married. I couldn’t have gone from arousal to ‘what did I almost do’ faster if I had taken an ice cold shower of sleet. It seems like he could have mentioned that at least once over the last few days. But then again, when is the right time to say to someone you barely know, ‘by the way if we have sex we’re married by Fairy law.’
It took a long time to fall asleep after Kallen’s little bombshell so when I feel him moving to get out of bed around dawn, I moan and keep my eyes tightly closed. He must have let me go back to sleep because when I open my eyes again, the sun is streaming through the windows with late morning light. I rub my eyes and yawn as I sit up.
When I open my eyes and look around, I’m surprised that Kallen isn’t in the cabin. I wonder what he could be doing. I kind of appreciate the fact that he’s not here because it gives me time to figure out how I’m going to act around him. Though twenty minutes later when he comes into the cabin and shakes off the snow from his clothes, I’m not any closer to an answer.
“You’re finally awake,” he says as he puts down several pieces of wood next to the fireplace. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” I say realizing I had skipped dinner last night because I was so worried about Kallen.
He has a teasing glint in his eye. “Me too and I believe you promised to cook all the meals if you did not keep your promise not to douse me with more snow yesterday.”
“You’ve been up since dawn and you haven’t eaten because you were waiting for me to cook for you? That’s just pathetic,” I grumble as I stand up. He laughs and puts some more wood in the fire. My bladder tells me I’m not doing anything until it’s empty so I begin pulling on my boots and coat.
When I come back in, Kallen has already started some soup cooking. As soon as my nose smells it, my stomach starts growling loudly in a demand to be fed. Looking up from stirring the soup, he says, “I believe I have a new plan.”
Please don’t let it involve hand-fasting, I think as I say hesitantly, “Okay.”
He raises his brows in a mocking way at my sudden and very obvious nervousness. “It does not have anything to do with physical contact between you and me,” he says dryly. I visibly relax and begin to take off my coat. When I look back at Kallen, I see a shadow of what I’m sure is rejection in his eyes. Great, now I’ve hurt his feelings.
Moving on to a safer subject, I ask, “Does it have to do with Maurelle and Olwyn?”
I’m relieved when he says, “Yes.”
“I’m all ears,” I say and I’m warring with myself whether I should give him a kiss good morning or just sit down at the table. I finally figure if I have to think this hard about whether or not I should kiss him, I should just sit down. So I do.
Kallen pours the soup into the bowls and places one in front of me. “Thank you,” I say with a genuine smile. “What’s your plan?”
“Since it is apparently impossible to teach you any self control,” he says and I make a face at him which makes him laugh. “I think we should go with your strength.”
My mouth drops open, “You want me to kill them?”
He looks as shocked as I feel. “What did I say that made you jump to that conclusion?”
Now I feel stupid. “Nothing. What did you mean?”
Shaking his head and staring at me for a moment, he finally continues. “As I was saying, we should go with your strength and that is using your wild magic on a grand scale.”
“So I can start another avalanche or a rock slide?”
He frowns at me. “Are you going to let me finish or should I just expect you to interrupt after each sentence?”
I guess he woke up on the wrong side of the cot. I’m tempted to tell him yes, that’s exactly what I mean to do but I manage to keep my mouth shut and make a please continue gesture with my hand.
Looking doubtful, he begins again. “The runners that your father sent here, as I explained before, were chosen because of their willingness to do anything it takes to get the job done. They would bring you to him with barely a last breath in you if they get their hands on you.”
“That sounds pleasant,” I mumble and he cocks his head impatiently. I grimace and make a my lips are sealed motion in front of my mouth. I’m not sure if got what it meant but he continues anyway.
“Pooka warriors are nothing better than mercenaries. They understand violence better than they understand logic so reasoning with them is almost impossible. But you have already gone a long way, I’m sure, of impressing upon them that you are considerably stronger than they are. I believe taking the fight to them is our best bet. If we actively seek them out and take up an offensive strategy rather than defensive and then you give them an even better demonstration of your magic, that may be enough for them to tuck tail and run away.”
I suddenly have a vision of a fox and a mountain lion tucking their tails between their back legs and running away and I can’t help a giggle which makes Kallen look at me like I’m crazy. I start to explain but I close my mouth because it was probably one of those things you had to think it yourself or it wouldn’t be funny. “Okay, I understand your reasoning, but what about what you said about them using my family against me?”
“I’ve been thinking about that and I believe that a more forceful demonstration of your power may be enough to change their minds about anything like that. I also suspect, now mind you I am saying suspect because I do not know for sure, that you would be able to direct your magic so that it only affects who you want it to affect.”
Now I look at him like he’s crazy. “What on earth gives you that idea?”
He shrugs. “Part of it could probably be put down to intuition but a part of it is how you acted yesterday.”
“When I almost killed you without meaning to. That doesn’t seem like a good example to me.”
“But when you focused your magic on me, even though you could not send it back down into the earth, you also pinpointed it only on me. Not as much as a flake of snow was affected. You saw
me as the threat and you directed your attack only on me.”
“I didn’t attack you,” I say sulkily and he cocks his head and raises his brows. Okay, maybe I did. “But what makes you think they’ll be so afraid of me that they’ll leave me alone for good? If they still come after me after what I did to them already doesn’t that prove your theory incorrect?”
Kallen shakes his head. “No, because I know you were focusing most of your anger at me, not them. They did not get a true feeling of what it is like to have your magic burning inside of them. And they probably believed that it was me who was doing it.”
Good lord, he makes me sound like a monster. “But you said that if you hadn’t drawn most of my magic inside of you that I would have killed them.”
True of Blood (Witch Fairy Series) Page 19