Once he had gained that trust, she might unburden her heart to him just as he had unburdened his to her.
Rosalind returned from the lake, the ends of her blonde hair damp and curling, wrecking his concentration as his mind immediately leaped to picturing her in the water, bare and beautiful.
He growled in response to his markings flaring and this time the darkness within him did rise, pushing him to bare his fangs at her. She meant to tempt him. She wanted to lure him under her spell again, bewitching him with desire, until he surrendered to it. It was the reason she had dressed so provocatively. It was all part of her plan. During their trek, he would be drawn to looking at her, studying her curves and remembering what they had done. Eventually, his need for her would overwhelm him and she would seize control of him then and attempt to touch him.
Once she had skin contact with him, she would enslave him.
Kordula had done such a thing.
She had used his desire against him.
Rosalind frowned at him, a flicker of hurt in her blue eyes. He turned away from her and began walking, needing to place some distance between them. He sensed her following and was thankful that she kept her distance, giving him time to master his darkness and drive it back into submission.
Little Wild Rose had no intention of enslaving him. He had seen her horror and felt her anger when he had told her the things that Kordula had done to him, and her guilt too. He had sensed something else in her as well, a powerful tenderness and affection, and a need to comfort him. She desired to help him, not enslave him.
He brushed his bare fingers over the grass that grew tall between the trees as he walked through it, following his deepest instincts, the ones that connected him to nature. The forest was vast, at least three days trek to the edge closest to the Third Realm. The thought of being surrounded by so much beauty for three days soothed him, giving him more control over his darker nature.
Rosalind walked a short distance behind him and he found it increasingly difficult to keep his focus away from her as they trekked, heading deep into the heart of the forest.
Her power was growing.
It was no longer a low-level hum of magic around him.
He felt it constantly now, surrounding him and smothering his connection with nature, stealing it away from him. He glanced back at her over his shoulder, scowling at how oblivious to his pain she seemed, her eyes dancing over the trees and flowers, fascination shining in them.
Vail focused harder on his bond to nature, using it to shut out the sense of magic in the air and his connection to Rosalind.
It became more difficult four hours into their trek, when the path widened and she moved forwards to walk beside him. His focus on nature shattered when she brushed against him and he turned on her, snarling and flashing his fangs as her magic spread over his armour and seeped down to his skin.
She immediately backed away. “Sorry.”
He rubbed his arm and glared at her.
She turned her profile to him and ate more of her infernal concoction.
Now she was numbing herself to him.
Vail snatched the brown lump from her.
“Give it back.” She reached for it and he held it high above his head. She huffed and planted her hands on her hips. “That’s just childish. Give it back, Vail.”
“No.” He shook his head, ignoring the fiery shiver that went through him on hearing his name leaving her sweet lips.
She scowled and jumped on the spot, attempting to reach it. Her magic grew stronger. If she used it on him, she would pay the price for it. She was lucky that the thought of losing her had dulled his temper and his fury about her using magic to bind him to the tree, but she wouldn’t be so lucky again.
“Give it back,” she said, a note of pleading in her voice.
“No.” He wouldn’t surrender his prize because he couldn’t bear seeing her using it to numb herself. He couldn’t bear seeing her slowly falling apart as he was slowly getting better.
He didn’t want the darkness to take her. He was doing this for her own good. Just as she had pressed him to tell her why he had lost his mind and why he hated witches because she had wanted to understand him so she could help him, he would press her to tell him why she refused to rest and took an intoxicating substance.
“I am no fool, Little Wild Rose. I know of nature’s remedies and I want to know why you take herbs and mushrooms that numb you. Is it for the same reason you refuse to sleep?”
She stopped her attempts to reach the brown lump by jumping for it and glared at him, the silver in her eyes sparking.
“Just give it back. I need it and that’s all you need to know.”
He shook his head. “I cannot. I will not stand by and let you do this to yourself.”
She folded her arms across her chest, squeezing her breasts together. He refused to let them distract him. Her rosy lips settled in a mulish line that warned she wasn’t going to speak and she wasn’t going to stop being angry with him until he surrendered the concoction to her.
Vail scowled down at her. She would speak, and he would not return her precious mixture.
“You said you desired to understand me, Rosalind,” he said and her expression softened. Because he had used her given name? She had come back to him when he had done so last night, fear driving him to call for her and make her return, no matter how much using her given name had pained him. It had been sheer instinct that had pressed him to use it then. Perhaps he could bring her back to him with it again now. “Please, Rosalind. I only desire to understand you. You speak of nightmares and death, and take a mixture that leaves you intoxicated and numbs your feelings. I must know why.”
Her face softened further, a glimmer of something in her blue eyes that felt like resignation and perhaps relief, but then her expression hardened again. She attempted to reach the brown lump, jumping higher this time, but still nowhere near to taking it from him.
“Little Wild Rose,” he snapped and flashed his fangs as he spoke. “You will tell me why you take this concoction or I will send it away forever.”
Her eyes widened and she stopped jumping, her gaze locked on him. She stared at him for long seconds, a myriad of indecipherable emotions swirling through her and their link. She would not tell him. He sighed and focused, preparing to teleport her herbal mixture to his rooms in the elf castle and to endure her wrath for his actions.
She lowered her head, casting her gaze down to her feet.
“How do you do it?” she whispered, so quietly he almost didn’t catch it.
He bent lower, trying to see her face and regain her attention so he could see her eyes and see if they shone with the pain he could feel in her, rising above her other feelings and consuming her.
She closed her eyes, shutting him out.
“How do I do what?” Vail lowered his hand and looked at the brown lump in it, and then back at her.
“Kill without feeling anything.”
He frowned now, unable to follow her or make sense of what she was asking.
What did his past and abilities as a warrior have to do with her nightmares and the concoction? Was she attempting to divert his attention away from her, rousing his memories so they overwhelmed him, driving him mad so he left her in peace?
He refused to let it happen and battled the darkness that threatened to rise within him, unwilling to give it control when he had an important mission in progress.
The health of his mate came before his own, and he wouldn’t allow it to stand between him and discovering what ailed her.
She sighed, her slight shoulders shifting with it, making her golden waves dance across her chest.
“I’ve taken lives too now,” she whispered and his frown hardened, his fear that she was attempting to distract him melting away as all of his focus came to rest on her and her wellbeing. She rubbed her arms with her hands and sighed again, the sound strained this time, speaking of the hurt he could feel in her. “In the war. I killed pe
ople. Each life haunts me. Each soul torments me. I know it isn’t the same for you. Fenix told me that you’ve killed thousands of people. You must have somehow shut yourself off to the reality of the things you have done… or you have killed so many that it made you numb to it… I envy you for that, Vail. You can take lives so easily, without a flicker of remorse, if you feel threatened.”
He could do no such thing, but she seemed convinced that he did.
She turned her cheek to him and opened her eyes, looking off into the woods.
“I fear I’m going to become like my sister… a dark witch. I’ll become the darkness that is growing within me. I can feel it.”
Vail stepped closer to her, drawn to comforting her and unable to remain at a distance, even when her magic pushed at him and smothered him. He would endure it for her, in order to offer her comfort. His beautiful female hurt and he couldn’t bear feeling it. He had to soothe her pain and ease her heavy heart.
“Rosalind,” he whispered and she refused to look at him.
He raised his free hand, pretending it wasn’t shaking as he edged it towards her and that his chest wasn’t growing tight, squeezing his heart and his lungs. He breathed through it, reaching for her cheek, and tamped down his desire to tense when they made contact. Her skin was soft like silk on his palm and warm like sunshine. He turned her head towards him, forcing her to look at him, because she needed to see in his eyes that he meant every word he was about to say.
“I see only light in you, Little Wild Rose. Purity. Goodness. You are nothing like me. You are looking at darkness,” he said and her eyes softened, a hint of compassion warming their blue depths. “Fenix is right and I have killed thousands, and perhaps there was a time when I felt debilitating guilt over my actions, but I learned to cope with it and to manage it. Eventually, I became used to what I had to do in battle. I was raised a warrior, trained to cope with every action and the reaction it caused in me. I am hardened to it now, but that does not mean I do not feel remorse at times. Even when under the control of Kordula, I fought with honour and wished my adversaries a good journey to the afterlife, but I still knew that in battle it is a case of you or them, and I did not wish to die.”
She shook her head, pressing her cheek against his palm. “I didn’t want to die either… I didn’t want my friends to die.”
“A true warrior then. A warrior fights to protect those around them. You fought to protect your friends. It was war, Rosalind. I fought there too in order to protect someone.”
“You did?” Her pale eyebrows dipped low above her rich azure eyes. “Who?”
“My brother’s ki’ara.”
“Olivia… oh, Vail… I’m so sorry. It was my fault that she was out there. She wasn’t meant to be on the battlefield and neither was I, but I had to do something to help them. They were being driven back by the dark witches and I just had to help them. Olivia insisted on coming with me.” She pressed her hands to his, pinning it to her face, her eyebrows furrowing. “I’m sorry that you had to fight because of me.”
Strange little ki’ara. She always worried about him more than she worried about herself.
“Now I feel more guilty,” she whispered and went to lower her head, but he held her fast, pressing his fingertips along her jaw.
“That you feel guilt is a good thing,” he said.
She sighed. “It doesn’t feel good.”
Vail managed to smile. He could remember his first battles, when he had been a youth and had wanted to lead their armies into victories. Loren had tried to tell him the benefits of peace over war, but he had been too headstrong. He had been too intoxicated by the thought of gaining them more land and respect within Hell.
His first kills had left him wracked with guilt, just as Rosalind felt. Those days felt like an eternity ago because he only felt guilt when killing for one reason now.
“It is better than taking a life and taking pleasure from it.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide, but not judging him.
He closed his eyes to conceal the darkness rising within him, no doubt tainting his irises, and said, “I feel pleasure when killing. That is the mark of a monster, Rosalind. That is true darkness.”
It tormented him together with the things he had done, and the things that had been done to him. Graphic replays of fighting and taking sick pleasure from it tortured him in his darkest hours along with hurting his people and his brother, and all the things Kordula had made him do with her. Rosalind wasn’t darkness. She was light to his darkness.
“You were under a spell,” she said in a low, gentle voice that soothed him, a soft melody that wrapped him in warm comforting arms.
He wished that were true, if only because she believed it so fiercely and he didn’t want to disappoint her. He couldn’t lie to her though. She needed to know what true darkness was so she would understand that she was nothing like him.
“It was not just when Kordula was controlling me, Rosalind. It happened even after Loren had killed her and set me free from her spell. It happened in the battle between the Third and Fifth Realm when I was defending Olivia.” He looked her in the eye, holding her gaze, not allowing her to hide from the ugly truth about him. “It happened when I fought those demons just days ago.”
When his memories rose and induced his madness, unleashing the darkness within him and turning him into little more than a beast, he found pleasure in killing. He experienced a sort of ecstasy, an addictive and intoxicating release, and he was bone-deep afraid that he would harm Rosalind, or kill her, in pursuit of that high.
Whenever the madness seized him in its relentless grip, he hated her. He saw no difference between her and Kordula, even though he could see a vast difference right now.
“Will it ever go away?” she whispered.
“The guilt?” he said and she nodded, her eyes imploring him to say that it would. He wouldn’t lie to her. “It will fade in time, as you come to terms with what you have done and come to realise that it has not made you dark or evil. It has changed you, but only in part, and the rest of you remains the same good and noble female who desires to help others even at the risk of her own life. We are light and darkness, you and I… and perhaps one cannot survive without the other… perhaps fate brought us together because of that.”
She smiled at that, and he was glad to see it again. It coloured her eyes, brightening the blue and making the silver twinkle at him.
“Light and darkness,” she repeated and he sensed a flicker of relief within her.
It warmed him. He hadn’t expected to feel deeply affected by what she would confess when he had asked her about her reasons for refusing to rest, but it felt as if it had changed him and it had changed her, and had somehow brought them closer together. Is this how she had felt when he had told her about his past?
“We have walked far, and you feel tired. You must rest, Rosalind.” He hesitated, uncertain of how she would react to what he would say next. “I will watch over you.”
Her expression softened, a glimmer of warmth lighting her delicate features.
He offered the brown lump to her.
She stared at it for the longest time and then shook her head. “I don’t need it anymore. Thank you, Vail. You see the good in me just as I see it in you, and I can’t thank you enough for showing it to me and making me see it again.”
He felt his cheeks heat and busied himself with using telekinesis to hurl the concoction far into the forest in order to avoid her inquisitive gaze and get his blush under control.
Rosalind didn’t help matters.
She slipped her hand into his free one, linking their fingers together.
A hot current bolted up his arm, sizzling his nerve endings and setting them alight.
He stared down at her, lost in her blue eyes and the fact she was holding his hand, reeling from the one-two blow.
She hit him with another one that shook him to his core and awakened every male instinct he possessed.
She smiled and said, “We can rest together.”
CHAPTER 21
Vail led Rosalind deeper into the woods, his sharp purple gaze constantly scouring the area ahead of them and his hand still tightly grasping hers. She had expected him to turn on her when she had foolishly slipped her hand into his, risking her neck in order to have some physical contact with him and show him that what he had done meant a lot to her. It had surprised him, and his reaction had surprised her. Rather than pushing her away, he had held her tighter, his fingertips pressing into the back of her hand.
They walked through the low grasses, winding between the towering trees, and she stared down at their joined hands, fascinated by the sight of them and trying to remember the last time she had held a man’s hand, and the last time a man had held hers with such possessive force.
Force that said that now he had overcome this small hurdle and was able to bring himself to hold her hand without his darker memories pushing to the fore and sending him out of his mind with a need to protect himself from her, he wasn’t going to relinquish it.
She didn’t mind.
She liked the way he held her, as if he would never let her go. She liked it almost as much as she liked what he had said to her, speaking of them as if they were meant to be together. As if they were the balance the other needed and completed each other.
Foolish of her, but she couldn’t seem to convince herself to keep some distance between them. Not anymore. Now all she wanted was to move closer to him. She wanted to have all she could of him before the fate he spoke of that had brought them together tore them apart.
Confessing everything to him had relieved the weight on her heart but she still didn’t want to sleep and she felt certain he wouldn’t be happy when he discovered that. Guilt still wracked her and she knew that if she closed her eyes and let sleep take her, the nightmares would be waiting. No amount of Vail watching over her could change that.
Tempted by a Rogue Prince Page 25