Rain preferred that rotten drink, Tavravk, which smelled like it’d been fermented to the point of rot and death, then dunked in a barrel of corpses for that extra kick. At least, that was what Callie thought.
“You’re not drinking your usual filth,” she noted, and gestured to the clear liquid in his crystal glass. “Traded it in for the souls of the innocent?”
Rain’s smirk looked even more dangerous under the darkness of the star-lit sky.
“Not today,” he said.
He stretched out his trouser-wrapped legs, almost taking up the whole blanket.
Callie was left with a small corner at his bare feet, and made a point to scowl at his legs for infringing on her space. But she knew what he was up to. Luring her closer to him so he could steal a kiss or ten.
“Tell me something tr—”
Callie cut him off, “Can’t you just ask me things?”
Rain’s stony face betrayed nothing as he studied her. “What would you have me ask?”
“What do you want to know?” She shrugged, then took a deep gulp of the wine.
After a routine shudder, she settled the now-empty goblet on the grass.
A servant rushed over to fill it, keeping quiet and unnoticeable, not unlike a shadow.
“Why do you reject telling me a truth?” Rain asked, running his sharp fingernail over the rim of his glass. “Do you have deceits to hide, my wife?”
She made a face at him. “It’s always lies and truths with you. In my world—and I know you don’t care much about it, but it’s where I come from, and you should show a little interest at least—when people want to get to know someone, they ask them questions about their lives, their interests, hobbies, even just movies—”
“What is a movie?”
“It’s ...” Callie’s scowl softened into a bewildered stare. “I—Well, like a play. A performance.”
Rain nodded to show he followed.
“Ok, so you take a play and put it in a box ... like a picture! But it moves and talks.”
Rain didn’t follow anymore. But he didn’t look all that interested either. Still, Callie seized an opportunity—a chance to humanise Meghan as much as possible.
“Me and Meghan went to the movies all the time when we were kids. Mostly plays about toys, or—there was one about a Greek god and another about a giant peach that a bunch of things lived inside of, and it flew all across the world.”
At Rain’s cold expression, Callie sighed and snatched up her goblet.
As she drank more than she should have at once, Rain surprised her; “What lived inside of the peach?”
She smiled into her goblet. A smile that startled her so much that she choked.
Rain jolted up to sit at her side and pressed his hand to the back of her neck. And just as she made to swat him away, her coughs stopped, as quickly as though a switch was flicked.
“How’d you do that?” She wheezed, glaring wide-eyed at him.
Rain cocked his mouth into a half-grin and whispered, roguishly, “Magic.”
Callie grunted and took the free space to sprawl out on her own.
But at Rain’s castle, there was no such thing as Callie on her own.
He followed her, fusing to her side like a python, perfectly aligned.
On his side, he propped his head up with a bent elbow and hand, and gazed down at her with rose-crystal eyes. “So?”
Callie mastered drinking from a goblet while laying on her back, and looked up at him, sipping. “What?”
“What lived in the peach?”
“Oh.” She licked her lips. “A spider. A boy named James. And some other things. I forgot.”
“Where did they go?”
Callie thought for a beat. “I forgot that too.”
“Mustn’t have been a masterful play.”
Callie laughed. “It was,” she said. “Only, I haven’t seen it since I was a kid, and ... that was a long time ago.”
“Was it?” Rain gave a condescending smirk.
She took a deep breath, as if to salvage patience in it. “Well, how long ago was it that you were a kid?”
“A long time ago.”
“How long.”
His look was menacing. “Long.”
“Maybe I’m too young for you.”
“You are no longer a child. You are no longer a midmature—you are of a fine age.”
There was so much she wanted to jump on there. She started with, “What’s a midmature?”
Rain traded in his crystal glass for her arm, and traced shapes all over her skin. “When our bodies reach maturity, our minds have not had the time to adjust. Those are the mid years, where the mind and body are at odds. In humans, those years tend to be at an end after twenty years of life.”
“I’m not much older than that.”
“But you are beyond the mid years,” he said evenly.
“Fine. But what if I was ... sixty years old and my skin was wrinkled, and I had grey hair? Would you have picked me then?”
“Not likely,” he said with a smirk. “For isn’t the foundation of our bargain to provide me with an heir? At that age, I would doubt your capabilities.”
“Your boy said that fae can overcome all sorts of human ailments—like infertility.”
“It has been known to occur, but is not always successful.” His hand found her washed hair, and began to thread strands through his fingers. “What is all this talk of age and heirs? As I recall, those are particularly sensitive topics to you.”
“Well, I want to know about you.” She looked pointedly at him. “And this is how it’s done. Not ‘tell me this, tell me that’. We just ... talk.”
“I find I like this ... talk.”
He smiled down at her, and for once, there wasn’t a speck of malice that she could see on him. Even his bare chest didn’t seem to glisten as proudly as before.
“Now tell me—” He paused for a beat, as if correcting himself. “Do you have other friends than the one at the court?”
Callie bit the inside of her cheek and shrugged lightly. “On and off.”
Rain hummed, dragging his finger up to her face, where he traced the outline of her blue-stained lips.
“What about you?”
She was eager to steer away from her childhood before her parents were mentioned. Callie would rather pretend they never existed. Her grandparents were her parents.
Rain cocked his head to the side, eyelashes lowering against the weight of his fourth glass of innocent souls—not that that’s what he was really drinking.
“You have a sister,” Callie prodded. “Any other siblings?”
“Twelve.”
“That’s ... a lot,” she said with a small smile. “You must’ve had a lot of fun growing up.”
“I trained daily.”
“But after that—didn’t you go out and play?”
“After I trained, I lessoned. Learned the languages of our world, some of yours, histories from all over, politics. I studied nature, how to wield it as a royal, keep a leash of its power in my hold for all time—”
“But did you play?” She cut in, on her third goblet of wine. The potency was telling in the slur of her words. “Outside, in the mud? Or watch dance acts, or race your friends?”
“We do not play in the way your kind does.”
“Then how do you...” Memories from the court flooded her mind, and she suspected she’d answered her own question there.
Clearing her throat, Callie pushed her goblet to the side and waited for the shadow-servant to fill it again.
“Well,” she went on, “what about your mum? That’s her, isn’t it, in the painting down in the courtyard?”
“It is.”
“Will I meet her?”
“You will not like her.” It’s all he said with his words, but his face was grave, as though he wanted to keep Callie from the meeting for as long as possible. “Let us not talk anymore.”
Callie frowned at him. “I don’t
know anything about you. I live with you, I sleep in your bed, you paw at me all the time—and I know nothing about you.”
“Nothing.” He repeats the word with such puzzlement. “Your lies come so effortlessly.”
“That’s more of an exaggeration.” She took the freshly filled goblet and brought it to her lips.
“What do you want to know?” Rain’s fingers had danced their way down to her waist, and now tried to gently push under the hem of her lace bodice. “Already, you know of my first marriage, my son, my status and position, my family, my childhood, and my duties. What more is there?”
“Your favourite colour.” Callie grinned, all blue-stained teeth and drunkenness. “Your lucky number. The last meal you would have if you knew you were about to die. Your dream job. Biggest regret. Most cherished memory. And...” She bit the edge of her lip as she thought. “If you were stranded on an island forever, and there was no way off, and you could only take three things with you, what would you take?”
Rain studied her for a long, quiet moment. Then he slipped the half-empty goblet from her hand and rested it on the tray.
Before she could protest, Rain swooped down and planted a gentle kiss upon her wine-covered lips.
“Blue,” he murmured against her mouth.
Callie’s frown lasted a moment, then she realised, he was answering her questions. It was his favourite colour, and distantly, she thought of her stained-blue lips, her blues dresses, her blue eyes, her once-blue hair…
Her lips parted.
“Acrak-vek,” he added, then slowly slid on top of her.
“That’s not a number,” she mumbled, muffled by his lush lips.
“In my tongue, it is.”
Rain settled himself against her, shuddering as Callie slipped her arms around his back.
Rain nipped at her bottom lip, hard enough to earn a squeak of surprise from Callie. But he grazed his lips over the sore spots gently and, in a low murmur, answered her questions between kisses.
“My favoured meals are ordinary. I eat them every day. I have the career I was born for, the one that calls in my blood.”
Pressing into the blanket on either side of her head, Rain’s fingers dug into the earth beneath, as though he coiled himself in restraint.
“You forgot some.”
Callie’s breath hitched as his mouth travelled down to her throat.
“Regret.” He bit the sweet spot behind her ear. “I have few. Few enough that none stand out to be great.”
“A ch-cherished memor-ee,” she breathed through the dusting of ministrations he plagued her with.
The wine. The wine!
It had settled a fog over her, and all that she could feel through it were his touches, his kisses. He was a ship, and she was lost at sea.
Callie’s nails dug hard into his back, scraping at the stony skin.
He hissed a sound of pleasure and brushed his mouth along her collarbone.
“The day I was crowned High Paladin.”
The wine. The wine. The wine.
That voice grew quieter with every caress of her skin. A soft moan escaped her as she arched her back, inviting him further down.
“Island,” she managed to choke out. If he was the ship, and she was lost at sea, the questions were her anchor. “Th-three things ... to ...”
“Literature.” He punctuated the word with a warm breath down the crevice of her breasts.
“My son.”
He took full advantage of Callie’s hesitation—her surprise. Rain swept her up into his arms and pulled her to straddle his lap.
His mouth found hers instantly and devoured her with a kiss that made her head spin.
It’s the wine. It’s the wine.
“And I would take you,” he growled into her mouth.
Spinning.
Spinning.
Callie held on tighter. “Rain—”
A guttural sound crawled up his throat, low and inhuman.
“Rain … sto—”
Callie groaned and flattened her hands against his shoulders. Weakly, she tried to push him away. But it was too late.
Her body jolted.
Before she could turn, vomit shot up throat and splurged out of her.
Rain drew back in time to avoid his face being coated in blue sick, but his chest now glistened with his favourite colour.
Callie swallowed back a vile taste and looked down at him—at his sparkling blue chest.
And laughter burst through her.
Still, Rain held her to him, watching her curiously as she fell to a fit of drunken giggles.
But it lasted mere seconds before it happened again, sick pushing its way through her mouth.
For a while, Rain propped her up against him, letting her be sick on the grass. And when it slowed to hiccups and groans of discomfort, Rain swooped her up into his arms.
She saw the castle drawing closer. Then she forced her stare up at the skies—it came in the shape of rose-gold eyes looking down at her, and a defined, beautiful face that tickled her belly.
Then she saw nothing.
20
Days passed with Rain at home more than usual.
His business tended to be official of late, and he made sure to spend his spare time with Callie.
She refused vehemently to touch the blue wine again. Instead, he had new flavours brewed for her.
Every night, she trialled a new wine, and Rain would make a night of it, nights like those in the orchard and on the balcony.
He told her all about the beings that leaked between the realms.
The wolf from the path hadn’t been lying about the werewolves.
“Centuries ago,” Rain had told her as they wandered the strength of the moat, wine bottles loose in their grips, “the wolves escaped to the human world, fleeing the hunts of the darklings who would eat them down to the bone and wear their skin like prizes. So many of the wolves moved to the human world that, after some time, they settled and changed—becoming half human, half wolf. And they stayed, drawn to the kuris—what your call witches.”
“You thought I was a kuri,” she’d said after a long swig of purple wine that tasted more of sugar than fruit.
“I did. Sometimes, there is an obvious fae trait to their appearance. Other times, they might look like a perfectly normal human. But they are connected to nature and still hold a power over it.”
“Why are the wolves drawn to them?”
“Heirs.” Rain’s tone had been matter-of-fact, as though he’d simply been talking about a business deal. “In the human world, together, and only together, can the kuris and wolves reproduce.”
“They need each other to live,” Callie had said, understanding saddening her eyes. kuris had little choice in their partners—if they wanted to reproduce, have children, they could only do it with wolves.
And those children would only be kuris or wolves—not humans.
“Why don’t they come back here?” Callie’s face had taken a sullen turn as she had looked up at him.
“Many have forgotten this realm.”
That night, Callie had hung on every scrap of magical history he had given her. To know that all the myths from her own world, her home, had all been true. The witches were real—they were kuris, and the wolves were from this magical realm, too.
The knowledge of it all spurred so much excitement through her that Callie had almost brought herself to kiss him, if only to taste the truth on his lips.
But she didn’t kiss him.
Rain was the problem.
No matter how much her body betrayed her at the sight of his proud, naked frame in the wash-pond, or the magical sound of his drunken laughter on the balcony, or even the new tenderness in his sweet kisses to her skin, Callie couldn’t force out the memories of what he had done.
The ruined alcove stayed at the back of her mind and at the forefront were the threats, the times he had reduced her to tears, the ferocity of the night he had brought her back from the
court.
Callie had to try and forge new memories of him, she had to will herself to forget—if only for a night—the bad in him, and focus on the good. However little of it existed.
But her strategy was failing her, like her courage.
And it wasn’t until the night that Rain was sprawled out on the bed, a hand tucked under his head, and the other holding up a book in a strange language, that she adopted a new strategy.
Honesty.
Rain’s eyes shifted over the rim of the book as she neared.
Her dress caught between her legs and showed too much of her. It made her vulnerable. And that was exactly what she needed to be.
Callie climbed onto the bed and kneeled at his bare feet.
Her gaze locked onto his, and whatever it was that he read on her face was enough to make him close the book and toss it to the side like it was nothing, and she was everything.
Rain offered his hand, curving his fingers in summons.
She crawled over him then nestled herself at his side.
Rain blinked at her, a moment of surprise seizing him.
The moment passed, and he turned to face her, draping his arm over her waist, his fingers drawing shapes on her back.
Callie held his gaze and whispered, ashamedly, “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I don’t want to be tired.”
Rain watched her a moment, his eyes shifting from the pink of her set lips to the ruffle of her frown. His hand slid up from her back to the nape of her neck, and he ran his thumb over the sensitive skin.
She shuddered and drew closer to him.
Rain brought his face closer to hers, his eyes focused on her gaze. The warmth of his breath tickled her lips with each bit nearer he got, but all she did was curl her toes and let the shudder sink into her body.
He stole a kiss from her unmoving lips.
As he made to pull away, Callie grabbed onto his neck and her eyes sprung open.
“Again,” she said. “Kiss me again.”
Rain had lied in their fight after the court—he hesitated.
“I know,” she said, her fingers tracing the scarred lines of his shoulder. “It won’t change your mind.”
“You say that now, but after—”
She grabbed his cheeks to cut him off. “Just kiss me.”
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 26