by Jaime Marks
Now it was clear she and Devyn were bonding. Demytria could only hope that not only would Devyn help to bridge the gap to this world for her but that Felycia would be able to show Devyn that there was hope in this. He did not trust the Gray, worried that is was another manipulation of the Shade. If he could see the truth embodied in Felycia, if he could come to trust and accept her and through her the truth of the Gray, it would soothe the rifts that had occurred in their family and hopefully heal the girl’s heart.
Felycia woke slowly feeling groggy with one hell of a headache. If she didn’t know any better she would think she was hung over but she never drank anymore. She tried to move and get her bearings but her eyes wouldn’t open and nothing wanted to work. When she managed to stretch slightly she just about freaked out because she had no idea where she was and she was in some male’s arms. Panic began to set in but before it could take hold the scent of sandalwood and summer’s rain surrounded her causing her heart to stop.
Devyn? She was in Devyn’s arms? That’s right. He said he’d take her to his quarters but…how the hell had she ended up in his bed!?!
“Shh,” his lips gently grazed her forehead. “I will not harm you, dear girl. You need healing and I mean only to comfort and protect you. Are you alright, Felycia?”
Hesitantly she nodded but a shooting pain shot through her head causing her to hiss. She felt Devyn shift and a cool, moist cloth suddenly rested against her head. Some of the pain eased off and when his essence flowed through her it calmed it even more.
“Thanks,” she whispered but it was so soft and cracked that she wasn’t sure if he heard or even understood.
“You had a severe concussion and contusions to your head. It will be healed shortly and I will aide you, but I did not wish to wake you, Felycia. Rest is what you need most now.” He gently stroked her hair as she tried to open her eyes but everything was too bright and too intense.
“Just relax, dear girl. Allow me to tend to you,” he murmured into her hair.
She couldn’t figure out why but she started to relax in his arms despite the unsettling disorientation she was experiencing. She hated not being able to get her bearings. Not to mention the closeness she felt to him should have sent her into a full out panic attack. The thing was, for some reason she knew she was safe with him and it made her more comfortable than she’d really ever been.
She was fine until she moved her leg. That was when she realized that their legs were touching…skin to skin. She froze her breath clenching in her chest as her heart began to pound. She didn’t know what to do or think and she couldn’t form words. Memories flooded through her mind and she couldn’t keep the past straight from the present.
“Felycia, please listen to me. I can sense your fear but I will not harm you, nor have I,” Devyn spoke slowly, his deep, soothing voice echoing in her mind. “I did disrobe you but only so that you might be healed. I am in shorts and you still have your undergarments. Nothing will happen here that you do not wish. Do you understand?”
“I-I…” She tried to hear the truth in his words but every other male she had ever allowed to come close had hurt her. Every single one.
Devyn breathed out a ragged breath before his Light suddenly flowed through her with strength. “Feel me, girl, and know I speak the truth. I do not know what you have been through, but I will never harm you and I will see to it that those boys who were foolish enough to do so pay the full penance of their actions.”
His essence was overwhelming. She’d never felt anything like it. It was as if he was opening his mind and heart to her but instead of sensing him directly, entering his mind, it was almost as if he was sending his mind to her; all his thoughts and feelings flowing through him into her. He wanted to protect her, to soothe her, but there was so much more to what he was feeling in his heart for her. She gasped at the realization she felt in his mind. He thought she was his bond, his mate. He felt fiercely protective and completely infatuated with her. Though he didn’t consider it an infatuation at all, but she really couldn’t handle thinking about what he thought. She hadn’t even known him a day.
“Devyn, the Shade don’t bond,” she whispered not really sure what else to say.
“Aye, but from everything I can tell my dear girl, you are not Shade. You are Gray. Aside from that, you had Light within you before you ever merged with Trina’s essence. I sensed it, though I know you do not believe it. Where there is Light, Felycia, there is also love, for they are one and the same, and where there is love a bond has the potential to exist. I cannot deny the affect you have on me, dear girl. No other has ever had the ability to reach me in this way.”
Her eyes finally opened, slowly, but they were still extremely sensitive. She looked into his face, squinting through the blurriness, trying to meet his penetrating gaze. “You said yourself that you don’t even know what the Gray is or how you feel about it. You don’t trust it. So how the hell can you sit here and tell me you trust anything you’re feeling for me?” Felycia demanded now that the pain in her head was easing.
The injury might be healing but her confusion was through the roof. Everything with Devyn made her head spin, she couldn’t decide if she wanted him closer or if she needed to run. Part of her didn’t want to let him go yet. She couldn’t explain it but she felt safer with him right now and she knew if she ran she’d be a freaking wreck, but this entire situation was making her slightly mental.
Devyn stared into her eyes trying to figure out how exactly to address her question. It was precisely what he had told her earlier but now he was uncertain how he felt. If she was genuinely his true mate bond, and he was hard pressed to deny it with the feelings and desires that were flowing through him, then he would have to concede that the Gray were indeed a miracle. Could he trust such a thing?
Damn those infernal unawakened. They should not even being having this discussion yet. She should not even know before he was ready to discuss all this with her. There had barely been an opportunity to address these questions fully for himself and she was not yet ready to accept the truth of it.
Unfortunately allowing her to truly feel his heart and know his mind had been the only way to assuage her. He could feel the full onset of panic that was threatening her and it had been the only thing he could think of. He was not about to risk her trying to run from him with her injury. The wound had been substantial and could have resulted in her death. They had not fully given credence to her injury before misting the girl and her brain had begun to bleed. It could have killed her. It almost had.
In truth, as he held her, watching the Light slowly fade from her form, it had torn him open in ways he could not comprehend. In that moment he knew, not just thought but truly knew, there was no way he would ever allow her to run from him because he could never let her go. He loved her. If she had died he was not sure he could go on. Just seeing her harmed, so very close to death had brought him to his knees.
It was the bonding. There was no other reasoning or explanation for it. He had witnessed enough true mated bonds struggle through the fierce whirlwind of emotions in his years to know the truth of it, however disorienting it may be. The strength of his feeling for her could not be denied and he would have easily given his life to save hers.
Marcus had helped him as they fought to stabilize her and had subsequently sat with them while Healers attended her and he broke. No Fae had ever seen Devyn shed a single tear. Not when his Mother had been raped and tortured by the Shade. Not when his Father had died avenging her death. Not when his sister had been taken and killed, nor when his brothers had been killed afore him at the fronts. He had not cried when Reyana had died and the twins had both been lost, one to the Darkness of his soul the other seemingly to death. Not when his King had fallen, not even when each of his mentors and friends of the Cerulyion line fell. He had never allowed himself to cry for them, not even once only he and the young of the Lucerna Lines remained. He mourned them in strength, not weakness. That was what he had alway
s told himself. Yet when he realized that Felycia, this beautiful dear girl in his arms, had almost died? When he knew that she had almost slipped from his grasp? He had broken.
Marcus had been at a loss as to how to comfort him. In many ways Devyn served as a mentor and Father figure to all of their family that now lived and he imagined it was unsettling for the male to see him as such. He merely reassured him that Felycia would be alright and then wrapped him in a soothing embrace. The male had stayed until Felycia had finally stabilized and Devyn had calmed. He aided him in continuing her healing until his brother requested his presence to aide in healing Kyle. Apparently the boy had been shot though he knew not his condition or the full spectrum of his circumstances.
He caressed her cheek as he refocused and tried to be as honest and sincere for her was possible when things felt so uncertain. These were things that were changing rapidly around him and he was in reality still assessing their true meaning. “I will not lie to you and tell you that I fully understand the Gray, Felycia, but…I am learning it firsthand through you.” It was the best answer he could manage and it was truth. “You give me the strength to believe there is hope.”
“Devyn…” She closed her eyes.
He could not tell what she was thinking and it about drove him mad. How could he explain how badly he needed her? That just knowing her this day, allowing himself to feel her, she had rooted her way into his heart and made him feel for the first time in nearly two hundred years? How did one express what it was like to suddenly realize that he had been merely existing without truly engaging in this life for so long, isolated and alone in many ways, but now that he had held her, kissed her he wanted so much more?
“Before you speak, Felycia…just hear me.” He studied her a moment afraid that she would pull back from him in fear of the intensity of the bond between them. “I am not asking anything of you but the opportunity to know you. You have barely lived this life and never in my world. I only want the opportunity to show it to you. I want to see that you get that chance at the happiness that has never been there for you in your past.”
“But that’s not all you want, Devyn. I saw, felt…” She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can give you that. Not that you’d even want me if you knew…”
He gently took her face in his hands. She would not diminish herself in such a way with him. “No. You are not the girl who I met this morning, Felycia. You have awakened Fae of the Gray. Your past is gone. Your body…is new.” He hesitated biting back his desire to kiss her. “Now, I will not deny the attraction I feel for you. I would have to be blind not to appreciate how truly beautiful you are, but I would never dishonor you by placing you in a situation that you were neither ready for nor wanted. How we lie here now is simply so that you could be quickly healed. If you doubt me you have only to ask Lord Marcus as he had to assist in stabilizing your condition.”
She blushed at his words but then a sudden look of realization slipped in. “Oh god, did he see…”
He cut her off placing his thumb over her lips. “No dear girl, I would never allow another to see you as such. I slid you under the covers and disrobed you carefully while he and the Healers tended your wound enough to stilt the damage and induce your body’s ability to recuperate. Close contact is necessary for Healing quickly but only I attended you as such. They merely rested their hands on your head.”
She nodded in relief. “I don’t really know what to say to all this, Devyn. I don’t even know if I’m safe here. If the Brood could send unawakened in…”
“I will make it safe for you, Felycia. I will not tolerate any further threats to your safety. I assure you, those boys will not go unpunished.”
She stared into his eyes for what seemed like eternity and he gladly would have stayed there as such for all time. After a while she gave him the greatest gift he had ever received as she moved closer, her body pressed tightly against his. He wrapped his arms more securely around her and rested his chin carefully above her head on the pillow so as not to disturb her further. She would still be tender where her wound was and it was certain she had a headache.
Her trust in this moment was more than he could ever expect and something he would die to hold on to. If she could trust him, perhaps someday she could find it in her heart to love him. He knew it would not be an easy road to win her heart, but somehow this delicate, dear girl had won his in just a few short hours. Something he would never have dreamed fathomable and a gift he would never, ever let go of.
Chapter 9
Byryn held Staryana as she held Kylion tightly to her chest. Shortly after he arrived and wrapped her in his arms she broke sobbing silently as she rocked their son and he held her. She wouldn’t let anyone see how vulnerable she could really be anymore. The emotional outbursts she used to be prone to in high stress situations never occurred, at least not around anyone but him. No one else ever saw the softer side, how she dealt with the anger and the pain. He knew it was why Cymeryn questioned how stable her essence was, but he wasn’t about to reveal her weakness to anyone. She was his mate and he would protect her always, even if it was only from embarrassment.
He gently stroked her hair sensing the turmoil in her calming. “How we doing, brightness? You ok, baby?”
She nodded gently sliding Kylion onto the bed. Their son had fallen asleep a while ago. “I am. I’m not so sure about Kylion, though. Did you notice he’s calling us Mama and Daddy?”
He sighed heavily. “I know. They may not have really hurt him but he’s been severely traumatized by all this. I think it’s the combination of everything he’s been through with Trevyn and Dracyn too. We’ll help him through it, baby. He’ll be alright.” He pulled her tightly into his arms. “You were pretty shaken too, baby. Tell me what you need so I can make this better. I know you need time, but how can I make it easier.”
“You already are,” she murmured into his chest. “I just need you, Byryn. And I need to know that everyone is alright. Christ, I can’t even believe what the hell I saw Steph do. It was like she lost herself to it…I’m worried she won’t come back.”
“She will,” Byryn reassured her, “and she did. Think about how it feels when we share essence. It’s intense and that’s exactly what she experienced, except it wasn’t an exchange. He fed her his essence but didn’t take hers. It creates a temporary binding, allowing him control over her. If he was Shade it could be more permanent but his essence is still too diluted as an unawakened.”
“I’m just glad they didn’t…I mean when John threatened to let Wytheryn…” Staryana shook her head.
“He wouldn’t dare, baby. Despite what he said, first he wouldn’t risk Alayne’s wrath and second he knew I was coming for him. It was always part of the plan to reclaim us both. They just thought they had more control over the situation than they really did. He knew damn well if anyone had laid a finger on you, any control he hoped to leverage over me would have been gone,” Byryn reasoned trying to reassure her but he wasn’t really sure how to address the issue of his new found blood; if the guy was even related to him. He shook it off and focused on her needs. That problem would wait for now. “John knows when it comes to you I lose control. He might have made threats so that he could gain the advantage over Steph, but he never would’ve followed through.”
She grew quiet. “They’re gonna keep coming aren’t they, Byryn? He’s never going to stop until they have me.”
He kissed her head. “I’ll never let that happen. Besides Staryana, it’s not just you they want. Obviously they want Steph, apparently they want me, we know your Mom is still a target and I’m sure the young she carries factor in somewhere. The Brood wants Felycia and all my brothers back. And I’m pretty sure that if Kyle pulls through Syneous and Alayne are going to want him back too. He’s their blood.” He pulled her head back so he could look her in the eye. “So get the idea out of your head right now. Even if you went to him, submitted to what he wants, this won’t end. It won’t protect our family or
friends. If anything it will put them in more danger because it will make you a weapon against them and I know they won’t want to hurt you to stop you.”
She blew out a ragged breath, “You’re right. I just…I feel like this whole thing was my fault somehow.”
“Uh uh, stop it,” he chastised. “Blame John, blame Alayne, Syneous, any of those assholes that took you, but don’t you dare blame yourself. If they didn’t come for you then John still would have come for Steph and the Brood for Felycia. What’s done is done and you can’t change it. Now, do you want to go see, Kyle?”
“Can I?” She asked tentatively.
She was generally headstrong and rarely ever asked him what she could do…more like told him and argued the decision if he didn’t agree, at least before the awakening. He was starting to see a different side to her now. It seemed like she looked to him more and more but he hadn’t figure out why yet, not that he really minded. It fed his need to care for her, to be in control of everything, and protect her. In a lot of ways it made things easier between them, not that there had been an issue before but it kept him more balanced. Likely it was because she now understood him on a deeper level and they simply worked well together in most things.
Pulling her up gently with a resigned sigh, he stood and kissed her head. “Come on, I saw how he was there for you in the woods and I saw what happened, baby. I know how badly you need to know that he’s going to be alright.”
He led her out in the hall motioning for Hyracen to enter the room. They had entered through a passage in the closet in Felycia’s room and John had gotten into Steph’s room the same way. He wasn’t taking chances. No one was. The girls weren’t allowed in their quarters alone and guards were positioned right outside the doors in case something occurred. He’d even conceded to allowing Felycia to stay in Devyn’s quarters despite his better judgment, not that he had a choice. If he wanted that Fae to release his baby sister he’d have to fight him and really as long as she wanted to be there he had no real reason to complain. In all honesty, he knew that the Commander would be able to protect her better than any of the other Guardians in the Palace and that was incentive enough for him to allow it.