The Shadow Prince’s Ruin (Dark Companions #2)

Chapter 6

Sylvan

I start, unsure what’s going on. A massive arm is wrapped around me, and my first thought is that I’m being abducted, and I need to—

But then I remember. Not just who I’m with but what I did, and the naked body of a man pressing against me makes it abundantly clear. At night, I even got undressed to feel him closer. I’m a little embarrassed of how I lost control and handed myself over to carnal pleasure. It’s not the way I usually act, but Hawk opened me as if I was a clam to be devoured raw.

I would describe our sex as transcendent .

Never have I felt so at peace with losing control. He awakened a side of me that has lain dormant, forgotten among important matters like trying not to lose my life to court intrigue or attempting to find a way of proving myself useful and worthy of respect.

But there it is. The need to be hugged.

My heart is a little tender, as if it got bruised by all the manhandling last night, but I find comfort in hugging Hawk’s massive arm and curl deeper into his embrace, pressing my back to his hairy chest. I’m so excited for him to become my Dark Companion. Not just because his shadow should allow me to complete feats previously unheard of, but also because… well, the sex was incredible.

Not everyone’s Dark Companion bond is intimate in nature, so I am beyond lucky for this human to be such a good match for me. I don’t know yet how I will use my future power to restore my position at the Nocturne Court, but I know my return from banishment will be spectacular.

Once the Lord sees our combined might, he will have to welcome me back. My mother will never again call my shadowcraft crippled. And with a man like Hawk at my side, the courtiers and servants will no longer gossip behind my back about how I won’t ever find a suitable match. They might whisper about what goes on in our bedroom, but at the end of the day, the power of Hawk’s shadow will remain a convenient excuse for why I, the last prince from the Goldweed bloodline have tied my life to a man who is so clearly pursuing me , not the other way around.

When Hawk hums and tightens his arms around me, I’m struck by how foreign this is. I have never before procured any lovers, paid or otherwise, so this whole thing feels new, and not just in the carnal sense. I haven’t been touched like this in a very long time, since my nanny was scolded for coddling me many, many years ago. She never hugged me again thereafter, and while I have shaken people’s hands, or given them pats on the back, physical touch has become intimidating over time.

Not with Hawk. Not anymore at least.

His body produces almost too much heat for my comfort, but I bear with it, because I want to keep enjoying his touch until he’s awake. I even kiss his knuckles, wondering if his tattoos have any meaning.

After the frenzy he got me into last night, I almost regret that our deal means we have to wait with anal, because even though I’m a little frightened, I wonder—

The door swings open, making my heart stop, and I suddenly can’t breathe.

“How many times have I told you about splashing water around everywhere?” Mrs. Moor yells, but the moment her eyes land on me and Hawk, she screams .

Behind me, Hawk starts awake too, backing away from me and removing the comforter from my naked body in the process. I try to protect my modesty, but it’s no use when Hawk cries out, falling into the gap between my bed and the wall, wrapped up in our only covering like a body prepared for burial.

“How dare you fornicate under my roof?” Mrs. Moor shrieks like the evil witch character from a cartoon I saw a few days ago. She might be an average human woman in her forties, with short blonde hair, but her soul is as ugly as a creature from the deepest sea. “I was doing you a favor, but you’re a pervert like my ungrateful son! Out! Out!”

I grab the only thing left on the bed, a pillow, and cover my crotch. I am mortified . If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume I was bitten by a despair, and now I’m living my worst nightmare while my physical body slowly dies from the beast’s poison. All that’s needed to complete the picture would be my mother shaking her head, and my dead brother saying I don’t need a pillow this big to cover my privates.

“Mrs. Moor, please, it’s a misunderstanding. You must allow me to explai—”

“There is nothing to explain! There is a man in your bed! I thought I was helping out a polite young man in need of a Samaritan’s hand…” She takes a deep breath and squints at me. “You have ten minutes to gather your things and leave . I will not support your perversion in my house!”

And worst of all is that the disgust in her gaze mirrors a look I’ve so often been given by my family members.

Underdeveloped.

Useless.

Not fit for the position I was born into.

A failure. And it doesn’t matter that her reasons for being angry are utterly ridiculous.

She storms off, leaving me with scattered thoughts and goosebumps all over my skin. Nausea rises in my throat, but before I can consider running off to the bathroom, the bed shifts away from the wall, and Hawk rises from the floor, wrapped in the comforter as if it were a hooded cloak.

“What the fuck is her problem?”

My breath is ragged, and I can’t speak, because my throat is too clenched with panic. I’ve just lost my lodgings in an unfamiliar world.

But even though my body wishes to shut down, I get up on weak knees and throw away the pillow, fighting my instinct to hide. Hawk has seen me naked and had no complaints, so there is no reason to get coy now. I am a Goldweed, and I will survive this. Somehow. I must.

“Her son’s gay, and so she’s taking out her unreasonable hate on me,” I say and start moving even though I can barely breathe. I need to gather the few possessions I have. That is my priority, and if I can focus on the task at hand, I will be able to ignore any feelings trying to crawl out of my chest.

“Some people really shouldn’t have children. My parents weren’t great, but they tried,” Hawk mumbles, crawling back onto the bed and shedding the comforter. I can’t bear looking at him now, so I pull on a fresh pair of underwear and glance around, relieved my belongings are so few and far between that I might succeed at packing them all within those ten minutes the evil witch of Blackwood has allocated for it.

But then my gaze settles on the trunk servants carried in when I first moved here. Hope leaves my body. There’s no way I can carry that thing.

“What should we grab?” Hawk asks behind me, and the sound of a zipper tells me he’s getting dressed as well.

How is he so calm about it? I’m guessing it’s because it’s not his life falling apart. I hoped to come back here after Boston to plan my way back to the Nightmare Realm, but it wasn’t meant to be.

I stuff my journal into my bag, along with some writing supplies, clothes that may be useful, my jewelry. It is only then that my mind registers his question.

He said we . Like this is somehow his problem.

“Do not fret, this is not your burden,” I say with my chest tight.

He pulls on his hoodie, his body completely hidden under the fabric as he cocks his head. “What do you mean? We’ve got to stick together. Just tell me what I can do. Is everything in this room yours?” he asks as I open the trunk marked with my family crest and stare at all the things I haven’t bothered to unpack, since they would have made me stand out too much.

The fine silks, the heeled shoes which make me that little bit taller, and most of all, my books on alchemy. If I leave them here, Mrs. Moor will likely burn them.

“Fuck!” I let myself lose patience as I try to choose one or two to take with me. I needed two servants to lift this damn trunk. “I don’t have that much, the bare bones of this room belonged to her son. But I can’t leave the books behind. Is there any chance you might lift this with me?”

He frowns, shuts the lid of the trunk, and then, like a madman, grabs the handle on one side with both hands. I roll my eyes, about to tell him it’s no use, but then my luggage leaves the ground, and Hawk exhales. “What the hell do you have in there? Rocks?” he asks as he places it on the bed. “Do you have rope? Will be easier if I can tie it to my back.”

I stare at him for a moment, but I appreciate his ingenuity. And strength. “Yes, I think this could work.” I pull off the rope tying the curtains, then watch him fashion it into a strap while I finish dressing in the drab human clothes. It has to be said that they will be comfortable for travel. I don’t even know how far away Boston is.

It doesn’t take us long to grab every single item I own, including my lava lamp, and the ugly human toothbrush made of white plastic. I'm numb as I assist him with tying the trunk to his back. He looks like an overgrown turtle but still smiles at me in encouragement, as if this is all nothing. “Just one thing. I want to be discreet. Can you distract her so she doesn’t see my face?”

After years of surviving intrigues at the Nocturne Court, I expect the worst, and worry he’s trying to rob me without witnesses, but that’s absurd. We made a deal that is beneficial to him. Surely he wouldn’t leave without me.

This must be about him spending a night in my bed. I’ve learned in unpleasant ways that many humans have an issue with same-sex relations. Mrs. Moor ranted to me about her son the day I arrived, and as little love as I have for Lord Kyran’s Dark Companion, I don’t envy him his mother.

If Hawk doesn’t wish to be seen with me, I will oblige even if it stings after the night we spent together. “I will do my best.”

He gives me a thumbs up and waddles forward, keeping both his hands on the walls of the hallway, likely to avoid hitting them with the trunk. My stomach is in my throat as I step toward the stairs and listen to the angry sound of the TV Mrs. Moor spends lots of time watching in the kitchen. For a moment, I’m paralyzed by the desire to avoid confrontation by heading straight for the exit, but I’ve promised to protect Hawk’s identity, and I shall not disgrace myself by going back on my word.

Two exhales later, I run down the stairs and head into my hostess’s beige kingdom. After two months in the human world, I am aware they don’t consider whites and pastels to be mourning colors, but knowledge doesn’t change the way the washed-out tones around me make me feel. It doesn’t help that the sun seems particularly bright today.

Mrs. Moor glares my way, cradling her favorite mug as if it were a weapon she might need to use against me if I lash out. “Keys. I don’t want to ever see you again.”

I put the keys on the counter. “I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, Mrs. Moor.” There. Why not tell her what I think before leaving? I wish I had the courage to confront my own mother, but I’ve been banished for five decades, and I feared I might need her support by the time I return to the Nocturne Court, weak, gray, and wrinkled like a prune.

But who am I kidding? My mother is a woman so intimidating only Lord Kyran himself dares put her in her place.

I stiffen when Mrs. Moor shoots up from her chair and swats my arm. “How dare you? No wonder your family chose to abandon you,” she spits out, pursing her mouth in an angry grimace.

My superior elven hearing picks up the click of the door on the other side of the house as Hawk leaves this ugly place. The relief of it doesn’t make the stabbing pain of her words any less hurtful, but she has already kicked me out. I no longer have to prostrate myself before her.

“Amusing, coming from one whose own son chose to forsake her.”

Her eyes go wide and… she grabs my arm. Something I have not accounted for from a middle-aged human lady. “My son chose to abandon all morals I raised him with and became another man’s house boy, so I am glad I will never see him again!”

“Unhand me!” I yell when she shakes me. I have no qualms fighting a woman in her prime, but it doesn’t feel right to hit one who is not, so I’m trapped in a cage of my own manners.

She scowls, lets go, and goes straight for the sink, as if she doesn’t want any residue from my sweat on her palms. I don’t bother staying to exchange any more angry words and storm to the exit, upset that I’m so weak she was able to shake me in the first place. My shoes are black slip-ons, so I just stuff my feet into them and step outside, facing Hawk who... waits for me in front of Mrs. Moor’s open car. The sun makes me squint and lower my head to avoid most of its burn, but there isn’t much more I can do to protect myself from it.

“All done?” he asks and approaches the passenger seat, opening it in a familiar gesture. Back home, servants would also put stairs in front of a carriage, but cars don’t come with such conveniences and require one to fold their body without care for decorum.

“I… yes, but… I am sure Mrs. Moor is not in the mood to lend us her car.”

Hawk chuckles and gestures inside, so I slide into the seat, hating how unbecoming that must look. I want him to appreciate my royal demeanor, but how can I remain dignified in a world not made for it?

The sun is already hot on my skin, so I put on a wide-brimmed hat of straw or some similar material and zip up my hoodie to protect myself from its touch as much as possible. I don’t want to make a fuss, and while I attempt to spend as much of the day as I can indoors, today that will be impossible. I have to bear with it.

Hawk climbs into the driver’s seat, and when he closes the door behind him, I feel as though we’re both stuck in a giant oven. At least my things are safe in the trunk, which my promised placed in the back seat.

My promised . Should I even call him that before I tie my shadow to his? I suppose we did make a promise.

I expect the familiar noise of the starting engine, but Hawk just releases the handbrake, then moves the stick, and the vehicle rolls forward, down the gentle slope of the driveway.

I swallow and my stomach ties into knots. “We’re stealing this car, aren’t we?”

Hawk chuckles as we roll farther down the street, still with the engine off. “Well, yeah.” He grins at me from behind dark-lensed glasses and only turns the key in the transmission when the vehicle comes to a halt. “But don’t worry, I know a place where we can have it repainted and re-licensed. And they might get rid of that collar for you too,” he says while my world is crumbling!

“It cannot be taken off by human means. We need to go to Boston. Also, what is the punishment for stealing a car if we are caught?” I’m no stranger to bending the law and scheming, but if I am to one day be executed, it will not be for petty theft.

As we speed up, leaving behind the life that’s been forced on me, Hawk chuckles. “Ah, don’t worry, just a few hours in the stocks. Nothing we can’t survive,” he says cheerfully, as if being mocked and having rotten produce thrown at us was nothing. “And as for the collar, why not try? Trust me,” he says and places his hand on my thigh.

His touch chips at my resolve, and I sigh. “I suppose it would be unreasonable not to try.”

Hawk grins and leans in to kiss me, the road ahead forgotten. It’s so new for someone to casually show me affection, I don’t know what to do with it or how to express my appreciation. I stare into his eyes, mouth dry, then something flashes in the corner of my eye, and I yelp.

“Watch the road!”

He hits the brakes, and we come to a rapid stop right before the intersection. I manage to brace myself and avoid hitting my head against the dashboard, but Hawk seems unbothered as he reaches past me, stretches the safety belt, and then locks it across my torso. “Road trip!”

It’s me this time who steals one more kiss before the light turns green.

I need to be bold if I intend to escape my banishment and take him as my Dark Companion. I might be jumping into the abyss of the unknown, but what is life without a bit of risk?