by Lexi Ostrow
But sex didn’t explain why she forced herself to watch him in his world until the doorway closed. She’d never wanted to be tied down to someone before, and she wanted to blame whatever tie they had for causing it. She hadn’t spent any time with him. All she’d learned was that he had a lot of power, a somewhat penchant for things most people with strong morals would turn their nose up at and that he’d made someone a promise.
She’d almost thought he was willing to believe her, that she wasn’t evil. She’d never done anything to show a dark side of herself. Fuck, they’d never done anything but fight and have sex. It was impossible for him to have an opinion based on what she was written to be when she felt as if she was so much more than a killer.
“There certainly isn’t enough to give a damn that he doesn’t want you, Breena.” She sighed and sat down on her own bed.
All she could assume was she simply connected with him. That there was just something compelling them to be together, and, perhaps, it was best if he wanted to end it. Breena was in a selfish funk, and she almost missed the sound of her door opening.
“Ah, there you are. Come home I see?” her father’s voice was as regal as ever as he strode into the room and sat on her bed. “It’s the strangest thing. I know you’ve been gone, and yet, I can’t remember having done a thing since I last saw you. Any reason you can think of that explains that, Breena?” the tone in his voice suggested he somehow knew everything.
“You were there, weren’t you?” her tone wasn’t accusatory, in fact, she felt relieved to know she could speak to someone about the insanity that had unfurled.
“Of course I was there. Your distress flared and I came. But what I saw, well I witnessed it from a quiet hiding spot, and by the time things had moved forward far enough, you were stepping through that strange door Without so much as a thought to your clan, might I add.”
She flushed at the harshness in his tone. It was true, but she hadn’t expected anyone to find out how readily she had abandoned her people for a chance to learn answers and to see just what Dale was going to offer her.
“I did it to find answers. To learn if what the man, Dale calls him Leather Jacket, was saying was true.” She tucked her legs underneath her. “So you’re saying you remember nothing after the man offered me my choice?”
“I remember a few minutes, and then after that, I remembered nothing. A moment ago, I felt as if the world kept going, but when I looked down at my desk and saw the note to myself about your encounter. Beyond you seemingly being transported to a world not our own, it would appear that man was telling the truth. We are nothing more than a store, frozen and destined to play on repeat.”
Eldan’s tone was angry, but she didn’t blame him. She just wasn’t certain how she felt about it.
“There’s something to be said for our pre-constructed world, Father. What I learned there was that I do not like humans. They are no different from whomever supposedly wrote our existence portrays them to be. I will not be returning. I wonder how long before we cease to function in any capacity outside our books, or if we will continue off path until Dale severs the tie completely. “
Her father’s face shifted, rage crossed over his brows and then dissipated. “My daughter, you will not do this. You will continue to be his Guardian. I do not care what transpired.”
His tone held his command and she could not argue. He had never asked her to do anything that had upset her before though. Seeing how uncaring he was about her life, it didn’t make living in her book world any better than dealing with Dale hating everything she represented without even bothering to get to know her.
“What if I don’t want to do that?”
“You will do it anyway. If we can get Dale to come to our world, he might just be enough to take down the Seelie Queen and give us all the freedom we deserve. And if we keep him here, trap him as our own, our world would continue right along, based on the conversation I overheard.”
She bit her cheek to hold back the gasp of alarm. What her father was suggestion was horrendous. Even with the things she had done, the idea of manipulating Dale and then making him a prisoner until he died, which would be quite a while with the magic of the Fae, seemed wrong.
“There is no arguing this. You will do this for your clan, and you will see to it that it is soon. Now that I know we are doomed to fight this war over and over every time some blasted Word Speaker picks up the book, I’m ready for it to end on my terms.”
Eldan, King of the Unseelie, walked out of the room without so much as a glance at his daughter. She felt betrayed, by everyone. Her father and Leather Jacket had used her as a pawn, and Dale had rejected her.
Breena grabbed her pillow off the bed and twisted her fingers in it with each and every thought. Her fingers cried out in pain from being squished, but she didn’t care. She shrieked and threw the pillow at the window, shattering it. The noise hurt her ears, and a few shouts came from below, but she didn’t care about that either.
She was tired of being nothing to anyone. She might not want to be tied down as Megara was, but she was done being a doormat. She would go to Dale and convince him to help because she would always serve her father. Beyond that though, Breena of the Seelie court was done doing anyone’s bidding but her own, and that included Leather Jacket if he thought she was going to fight in some other war for him.
Her door pushed open and Leather Jacket stood in the doorway.
She jumped on top of her bed and pulled the dagger from where she’d slipped into her boot when she’d dressed at Dale’s.
“Get. Out.”
She felt it as her body slammed into the headboard of her bed, and she dropped like a ragdoll onto the bed.
“My dear, Breena, I don’t know what you think gives you the ability to tell me what to do, but this will serve as a reminder as to who is more powerful.”
His words sent chills through her body, and she screamed as her arm twisted and popped out of its socket. Tears streamed down her face from the pain, and she couldn’t make herself shout at him, not because he was controlling her again, just because it hurt so bad.
“I know your father knows about me. Perhaps it’s time I struck a deal with Eldan, King of the Unseelie. Maybe you aren’t as dark as I thought you to be while I watched. Perhaps the joy on your face as you seduced and murdered those guards the other night was simply at the idea of winning your father’s favor. But your father, oh he is dark. And something tells me, he would jump at the chance to live in a world where there are no true magic users and be able to rule over the humans.”
Her heart thumped in her chest. Her father certainly would find that appealing. She knew as much from her father’s demand, moments before. However, her father might try to double cross Leather Jacket in an attempt to steal Dale anyway, putting everyone in danger.
She swallowed hard and locked her eyes on the silvery ones across the room. “I’ll do it. Leave my father out of this. I’ll convince Dale that there’s a way to trust me. But you’re not giving me all the information. How do I turn him to your side? Is it just magically done the moment he accepts someone who’s done evil things?”
His laughter was skin chilling, and she pressed herself into her bed, as if it could protect her. “Essentially, but if you could show him your gifts, show him how to dream walk, and how powerful he will feel stealing someone’s energy, that would seal the deal even further.”
She nodded. Dale didn’t deserve what she was doing to do to him, but if it was the only way to protect her clan, she would do it. Because the man seemed as if he would leave them be once the power was sealed.
“What’s the rush?”
“When he has his next birthday, his side in the war will be sealed if, and only if, he’s bonded with a Guardian strongly enough to release them. You would become visible in his world, and your powers would work on their plane of existence. But Dale would be mine, regardless of any change of heart he had, it is the heart of the Guardian that controls th
e Word Speaker because without the Guardian to protect them, the Word Speaker is nothing.”
There was so much information to process, information she should have been given from the start. “So all I have to do is make him want me, make him stop pushing me away and everything will be done?”
“Correct, it’s that simple, Breena. So do it, and I’ll leave your father and his dangerous ambition out of this. You’ll be free of the confines of being a silly book character, I’ll have the most powerful warrior ever, and Dale will one day grow to realize how perfectly matched you two are after all.”
With that, the man was gone. There was no cloud of smoke, no band of sound or flash of light. He just vanished from her room. Her heart sank into her stomach. No matter how the situation played out, if Dale ever opened up that doorway again, she was going to lead him down the path he didn’t want to go. She would save her family, but more importantly, she would free herself from them by being with him. For the first time, she truly believed there was a darkness in her, and if it got her a life of her own, she didn’t mind one bit.
Chapter Eight
He was reading her story again. She could hear Dale’s voice, like a narrator in her ears. She hated it. It had been over a week since she’d last been with him, or heard him infuriatingly reading her story. Now, his voice pissed her off. Her world had continued on, whether in line with the author’s story or not, it had kept going. She had known each and every one of the nine days as they passed.
She dropped the bow and arrow to the ground and stalked away from the training dummy, whipping her head back and forth, trying to seek out a possible glimpse of a swirling spot in the air. Breena let out a low growl, there was no doorway in a circular radius around her. Yet, he was narrating the minute she picked the bow back up.
Breena sucked in a deep breath as the doorway began to swirl and grow in front of her. Dale stood before it; book in hand and reading aloud. She watched his lips move and was momentarily distracted by how wonderful those lips had felt pressed against hers.
He looked up at her, and his voice stopped sounding off in her head. There was no apologetic expression on his face as he stared through the distorted space at her. Without a thought, she bent down, grabbed an arrow and fired it through the doorway at him. He jumped to the side, and she smirked before setting down the bow again and stepping through.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Breena?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you think you could just ignore me for a week and then come calling as if I’m some sort of pet,” she spat at him and walked past him to pull her arrow out of the wall. “Besides, I missed.”
“No, you didn’t. I moved damn it.” His eyes were narrowed, and his jaw was filled with tension.
“Same thing, human. Now what do you want?” The anger in her voice was hard to contain.
She was furious with him and yet, now that they were in the same room, in the same world, she found herself feeling the same pull of desire for him as the first time.
“I deserve that. Shit, I deserve a lot more than that, to be honest. But give me a chance to explain. I’m not a people person, I spent most of my life being beat up or interacting from behind a computer screen.” He pointed to the gray box on his desk when she cocked her head to the side. “I messed up, I thought I could just stop reading your book and start another, and all the problems would vanish. Apparently, when Leather Jacket offered me the option of a Guardian from three books, or I had to finish another, he wasn’t kidding.”
She narrowed her eyes as she read between the lines. “So what you’re saying is it’s me or no one.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and her foot began to tap.
Dale looked straight into her eyes, and though he looked uncomfortable as he said the next words, he didn’t sound it. “It’s you or death.”
His words shocked her. She’d been expecting a confession, but not one of that magnitude. She sucked in a breath and forced herself to remain unfazed. “Why is that my problem? You’re the one who didn’t want me, remember? You’re the one that judged me solely based on what you’d read in the book. Did it occur to you that I might change later on?”
“That’s why I started reading again. What if I was wrong? What if Leather Jacket was wrong, and you don’t love the killing, the torture and the seduction as much as you initially seemed too? Or what if you change in the pages of the book?”
Dale took a step closer to her and took both of her hands in his. The minute he did, sparks shot through her, and she wasn’t certain if she was supposed to like the sensation or not, but it seemed comforting.
“You may be my last hope, Breena, but I was no better than the person I used to be for not giving you a chance. It wasn’t fair, and I want to apologize, but I know I can’t.”
His fingers were tracing small circles over the tops of her palms, and she felt her body responding to his touch and quickly pulled her hands back.
“Is it always this strong? The connection?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I would have said yes, but there have been a few it hasn’t occurred as strongly with, and I had the opportunity to do something unheard and meet another Word Speaker. She had a completely platonic relationship with her Guardian for like ten years or something. So, I don’t know Breena. I feel it too though, like all I want to do is kiss you or hold you. It’s not logical, but the Word Speaker I met, she did experience something similar with her final Guardian. So maybe, maybe it is normal when you’re finally paired with the proper Guardian.”
“Well I don’t like it. I don’t like caring about someone I’ve hardly met. I don’t like that it hurt when you abandoned me. I don’t like that right now I’m ranting at you, and I really, really want you to kiss me again.”
He didn’t move at first, and then, a smile spread over his lips. It was the first one she had seen and the sight made her weak in the knees.
“You’re very boyishly handsome when you smile, Dale.”
He laughed. “Not certain handsome and Dale have ever been used in the same sentence. But it’s nice to know you think so. And it’s also nice to know you want me to kiss you because I was more than a little afraid you wouldn’t even let me talk to you.”
She stepped back, and he stepped toward her. Her legs hit into the couch, and she slipped and landed on it. He laughed, she glared and he offered her a hand and tugged her back up.
“I am not certain I want too. But like I said, I feel like I have too. Like I need to be with you.”
“That’s the Guardian bond, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, well, to hell with it,” she stuttered the last word.
Dale’s hand reached behind her and landed on the small of her back. A small ball of desire was forming in the pit of her stomach, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it. Whether it was the Guardian bond or something else that drew her to him, she had no control over the way he set her body on fire.
“I want to kiss you, Breena. I want to get through reading more of your book and see the full version of you that there is too see.” His lips gently pressed against her forehead. “But I want to experience you. I want to get to know you more than I want to read about you.”
His mouth pressed against hers then and she was lost. Sensations spiked along every inch of her body, and she moaned into the kiss. There was something about Dale, about kissing him. Breena couldn’t focus on how badly he’d hurt her, or ever having wanted to not be his Guardian. His hand grabbed her breast through her white tunic top, and she arched her body into his. Her hands trailed up and down his arms, lightly using her nails as she went.
They stood locked together, mouths moving in perfect tandem, hands exploring each other’s body’s for what felt like forever before she felt Dale pull back. Without thinking, she put her hands to her tingling lips and touched them. She couldn’t remember any other kiss having such an effect on her.
She looked up at him and saw how heavily lidded his dark eyes were, and she knew t
hat he was feeling each and every sensation just as much as she was. “You’re certain this is just the Guardian connection?” There was a small quiver in her voice, and she pulled back, adjusting her crooked tunic.
Dale nodded slowly. “That’s all it should be.”
His tone didn’t sound any more convinced that her own brain was about there being nothing more between them.
They didn’t move or speak, merely stood there in silence looking at one another. It wasn’t awkward, she didn’t feel the need to bring up conversation or to shy away from his gaze. Rather, she felt compelled to return his stare, to take in every inch of his small, but muscled form. To look at the way his long sleeve shirt covered over his arms, yet still showed the muscle definition in them. She took the step this time and closed the space between them. She ran her hands down his chest, loving the way she could feel the hidden muscle under her fingertips.
“I don’t know if you’ll believe this, Dale, but I find you incredibly desirable. I don’t care who you were in the past, or who you are afraid of becoming in the future. I don’t even like that you’re determined to try and put yourself into a little box because you think you belong there. But, I like your determination, the way you’re willing to fight for what you want, no matter what. I like the way it feels when your hands touch mine. I like the sound of your voice as you say my name.”
She leaned up, pressed her lips to his throat and gently nipped at the base of it. He grunted, and she smirked before slowly sliding her tongue up his throat and pulling back. “I like the way you’re slim and still strong. I love the way your eyes sparkle on the rare occasion you laugh and aren’t a jackass. I love the way when our bodies touch, I swear I feel a spark.”
She let her hand trail down his flat stomach and brush over his cock, which seemed to rise under her hand. She took a step toward him, which caused him to take a step back and bump into the wall. She undid the button on the pants, never taking her eyes of his. Her hand slipped gracefully inside and cupped his erection, biting her lips as she remembered what it felt like to have him inside her.