15. Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Leena
F ear swelled in my chest, and a throbbing pain pounded in my spine. Did becoming immortal give me any useful abilities? Other than when my new powers, or whatever it was, first rushed through me, I hadn’t felt any different. To me, I was still the breakable mortal girl I’d always been, vulnerable and weak.
My stomach sank. Maybe the tales weren’t true, and maybe I’d heard the officiant wrong and wasn’t immortal. What if the ceremony had been a ruse? That wasn’t out of character for the Leshy, and his subjects would have done and said whatever he told them to.
Then I thought of Ani and how she was bent on driving me away. She will never be my queen. Her words had been a stinging wound, but they seemed to be the truth. From the disdain she held for me, and her acknowledgment of my becoming queen, the ceremony had to have been real .
Pain pushed against the soft underbelly of my forearms. I let out a cry, the rain pouring harder, pelting me with icy drops and shards of hail.
“After all these years,” Casimir snarled in my ear, “I finally have you where I want you.” My fingers dug into the thick mud in desperation to crawl away, but he was stronger than he looked. And the pain was deepening, especially as his kneecaps dug into my thighs.
“Please,” I begged, choking on rainwater. “Please stop—”
He put a hand over my mouth, and with the rain filling my nostrils, it was impossible to breathe. I wiggled and fought, thrashing as hard as I could, but it only made the pain worse.
“Don’t worry. I’ll knock you out when it’s over.”
Tears burned against my icy cheeks. Fog crept into the corners of my eyes as my vision blurred at the lack of oxygen. Why can’t he knock me out first?
My dress rose to my knees, and I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately hoping I’d pass out before anything happened. As soon as the cold air sent gooseflesh across my skin, a great boom rattled the ground, violently shaking the trees. Their leaves hissed wildly as Casimir’s hand peeled from my mouth. His body flew away with a crack of thunder.
I gasped out a breath, my body violently shivering. Fear wrapped around me, suffocating me more than the pressure of the man’s slimy hand. I was so cold and in so much distress, but I had to know what happened. There was no way Casimir would have stopped of his own volition. Especially not like that.
My body ached. My head throbbed. But still, I tried rolling onto my side. A man’s ear-splitting wail cut through the storm, and I immediately knew it belonged to my assaulter. I heaved, trying my best to sit up and see what was going on. The man wailed again, and the earth shook.
Finally, I managed to push up on my palms and hip to see what was going on. My sharp gasp was swallowed by the storm.
Casimir had been propelled a good distance away, but he and Bratan were close enough that I could see the rage on my husband’s face as he struck the redhead for what looked like the second or third time. A wave of emotion crashed against my chest, along with an acute sense of shock.
“You think you can touch my wife, you sick bastard?!” he roared. He grabbed Casimir by the collar and threw him with inhuman strength.
Casimir looked like a ragdoll as he skidded across the ground, creating a groove in the mud beneath him. Bratan stared at the man’s crumpled form and advanced, keeping his blazing stare on his victim. The display was so incomprehensible it was hard to remind myself I wasn’t dreaming. Shadows squirmed at Bratan’s feet, leaving black mist in the wake of each step. The trees and shrubs around them shook, and the ground was unstable. There was a wildness in his eyes I’d never seen anyone else possess. A thrilled shiver shot up my bruised bones .
Bratan grabbed the man by the scalp, and his human form melted into something else—something that chilled the already icy ground and worsened the sick feeling in my stomach. My husband no longer looked like a man. He grew and shifted until he was an enormous creature taller than the massive trees around us. A monster so colossal that Casimir looked like a toy in Bratan’s large, branch-like fingers. I couldn’t make out exactly what he looked like through the thick sheet of rain, but from any distance or angle, the sight was terrifying.
I fell against my side, still unable to stay upright. The Leshy let out a splintered roar and threw the man against a tree.
“You're dead.” His voice was partly his own and partly something else’s.
Casimir was a bloody heap at the base of the tree, wobbling as he attempted to stand. It didn’t take long for Bratan to reach him in his monstrous form. He grabbed him again, and my stomach sank.
I didn’t want this. Casimir was vile, but I didn’t want someone to die because of me. I didn’t know if it was right or wrong to spare his life, but I couldn’t help the guilt building in me.
“Wait!” I cried, but the word was a whisper in the rain.
I pushed hard against the ground, desperate to get to my feet. I’d never sleep again if I witnessed a murder and knew I had a connection to it—if I felt it was even remotely because of me. I didn’t want his blood on my hands .
“Wait!” I called again. This time, the Leshy stopped, one large claw hovering above Casimir’s head like the unhinged jaws of a beast. “Don’t do it!”
Limping closer, I saw that Bratan’s skin was made of thick layers of bark, each finger a jagged branch that looked like it had been ripped from the trees. His mouth was a gaping hole, and his eyes were almost the same: large black holes that were too lifeless to belong to any mortal. There was a red light in their depths that became more apparent as I got closer. Limp black hair hung from his head, falling loosely around two horns that curled up at least six feet from his temples.
“What?” His strange new voice was steeped in frustration.
It was hard to look at him like this, but it beat the alternative of looking at Casimir, whom I’d accidentally caught a glimpse of and was subjected to his bloody state of half-consciousness.
“It’ll only cause more problems,” I said, “and I don’t want you to be a murderer because of me.”
A pause. His gaping mouth moved. “I have killed many before.” My blood turned cold, though I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. He could be thousands of years old, and he was a deity in these woods not known for his kindness. I also wasn’t sure if I believed him that he’d saved the villagers who’d gone missing. But I did want to know what had made him kill and when and how many times it’d happened to make it so easy to do it now.
“Please,” I whispered. He probably couldn’t hear it, but he must have read my lips or understood because his form shrunk back to the man I recognized. As he did, Casimir gasped a relieved breath. I paid him no mind. He deserved to be punished. To be locked up. I just didn’t want the blood of his death on my hands. My eyes fell on Bratan, my muscles relaxing slightly as he walked away from my attacker. The feral look in his eyes was still there, but his expression was softer as he approached me.
During the transformation, his eyes never left mine, and now he was searching me like he was trying to understand. “Why would you want to let him live after what he did to you? After what he was going to do to you?” The memory reignited the wildness in his eyes. His shoulders rose and fell in rapid, ebbing waves with his quickening breaths. He was going to lose control.
“Because I don’t want any part of this. I know he’s despicable, and we should somehow make sure he never does this to anyone else. But I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I stood by while someone was murdered because of me. No matter who it was.”
Conflict tightened Bratan’s face, along with his fists. The muscles in his jaw tensed as he picked Casimir up by the shirt. He bunched the cloth in his fist and brought the man’s face close to his.
“If you so much as breathe her air or come near her again, I will kill you.” He pushed him away, and we both watched him flee, limping and skittering like a newborn foal back to Woodsmeadow .
We watched in uncomfortable silence until he was long gone, and even then, I kept my eyes from Bratan’s. I didn’t know where to go from here. I wished I could avoid this whole situation. I didn’t want this new life, but I didn’t want my old one either. Everything happened so fast, and I was still shaking from the attack.
The rain slowed to a stop, and I heard the squelching of footsteps approach me through the mud. “Are you all right?”
I swallowed and looked up at him. Those wild eyes were gone, and the tenderness that replaced them made me want to crumble into his arms. I was so scared. Casimir almost succeeded in his horrid attempt. All my life, I’d managed to evade him. And if it hadn’t been for Bratan…
“I’m fine,” I said, but instantly winced when I tried to walk.
“You’re not fine.” I opened my mouth to protest when he swept me into his arms, one arm beneath my bent knees and the other holding me against his chest. “Leena.” His face was so close. His eyes were electric, the green more vibrant now that the darkness was gone. “I’ll never let that happen to you again.”
A lump bobbed in my throat, and I cursed the tears that wanted to spill down my face. I blinked them away and broke eye contact. “What have you done in your life that made it so easy for you to kill him? To want to kill him.”
There was a beat of silence. “Oh, Leena.” Reluctantly, I looked up. “Even if I’d never harmed a single creature in all of my life, I’d have killed that man in an instant if not for your protests.”
“What? Why? What made you so…” I didn’t want to finish the thought, but he finished it for me.
“Crazy?”
I nodded.
“You.”
My lips parted as I let the word sink in. “Me?”
“Yes, little dove. You drive me mad. Absolutely insane.”
I hated the look he gave me—full of passion and longing. “I-I don’t…” I fumbled for the words but couldn’t think of anything to say, and despite the freezing wind, my skin burned. “Let me down.” I could barely breathe. My body was weak, I was fatigued and in pain, but I didn’t want him to hold me. Or maybe I did. Maybe too much, which was precisely why I needed him to put me down.
He did as I asked and set me back on my feet. I stared at my satin shoes, now covered in mud. One of them was torn on the side. His fingers found my chin and lifted my face like he always did. In his eyes was that same passion, paired with the tenderness that left me confused and melting inside.
“Don’t you know that I’d kill anyone who hurt you?” His gaze fell to my lips and then quickly returned to my eyes. “You are precious to me. From the moment we met, there was something about you that drove me mad. Then after the ceremony bound us together and you received your powers, that feeling intensified beyond comprehension.” The words struck my every nerve, every bone. Because I knew what he meant. I’d thought it was lust, but there was something pulling me to him, and I couldn’t explain it. “I may have spared him this time,” he continued, “but I don’t know if I could hold back if he tried again. I wish you hadn’t stopped me tonight.”
“I don’t want you to be a murderer on my account, even if you’ve done it before.”
“It wouldn’t be on your account, Leena. He made his bed, so he can lie in it. Anyone who so much as scratches you deserves to be punished. But him? He deserves to be dead.”
A torrent of conflicting feelings warred inside of me. Part of me believed he was right, but another part believed he was crazy—completely bonkers. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the passion in his words and the feral protection between them.
“Why do you care about me so much?”
We stared at each other as the rain continued to pour. I earnestly wanted to know. What made this man I just met want to kill someone on my behalf? He gently took the side of my face in his hand. “Don’t you feel it?” His voice melted like warm caramel, and though it was soft, I could hear it through the rain. “An inexplicable connection? A strong thread that guides us together?”
“Yes,” I found myself saying. “Like I’ve known you longer than a lifetime.”
His eyes searched mine. “We were meant to be one, Leena. You are my mate. ”
His mate. The Leshy’s mate.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pulled away, but he caught me by the wrist before I could flee.
“I see right through you, Leena. A feeling like this can’t be faked. I know you feel it as I do.”
I wanted to move. I wanted to be anywhere but here, but I also didn’t want to leave him. The contradictory feelings ate at me. “It’s a trick. You’re tricking me.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No. I…” I winced and shook off his hand. “I don’t know.”
“Leena.” His low voice caught hold of me before his hand did. He whipped me around to face him. Putting his forehead on mine, he whispered. “You are good. So very good. I think you were always meant to be the better part of me.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, but the feeling that tethered us together convinced me otherwise. Or at least tried to. I still didn’t know what to think; everything was happening too fast.
“Let’s get you home,” he said. “You need to rest.”