But like each time before it, her attempt failed. Her words went unheard as he pressed closer to her body, his chest aligned with the curve of her back, and a hungry growl shuddered through him.
Callie shut her eyes a moment, willing her body back into its distant state.
But it was becoming harder to ignore the sensations of his hot breath running over her skin, and the feel of another body against her own—even if it was his.
She licked her fingertip then turned the page as slowly as she could manage.
“I don’t understand why you won’t just free her,” she wondered aloud. “What’s so important about keeping her in the dance when it’s one of the reasons I despise you so much.”
Rain stilled, as if stunned by admission. Despise...
Had he really thought different? Was the all-powerful and manipulative fae foolish enough to think her feelings for him were anything less than hatred? She almost scoffed at the thought, but held it back to keep her indifferent mask uncracked.
Finally, he whispered a single word into her hair, spoken without the lust and desire from moments before.
“Leverage.” It slipped from his tongue in a thick, otherworldly accent that made Callie shiver. “You cannot flee while your friend is under my control.”
“So stop the dance,” she bit, all masks shattered and discarded. “Take her someplace else. At least for now.”
Rain pulled back and grabbed her waist. Excitement, in all its treachery, spurred through her, and she gasped as he flipped her onto her back. Slowly, he lowered himself onto her again, his menacing eyes searching her flushed face.
Callie hated him.
Maybe more in that moment than in any that had come before it. He didn’t care about Meghan’s suffering, or that the dance was not only the most excruciating experience Callie had ever known, but that the horrors witnessed during it sometimes woke her up in fits of screams.
And she hated how he looked at her—how it filled her with shame.
“I remember how it felt,” she said quietly. “In that dance, all I could think about was that I either wanted to die—or live to see others die around me.”
Rain ran his fingertips over the dip of her neck. “I swear one promise to you, Callie.” She swallowed at the deep rumble of his voice, the way he growled out her name in thick tones and foreign tongues. “When I do release her, I will put a géis on her.”
Callie didn’t even attempt to pronounce the strange, rough word. “A what?”
“It is not unlike a geas.”
Those words sounded the same to her. Rain pressed himself flat against her and barricaded her with his forearms on the feather mattress.
“Unlike a geas, she will not be restricted or gifted. Your friend’s memory of the realm will be taken. She will not remember her suffering.”
The promise was a tempting one.
All the torture and murder in the court to be forgotten, washed away like dead leaves down a river. But how long and how much would Meghan have to endure before the promise was fulfilled?
It wasn’t Callie’s suffering to barter over. Meghan’s time wasn’t coin in Callie’s purse.
The quickest option was the best, she decided.
“It is the best I can offer you,” he whispered, long lashes casting shadows over his cheekbones as his eyes drifted down to her lips. “Without Meghan as leverage …” Rain paused, then lifted his gaze to hers. “I do not want to hunt you down, Callie. There are rituals I want to protect you from, and if by doing so I must use your friend as a pawn, then hate me for it. My decision will not change.”
She was struck by the honesty, and took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. His words, the way he looked at her, touched her—Callie dared to think something that should never be considered.
Before Callie could manage a response, the vines shivered in the arch.
Both she and Rain turned their gazes to the coiling vines, watching the small shadow that moved behind their disruption.
“Angus,” she said, and tried to nudge Rain off of her. He was as unmovable as the castle itself.
Callie didn’t fancy the young fae boy seeing his father pawing at her.
“Get off of me, Rain,” she snapped.
In a swift, fluid move he peeled back from the bed and stood at its edge.
At the click of his fingers, the vines parted for his son, the son he cared so little about, disregarded so much that it made Callie’s heart ache.
Through the gap in the vines, Angus shifted from one foot to the other and tugged at his long, sharp fingernails. Uncertainty softened his sometimes-fierce face, and Callie saw him then as the boy she’d first met in the aisles. Nervous and alone.
“What is it, boy?” Rain’s tone was sharper than a fistful of knives.
Affronted, Callie turned to gape at him a moment, then she switched a softer look to Angus. “Are you ok?”
Angus nodded, looking down at the moss floor. “I am bored.”
Callie didn’t give Rain the chance to dismiss the lonely child, and hit her hand on the mattress. “Come on then,” she said. “You can read with me.”
As if someone had flooded him with aflame candlesticks, Angus lit up and flashed a brilliant smile at her. He scrambled onto the mattress quickly, seemingly afraid that Rain would snatch him from Callie’s side at any moment.
But Rain didn’t act.
He wandered to the small table beside the vanity desk and poured himself a goblet of Tavravk—a strong spiced drink that stunk out the room and made Callie want to retch.
Angus wrangled himself into an uncomfortable looking cross-legged position at Callie’s arm, and peered over her shoulder at the book.
She shot him a pitying smile and shifted to sit by his side, the book on her lap, and flicked it to the first page.
They read together.
As he squinted down at the harder words he hadn’t yet learned to read, she studied his focused face and wondered if he set out to impress her with his human-language skills.
To him, it wouldn’t be English. It would be the language of the humans who lived closest to his part of the realm.
How little he knew of the world his mother came from seemed unfair to Callie. Like everything from his mother had been erased by borders.
Rain had finished half the Tavravk bottle by the time Angus had slipped onto his side, and the bottle was empty when the fae boy closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
As Callie tucked him in, Rain leaned back against the table and studied her. “You cared for my son like he is your own. That is a fae trait.”
“Humans aren’t the monsters you think them to be. And I know he isn’t my own.”
“Humans are monstrous,” he said. “You are blinded by what you fancy your kind to be.”
Callie shot him a glare. “The same can be said about you.”
Rain flashed a terrifying grin. “I am under no illusion of what me and my brethren are. We wear our horrors. Humans hide theirs in the shadows.”
Back turned to him, Callie just stared at Angus curled up on the bed. Asleep, he looked so peaceful and sweet. So unlike a monster.
“Maybe you’re right,” she whispered. “Maybe we’re all wicked inside.”
Come morning, Rain took them out to the balcony fireplace before Davina and the chestnut-haired servant carried in platters for breakfast. Angus sat so close to Callie that their legs almost touched, and several times he picked a piece from her plate.
By his scowls and shudders, it was clear he didn’t like vegetables much. But he ate most of her scrambled eggs and a few strips of crispy bacon, leaving very little for Callie.
Once Rain promised the fruits were safe to eat, Callie picked at grapes and cherries instead.
Moss-teas and cinnamon coffees were brought out after the breakfast had been devoured—mostly by a hungry Angus—and Callie cradled her steamy mug to her chest, her eyes on the flames.
They’d turned green some time ago, b
ut the meal wasn’t dismissed.
Rain didn’t seem to want to end their time together, and Callie didn’t have the heart to cut it short when Angus was enjoying himself so.
“Look,” said Angus, and stuck sugar sticks between his teeth and lips. “I’m a darkling—Callie, look.”
She gave him an awkward smile and spoke into the heat of her mug. “Fantastic. But I have no idea what a darkling is.”
“A dark fae,” said Rain.
“Oh, you have another name?”
He only levelled his stare with hers, but that was as far as his irritation went. No clenched fists or molten eyes.
“Dark fae,” explained Rain, “come from the Northern Lands. If you think we are wicked, your nightmares would only worsen should ever encounter one.”
Callie arched her brow.
She hadn’t had the faintest clue that he’d known about her nightmares. He didn’t speak about them. He didn’t mention those nights that she woke in fits of screams, lathered in her own sweat.
She’d always thought he had still been asleep when he had snuck his arm around her waist and drew her back to him.
“An encounter is inevitable, however.” Rain bit into a cherry, its blood-red juices fast staining his lips. “As my wife, you will accompany me on diplomatic journeys.” At her widened eyes and horrified look, he added, “Many years from now. I don’t yet trust you, and if you were to attempt an escape on their lands, you would likely be dead before I could find you.”
“Comforting,” she muttered and sipped her coffee.
Angus snorted, but cowered his head quickly as though expecting to be struck.
No strike came.
Callie nudged him with her foot and frowned at him. “What’s the matter?”
He smiled. “I was meaning to ask, are you going to the High Court tomorrow moon?”
Callie choked on a breath that sucked through her.
Instantly, Rain looked at her, a suspicious turn to his face. To mask her climbing hope, she cleared her throat and eyed her coffee.
“Went down the wrong way,” she said, and Rain’s narrowed eyes softened. Speaking to Angus, she added, “I wasn’t invited—last time didn’t go so well.”
Rain dropped the cherry pip onto the fruit dish, his fingernails painted red from the fruit’s juices.
“No,” he agreed. “It had gone so poorly that I’d considered throwing you off the balcony.”
Callie stiffened, all ease swept away from her body and replaced by iron muscles. “You ... You thought about killing me?”
“At times, the option is tempting to me.”
Angus sat up on his knees. “But you cannot,” he said. “You should not. Callie belongs with us.”
“Have I killed her yet?” Rain narrowed his gaze on his son, who sank back into the cushions, and brought his knees to his chest.
But Callie had no pity for Angus in that moment.
Everything she had was balled up and tucked away in her heavy heart, twisting only for herself. She hadn’t known how close she had come to death that night.
In fact, he had suggested the opposite—your temperament is part of what drew me to you.
His words needed closer attention, she decided. If not his words, his eyes. They were his tell.
“I want to go,” she said. “I want to see Meghan.”
Rain’s jaw tightened and his lips pressed together.
“You won’t free her,” reasoned Callie. “So at least let me dance with her—it helped when you danced with me. Even for those few seconds, the pain wasn’t as unbearable. Let me do the same for her.”
Rain sighed, long and heavy, his eyes turning to Davina as she started clearing the fruit dishes. “Fine,” he said, then met Callie with a threatening stare. “Not tomorrow, Callie. I will take you next week. Should you cause another scene, should you disrespect my position as a prince of the court, your lavatory will not shield you from my wrath.”
A surge of anxiety shot through her and her toes curled, tight. “Ok. But just so you know, in my world when a husband threatens his wife, it’s kind of considered poor form.”
Rain looked perplexed a moment, then rid himself of her words with a single shake of the head.
Angus picked at the table’s edge. “Can I come, too?”
Callie snatched the moment before Rain could. “Sure you can. You can entertain me while Rain sits on a throne for hours on end.”
Golden eyes shifted between fae son and human wife, but no words of protest were spoken. He set his goblet down and clicked his fingers for Davina to gather the rest of the dishes on the table.
With that click, he ended breakfast and sent Angus on his way to his lessons in the war room. He had sparring to attend to, and he left with bounce in his step.
Callie made to leave the fireplace too, but Rain stopped her—he stood over her, and slowly crouched to be eye-level with her nervous gaze.
“Why did you agree?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“You allowed Angus to accompany us to the court. Why?”
As she studied his eyes, she noticed the flecks of rose hidden in the cracks of the gold. He wasn’t upset with her, merely curious.
“Why shouldn’t he come?” Her brows furrowed. “You should really pay better attention to him, you know. Don’t you see how he looks at you? All he wants is parents—real ones.”
“And that is you?” he mocked, and took a strand of her dark hair in his fingers. “Are you his mother, now?”
“No.” Callie tried to push back from him, but she was too close to the fireplace to go anywhere. “But I do care about him. More so because you don’t.”
Rolling the lock between his fingers, Rain cocked his head to the side and studied her. “What makes you think I do not care for my own son?”
“He’s terrified of you.”
“As are you, my wife.” A softly devious smile took his red-stained lips. “Does that suggest I do not care for you?”
“Well, if you did give a damn about me, you wouldn’t want to throw me over balconies, and you would—”
“—release your precious friend,” he finished, weary of the topic. “I grow tired of this back and forth, Callie. When I am certain of your loyalty, I will release her. That is the end of it. No more will be spoken on the matter.”
“Loyalty,” she laughed. “What does that mean? How am I ever supposed to prove something like that while I’m locked up in a room with an hour here and there in the library?”
Thoughtful, Rain watched her a beat, then let her hair slip from his fingers. He clicked, the sharpness of his fingernails sparking with a glint of magic that stunned her. She’d never seen him click his fingers so up-close before—and now she knew the magic of the simple action. The magic within him.
“There,” he said, and suddenly grabbed her cheeks with enough force to push out her lips.
He stole a kiss.
A firm, unyielding kiss that spoke of authority, not affection.
Rain drew back and searched her face. “The vines are gone from the entrance. Now prove yourself to me, wife.”
Before he could pull back, Callie grabbed his face the way he had snatched hers. Rain was too stunned to react, and just stared at her.
“Only if you prove yourself to me, too.” Callie ran him over with a disgusted look. “Don’t threaten me, don’t talk about how you want to save me from rituals, only to casually throw it out there that you’ve contemplated my death on the regular. Don’t talk to me like that in front of Angus.”
She let go of his face, the chill of what she’d done coming too soon for her liking. But she forced a deep breath and held his gaze, firm.
“Give me reasons to trust you,” she added, “not to hate you.”
She could never trust him—not really. Still, she had a game to play, and Rain hadn’t caught on yet that she was ahead of him.
His face was blank with what she thought was shock. Then he leaned
closer to her, and the cold panic swiftly coiled around her heart.
Rain scooped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. Lips a mere touch from hers, he studied her, and clasped her cheek with his free hand.
“Wife,” he said softly, almost lovingly. “I made the right choice in choosing you.”
He kissed her, and it shifted into something tender.
Callie let her eyes shut and her lips part—she kissed him back.
19
If Callie wanted her plan to work, there was something she had to do first. Something that made her stomach turn with sick, and treacherously tickled her nerves.
Callie had to break their bond.
The rose had to freeze in time and save her from The Chase.
Still, every chance presented to her over the days passed her by. Courage failed her.
It failed her when Rain slipped into the wash-pond with her and ran a soapy cloth over her back.
It completely escaped her when she woke to his kisses on her neck in the middle of the night.
And now that she sat in the orchard with Rain for the first time, she tried to pluck up the courage found at the bottom of her silver goblet.
“Do you like the wine?”
Rain sprawled out on the blanket he had planted at the farthest end of the orchard, where the rows of apple and pear trees met an old rocky bridge, whose stone bricks were bathed in moss.
At the mouth of the bridge, Callie could only just manage to stop herself from making a run for it into the woods ahead.
But a few things stopped her.
The bridge was speared with cracks darker than the shadowy woods themselves—not all that promising—and she had a chain to this realm. Meghan.
Callie wrestled her gaze back to the goblet.
From within the silver embrace, blue liquid glistened up at her. Winking, almost. Devilishly.
“Better than the last one,” she said, then took a small sip. Instantly, her face pinched. “It’s too sour, though. What’s it made from?”
“Some of our native fruits.”
The more she tasted, the better she liked it—if she could only get used to the first punch of sourness.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 25