Everwinter (Chronicles of Naelyra Book 1)

by R. J. Lloyd

  I laid my head on his shoulder, my voice betraying how fragile that thought made me feel. “If I were to have your child, would it be human or vampire?”

  "It would be a half breed. They would live with benefits of both worlds," he explained.

  “A half breed?” My breaths were slow, contemplative.

  He pulled me up into his lap, brushing my hair back behind my ear. “This thought scares you.” His piercing blue eyes roamed over my face. “Today has been a lot for you, I am sure. Shall we go home? I can soothe you better there.”

  I warmed with his gesture and laid my cheek against his. There was something so comforting about him. And while the thought of the most recent topic both scared and intrigued me, my mind flooded with the events of the prior several days, this day in particular. “Yes. Please. I’d like to go home. I could use a bath. if I’m allowed.”

  "Auri, you are not my slave. Of course you are allowed." Kane stood, holding me in his arms, carrying me until we stepped outside of the tavern.

  Gently, he placed me on my feet. I looked back through the doors, seeing that the cleanup was virtually complete. Tables and chairs had been reset. Blood had been mopped up. Drinks had been refilled. And even the patrons were starting to socialize again.

  And not an eye had followed us directly as we exited.

  I felt his hand, his fingers entwining with mine. I don’t know how long I had been standing there, staring off. It couldn’t have been but a moment. But it was a long moment.

  “Shall we, little one?” I blinked, looking up at him. His expression was soft with a hint of concern. “Would you like to walk, or do you need assistance?

  I tilted my head, blinking again as if I wasn’t registering what he’d said. And I wasn’t. At least not for a moment. My brain was rebooting.

  “Auri?” His softness shifted. That hint of concern growing across his brow.

  “Yes?” Finally, I responded.

  He exhaled a sigh of relief. “Welcome back. Now, how about I get you home so you can have that bath?”

  The last of whatever that was rolled off me. I cleared my throat and sucked in a cleansing breath. “Yes. That sounds divine.”

  The walk back to the castle didn’t take nearly as long considering that we didn’t stop at any of the shops. Most were closed, but I am pretty sure that Kane wouldn’t have let me detour regardless. Not with how I’d spaced out back there.

  So, when he tugged me along, holding my arm wrapped around his, I didn’t fight or argue. I simply walked along with him. Both of us silent. But it was a comfortable silence. Occasionally, I’d look up and see him watching me. And each time, he would smile at me. A smile that I couldn’t help but return.

  As we turned the corner into the corridor that led to our chambers, Kane pressed his hand to my lower back. "Would you like me to have Sarah warm a bath for you?"

  I liked Sarah. She was swiftly becoming my closest friend on Naelyra. But I was sure I was done with people for the night. “Actually no. I can run it myself. I don’t really think I want anyone else around tonight if that’s alright with you.”

  Before he could respond, a woman’s voice echoed down the hall. “Well, that’s too bad since I’m already here.”

  “What are you doing here, Mika?” Kane pulled my hand, moving me slightly behind him.

  She stepped forward, moving out of the shadow she’d been standing in. “Just out for an evening stroll. I thought maybe I’d stop by and see you two lovebirds considering there’s so much gossip going around about your date night.”

  Kane’s jaw clenched. “Our evening is of no concern to you. If you are in need of something it will have to wait until morning. Auriena is tired, and I intend to see her to bed.”

  “Oh yes. I am sure you will.” Her words dripped with disdain. “But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? You get to show your lover to bed. You little precious little doll.”

  She reached for my chin, but Kane slapped her hand back. “Once again, Mika, what is it you want? You do not lurk in shadows unless you want something.”

  Her eyes were on me fully as a smirk shifted her features menacingly. “Oh, you know. I want her heart on a platter. I’m awfully hungry, and if she’s as sweet as you are letting on, I want some.”

  A growl emanated from Kane’s chest. “Mika, go. Go to your chambers. Leave us. I don’t have time for your games. I’ve already shown one couple what I do if someone puts hands on Auri. Do not make me teach you this lesson tonight.”

  She broke her gaze from me, looking up at him with a pout. “Awww… but honey. You took away my toy I want to know when will you be done with yours so we can go back to just us. I’m bored, and she’s in the way of my fun.” She snarled at me. “Not to mention an insult that you’re parading her around like she’s important.” Her eyes widen as they dart back to him. “Or are you toying with her to make the game fun. Oh please say yes. I want to join in on the fun. Can I toy with her, too?”

  Mika was slowly moving her hand toward my hair when Kane slapped it away, letting go of me. “I will not warn you again. Take heed from whatever rumors you heard about our night out and know that a man was dismembered, killed then reborn for touching her wrist. Do not test how far I can be pushed. She is no toy, and this is no game.”

  Her pout returned, this time more exaggerated. Then, not just her expression but her stance shifted, and she snarled. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.” His words were punctuated.

  “But she’s human… weak.”

  “She is far from weak.”

  “How can you choose her?” she shouted.

  His teeth ground. “Leave it be, Mika. Leave it be and go to your chambers. This is none of your concern.”

  Mika scoffed. “You are blinded by your lust for her.”

  Kane took a step toward her. “What I feel for her is more than lust. With you I felt lust. And see what all I have done for you over the years. Imagine what I would do for someone I truly fell for.” His hand reached back for mine.

  I ran my hand down his arm and started to step around them as their eyes were locked on the other like two feral beasts deciding if they could battle. “You two obviously have some things to work out. I don’t need to be here for that, so I am going to go in and let you two talk.” I started to move past them.

  Kane nodded, his eyes still on her. But Mika, faster than I’d even seen Kane move, was before me. Her fingers wound through my hair as her leg swept, knocking my legs out from underneath me. She tugged and I fell, hitting the floor with a sickening thud. My breath pushed out fo me, and I struggled to take in another as she rested her foot on my stomach.

  She sneered at Kane. “Weak. As I said. Not worthy of you.”

  “I will decide who is worthy of my,” he roared.

  He started lunging toward her, but he didn’t reach her. As I lay there, under her foot, things slowed. Or at least they seemed to. And a strange sensation rose from the center of my abdomen. A protectiveness that almost moved me.

  There was no forethought. And to be quite honest, I wasn’t even sure it was all me. But before I knew it, my next few actions unfolded into an ballet of motion.

  A wind picked up in the corridor, and all of the torches went out with a woosh. My hand gripped her leg, and I pushed forward with the deepest, most achingly painful sadness. The emotion knocking her back as she stumbled a few steps. Free again, I stood and pressed my hand to her forehead, releasing a flood of dark emotions into her, accompanied by flashes of images of warn and death.

  With a snarl, I moved my hand back, releasing her into the wall only a half step from her back. I rubbed my fingers together then opened my hand, palm up, and the torches roared back to life.

  I stood, a single step before her as she crouched on the floor. One hand in the air, then other on my abdomen, I looked down at her. “True weakness comes when you can not see your competition’s strengths.”

  She coughed between sobs that she desperat
ely tried to control. “What are you?”

  Kane’s hand landed on my shoulder. “She is mine, as I am hers. I told you to leave it be.”

  Slowly, she slid up the wall to stand, refusing to look at me.

  I lowered my hands, the one still resting on my stomach. “Do not ever touch me again.”

  Before either could say anything, I whipped away and started for the door, wanting to put as much distance between myself and Mika. I din’t want to face why she was so adamant that I was wrong for Kane. Nor did I want to think of their past that she seemingly was begging to get back. And I certainly didn’t want to think about what I’d just done – the level of magic and force I’d just revealed. Hell, it scared even me.

  I pushed the door open, finally letting my hand drop from my stomach. Looking back, Kane had Mika by the arm, watching me. A hint of something different was in his eyes. Something I swore was a mix of admiration and fear. But when he spoke, his tone was a mixture of stern and sad. “I need to have a word with Mika. I will be in shortly.”

  I nodded and went inside, closing the door behind me.

  With my back to the carved wood, I heard Kane and Mika moving down the hall without a word. A part of me spiked with jealousy. There was obviously a past there that I knew almost nothing about, but that woman was fiercely trying to regain it in her own bitter way. All I could do was hope that he didn’t get pulled back in.

  Then I wanted to curse myself for feeling so protective of something that wasn’t mine. At least not permanently. I was on an accidental vacation, allowed to enjoy the perks of the most enrapturing man I’d ever seen.

  With a growl, I stalked away from the door, grabbing a robe from its hook. My bag that I’d brought there with me hung against the wall, and a sense of relief washed over me. I needed an escape for a moment. Some sense of normalcy, and I knew exactly what would help.

  Yanking the bag with me, I headed straight for the bathroom. I turned on the tap and let the steaming hot water start to fill the metal, claw foot tub.

  Working the laces, clasps and buttons, I peeled out of my gown and undergarments, draping them carefully over a finely upholstered vanity seat. In front of the sink, I looked into the mirror. There was something different in my eyes. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.

  I was lost, searching my own expression when the noises in the room shifted, and I was snapped back into reality. I turned swiftly just in time to turn the faucet off, keeping the tub from filling too much. My hands rested on the sides of the metal basin, and I leaned over it, letting the steam flow up around me as I breathed it in before stepping into the near scalding water and lowering myself down.

  Having dropped my things on the stool that sat next the tub, I reached over and opened my purse. Rifling around, looking for my bag of crystals that I usually carried with me, I paused when my fingers found my phone instead. Lifting it, I dropped my purse and flipped the device over in my hand.

  I knew it wouldn’t work… signal wise. But I couldn’t help but turn it back on. As the screen lit up and icon appeared, I clicked open the photo gallery. Tears found their way to my cheeks as I scanned photos of sunsets, sunrises, my book store locations and employees, my home… my life.

  With a deep breath, my thumb slid over the music app icon and I pressed it. Selecting one of my downloaded playlists, I needed to listen to music. Music had always healed me, comforted me. Happy, sad, scared, lost, elated; no matter the emotion, music was always there for me to carry me through each situation.

  Right away, I sang along with the lyrics of the first song. My eyes closed, and I placed the phone on the small table near the faucet and leaned back, letting the songs shuffle randomly. And with each tune, I belted out right along with the singers.

  It was therapeutic.

  I’d sunk down, allowing the water covered every bit of me from my neck down. Shoulders immersed, arms folded into my chest, an acoustic version of Blue October’s “Calling You” filled the room, and I sang along with the winding melody. The lead singer’s odd mix of rough tones and poetic words always made the world melt away for me, and I’d get lost in their songs.

  I had been fully unaware of anything but the hot water engulfing me and the music carrying me away from all of the stress surrounding my current situation. So much so that to say I was started when Kane came crashing through the door was an understatement, water splashed as I jumped, hands gripping the sides of the tub to brace for whatever was coming at me.

  “Who is in here? Where is he? I’ll kill him!” A deep growl emanated from his chest as he searched the room, the music still lamenting from the speakers on my phone.

  “Who?” I curled into myself, lowering into the water up to my chin.

  When the song changed and “Mad World” came on in its place, his rampage grew. He overturned the cabinet next to the sink and yanked the door off the linen closet. Not seeing anyone but still hearing the man’s voice, he turned, his eyes boring straight into me. “Is this some kind of magic? Do you communicate with a lover through a spell?” His jaw flexed, causing me to jump out of the tub and cower down behind it, not yet registering why he thought there was a man in there with me. “Are you hiding a lover, Auriena?”

  He hardly ever called me by my full, first name. The tears that had ceased suddenly were back. “I don’t know what that woman told you. I don’t even know her. There’s no man or lover that I have other than you. Please! What did she say?” I wrapped my arms in front of myself, trying to hide my naked body as I began to shiver.

  His expression twisted. “What she told me? Mika didn’t say anything about you having a man. She would be overjoyed if you had someone to take you from me. I’m speaking of the man I hear in here now.”

  “In here?” I started to stand, but when his fists tightened, I sank back down.

  The song ended, and Billie Eilish’s voice flowed from the speakers, his head snapped around, catching the phone in his sights. Confusing pulled at his features as he listed it from its resting place. “What is this? Some sort of communication device? Are you speaking to people? Can they not hear us?”

  My teeth chattered lightly. “Yes. It is a communication device…a phone.” If I thought he couldn’t appear any angrier, I was wrong. So, I quickly added, “But it also does other things. They can’t hear us because we are hearing recordings. It’s music. I don’t know these people. I listen to their songs. Do you not…”

  I stopped, seeing very apparently that his answer would have been “No” to my question. His world did not have recorded music. I wondered if they had music at all.

  He started pressing on the screen. “How do you turn it off? I cannot think.” He hit the skip button an “Acid Rain” by Lorn came on, the shift in the tones causing him to drop the phone onto the fur rug beneath his feat.

  One side of his lip curled in frustration as he started to reach for it. But I came around, cautiously, looking at him with my hand outstretched, reaching for it. “May I?”

  “Please,” he barked.

  I flipped it over so that the screen was up and hit pause before returning it to the table. “Sorry.”

  He exhaled forcefully. “I do not understand. Is it a spell? Do you capture their voices and hold to hear later?” A large portion of the anger in his tone washed away as he looked at me, a weakness in his eyes appeared that I’d never seen before. “Are you missing someone and needing to hear their voice?”

  I fought a smile. “No, Kane.” My teeth were shattering even more. “T-they are artists. I just enjoy the music. S-sometimes it’s the instruments. Sometimes it’s the lyrics. But music has always been something special to me. I guess I j-j-just w-w-wanted something from home f-f-for a m-m-moment.”

  I could see that he was still lost on the concept at least a little, but when my shivering became more intense, he shifted. As he had when I’d first arrived, he lifted his palm, creating a fireball in his palm, he tossed it in on the logs in the fireplace that I’d let die down, c
ausing the fire to roar again.

  Without missing a beat, he lifted me into his arms. I hadn’t even seen him move to shed his clothing, he’d moved too fast, and I was relieved by the sudden wave of heat that filtered across my skin. I hadn’t even realized that I was naked. I had been more concerned that he was about to kill me.

  He stepped into the tub with me in his arms. The water wasn’t hot anymore, but it was several degrees warmer than the air in the room. But Kane reached over and drained some of the cooling water and turned the faucet back on, replacing it with a warmth my muscles eagerly soaked in.

  I rested on his lap as he cupped the water and let it fall over my shoulders in an attempt to warm me. “You thought I let Mika convince me that you had a lover?”

  “Mhmm.” I nodded. “You thought I was in here with a man?”

  “Yes.” His voice was solemn.

  “Were you going to kill me?” I swallowed hard, wondering if I really wanted to know the answer to my question.

  “No!” He looked stunned.

  I blinked. “No? But you were so angry!”

  “I was.” He sat up more, lowering my down fulling on his lap. “I would have killed whatever man it was.”

  “But you were angry with me. You thought I was conspiring with someone.”

  He lowered his head, his eyes cast down, away from me. “I still would not have hurt you, little one. Any man that tries to take you from me, yes. But you? I could never. I would have…”

  When he didn’t finish his sentence, I shifted, turning toward him more. “You would have what? Banished me? Sent me out into the streets?”

  “Given anything.”

  My breath caught, and I looked at him. His eyes had not come back up to me. He wasn’t looking at anything in particular in front of him. He was watching something in his mind. “Given anything for what? To who?”

  “I would have offered you anything for you not to leave.” He leaned in placing his hands on my sides, his cheek pressing to my chest. His eyes closed and eyebrows pulled in by the pain of whatever he was envisioning running through his mind.