by G. Bailey
"Was your old life truly that bad?" he asks me. “You are pretty, so surely you could find a decent mate and happily live.”
"You think you are cruel and cold. You believe you are evil," I say, and he narrows his eyes.
"I do not—"
"But you are not but a shadow of my past. You are almost innocent in the light of it," I explain to him.
"Do you have family, at least any still alive?" he asks. “Where we could send you back too?”
"How do you know any are dead?" I ask, wondering if Jath has told him everything I’ve said so far.
"I see it in your eyes. They are dead," he replies. “You are too lonely to have parents alive, and I know they aren’t why you are running.”
"All my family is dead, yes," I answer him. "What about you? Any other siblings other than Jath?"
"One sister, who is a teenager and thinks she knows best. She is very much like my mother," he replies to me.
"This pack is your escape from your family," I remark, figuring him out.
"No, and yes. My family can be too much, too protective, and we all needed our own space. It doesn't mean I don't care for them, but we can't live together," he explains to me.
"You're not all that bad, are you, Tiryn?" I say with a smile on my lips.
"Don't confuse my honestly with kindness, Red," he warns me, stepping closer to me and placing his arms either side of the banister, boxing me in. "I am not Jath."
"I know you aren't," I reply, and he grins, leaning ever so closer. "As for feeding on my brother like your personal slave, that has to stop."
"Why?" I ask him. "Is it because you're jealous it isn't you I am drinking from? It isn't you I am enjoying?"
"Careful," he growls, grabbing my throat, his attempt to remind me where my place is, but it doesn't scare me as it should.
"I didn't know what it was that I saw when you were on the steps that day, but I know now. It was jealousy," I tell him, and he growls low, the sound making me shiver as he lifts his hand from my neck and runs the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip, before inching it into my mouth. He grazes his finger across my sharp teeth, and he hisses as it cuts his thumb. His sweet blood drops into my mouth, and I slowly suck his thumb for a second, hearing his sexy grumble. Noise from a bird snaps us both out of wherever we went, and he rapidly pulls away from me.
"When you want to face up to how much you want me, we should talk," I say to him. “Built-up tension isn’t good for anyone. I don’t want you to hurt Jath with how you feel.”
"I do not want you," he growls.
"Tiryn, I see you. You are fearful of me, and if there is one thing I recognize, it is fear," I reply.
"I am alpha of the Luxa pack, and you are nothing. You do not get to question me," he growls, and walks to the steps, looking back once with a face full of fury. "When you find out the truth, I bet you will run."
"What truth?" I ask him, remembering the bit of the conversation I heard when I woke up.
"See you around, Arilee," he replies with a wolf-like grin, before shifting into his black wolf and running off down the beach. I don't do anything but watch, knowing whatever secrets are on this island can't be as bad as the secret I've been keeping from them all.
Chapter 9
"Green really is your color," Jath comments as I finish tying the black lace rope around the corset part of the dress, holding it up. The green silk material falls to the floor, and Jath is right, it does suit me. Jath has plaited all my hair in a complicated way, so it rests against my back, stopping at my waist. I stare at myself in the mirror, trying to remember the last time I was allowed to wear a dress that my king didn't choose for me.
It's been a very long time. "Why are you sad? Do you not like it?"
"No, I love it. I've just not chosen my own dress to wear in a very long time," I admit to him, knowing I shouldn't have told him that. I see the anger and the pity all mixed into the emotions in his eyes. At some point in the last couple of weeks on the island, I've noticed more than just affection for me from Jath.
I've felt more than simple affection for him as well.
"Who chose for you?" he carefully asks, treating me like a bird that is inches away from flying away if you scare it. He isn't wrong.
"I—"
"You're not ready to talk about it. It's alright," Jath says, offering me his hand to take. "We have a long time to get to know each other and for you to open up to me. It doesn't have to happen overnight."
"It's nothing to do with how I feel for you, or how much I trust you. I'm scared if I tell you the truth, you will be the one running away," I reply to him.
"Nothing you could tell me would make me run," he tells me.
"If you don't run, you might want something else that I won't give you," I say, meaning the throne. Everyone I've ever known has wanted the throne, to be the most powerful king in the world. The shifters don't have what we do, their castle isn't made of gold, and they aren't immortal.
Who would give up the chance to be an immortal king? If they were to live off my blood, I wonder if it would make them immortal?
"I don't want anything other than your time, Arilee," Jath tells me and sighs, rubbing the back of his neck before offering me his hand. "We have a celebration to attend."
"You didn't tell me what the celebration is actually about," I reply.
"Do you have dead horses on Arlen?" he asks, and I frown at him for a moment as I look back as we head down the stone stairs of the tower. We left the ship for one night so we could be here for the celebration and not too far away. I haven't seen Tiryn in a few days, but I always feel like he is watching me. I sense him near even when he is doing a good job of hiding from my sight.
"We have night horses, which are silver like the moon and stars. Very beautiful and extremely difficult to train," I explain to him as we walk out of the courtyard and down the pathway toward the village. "My parents thought I was mad when I found a foal in the forest. Though she liked to bite my hand many a time, I brought her up, and she was a great horse. She died of an unknown illness when I was thirteen, and she was only five."
"I'm sorry to hear she passed on; what was her name?" he asks.
"Vaelie," I tell him as he squeezes my hand.
"Beautiful name," he replies. "The dead horses are born in death, and they do not trust many. We breed them here on the island, and in the mountains where my parents live."
"What is the celebration tonight about?" I ask.
"You'll have to wait and see, won't you?" he replies, winking once at me, and I laugh. Something about him makes me laugh far more than I thought he could. We don't speak more as we head into the village, which has been transformed since the last time I saw it. Now horse-shaped posters and banners are hanging from all the stalls, and the stalls have candles all over them. There are lines of candles leading a path to the middle of the town, where there is a big clock tower covered in candles pinned the wall, a small wooden stage in front of it where Tiryn is standing, looking around until he finds us. "I will be right back."
"A drink, my lady?" a boy who can't be more than eleven asks, holding a silver tray full of small cups.
"Thank you," I reply, taking one of the cups, and he soon moves on to ask the people around me. I blend into the people as Tiryn claps his hands a few times, and the crowd goes silent. There is only the sound of the waves lapping against the shore in the distance and the gush of wind that blows around us.
"Welcome everyone to the ten-year dead horse celebration ceremony. We gather today to honor the past, the memory of those who have left us. For who knows more about death than the dead horses themselves," Tiryn says.
"Thank you, brother. Death is never the end, and many of us understand that on a deeper level. We are here to not only remember those that have moved on but to celebrate new life being created. Life is something we should always celebrate and embrace because of it perfectly beautiful." As Jath talks, both him and his brother seem to be fixed on my face.
"May you drink long and live even longer. To the beach!" Tiryn shouts and the people cheer and howl, their joy hard to miss as they start running down a lit-up pathway toward the beach. I sip on my drink, walking with the people and down toward the beach. I stop with everyone else when I see what they are looking at. There must be at least thirty horses in two pens, a great distance between them. The horses have fur as black as the night and eyes as red as blood. They are complete opposites to the horses we had back in Arlen, but they are just as beautiful. Tiryn and Jath walk to each pen, and the people start counting down from ten. I start shouting with them as I meet Jath's eyes, and he smiles at me with nothing but happiness in his eyes.
Tiryn is right, he is too kind, and I actually love that about him.
With Jath, there is no game, no lies, and nothing about him is cold and empty. He is full of life, love, and pure happiness.
He reminds me of what people should be like.
The countdown gets to one, and Tiryn and Jath open the pen doors at the same time before running back to the crowd. The horses jolt out and run into the water, pairing up as they swim and disappear under the water, coming back up occasionally and it's clear they are mating. It's a mating celebration. The people cheer and laugh before someone starts playing music, and someone else starts to sing. Arms wrap around my waist from behind, and I relax into Jath's arms as he sways us from side to side. The people around us dance with each other and laugh, and I can't help but feel happy with them.
This is the life I should have always had. For the first time in so long, I close my eyes and rest my head back on Jath's shoulders as I forget the past, forget the future and focus on the now.
Chapter 10
Jath
My wolf lets me know Tiryn is on the ship, long before I actually hear him, and he walks down the steps after silently opening the doors. My brother smells of ale, and I’m sure he has drunk more than he needed to by the smell of him. I know it’s his way of dealing with his feelings for Arilee. God knows he wouldn’t do what most people do, and deal with their emotions in a normal way.
"We need to talk," Tiryn says before walking out of the room as I stroke Ari's back, pushing her soft locks of hair off her back. The white sheet gathers around her waist, and I lift it, tucking her into the bed, and she makes a sweet sound of happiness. I slide out of bed and pull my trousers on before walking out of the room and out to the deck, where Tiryn is leaning against the banister, looking up at the moon.
"How do you get into a room without being heard?" I ask him as I walk over. “You could teach me how to do it.”
"It's all those years of hiding from our parents," he replies to me, smiling for a second as I lean against the banister.
"You only hid because you did something bad, and you knew they would tell you off. I never needed to hide," I remind him. We were like night and day as kids, and that really hasn’t changed much over the years. Tiryn uses passion and quick emotions to control his life and work out what he wants. When something real comes along, he can’t handle it. I’ve never seen him spend more than one night with a woman, and he always pretended like they don’t exist afterward. That’s why he is so lost with his new feelings for Arilee.
"A rider came from the mainland. The time has come; we have to leave in two days," Tiryn tells me, and I pause, not expecting the rider to have come so soon. Something must have changed for our parents to have called the pack and us back this soon. We had another year of freedom left, another year to make the right choices.
"What about Arilee?" I say, turning away from my brother and watching the sea move. This sea brought her here to us, and I never want to let her go. It’s more than an obsession; it’s more than lust. I’m in love with everything little part of her, and I find myself not being able to go a day without seeing her.
"What about her? We promised mother—"
"I know what we promised," I snap, and for a second, Tiryn looks sympathetic. Like he can understand what this must mean to me. He knows how I feel for Arilee, and I would bet he feels a lot of the same. "But everything has changed now. I no longer want to keep my promise." There is a long pause between us as I finally admit that out loud. I’ve never broken a promise in my entire life, especially not one that means so much to my family. There will be hell to pay if everything is lost.
"I can try to keep it for us both," Tiryn states.
"You know that wouldn't work. I'm a challenger to you, and it has to be us both or nothing," I remind him why we both made the deal in the first place.
"Tell Red the truth before someone else does," Tiryn warns me.
"Like you?" I ask, and he frowns.
"I will not tell her for you if that is what you are asking," he replies, fully turning to look at me now. "That isn't what you are asking, though, is it?"
"You can lie to yourself all you want, but I know how you feel about her," I tell him. “At first, I was jealous and furious. You were always the spoiled child, taking anything I wanted and destroying it. Then I realized it was worse than that because you actually feel something for her. I’m still on the fence about whether you are going to destroy her or not yet.”
"And how do I feel about her?" he challenges. “Considering you apparently have this all figured out.”
"You want to be with her, when you figure that out for yourself," I tell him.
"And you wouldn't hate that?" he asks. “Or try to fight me for her?”
"It works for our parents... somehow," I reply, rubbing my face a few times and straightening up. "The only thing I would hate you for is betraying us."
"I wouldn't make that mistake," he tells me, but I'm not too sure. I watch as he walks across the ship and to the steps down. "I'm going to leave men here to get this ship in the water. We can't make Arilee stay with us, and we must give her an option to leave if she wants. This ship will do that."
"Now you are interested in her leaving?" I ask.
"I've never been interested in her leaving, but I want her to make the choice to stay. If she takes the ship, we both know she isn't going to fight for us," Tiryn doesn't wait before leaving and heading down the steps. I rest my head back for a moment, looking up at the night stars. My family will tell Arilee the truth, and Tiryn knows as well as I do that there is a good chance she will run from me. The only problem is, I don't want her to ever be out of my life. We have had just three weeks together, and I know in my heart she is meant to stay here with me. I have to pray she feels the same way. I head back down the steps to our room and pause as I watch her sleep almost silently in the bed. Her dark-red hair adds color to the white sheets and her pale skin, the contrast hard to look away from. Everything about her is hard to look away from. I walk over and sit on the bed, watching as she slowly blinks her eyes open, her long eyelashes making her eyes even more beautiful.
"Is everything okay? Can you not sleep?" she asks.
"Tiryn came to see me with some news," I tell her, sliding my hand into hers. "My parents have called the pack and us back to the mountains for a few weeks. I would love for you to come and meet them."
"I would love to come," she says with a big smile. "You've told me so much about Elodie and your fathers I feel like I know them already."
"They will love you," I tell her, though the truth is, they will hate my relationship with her. It threatens us all. I lean down and kiss her, forgetting the world and the responsibilites that come with it as I hold Arilee.
The world and my parents can wait.
Chapter 11
I finish clipping my heavy cloak buttons up before looking over at the two massive horses that Tiryn and Jath are strapping in the saddles on, fixing them to make sure they don’t fall off and aren’t too tight. I gulp as I admire their thick, black fur, and how imposing they are, and the fact I have to ride one of them for hours very soon. I’m not sure I’m ready for that, but it doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice.
"Arilee, are you ready to leave?" Jath calls ove
r, and I move my heavy, boot-covered feet toward him, pausing to place my gloved hand on the horse’s neck. It neighs loudly, and I jump backward, cursing myself as Tiryn chuckles. Jath shakes his head at Tiryn as he takes my hands in his, almost in a comforting way. I didn’t think Tiryn knew how to be comforting, but here we are.
"They won't hurt you, but you have to ride on your own," Jath explains to me as Tiryn lets my hands go, looking confused about why he even did that. “They sense fear, so try not to be scared. It will make a better ride for you.
"Why? Where will you be?" I ask Jath. I assumed he was riding with me.
"I'm leading the pack through the forest to our middle camp before swapping with Tiryn the following morning," he explains to me, and points ahead of us at the massive pack of brown, black, and golden wolves that are lining the bridge that leads to the mainland. "They need someone to lead them, and I know this route better than Tiryn does. You and Tiryn will be behind the pack, keeping an eye out."
"Alright. Be safe," I caution, and Jath grins as he kisses me and steps back. Jath pulls his shirt over his head before kicking his boots and trousers off, leaving him completely naked in front of Tiryn and me.
"Make sure to pack my clothes. Or not if you don't want me to wear any," Jath says and winks before he disappears into a haze, and a massive white wolf appears in his place. The white wolf walks past me, brushing its soft fur against my side before jolting off toward the wolves.
"Time to ride," Tiryn says, and I watch as he effortlessly climbs onto the horse and grabs the reins before raising an eyebrow at me. I gulp and look back at the horse, wondering how in the vampire I'm meant to climb on her. The horses I had back home were half the size of this horse, and even then, I haven't ridden a horse for five years or more. I grab the saddle and tug myself up, only to miss the stirrup for my foot and fall straight into the ground.
"Can you ride?" Tiryn asks, and I can hear him trying not to laugh as he gets off his horse and I stand up, brushing leaves off my cloak as I try not to show how embarrassed I am. I have no doubt he would just laugh more.