The Sweet Series Box Set: Books 1-4

by Bailey Ardisone

  “Yeah, me too.” His eyebrows furrowed as his gaze focused elsewhere in contemplation. “That would’ve been scary without them. I wouldn’t have known what else to tell you or have you do.”

  “If we were discussing frightening things, I would have to say that instance with those men was the worst as of yet. I had never felt fear of men before that moment. Though, I suppose it may have to do with the inability to protect ourselves with our elda powers and grace. And now, it is even worse. The connection has completely disappeared. It is strange feeling its loss from my blood.” I squared my shoulders in attempt to grow accustomed to the concept. Before Nariella had been taken, Rydan did not have access to his superhuman gifts. It had not been until his Guardian instincts took over that he had been able to take out those men. Though now with the Ëlemmiire destroyed, it was unknown to us if we would have the ability to tap into them again, even if Nariella were in severe trouble.

  “I never realized I had that connection before stepping foot into Luïnil.” His silver eyes returned to mine as he took a step closer. “I mean, now that I look back, I can understand the pull that always drew me to the Willow, but at the time I had no idea what it was. Now that I’ve experienced the strength of that connection, it’s so weird being without it. It’s like going back to plain after getting to experience extraordinary.”

  I listened to the sound of his voice as he spoke, memorizing its tenor. It was deep, masculine, yet soothing and smooth. I did not wish for him to ever cease speaking. I nodded to assure him I had been listening.

  He continued, “It’s like going from Peter Parker to Spiderman, to then just being Peter Parker again.”

  I shook my head, confusion bringing me up short. “Is he a companion of yours? I do not understand.”

  Rydan laughed, shaking his head as well. “No, no. He’s just a fictional character from a comic book. It’s just a story.”

  Despite his clarification, I was not certain I understood what he tried to say, but I did not question further. I assumed it was circumstance of the Earthly realm, and even if he were to explain it, I doubted it would be of any help.

  “Never mind,” he said after seeing the confusion remaining in my expression.

  “Forgive me, dear Rydan.” I smiled, knowing there were sure to be many of these confusing moments while I was here in the Earthly realm. “I am afraid there is much I shall not understand, despite the amount of time we spend together.” My cheeks heated at my slipped insinuation of our indulging in any sort of time with one another.

  “I can live with that,” he chuckled the words. “But I better get some sleep. My body has a ton to recover from.”

  “Of course. I shall leave you to sleep. I wish you a well rest, dear Rydan.” I bowed my head respectfully.

  “Yeah, and sweet dreams to you.” He placed a gentle kiss on the back of my hand before slipping out of our joined connection. The strands of the dream-weave flittered into nothingness, and I was once again awake in the chambers I was assigned to rest in.

  My heart continued to flutter rapidly as I held the hand he had touched so sweetly to my chest. I had to be cautious. If Ender were to discover I had fallen for the prince of our kingdom, I, being a lowly servant…Well, I knew better than to even entertain the idea.

  Yet, I could not deny my heart’s desire to at least dream of such a happy scenario, despite it being impossible to come to fruition in the end.

  Princes did not keep company with servants. Once Rydan realized this, he would have no choice but to abide by the ways of our kind.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ~Nari~

  I felt more than I heard Mycah hovering near the entrance to the guest room I was staying in. Everyone had retreated to the room they were designated to after our sorrowful discussion, looking for solitude. I slowly moved onto my back so that I could see Mycah.

  He stood leaning against the doorway, dark and mysterious. It was so quiet, you’d think I’d have heard him breathing from here, but I couldn’t. He was silent, not moving or making a sound. His sapphire eyes were out-shadowed by his depthless pupils that focused intently on my lips. A tiny bit of his tongue ran slowly along his bottom lip before he grazed his teeth over the corner, ending with it just slightly popping out of his mouth.

  Oh, holy hotness, Batman.

  “Your heart is racing,” he murmured quietly, seductively, sexily, in that oh-so beautiful accent of his. Yeah, that said heart temporarily stopped before it leapt right back into the race of its life. Air heaved out of my lungs like they were one of those fireplace bellow things.

  My eyes stayed locked onto his, helpless and completely immobilized under his power. The half of me that had hated it not long ago got devoured by the other half that so desperately loved it. Every part of me, now one-hundred-percent of me, totally loved it.

  According to Ender, we weren’t allowed to be together. How could that be? I couldn’t stand the thought. My anticipation and hopes were so high, I was slightly afraid that one more second, one more look, one more touch, just one more kiss would kill me. Please, please kiss me. Please touch me, and I would die happy.

  Without releasing the hold on my gaze for even a nanosecond, Mycah drew closer gradually, hesitantly. I stood up shakily, trapped and completely at his mercy. He slid his hand along my cheek toward the nape of my neck, tangling his fingers in my hair. He grazed his thumb over my cheekbone.

  “Tell me something,” he breathed, searching my eyes for a specific emotion or truth of some kind.

  “Anything.” If I could catch my breath...I could hardly say that one word, let alone an entire explanation or sentence, depending on what he wanted to know.

  “Do you have any idea,” the pain in his voice made me gasp, “the level of power you have over me?”

  I wanted to answer, but I was caught like a deer in headlights by the way he forced a swallow and licked his lips, just waiting for my response.

  When I didn’t reply, he continued, “I…I do not know if I can keep myself from you. But Ender—” He shook his head. “You are the hardest thing I have ever had to restrain myself from.”

  I tried to turn away, not wanting to discuss what Ender had said just yet, but he stopped me. “Nariella, you must know. When we were in Luïnil before, you fell so quickly against me when you had thought I was harming your people, and I had no chance to truly explain what that did to me. So badly I wanted you to know the truth; to know I almost gave up everything to protect you from any sort of affliction. Watching you endure such pain and agony whilst not being able to do a bloody thing about it was utterly maddening. That moment you searched for me when Sarqua was—” he cut himself off. The sound of his voice was raw and gruff.

  I hadn’t had a chance to really think about the events that happened in Luïnil. I went from one life-threatening situation right into the next without any pause for reflection. And honestly, it scared me to contemplate this very topic. Especially since I was ashamed of myself for losing faith in this beautiful creature. I had no reason to doubt him, yet that was exactly what I had done. My eyes had betrayed my heart, fooling me to believe in what I had seen rather than what I had known and felt deep down inside. I was an idiot.

  But I couldn’t deny the hurt I had truly felt at the time when Mycah let Sarqua whip me. I began trembling, loathing the memories as they came flooding back. The pain inflicted physically by Sarqua had been nothing compared to the agony felt within from believing Mycah hadn't cared.

  He dropped his hand from my face, extinguishing all contact. Taking a step back away from me, his jaw was slack, mouth slightly agape. His eyes were wide as they stared aghast at some spot on the floor.

  “Mycah?” panic sliced up my vocal cords.

  His fists looked tighter and more solid than stone. He turned from me and faced the wall, placing his clenched fists against it on either side of his hung head.

  “Hey, what is it?” My chest caved in. What was going on? Was he in pain? Just tell me, for
crying out loud!

  “Please think of something else. Please, you have to think of something else,” he begged, rushing the words out like he was suffering from brutal torment, as if the mere action of speaking ripped the flesh off his bones.

  “Just tell me what’s wrong,” I begged, not able to stand seeing him like this.

  “It bloody hurts!” he squeezed the words out through clenched teeth, fists balled against his face, his forehead pressed firmly to the wall.

  I did what he said and thought about puppies and kittens, baby elephants, and all my favorite anime characters...anything and everything else. I didn’t know what he meant, but I focused my thoughts on things that brought happy emotions forefront.

  He relaxed, exhaling a huge gust of breath from his body. I hesitated, not entirely sure I could speak just yet. I kept my mind reeling with images of peaceful moments and whatever I loved or brought me joy. I was afraid to stop.

  “Forgive me. Your emotions combined with mine are growing more intense and painful. It’s too much to bear.” Mycah stayed exactly how he was. Even though he didn’t seem to be in utter torture anymore, it appeared to be replaced by increasing anger. It was more than I could take watching him like this; I just had to do something.

  Stepping closer, I glided my hands over the tensed muscles in his back, up over his shoulders and to his neck. His familiar scent wrapped around me while this near. The moment my fingers touched the crown of his head, I was transported instantaneously to scenes from the past, as if I were standing in them. I was no longer in the O’Malleys’ guest room.

  I stumbled backward, confusion at where I truly was igniting within. It looked so real…but it was only memories. My pulse quickened as I watched myself getting captured by Ohtar through Mycah’s eyes, the scene literally playing as though I was right back in the castle. I could feel the strength it took on Mycah’s part not to help me, but to keep his desire to protect me—to save us all—buried so that Ohtar couldn’t detect it.

  Frazzled butterflies exploded in my stomach as I realized I could tell what he was thinking and feeling in those moments he was allowing me to see. It was more difficult than he could have ever imagined as he restrained himself from cutting off Sarqua’s head the instant he struck me the first time as I was being captured. It went to his desire for me as I slept in Ohtar’s servant chambers and the effort he had to put forth to ignore the burning passion he felt for me.

  The colors and atmosphere dissolved and reappeared like a canvas as he flipped through the way Sarqua handled me roughly, then to the way Mycah had to talk to me as if we were enemies. A flash of the way my expression and heartbreak broke his own heart appeared right before my eyes. I flinched as he moved on to me getting slapped by Sarqua and the way I felt about it at the time, which he had been able to feel wholeheartedly.

  My heart exploded—the betrayal and disappointment I felt for Mycah back then flooded my system tenfold in the present, magnified through his emotions. My suffering then and just a moment ago when I was remembering those instances tormented him. That was why he was in pain a second ago. The agony was overwhelming to him. When both of our emotions mixed together—cooped up in his body—they quadrupled in strength, inflicting mental and physical pain.

  Every harsh word and action made by Sarqua toward me almost sent him over the edge. The memory of his wavering resolve and determination to follow through with his plan to save his people, to bring retribution to his kingdom, hit me in the gut and I almost doubled over. It took everything he had, every bit of strength he could conjure not to lose his footing and protect me, to not give himself away.

  But none of that compared to his devastation the moment Sarqua ripped the clothes from my back. I could see it all around me. I spun in circles, taking in the sight of being back in that greenery once again. I could feel it, through both my painful agony felt by Mycah at the time, and Mycah’s all on its own. Except, the level of anguish and loathing I had been feeling was without comparison to what Mycah had felt. Everything was amplified to the max, him not only dealing with his own wretchedness, but my heartache and hardships poured into him like a broken dam.

  My chest tightened as I became overwhelmed with his memories. I took hold of his arm, consumed by remorse. It was beyond crippling, the deep torment slamming into him like a freight train. I gasped as he ran from the group—from Sarqua punishing me. The trees blurred past as he raced to anywhere else but there, his grip on self-control slipping from him with every second. The dirt below his feet was barely disturbed despite him running faster than a bullet. But he couldn’t escape it. He felt each and every minute detail of pain and suffering inflicted upon me. I could feel his pure, unadulterated hatred toward Sarqua as he made his first slash across my bare back.

  I could no longer breathe as I felt it—the control over his own body was gone. As much as Mycah forced his undying love for me to disappear, it erupted in him full force. He loved me. And it consumed him. Mycah was at the very edge of losing it, the very precipice of giving it all up, sacrificing his entire kingdom just so he could rip Sarqua’s heart from his chest. He sped through the dense forest back the way he came, returning to me. It was beyond what he could take, and if the Tavas’Elda hadn’t come just when they had, Mycah would have killed Sarqua. He would have torn him to shreds.

  I let go of him, cringing, letting my fingers lift off his skin. It was sickening, the level of slaughter that he craved for Sarqua. It was too much.

  But it had all been because he couldn’t stand what he had done to me.

  “No,” he rasped, swaying forward and placing his hands cradled around my head.

  I was swept up again in his mind, his emotions, as he showed me his ugly hatred for himself through my eyes and his grief over it. He had felt my shock, confusion, and brokenness culminated from his actions. Each time I had thought he killed one of my kin he was stabbed with my anger and resentment.

  Skipping ahead, he showed me the torture he went through watching and feeling my own torture, the reason he let me slap him across the face and beat against his chest. It was his punishment. He let me punish him for allowing me to suffer, for allowing me to think he was evil. But more than that, he let me take my frustration out on him, for me. It was what I had needed to do. I watched through his eyes as I dropped to my knees, crying out in pain. He was done. He could handle absolutely no more, and so he ended my misery by putting me to sleep, only his own misery continuing on.

  Understanding came crashing down on me. He would do anything for his kingdom. No matter what it took, he would save his people.

  Except when it came to me.

  I was the exception. In the end, he would always choose my life over anything else.

  When he rescued me as I fell from that cliff, he sacrificed himself, his Fëa, his brother, his mother, his Guardian...his entire kingdom...for me.

  It would always be for me.

  Luïnil slowly disappeared in shattered fragments, erasing back into the guest room that was fully visible once again.

  “I just needed you to know. I needed you to see the truth,” Mycah whispered harshly, resting his forehead against mine. “Every moment you were in Luïnil, every encounter you faced, each affliction and ache thrust upon you gutted me. It gutted me, Nariella.”

  I stood weak and shaking, my heart left in an agonizing vise-grip. How could I respond to what just happened? I slipped my hands around his neck, braiding my fingers together, wholly consumed by the leftover emotions he just let me experience. There were so many things I wanted to say to him.

  “And I just need you to know something, too. I may be of a higher species than humans, but I am nowhere near perfect. I’m far from it, actually. Yes, I cry. I cry when I get kidnapped and tortured. Or if a treasured art project I worked so hard on gets shattered. I cry when bad things happen and I have absolutely no control over how things go. I’m weak, I’m emotional, and I’m a real person. I’m not the ideal heroine that automatically knows h
ow to do everything exactly the way it should be. I mess up. I make mistakes. But I learn from them. Eventually, anyway.

  “The point is I’m not perfect. I will never be perfect. I know now that I should’ve trusted you. I should’ve never lost even a tiny bit of faith in you. I’m truly, truly sorry for that. But I need you to know that I never stopped loving you. It didn’t matter that I believed you were killing the people I was driven to protect, or that I thought you turned against me. Deep down I never, not even for one second, ceased loving you. And that’s what made watching you do those horrible things so unbearable. It’s because I loved you that it affected me the way it did. You fooled me, okay? I admit it. Your trickery blinded me to the obvious truth. But at least now I know that you could send this world up in flames, taking me with it, and I would die loving you. That’s the only part of me that is perfect. My love for you.”

  Mycah gazed down at me longingly and adoringly, lacing our fingers together as he brought them up to his lips. He slowly kissed each of my knuckles, my stomach doing a cartwheel every time his lips touched my skin. My voice came out breathless, “Please know how sorry I am for doubting you. I won’t ever do it again.”

  Now that we were opening up, I needed him to know more than anything how much I regretted my actions in Luïnil. I wanted to apologize for everything…for all the horrible, sick things I did to his people. But…I couldn’t. I opened my mouth to start in on my remorse, yet no words came out. I was too scared to bring it up.

  “No, forgive me, Nariella. Allowing Sarqua to lay a hand on you was beyond anything I’ve had to endure. Never have I felt such anger and misery before. Even now the memories are agonizing. I will kill him for it, Nariella. You have my word. By the end of this, one way or another, he shall pay for what he did to you.” It seemed like every muscle in Mycah’s body tensed, and I, too, went rigid.

  I was haunted by what happened in Luïnil, tormented with the huge mistakes I made. But I never thought Mycah would have his own skeletons chasing after him, too.