She kept her eyes on the black feather, hiding in staring at it just as he had hidden when plucking it from the creature, and swallowed her fear.
“Who made you hate me?” The feather shone in iridescent colours in the firelight, but it didn’t fascinate her. She felt nothing as she stared at it, heart in her throat, feeling as if she balanced on the brink of a fall that would kill her.
“I do not hate you,” he muttered and turned the creature over above the fire. “You are my ki’ara. I could never hate you.”
But he could never love her.
She fell quiet, letting the feather fall from her fingers, and buried her face in her knees, hiding from him and the pain beating in her heart.
Foolish witch.
She should have known better. She should have been stronger and resisted the temptation to give in to her desire. There was only one way giving herself to him would have ended, no matter what she had done, and she had been an idiot to think otherwise.
Vail muttered things in the elf tongue. All she caught was an occasional ‘ki’ara’.
She was stronger than this. She wouldn’t let a madman rule her life and she was done with his games. She was damned if she was going to spend her last days in this world letting someone dictate what she could or couldn’t do. She had taken care of herself since leaving her family decades ago, before her first transition, and she certainly didn’t need anyone to take care of her now that she had her powers back.
She lifted her head, resolve flowing through her and strengthening her heart, giving her the courage to do what she had to in order to save herself, even though it was going to hurt her too.
But it probably wouldn’t hurt him.
And that only made her hurt worse.
He offered the charred creature to her.
Rosalind stood, brushed her bottom down, and looked him straight in the eye, fighting the part of her that wanted to crumble and go back on the plan.
She took a deep breath and tipped her chin up.
“I think it’s best we part ways now.” She stormed off before he could respond, leaving him in the glade.
She sped up as she entered the trees, until she was running flat out, biting back the tears that burned her eyes and berating herself. She was such a bloody fool. She should have been stronger. She shouldn’t have given herself to him.
She should have known it would end this way, with her heart torn to pieces.
She ran along the lakeshore, the stones cutting into her bare feet.
She didn’t need him now that she was free.
She could find her own way home. She had never needed a man to look after her and she wasn’t going to begin now, and definitely not with someone as messed up as Vail. He would be the death of her.
Probably already was.
She wished she had never met him.
Her heart reproached her, saying it wasn’t true. She was glad she had met him, didn’t regret her feelings for him and the time she had spent with him, but that didn’t mean she was going to stick around now that he had made his feelings clear. He didn’t feel the same way as she did.
He couldn’t hate her because she was his mate.
The bond had made him want her, it had made him want to be with her, and it made him unable to hate her.
That told her everything.
Without the bond, Vail would have killed her for being a witch back when she had first met him.
Everything he had done, every kindness he had shown her, had been because of a stupid bond.
She hated him for it.
She barked out a laugh. It seemed the bond didn’t work the same way on her. She hated him with a vengeance and she was done with him.
There had to be a portal somewhere in the forest. If she could find it, she might be able to cast a spell to allow her passage through it.
The waterfall thundered ahead of her.
A distant roar shattered the stillness of the forest and creatures fled their roosts.
The air ahead of her shimmered like a heat haze.
Vail appeared in the midst of it in full armour, the black skin-tight scales covering him from razor-sharp claws to the tips of his horned helmet. His near-black eyes narrowed on her.
Rosalind skidded to a halt and back-peddled but he advanced quickly and was on her before she could turn to run the other way. He grabbed her, twisted her in his arms, and clutched her, pinning her against his body.
She muttered a spell, not wanting to hurt him but unwilling to let him hurt her. Before she could finish it, he teleported.
The moment they appeared out of the darkness in the middle of the glade, she finished the spell, blasting him away from her.
The tree he hit wrapped branches around him, binding him to it as the spell stole his ability to teleport. He growled and fought the branches, a wild edge to his purple eyes but pain in them too. Her heart ached and she silently apologised to him, hating herself for not only using magic on him to stop him from pursuing her but forcing him to harm his beloved nature too in order to protect himself.
She ran again, crashing through the forest in the other direction this time, away from the lake.
Branches whipped at her and scratched her bare arms and calves, but she didn’t slow. She couldn’t slow. She had to keep running.
Tears blinded her and she dashed them away, her strength fading as she stumbled from tree to tree, forcing herself to continue even when she desperately wanted to turn back. He would free himself eventually, or her spell would wear off and return his ability to teleport free of his restraints. She didn’t need to go back. She had to keep going forwards.
“Rosalind!”
That roar stopped her dead and she looked back the way she had come, her heart lodged in her throat and beating there at a sickening pace. Her legs shook and she blinked back her tears.
He had never said her name before.
She gripped the tree beside her, torn between running away from him and running back to him.
“Rosalind,” he roared her name again, little more than an anguished cry filled with the agony she could feel in him, incredible pain that drove her to return to him because he needed her.
He was calling for her.
For all his faults, even though he had snarled and clawed and said spiteful things that had hurt her, she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. But she couldn’t bring herself to believe he felt anything for her either, beyond what the bond made him feel, and she wouldn’t go another step with him until she knew why he hated witches.
He owed her that much.
CHAPTER 19
The moment Rosalind emerged from the forest and entered the glade again, Vail’s gaze snapped to her and the anguish she could feel in him through their bond faded, some of the black in his eyes dissipating with it. His expression softened and he stopped his struggle against the branches that wound around him, pinning him to the thick tree trunk behind him.
He looked down at the branches restraining him and then back at her, an expectant edge to his eyes that was going to switch to darkness when she spoke.
“Oh, I’m not here to release you,” she said and rather than the darkness she expected to rise within him, he sagged in his bonds and exhaled on a sigh that reeked of resignation. His gaze held hers as she moved out into the open, towards the fire, a touch of relief in it that echoed through their link. She huffed. “I feel you’re glad to see I’m back, but I guess that’s just a product of the bond… right? You don’t really care if I’m here or if I’m gone. You only think you do because this irritating bond makes you feel that way about me.”
She stopped directly in front of him, with the fire between them, and tried to stop her leg from jiggling as she battled a bout of nerves that threatened to have her knees buckling beneath her. Vail stared at her, the intensity of his gaze only increasing the speed of her twitching.
She needed to get a grip. She jerked her leg to a halt and decided to make herself more comfortable. She was done with pl
aying nice after all, pandering to his madness. He couldn’t harm her now.
Rosalind waved a hand over her dress, using a spell to create a new one, ignoring Vail’s warning growl and how he struggled against the branches that bound him again.
The top half of the black dress hugged her stomach and chest, the front dipping low as the two diagonal pieces of material crossed over her breasts, leaving modest cleavage on show. It covered her arms too, from shoulder to wrist, concealing the ugly scars of her containment. The skirt flared out from her hips, loose and wild, reaching only midway down her thighs, leaving their slender forms exposed. She switched her modest underwear for a push-up black lace bra and a pair of shorts edged with lace, and formed a chunky pair of black leather ankle boots suited for trekking through Hell on her feet.
A sweep of her hand over her hair and it dried and settled in subtle waves that curled playfully around her shoulders and down her back.
She used a final spell to create a comfortable green velvet armchair behind her and sat down on it, placing her arms on the rests and staring across the fire at Vail.
He snarled at her, flashing fangs, a dangerous and wild edge to his eyes again.
“Not so relieved about my being back now, are we?” she said and his gaze focused on her, filled with dark intent. “Glare all you want. It’s all you can do until I decide to release you.”
For some reason, that sent him plunging into madness.
He roared and bucked against the branches, tried to bite them as he used all of his strength in an attempt to break free. Pain tore through her, agony that cut her to the bone and had her on her feet, crossing the glade to him. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, and he was hurting.
Not physical pain, but an emotional one so deep that it left her shaking and sick, on the verge of vomiting.
“Vail,” she whispered and risked his wrath by reaching up and placing both hands on his cheeks, cupping them and gently restraining him.
He stilled, his chest heaving against the branches with the force of his rapid breaths, his eyes wild and locked on her. They gradually cleared, the black in his irises receding, leaving only inky spots behind, and his breathing slowed as he looked down at her.
“I said something wrong, didn’t I? This wouldn’t happen if you would just let me in and tell me what happened to you.”
The pain flowing through her ebbed away, but didn’t disappear. It remained at a low level, a constant ache in her heart.
She brushed his cheeks with her thumbs before withdrawing her hands and lowering them to her sides. She looked down at her boots and heaved a sigh.
“I’m not buying into this bond, because I can’t, and you only feel something for me because of it. But—”
He growled at her, cutting her off, and she raised her head again. Pain swam in his eyes and he tried to move his left arm, his jaw clenching as he struggled against the branch that held it.
“You want it free so you can lash out at me?”
He shook his head, an edge to his emotions that warned he didn’t like her saying that he wanted to hurt her, and tried again to get his arm free.
“It’s not happening. Deal with it. I’ve been nice. I’ve tried to understand… but you hurt me. You hurt me and I won’t let that happen again. I have enough to deal with without you adding to it.” She went back to her comfy chair and sat on it, waiting to see how he would respond.
His face fell, his eyes falling with it, locking on the fire rather than her. Shame crossed his handsome features and he closed his eyes.
“Do not want to.” Those words came out strained and hoarse, laced with anger and pain. “Did not mean to hurt my ki’ara.”
She huffed.
“That says it all really, doesn’t it? You don’t want to hurt your ki’ara. Not me… it’s not me you don’t want to hurt. It’s your mate. It’s genetically imprinted on you. Be honest with me, Vail.” She folded her arms across her chest and he raised his gaze back to her face, hurt shimmering in it. “If I wasn’t your mate, you would have killed me the day we met.”
He growled at her, the pain in his eyes flaring, darkening the rich purple of his irises. “No.”
Mother earth, she wanted to believe that, but she was done being a fool.
“Was any of this real?” she whispered, her throat thick and tight, making it hard to speak. Tears rose against her will, stinging her eyes, and she drew in a deep breath to hold them back so he wouldn’t see how much he had hurt her.
The pained look on his face said he didn’t need to see it. He could feel it.
“You want to comfort me now? Because your mate hurts. Not because Rosalind the witch hurts. None of this was real… and I was stupid to believe it might be, and now I will probably pay the ultimate price. Maybe that will be a good thing. Maybe leaving this world will end this hurt I have inside me that grows every day.” She laughed at how melancholy and melodramatic she sounded. She had never been one for theatrics or pitying herself, but she seemed stuck in a vicious cycle of it these days. “I just wish one moment had been real. One look or touch. Just something, anything, so I don’t leave this world feeling I threw it all away and died for nothing.”
The black slashes of his eyebrows met hard above steely purple eyes. “Die? No death for Little Wild Rose.”
She laughed at him now. “I don’t think you get a say in it. Even I don’t get a say in it. I don’t want to die… but I don’t get a choice. Meeting you took it from me.”
“Why?”
Rosalind shifted her shoulders. “I’m not saying. You have your secrets and I have mine, and they’re none of your business really.”
He growled and struggled again. The branches creaked as they tightened around him in response.
“Real,” he ground out and she waved her hand to stop the branches from squeezing the life out of him so he could speak.
“What was real?”
He looked away from her. “It.”
It?
“I need a little more than that,” she said.
He flashed fangs her way and then lowered his gaze again, slumping in his restraints at the same time. “Wanted you.”
Her cheeks flushed but she refused to let him win her over with pretty words designed to make her believe him capable of feeling anything for her.
“You wanted your mate. I was horny and you felt the need to take care of it. Don’t deny it.”
He shook his head. Not denying it? Or she was wrong?
His eyes met hers, clear purple and steady with intent.
“Wanted you before that.” Pain tightened the lines of his handsome face and he growled and tipped his head back, and banged it against the trunk of the tree. “Little Wild Rose thinks me a monster. Would never want a monster.”
“Mother earth, no!” She shot to her feet, raced around the fire to him and caught his cheeks again, stopping him from pounding a hole in the back of his skull. She dragged his head away from the trunk and tipped it down so he was facing her again. “I don’t think you’re a monster, Vail. You’re a bloody annoying bastard at times and you have issues, but you’re not a monster.”
“Made me a monster,” he whispered, his eyes unfocused and lined with tears. Pain rose within her again, agony so intense it left her breathless. If it consumed her like this, tore her apart inside, and she felt only a shadow of it through the bond, what was it doing to him? He shook his head, the wild strands of his black hair falling down to brush his forehead, and his eyebrows furrowed. “She made me a monster.”
Tears dotted his black lashes, threatening to fall, and she couldn’t take the pain that echoed within her, the fierce agony that burned her soul to ashes and ignited fury in her veins.
“Who, Vail?” she whispered, struggling to keep her voice steady so she didn’t rouse him from his current state, losing the chance to understand him at last.
“Kordula.” He ground his teeth and shook his head, and then laughed, the sound chilling and mirthless. “They sai
d my mate was a witch… they said my mate was a witch… lies… tricked me… enslaved me.”
A chill went through her. “This witch… enslaved you.”
He threw his head back and laughed, tears cutting down the sides of his face. “Four thousand two hundred and twenty eight years… one hundred and fifty seven days and three hours under her spell… four thousand two—”
She placed her hand over his mouth, unable to bear hearing him repeat that.
Only one type of witch could live that long and do that sort of terrible sorcery. A dark witch.
A dark witch had enslaved Vail and held him captive for four millennia. She covered her own mouth with her other hand and stumbled away from him, her spell instantly shattering as tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t known.
She never would have bound him with her magic if she had known.
The tree released him and he collapsed into a heap on the ground. His armour peeled away from his hands and torso, and he tugged the grass into his fists, holding on to it as if it was his only lifeline and the only thing keeping him sane.
“Vail, I… I didn’t know. I never would have… you have to believe me.” She crouched beside him, fighting her desire to touch his bare back, knowing if she did so now when he was free, there was a risk he would turn on her. “Why did she do this to you?”
He looked up at her through the tousled strands of his blue-black hair, his purple eyes shining with hurt and anger.
“Wanted my kingdom. Had to protect my people… attacked them and made them hate me… only way to warn them. I had to do it, Little Wild Rose. I had to… I had to… she punished me for it. Always punished me when I was bad.”
Mother earth, she wanted to hunt down the bloody bitch who had done this to him and tear her to pieces.
Vail clawed at the earth, dirtying his fingers.
“Never want me back… made me try to kill Loren… made me kill others… innocents.” He shook his head and closed his eyes, his jaw clenching. “Punished me if I disobeyed.”
She didn’t want to ask how. She didn’t think she could bear it. No wonder he hadn’t cried out when the demons had tortured him. He had probably grown immune to such violence and pain. No wonder he lost his mind when fighting, becoming savage and cruel, an unstoppable force.
Tempted by a Rogue Prince Page 23