Her gaze roamed up his strong arm, taking in all the small black scales that covered it, reminding her of the dragons she had seen in the battle, and settled on his profile. The white flowers on the trees bathed his face in pure pale light, highlighting his sculpted cheekbones and the straight line of his nose, and making his violet eyes bright and intense. His male beauty captured every ounce of her attention, stealing her focus away from herself and their surroundings.
He had tried to make her see him as a monster, but she still couldn’t view him as one. He held darkness within him, a terrible violent need born of everything that had happened to him, but he held good within him too. He had a sliver of light in his heart, and she had a sliver of darkness. She smiled at that. Maybe that made them perfect for each other.
Vail stopped near a thick tall shrub that curled around the trunk of a towering leafy tree with a gap between them on one side that formed a cosy cave. He glanced down at her hand and frowned, his nostrils flaring and his eyes darkening. She reached for the link between them, desiring to know his feelings and whether he was suffering a delayed reaction to touching her. She could sense no darkness rising within him and the aura of danger he emitted remained constant.
He released her hand with a flicker of what might have been reluctance in his eyes, ducked into the cave between the shrub and the tree, and settled himself with his back against the trunk.
Rosalind wasn’t sure where she was meant to sit. There was only one tree to lean against and very little space inside the small hollow in the bush. If she sat next to Vail, they would be close to each other. Perhaps a little too close for his comfort. He was twitchy today and it was her fault. She had been giving her magic free rein, allowing it to rise back to her normal levels that flowed through her, and she knew he could sense it and he didn’t like it.
Since confessing everything to him and unburdening her heart, she had pushed her magic back within her, keeping it at bay to give him some respite from it. She couldn’t make it disappear completely though, and sitting so close to him would subject him to it and push at his control. She didn’t want to upset him. She didn’t want him to hate her. She wanted things to remain calm and peaceful between them for a while. She wanted to feel what it would be like if her magic wasn’t a constant issue between them and death didn’t wait around the corner for her.
She wanted to know what loving and being loved by Vail felt like.
He busied himself, carefully clearing a spot beside him with his telekinesis, tossing leaves and twigs aside with flicks of his fingers to expose the soft grass the covered the tree’s roots.
When he had finished, he looked up at her, his purple gaze locking on hers and holding her captive.
He crooked his finger.
Rosalind swallowed hard and hesitated, earning a frown from him.
“Maybe this isn’t a—” She didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence and tell him it wasn’t a good idea.
Vail used his telekinesis to pull her close to him and the second she was within reach, he grasped her wrist and tugged her down into his arms. They wrapped around her like steel bands, holding her a little too tightly.
Rosalind didn’t want to mention that. She lay against him, stiff as a board and startled, her heart thundering as quickly as his was against her ear, and held her tongue. This was new to him and it was clear he didn’t know what to do, and that he would withdraw again if she made him feel stupid or that he was doing things wrong.
He was trying to be nice, to be gentle and comforting, after he had spent thousands of years having every shred of kindness beaten out of him.
It touched her deeply, warming her heart and melting it, leaving her even more in love with him than she wanted to admit.
Rosalind listened to the fierce drumming of his heart. It was strong but unsteady and she could sense the fear that caused it to race. He remained stiff as she began to relax, rigid and guarded. Afraid.
He clumsily petted her hair, his fingers trembling, making her heart ache for him. His motions were as stiff as the rest of him. Unnatural. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him, needed to tell him that it was alright and he didn’t have to push himself, because the ache in her heart grew so fierce that it brought tears to her eyes as she realised something.
He didn’t know how to do this anymore.
He didn’t know how to be affectionate.
It tore at her and she was too tired to fight and hold back the tears. They tumbled down her cheeks as she pressed her cheek harder against his chest, offering him comfort in the only way she could as emotions clogged her throat.
She laid her right hand on his chest.
He tensed.
Rosalind kept still, not wanting to scare him into reacting or bring back any terrible memories. She held her nerve though, keeping her hand resting lightly on his armoured left pectoral and feeling his gaze on it. This was a huge step for him and one wrong move could spell disaster. She didn’t want to push him over the edge. He hated himself when the memories took him. He hated how the darkness born of his terrible past and the abuse he had endured seized control of him and made him do things, and she knew it was because it reminded him of Kordula controlling him.
He needed to feel in command, the master of his own body and mind.
She didn’t want his past and the darkness within him marring this moment with her. She wanted this to be a good memory, maybe one that could help him in the fight against his bad ones.
Her heart pounded against her ribs, out of rhythm with the thunderous beat of his against her ear.
She slowly relaxed into him, expelling her breath on a sigh and resting more heavily against his chest and side.
He remained tensed for a few strained minutes and then finally began to relax too, his heart settling at the same time hers did.
Rosalind waited a few minutes more before she moved her right hand, slowly so as not to startle him, and softly stroked his chest. His black armour was cool to the touch, the scales bumpy beneath her fingertips, but it warmed wherever she had been. Colourful light shone through the scales that edged the hard square slab of his left pectoral. His markings. He reacted to her touch and it fascinated her, luring her into touching him in other places. She held that desire back, not willing to risk destroying the peaceful moment they shared.
“You feel healthier now. Because of my blood?” she whispered and ran two fingers across his chest, watching the markings flare and shine through the points where each scale of his armour met. “You healed so quickly.”
He didn’t respond.
She tilted her head back, looking through her lashes at him.
He stared down at her hand, his violet eyes wide and tracking her every move. She smiled and slowly swirled it over the top of his left pectoral and then down, skimming her fingers just beneath it. When she settled her palm on his chest, he swallowed hard.
She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop herself from whispering, “Your armour can’t be comfortable. Wouldn’t you prefer to feel my hand on your skin?”
His eyes rapidly darkened. “No.”
She tensed, waiting for him to shove her away.
His breathing quickened and he muttered things in the elf language. She sensed his panic rising, sweeping through him and their link.
“Vail,” she murmured softly, hoping to capture his attention and steal it away from the dark thoughts that were causing him distress. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re in control here. You’re holding me.”
His breath hitched. His gaze snapped to her.
He stared into her eyes, every inch of him tensed.
She swallowed her fear and dragged up her courage, and muttered a quiet prayer that he wouldn’t kill her.
“It’s your choice, Vail. Your decision. You’re in control.”
He swallowed again and looked down. She gasped when she was suddenly touching bare warm skin, her head reeling from the breakthrough and desire pushing her
to stroke his delicious body.
She checked that urge and settled against him again, feeling him breathing and listening to his heartbeat as it finally settled into a normal rhythm for him, much slower than her own. He began to relax too, his muscles going slack.
He gently placed his arms around her and murmured things in the elf language, his beautiful deep voice making it sound musical like a lullaby. She caught the odd ‘ki’ara’ but didn’t press him to tell her what he was saying.
It was private things.
Things that he wasn’t ready to allow her to know yet and feared her knowing too. She had a few of those sorts of things herself, and she wasn’t ready for him to know them yet either, and she definitely feared him finding out about them.
He stroked her hair with his right hand, brushing his fingers through it, the steady slow action soothing her together with his melodic voice, luring her into sleeping.
Rosalind fought the urge coming over her, struggling to drive the heaviness out of her head and stifling a yawn. She wanted to stay awake and ask him things about his powers, his armour, and how her blood had healed him so quickly.
The words wouldn’t line up on her tongue though, her foggy mind unable to provide the necessary questions. She closed her eyes and blinked them back open, only for them to fall shut again, her eyelids too heavy to hold open any longer.
Being in Vail’s arms was too comforting and she couldn’t remember the last time a man had held her like this, with so much care and tenderness.
She couldn’t remember ever being this close to someone.
She couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about someone either.
She had never loved someone as deeply as she loved Vail.
He had claimed her heart completely.
CHAPTER 22
Rosalind flicked a glance back at Vail, a smile playing on her rosy lips and dancing in her beautiful blue eyes. The golden strands of her silken hair bounced across her shoulders with each step she took and fluttered in the warm breeze. She lifted her hand and curled her hair behind her ear, hooking it away from her face.
She was radiant today, full of light and smiles as they trekked through the forest, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The beauty of the nature that surrounded him paled in comparison with her. She was a goddess.
She turned away and ran her right hand over the ridged trunk of a tree she passed, caressing it in a way that took him back to when he had held her while she slept.
How it had felt to have her hand on his chest.
It had felt good, the physical connection between them filling him with heat but soothing him at the same time. She had stroked his chest through his armour, but that caress had been nothing compared with how good it had felt to have her palm on his bare chest, branding his flesh with her imprint.
He stroked the place she had touched, feeling a ghost of her palm on his flesh beneath his armour.
Cold slowly crept in, crawling over his skin to that place, outlining where her hand had been. She had touched him. His step faltered and shadows formed at the corners of his vision, turning the forest there dark. Those shadows advanced as he slowed and the hand he pressed against his chest became the touch of another.
Always fondling and stroking, whispering words in his ear of how she would reward him. His breathing quickened, his heart labouring as he felt her hands all over him, leaving no part untouched and unsullied by her quest for pleasure. He tried to swat them away, snarled at them and clawed at his armour, but they wouldn’t cease. Every hand, each of what felt like thousands, swarmed towards one point—the place on his chest where he touched—and then drifted lower, coming to cup him. To squeeze him.
He closed his eyes and growled at the touch, fought the memories that surged up and crashed over him, bringing Kordula to life again in his mind. He ground his teeth, his fangs cutting into his gums, as she caressed him, pouring magic through his veins to restrain him so she could violate him.
Pleasure herself on him.
He dug his claws into his scalp and squeezed the sides of his head as he saw her stripping him and touching him, stroking him as she used her magic to force his compliance and held him with it, stopping him from stopping her.
A hand touched his where it clasped his head.
Vail smacked it away. “Do not touch me.”
He stumbled backwards, hitting a tree and tripping over the roots, almost landing on his backside as he fought to remain upright. He snarled and flashed his fangs, seeing Kordula before him.
Advancing on him.
“Vail?” she said and he cursed her for using his name. She had no right to use his name. She was not worthy of speaking it.
“Vile witch,” he snarled and launched forwards, seizing her throat in his clawed left hand. “Do not speak my name.”
“Vail, please?” she whispered, red lips drawing back into a strained line as he tightened his grip and her icy blue eyes imploring him even as they began to sparkle with crimson fire. “Come back to me.”
“Never!” He threw her aside, watched her smack into a tree and land in a heap. She had grown weak. Now was his chance to end her and free himself of her forever. “Now you die.”
“Vail, don’t.” She lifted her head and looked up at him with crimson eyes through her long red hair. The colour in it rolled down towards the tips like blood, leaving fairest gold behind. Her crimson eyes flickered blue and filled with starlight. “See me, Vail. See your Little Wild Rose.”
He stumbled backwards, her words a physical blow that knocked him, and had to dig the claws of his left hand into the nearest tree to stop himself from collapsing to his knees as he realised what he had done.
He had struck his fated female.
He had threatened to kill her.
He shoved himself away from the tree and paced to a safer distance, needing a moment to gather himself and suppress the darker urges threatening to seize control of him.
“Vail.” His name trembled on her lips.
He cursed under his breath in the elf tongue and shook his head. “Stay away.”
She didn’t heed him. He felt her approach, felt her magic sliding over his skin and seeping into his flesh. He clawed his scalp, focusing on the pain, desperately trying to hold himself together and stop the darkness from taking him. He shut out the whispered words that demanded he make the witch pay for what she had done. She meant to enslave and violate him too. She had no right to touch him or to use his name, and he had to teach her that in a lesson she would never forget.
She lightly stroked his back.
Vail turned on her with a snarl. “Do not touch me!”
Because the softest caress felt like the hardest strike and he couldn’t take it.
He raked his claws down his chest, slicing through his armour and backed away from her.
His stomach squirmed, her tenderness twisting it into painful knots that made the dark voice in his head demand she pay. He couldn’t take it. He pressed the points of his claws into his chest and growled through his clenched teeth. The softness of her caress sickened him. He hated her for it. He despised her gentleness.
He would rather she grabbed him roughly than touched him softly.
“Leave me,” he barked and she flinched away but quickly recovered, standing her ground and tipping her chin up in a defiant way that tore a warning growl from him.
Now was not the time for her to be stubborn and brave.
Now was the time for her to run.
“You can overcome it,” she said, her voice steady and calm, radiating foolish confidence.
She looked so innocent and trusting. He must have looked that way once, millennia ago, when he had first met Kordula.
“Fight it. Remember the good things.” She shifted her foot as if meaning to step towards him and he hissed at her through his fangs.
She backed off a step instead, her blue gaze wary and her magic growing stronger.
It crawled over his skin, sending him c
loser to the edge, skirting the fall into oblivion and the mindless rage that awaited him there.
“Remember the good things, Vail.”
He stared at her, breathing hard and trying to battle the dark hungers growing within him. They were too strong.
He was too weak.
“I cannot.” He took a step backwards, fear gripping his heart in icy claws. Fear for her safety. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want her to see the true face of the monster he had become. She wouldn’t understand it. She would leave him.
“You can, Vail. I know you can. Fight it. You’re stronger than this. I know you are.”
He spat a curse at her.
“I hate that you are so understanding.” He teleported, appeared right in front of her and grabbed her shoulders, dragging her against him. He bared his fangs and his pointed ears flared back through his black hair, flattening against the sides of his head. “Perhaps I do not want to remember the good things. Perhaps I do not wish to fight something insubstantial.”
A glimmer of fear broke through the hope in her eyes, obliterating it.
He stared down into them and snarled at her.
“Perhaps I just wish to fight.”
Her eyes widened and she shook her head as the colour drained from her face.
“No, Vail. You do not want to fight.”
He growled and tightened his grip on her, pressing the very tips of his black claws into her flesh through the sleeves of her black dress.
“I do. I want to fight… Witch. You will pay for what your brethren have done to me. I will show you what I have done to your kin… and you will know the pain I have suffered.” He pressed his claws in harder, giving himself over to the darkness so she would feel it within him and her magic would react in order to protect her.
It rose as if on cue, coming to sweep around him, becoming a physical thing as it grew in strength. It whipped her blonde hair around, causing it to flutter across her face, but she didn’t take her eyes away from his.
“I will not fight you, Vail.”
He smirked. “Then you will die.”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I’m okay with that. But will you be? Fight it, Vail,” she whispered, her eyebrows furrowing. “Fight it because I will not fight you.”
Tempted by a Rogue Prince Page 26