16. Vessa
16
Vessa
T he cold sweat embedded in my bones was enough to pull me from sleep. I thanked the frigid morning and its unrelenting wind for saving me from the same recurring dream. I often stayed awake at night, hoping one day I’d feel a sudden poke at my side and find my sister beside me. That one day she would just show up and we would get to spend the rest of eternity catching up on everything we’d missed. I thought about what she would have looked like if she had survived. Every time, the same ache in my chest returned. Would she have resembled Pa or looked more like Ma and me with high, regal cheekbones? Every time I slipped too far, I ended up dreaming of the shores of home, of the onyx sand wedged between my toes, but this time, it was also of that masked man.
Pain pierced through me from the lack of tonic, causing me to moan as I lazily opened my eyes to Ryder scowling while he carved a piece of wood with his knife far too aggressively. I had spent too many nights with both my body and mind unsettled, so I refused to let the pangs annoy me. I glanced downward to find Pa standing outside the cave, sun filtering through his strands of salt-and-pepper hair. Another gust of wind swept down my front; the breeze was not coming from the outside but from within. As if the belly of the devil himself was telling us to fuck off. But the unexpected warmth at my back had my mind reeling. I recognized that thick, heavy arm draped over my body. I knew the rise and fall of that chest, the way his deep breaths fanned the top of my head, always ending with a slight shudder, as if wherever he was while dreaming was somewhere terrifying. My body went rigid as my cheeks turned hot, my backside fully enveloped in his unexpected warmth, nearly causing me to stop breathing.
Raven was not in his bird form.
There were no little claws perched and gripping at my hip. No little beady eyes waiting to purr a hello when I woke up. Raven’s body nearly swallowed me whole, his firm arm over my waist and linked it across my chest. His pale skin had a luminous glow in the morning light. Apparently, I had been using him as a pillow and a blanket.
I swallowed.
“Raven,” I whispered, shaking his arm.
He moaned in response, grabbing the blanket that must have been tossed behind him while sleeping and draping it around us. My eyes widened as I was cloaked by the wool and canopied in complete darkness, his thick, strong legs entangled in mine as he pulled me closer. The clasps of his suspenders pressed against my back. We were too close. I sucked in a sharp breath. The man was gripping me like I was his . It did something to me, tugging on the frayed edges of a forced bond. One that was always desperately trying to keep itself tethered to me. I slightly curled my fingers into his grip as my pulse thrummed in my ears, but then stopped and exhaled roughly.
I belong to no one.
I turned to face him as darkness surrounded us. Entirely doused in his heat as we shared the same air.
“Raven, wake up,” I said hastefully into the confinements of the blanket, pressing my palm against his hardened chest, the black fabric soft beneath my touch. Another deep breath fanned down my face. I sighed, tossing the top portion of the blanket off us.
His eyes slowly opened. In the same motion, the sun crept in, casting light upon us, filtering through the strands of hair brushing across his face. I resisted the urge to pluck a thick lock away from his eyes.
“Tell me why I should allow you to keep breathing,” I quietly hissed, trying not to let Ryder or Pa hear us. There was a flash of concern in Raven’s eyes.
“You were shivering in your sleep last night, so I covered you. But then that didn’t work. So here I am, in the flesh, beside you,” he said in a low, raspy tone that sent another wave of heat down my body.
“Lies,” I teased. The threat in my eyes diminished. His little sliver of a dimple raised up in a smirk, causing my shoulders to loosen.
He rested on one elbow and leaned into the shell of my ear, his lips but a breath away from me. “One thing about me is that I don’t lie, Vessa.”
When I glanced at him, his eyes bored over my shoulder in Ryder’s direction before he got up. He took his hat from the ground and stood over the ledge outside the cave. Misted shadows curled around his boots until he was enveloped in darkness. Before he disappeared, he turned back and tipped his hat toward me as a satisfied smirk curved his lips. His body fell away into onyx clouds, and when he emerged, he was in the form of a raven.
Both last night and this morning were a continual shit show. I gazed at the golden band on my finger, and a wicked grin widened, remembering many of my one-night stands. Raven had never given a damn about any of them, so why was it different with Ryder? We might be bound, but we were not tied to one another romantically. His constant influx of men and women didn’t affect me, and I had never cared to ask where he went in the middle of the night. We minded our own damn business.
Now, he was nowhere in sight. He hadn’t been with us for most of the day, flying miles ahead as if he couldn’t stand to be in my proximity.
“He’ll get over it,” Pa said, breaking the silence as we rode side by side with Ryder far behind us.
“If what I do plagues him that bad, I’ll hear it one way or another. So I guess we’ll just have to see.”
Pa responded with a nod. Truth was, we wouldn’t have been in this situation if it weren’t for the old man. He had damned our entire existence.
Moments with Ryder came and went throughout the day, thinking about what he’d shared last night, but I had to cut off those thoughts.
All I cared about now was the smoked herb in this pipe, hoping it would chase away those looming thoughts. Pa had given me more of his special blend than usual, enough to pack another for this evening.
“Looks like you need it,” he had said.
We continued north as the sun beamed down upon us. It wouldn’t be long until we would see Ash Dunes on the horizon. It was hard to miss. A pain tinged my chest thinking of the stories that had come out of it. Those dunes had been built on top of the bones of fae, a place to dispose the remnants of their burnt bodies. A shudder swept down my spine as anger and vengeance coiled through me.
“We are riding into the beginning of their end,” Ryder called out as if sensing my thoughts. He clicked his tongue as he rode alongside me and jerked his chin forward. Calloused to what lay ahead, he flashed a pearly yet mischievous smile. I looked ahead and squinted my eyes, and all I could see were the peaks of that hellish place cresting the expanse of the desert.
“The sands are white.” I surveyed, bringing the pipe to my lips. I needed to feel that burn, anything to evade thinking of how those dunes had been made.
“That’s an interesting-looking pipe you have there,” Ryder stated.
I lifted my chin. “Oh yeah, cowboy? Here, take a puff if you fancy.”
His fingertips gently brushed the top of my hand as he took it.
He held the ivory pipe close to his face and to the side, upside down, and all around. The fool was immersed in its design.
He huffed out a laugh, astonished while taking a hit, coughing and laughing at the same time with a cloud of smoke puffing out as he handed it back to me.
“Is that pipe made out of bone?”
“Sure is,” I boasted. “Let it be a warning. If you ever decide to cross us, I’ll be smoking out of your bones too. Maybe make a few necklaces out of them, who knows.” I smirked. “Depends how creative I feel at the moment.”
“Well, gods-damn woman.” Ryder grinned from ear to ear.
I let the threat ride, keeping eye contact, and smiled with a shrug. “Fuck around and you’ll find out.”
There was an ache in the depths of my mind trying to take root as a silhouette cast between us.
I peered up to find Raven coasting on a gust of wind.
“Just in time.” I opened the bond. “ I thought you were going to miss our run.”
“Now why would I do that?” he asked.
I hesitated for a moment. Silence filled that awkward space. Like Pa, I didn’t want to talk about it.
He gently glided down and perched on my arm, his claws digging into the coat. Thank goodness there was another layer of cloth to cover my scars. It was my strongest arm of the two, shockingly.
Pa sighed.
“What am I missing here?” Ryder said.
“You’ll see.” Pa dipped his chin.
It was our ride into town that I enjoyed the most.
It was freeing.
Releasing.
It was our small tradition—Raven riding on my arm was his way of riding a horse.
I knew if he had a choice, a real choice, that is, one where he wasn’t tied to the fucking mess I was, then maybe in another lifetime, he would have wanted to be a rancher. Maybe a farmer, anything other than the life he’d been given now. If freedom ever had a name, it wouldn’t be Raven. The boy he’d been before had died the day he’d been tied to me. And yet, fae or bird, he still couldn’t keep those eyes off me. I would always be in his line of sight.
As we crested the top of the wind-sculpted dunes, I dismounted, ignoring the pain that swept up my legs upon landing. I kneeled down, pinching the grains of sand between my fingers. The soft, white grains were mixed with smooth, ivory pieces.
“These aren’t from stones,” I said, confirming my own suspicions as I grabbed a handful and sifted more of it into my palm. They had once been skulls, crushed and redacted to nothing but sand. A thick, heavy cloud of ash drifted up from the motion, causing me to cough.
“Careful darlin’. You’ll want to wear this while you ride into town,” Ryder said, tossing me a black bandana. I covered my nose and mouth, leaving my eyes exposed.
When I mounted my mare, I glanced at Ryder, who lifted the cloth over his face.
“Best you keep it on, even when we stop,” he said with his voice slightly muffled. Those piercing blue eyes roamed over my face, studying the luminance of my freckles before that penetrating gaze flicked to mine. “These people are very leery of newcomers. If they see how bright you shine, they might want to cut out that pretty little heart of yours.”
Tightening the cloth at the back of my head, I grinned. “I’d like to see those fuckers try.” They’d be lucky if I left any of them alive come sunrise tomorrow.
The creases in his eyes hid a smirk. He nodded at Pa, who already wore a gray bandana.
The thrumming against the mark on my sternum pulsed, an echo of a memory only my soul could recognize as we rode into town.
“This place is a tomb,” I murmured, suddenly feeling a chill sweep down my spine as I thought about standing on the graves of fae.
Ash Dunes was the final town before we reached The City of Donia. It would be less than a week before we stood on the other side of those walls, in the middle of an entire civilization who would kill us on a whim. It was tempting not to just storm their sanctuary and end every last one of them. The power of Ano coursed through me, and for the first time, I felt a threat of something on the rise.
I wanted to leave the moment we arrived, but the closer we got to The City of Donia, the closer I felt more of the tonic. I found myself imagining what it would be like to have enough, to wake up and not feel like my entire body was on fire. Give me a chest full, and I would never have to ask for it again. But then, a part of my mind danced on the edges of temptation; what if I never took it at all? Would I suddenly ignite and burn to ash? Would I die a painful death? Or simply just perish in the most basic way possible? All of those felt better than living in the current condition of this body.
As we continued our ride into town, I realized karma sometimes had a way of coming back to haunt you. The people who lived in this town wore bandanas over their mouths as they hastily walked from building to building. Some disguised the necessity with decorative cloth, but they had no choice but to live in the hell they’d created. By the looks of some of them, they didn’t seem to care either.
This was by far the biggest town we had ever been in, with rows upon rows of homes and small businesses bustling with life beyond their doors. I was surprised Ash Dunes held a town like this.
We would use this time to wind down, kick up our boots, have a few good drinks, and wash any remnants of travel off our bodies. Fill our bellies to the brim and go through our plans. It struck me as odd that Pa wanted to discuss them once we settled into our rooms, but then again, with how he’d been acting on the whim lately, it wasn’t too big of a surprise.
Somewhere in this tomb of a town, I would find my bearings. I couldn’t change what had happened to them. But it sparked something inside me—maybe I could prevent this from happening again so there would be no more towns made by the bones and ash of fae or rivers staining the forests with their blood.
I pulled down my bandana as we walked into the finest hotel Ash Dunes had to offer. I did my usual: pulled the brim of my hat lower and waited by the bar while Pa talked to the lady of the house. Only this time, it was a young boy. His golden skin glowed against the lighting. He had light brown hair that brushed against the tips of his ears, but something caught me off-guard. As I hung out by the bar, swishing my drink, I could have sworn I saw pointed ears.
“That little boy right there is fae,” Ryder said. I looked again, but his ears were round like a human’s.
I blinked back. What did I just see?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Most of the fae in these towns work for the humans. They use a glamor to hide their pointed ears.”
I gasped. “A glamor?”
“Desert Storm, you’re surprised?” He curled a thick brow in observation. The scent of licorice and spice filled the air as he leaned closer. “Fae nowadays use glamor to hide their ears, but it seems like your Pa there has always remained too far off the grid to know what the rest of the fucking world is doing. It’s new and still experimental.”
He sounded annoyed, as if irritated I was so misinformed about the world around me. He didn’t need to take pity on me or be angry at the choices Pa had made.
“He has good reason.” My jaw tensed, wondering how I could see the glamor now but not before, as if something in me had suddenly changed. Too many questions I had no answers to.
Whatever flashed in my eyes, he wanted to grab on to it and rein in it.
“Secrets?” Ryder purred, swishing the ice in his drink. “I’d love to know why he keeps you so close.” He tilted his head slightly with curious eyes glowing against his tan skin from above the bandana, trailing over the curves of my face.
I yanked his bandana down. “When all you have left is each other, the normal thing to do is hold on to one another a little tighter.” My brows furrowed. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, cowboy?” I poked the hard plain of his chest, ignoring how firm he felt beneath my touch.
He immediately tensed, and his calloused hands tightened into fists. He knew how to push, and I knew how deep to cut, so I smiled wickedly in response.
Then I continued, “My thoughts exactly. Do not judge or cast pity my way. I will squash you, ruin you, maybe.” I closed the space between us so only he and I could see my tendrils of shadows unfurling as they snaked up his body between his pecs. “I’m known for ruining everything I touch, so I’d be careful where you pry.”
Moments passed, and the tension was palpable. When Ryder smiled, it was like looking into a mirror. I felt something rough move around my waist, but before I could react, whatever the hells it was tugged me into his space. I gasped at the motion.
He leaned forward, whispering into my ear. “Why does that sound so tempting coming from you, Desert Storm?”
My eyes darted down to a wispy, ebony rope tightening around my waist.
“What the hell is this?” My fingertips roam over the lasso.
He took a bite of his black licorice, grinning. “I have secrets too.”
Over my shoulder, Ryder caught sight of what I assumed was Pa. He gave a knowing tilt of his hat before slowly moving his eyes back to me.
“I guess we will have to play tie-up later.”