48. Chapter 48
Chapter forty-eight
When the song ended, Sin floated me over to the edges and pulled me tight against him. Adopting the Silver Court dance style, we swayed with the sounds of the music, and I relaxed into him, far more comfortable having abandoned the complicated dance steps.
“When can we leave?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Sin chuckled. “I’m fairly certain Verren would have my head if I whisked you away right now.”
“Hmmm…” I said in mock thoughtfulness. “I might be willing to risk it. The last gamble I took today panned out pretty well.”
He flinched. “I thought you were going to die in that arena, Rain. I was prepared to kill every one of them if they took you from me. If you never remind me of that again, it will be too soon.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.” Then, needing to see his smile again, I added, “I guess you’ll just have to punish me for that too.”
A ripple of arousal ran through me as his lips curled up into a feral grin, and I could feel my peaked nipples pressing against the thin material of my gown.
He pressed me tighter to his chest. “Oh, Fea Remia, the things I am going to do to you…”
“Promises, promises.”
I heard a throat clear behind me, and a voice cut through the haze of my lust.
“May I cut in?”
Dey's words were like a cold shower, and I reluctantly untangled my arms from around Sin’s neck, giving him an apologetic look. I thought he might actually kill his friend based on the daggers he was shooting his way, so I hurriedly tugged Dey out to the middle of the floor before dark thoughts became actions.
“I’m not a very good dancer,” I said as he took my hand and slipped an arm around my waist.
“Princess, you could step on my toes a hundred times, and I would still fight every male in here for a second dance.”
“You’re very good at saying pretty things,” I said, avoiding eye contact.
“The beauty of my words does not negate their truth.”
I focused on the dance steps for a bit, unsure what to even say to Dey. He made his intentions very clear, but even without my father’s involvement, I just didn’t feel anything for him. Apart from a small amount of sadness that our initial friendship may have been nothing more than a carefully constructed deception.
As the song came to an end, I tried to pull out of his arms, but he held me tight against his chest.
“I am not na?ve, Rain. I saw the way you looked at Sin. Heard the way you laughed. I do not know when my friend stole your heart, but it seems you have made your choice.”
I debated a number of potential explanations, but in the end, I just nodded. I didn’t want to hide anymore. I didn’t want to pretend that Sin meant nothing to me when in reality he meant everything. Maybe my father would strike back at me for having ruined whatever he was planning with Dey’s seduction. Maybe he would abandon his plan altogether and allow me to be happy so long as I fulfilled his damn prophecy. Maybe we could drop all pretenses of him being a caring father and just get to the truth of what he wanted from me.
And maybe I would sprout wings and spend the rest of the night soaring over the ocean.
In reality, I had no idea how my father would react, but I didn’t care anymore. Sin was the only person I’d ever felt this way about, and I refused to keep sneaking around if it limited my time with him.
“I see,” Dey said, releasing his hold on me.
I turned to walk away but made it only one step before he grabbed my elbow and pulled me back to his side, a spark flaring to life in his eyes.
“Perhaps Dreisin has not told you about his past. Perhaps he has told you and you are willing to overlook it. I do know this—he has obviously told you very little about his present because you would not be with him otherwise. He is not a good male, Rain.”
And you are?
I bit my tongue to keep the words from escaping.
“I care about you,” Dey continued. “More than you know. And I have no intention of giving up. We could be happy here together. I am the king’s Foster, and you are his daughter. Our lives were intertwined before you were even born. Do you not see the poetry of it all? We belong together, here in the palace. This,” he gestured around himself, “...all of this could be yours. Ours. Eventually you will learn the truth about him, and when you do, I will be there to pick up the pieces of your broken heart. If you can trust nothing else, at least trust that I will always be here for you.”
It was a beautiful speech. A beautiful dream. It just wasn’t my dream.
“Dey…” I began, and he must have read on my face what I was about to say because he quickly spoke over me.
“Just think about it, Princess. Promise me that you will really think about giving us a chance. If you still want to leave in the end, I cannot force you to stay, but I truly believe you would be remiss not to at least consider it.”
He dropped my arm and strode briskly out of the ballroom.
I should have been relieved that I didn’t have to hide anymore, but I couldn’t shake the tiny hint of doubt that bloomed in the pit of my stomach.
He has obviously told you very little about his present because you would not be with him otherwise.
How much did I really know about Sin?
“Where are we going?” I asked Sin later that evening when he dragged me from the ballroom. After Dey left, I’d suffered through maybe ten more dances with random courtiers and competitors while my father regarded me intently from his throne at the back of the ballroom.
“I just need to get you alone for a minute,” he said as we rushed down a darkened hallway toward the back stairs. “Just one minute. Maybe five. Then we can go back. You have no idea the torture it is to watch you dance with those other males. I adore Kinyx, but if his hand dropped any lower I would have been honor bound to snap it off.”
I laughed at Sin’s faux bloodthirstiness, knowing full well that he would never harm the young male.
I stumbled in my heels as Sin pulled me up the winding staircase at the back of the castle. In a flash, he had one arm behind my back and the other behind my knees. I fell backward into his arms, and a high-pitched squeal slipped out and echoed along the stairwell as Sin charged up the steps.
“You know I can walk,” I said through giggles.
“Of course you can. But do you really think I would pass up any opportunity to hold you in my arms?”
He pushed the door open, and a cool night breeze washed over my face as we emerged near the rear parapet of the main keep. “It gets harder and harder to let go of you,” Sin confessed, setting me on my feet. “There might come a day when I’m no longer able to.”
I rose onto my tiptoes, kissed him sweetly, and whispered, “I know the feeling.” Pulling out of his arms, I turned to take in the view. “It’s beautiful,” I gasped, the full visual hitting me.
My previous trips to the roof had always been at the front of the castle, but here at the very back, I could step up to the edge of the parapet and see nothing but the sea. No bustling courtyard. No city lights. Only crashing waves and a thick, dark fog.
The rooftop space was expansive, and it was so freeing to be out in the open air, away from the stuffy rooms of the palace. I took a deep breath in, and when I let it out, a tremendous weight sloughed from my shoulders.
Looking down at the thousand foot drop to the jagged rocks below, I envied the waves that crashed against them. How they slammed into the sharp stones, broke into a million pieces, and slowly reformed only to do it over and over again. They were unrelenting, those waves. Able to withstand repeated abuse and yet still find their way back to themselves.
Sin’s arms slid around my waist as he came up behind me. “Your mother used to do that exact same thing,” he said.
“What thing?”
“Exhale the weight of the world the second she got up here. This is where we would chat most nights. It was her favorite spot because she couldn’t see the city. I think she wanted nothing more than to put Civi Obsura behind her.” He paused. “It was hard for her, being a human in this world that harbors so much hatred for them. Even here at the castle, everyone treated her like a walking disease. Like something to fear. None of Verren’s orders to treat her with respect were heeded. I’m sure you saw a bit of that warm welcome yourself.”
I had, and I was even half-Vitaean. What my mother went through must have been awful.
I twisted around in his arms, wanting to see his face even more than the ocean. He was like my own portable sea. My personal source of calm and happiness.
He regarded me with so much love in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t deserve it. Sin loved the same way that he fought—with his entire being—and I wanted to be worthy of him.
“Sin…” I began, needing to tell him how I felt.
He put a finger on my lips before I could say anything. “Look up, Fea Remia.” His tone, gentle yet commanding, sent my gaze skyward without hesitation.
Sin’s illusion earlier had been nearly perfect, but when compared to the real thing… The blues and purples of faraway galaxies gleamed in the darkness, surrounded by trillions of shining stars that humbled any who would dare gaze upon them for too long.
There was no pollution here. No big cities to dim their brilliance. The small flickers of lamplight from Civi Adasa could do nothing to impede the magnificence of the celestial tapestry that unfurled above me.
Painstakingly, I lowered my eyes to meet Sin’s. “Can we stay here?” I asked with a vulnerability I didn’t recognize. “I don’t want to go back.”
“I don’t want to take you back,” he said, pulling me tight against his chest. “I could spend hours watching you watch the night sky. The way your eyes light up. The way your lips part slightly in awe, and you forget to breathe at times. The way you slow your blinking as if you fear closing your eyes for even a second. You are so beautiful, Rain. And it breaks my heart that you don’t see yourself the way I see you.” He claimed my mouth, and I gave myself over to the tender kiss.
There was no pulsing heat or flood of desire. There was no urge to rip his clothing off. As he cupped the back of my neck gently, I felt only his love. His ocean-deep, unending love for me that went way past the physical into something that made me uncomfortable.
I could handle sex and desire. I could show him that I loved him with my body. What he was giving me, though, was so much deeper, and I didn’t know how to reciprocate.
Maybe I wasn’t capable of loving him the way he loved me—completely and utterly without reservation or hesitation. Or maybe I was just too scared to.
I pulled away from the kiss and turned to lean out over the parapet. I needed the soothing calm of the breaking waves while I sorted through my emotions.
“What’s wrong?” Sin asked.
“Nothing,” I whispered. “And everything.”
He came up beside me and captured my chin so I was forced to look at him. The worry in his eyes cracked something in my heart, seeing this imposing warrior brought down by his love for someone like me.
“Talk to me, Rain.”
“That’s just it,” I choked out as the weight of reality came flooding into me. “I don’t know what to say to you, Sin. Everything over the past week has been so much. Too much. Seven days ago I was an emotionally stunted cashier at a Taco Hut in New Jersey with little to no chance to ever be anything more than that. Now I’m a princess in a different realm with a manipulative long lost father, and I’m supposed to fix this broken world because I also happen to be the prophesied savior. Oh, and I have fucking magic!” I shot a spark of flame up into the night to accentuate my frustration.
I probably sounded hysterical by this point, but it needed to come out. Everything I’d tried to dismiss needed to finally come out.
“And then there’s you, Sin. Do you even understand what you mean to me? I gave up on love a long time ago. Wrote it off as yet another thing that was not in the cards for me. And I was fine with that. It was safer and easier, and I had accepted it. Then you come along and pulverize every fucking brick of the wall I built around my heart. It hurts, Sin. It hurts to be away from you, but it hurts even more to be with you because I know it won’t last. I don’t know how to go back to my life before you. And the worst part of all? I don’t know how to be that person for you. I don’t know how to love you the way you love me. The way you deserve. I’m broken, Sin. I’m just… broken.”
I couldn’t stop the tears flooding down my cheeks, and for the first time I didn’t even try to. Only around him could I let myself be weak and vulnerable without fearing judgment.
Sin pulled me away from the wall and tucked a stray hair behind my ear. He looked at me, looked into me , and said, “You are not broken, Rain. You never were. Not to me. I have been a ghost for over forty years, drifting through life without living. You brought me back. I don’t need a prophecy to tell me that you’re the savior. You’ve been my savior since the first moment I saw you. You say that you can’t love me the way I deserve? The truth is that I don’t deserve even a piece of your love, but I will take anything you give me and consider it paradise. You don’t need to change. Not for me. I love everything about you, and I will continue to do so until my last breath.” He cupped my face, and his thumbs brushed away my tears. “You are it for me, Rain. From now until the last star in the sky winks out, you are it for me.”
He kissed me, and I could feel the full weight of his words behind it, every ounce of his love for me, and I met it with my own. With everything I was capable of.
Perfectly imperfect. That’s what he was to me. And maybe, that’s what I was to him.
“Oh, my dear Raynella, I had so hoped Deylan was mistaken.”
A basso voice cut through the still night air, and I pulled back from Sin. My father stood in the doorway, watching us with a mixture of sadness and disappointment.
I stepped further away from Sin and wiped my hands down the front of my dress. I didn’t know why I was suddenly so nervous. I’d decided not to hide my relationship with Sin anymore, so my father was bound to find out sooner or later. There was something about the way he looked at me, though. As if finding out that I cared for Sin was in some way a great betrayal that hurt him personally.
“Father,” I said stiffly, unsure what to even say at this point. There were so many lies between us that I could barely remember how I was supposed to act around him.
“Dreisin, leave us please. I need to speak with my daughter,” he said in Rivellan.
“No,” I cut in, also in Rivellan. “Whatever you want to say to Sin, you can say to me. I don’t keep secrets from him.”
My father raised a single eyebrow at how smoothly I spoke his language. “You may not keep secrets from him, but it seems you have kept quite a few from me. What else have you been hiding from me, sweet daughter of mine?”
Anger rose up in me at his words, and I could feel the sparks coming to life underneath my skin. I took a step toward him, balling my fists at my sides.
“Are you kidding right now? You want to talk about secrets? You want to get it all out in the open? Fine. Why don’t you tell me why you ordered Dey to seduce me?”
Something like genuine shock appeared on my father’s face. And maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit embarrassment.
“My reasons for requesting that Deylan spend a substantial amount of time in your company are my own.”
“Right,” I said dryly. “Because you want to know everything I’m keeping from you but have no desire to share whatever twisted machinations have been cooking inside your head. How about we try this then? Why don’t you really tell me what happened with my mother, huh? I know the Walker didn’t kill her. I want to know the truth.”
“You truly wish to know what happened to your mother?” he asked, his face hard and unyielding.
“I do.”
“Then why don’t you ask the male standing beside you.”