CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TANNOR
Lying in bed with Nalla snoring softly into my chest, sleep escaped me. Her fingers grasped my waist, and her grip was still tight, like she was afraid I would run away. I buried my hands in her hair and held her close. I couldn’t run away if I wanted to. Not after so much. Not when the only place I’d ever felt peace was in this room, in her arms, submitting myself fully to her whims and desires. For so many years, I planned to escape, to kill whatever woman bought me. Never in those years did I think it would be like this. Had I known, I would’ve rushed towards it with wide, opened arms.
Nalla didn’t know, but the pain in my back intensified and I realized what it was. My wings were sprouting and there was little I can do to stop them. Not while I stayed with her. I detect a colossal clock hanging over our existence, its continuous ticking serving as a warning sign. When at last the time came, I would have to leave her, even if she wished to protect me. A man with sprouted wings faced immediate death. I don’t want her to have to watch as they kill me. She would spend herself using her magic to save me and just the thought of that happening burned fury in my belly. My life was born to end quickly. I’d known that. But not hers. I wanted her to keep on living with the hope of something soft and comforting, like what we were creating now. I wanted her to play her card games and inspect her oil bottles. Even if it wasn’t with me. Even if I was long gone.
I stared at the small box in the room’s corner, the one she hadn’t touched since the night she dragged me back from the forest. It was her brand, unique to her, meant to sear my skin. What she didn’t know was she was already seared into me. I was laced with her brand. Each inch of me was marked from the inside out. I recalled how she spoke about it that night, how she was drenched in disappointment that she wouldn’t be able to brand me.
“It’s supposed to be a bonding experience. A tender moment where you become mine and I provide you pleasure for accepting me. Right now, you hate me. If I brand you now… it would be soiled.”
How I’d scoffed at her words, thinking her stupid. Now I would do it. I’d let her do it because I knew it meant something to her. She’d looked forward to it, and I rebuffed her. I was no longer afraid of the pain; she’d shown pain could be pleasurable. I was, however, afraid of what it would mean. That a piece of my skin would forever belong to her, even if I left her. Even if I took to the skies simply to save us both.
Nalla tensed and shot up with a scream.
I startled and grasped her arms, but a bolt of electricity shot from her, and I fell back, stunned. She yanked at her hair, her breath was at her throat, and I realized she was trapped in a dream. A low moan erupted from her mouth, and she sobbed. My heart lurched at seeing her this way.
“Tannor!”
Pushing past the sharpness of the electricity she was sending, I pulled her into my arms. It felt like needles digging into my skin, but still I held her.
“I’m here, I’m fine, it’s a dream,” I said against her hair.
She woke, her magic zapped, and she cried incoherently. She looked at me and grasped me in desperation. Not knowing what else to do, I rocked her, holding her close.
“It’s alright, I’m here,” I continued, kissing her face as she whimpered into my neck.
“It was so real,” she shivered a whisper.
I caressed her neck, and the intimacy of the situation wasn’t lost on me. The incessant pain in my back sharpened.
“They were torturing you,” she whispered and pulled back to stare at me. “I was trapped. I couldn’t help you, but I could hear you screaming my name.”
Her cheeks were drenched in tears, and I felt this overwhelming softness towards her. She was so upset over me being hurt, over not being able to help me that my stomach turned to mush. She was so much more than I’d given her credit for. I kissed her cheeks and nuzzled her face.
“But I’m fine. More than fine.”
I tried to smile, tried to assure her it was nothing more than the brain’s conjuring of a worst-case scenario. However, it was entirely too close to what my own fears were.
She sniffed and caressed my face, studying me. I was the sole focus of her attention, and I felt myself flushing from the look in her eyes.
“I won’t let them hurt you. I won’t.”
A sudden overprotectiveness swept over me. “Listen to me,” I said with a stronger tone than I’d used on her. “If anything happens, you let them. You don’t risk yourself. You hear me? I can handle it.”
I meant it. I’d withstand what I had to just to ensure they didn’t harm her. I would place my body over her, just to keep her safe. Just to protect her. Something had changed, shifted, and it felt like all that was me was molding into all that was her. I had no fear for myself. Let them skewer me alive, let them torture me for weeks and months. Nalla would be saved and that would be my salvation.
She shook her head, her curls calling over her face. “No. You don’t know, you don’t understand. It’s cruelty for the sake of cruelty. You don’t matter to them, you’re just another man. Their intention is not to hurt you, it’s to hurt me. So I learn my place, so I harden like my mother.”
I recalled seeing the General. She was a human forged like a stone, like a pillar. No mercy, no humility, just a stoic venomous master. That Nalla would be made to be like her turned my stomach into lead. My fingers curled into her shoulders.
“We can fool them,” I said with sudden resolve. “I can fool them. You tell me how I should behave, and I’ll do it.”
She gazed at me once more as if I was her center and she was mine. I’d never matter so much to one person. That my suffering should cause her pain was incredible. That she would cry tears for me. I gently touched a track of salty water on her soft cheek. She sniffed and leaned into me. With a smile of reassurance, anything to appease her, I placed it on my tongue.
Her brows softened, and she took my finger and pressed a kissed to it, almost watching me shyly. My stomach erupted into a thousand dancing fairies and the needle pain on my back intensified. I didn’t wish her to know, especially not now.
“You could… run away,” she whispered, her throat constricting.
I felt the air leave my lungs. Days ago, I would’ve dashed to the balcony and jumped down, ran until my feet were raw once more. But now differed from days ago. Now she’d taught me things, about myself, about her, given me a taste of something. Something like the life nectar that ruled the beating of our hearts. Despite that, the intense pain in my back served as a reminder that I would have to part ways with her. That she would wake to find me gone. She would search for me in the rooms, the manor, the gardens, and realized I had left her. To protect her, I would have to leave. But it wouldn’t soothe her heart. It would be broken. Years might haunt her with questions and in those questions she might embitter.
“Not today,” I finally said and ran my finger over the pert curve of her nose. “Anyway, you’d soon forget about me.”
The words rang true, but they hurt me. I’d thought about this. The reaction to reality didn’t help my mood. It soured it.
She stared at me aghast, her brows furrowed, and her mouth set in a displeased line. “Why would you say that?”
I leaned back, attempting the most amount of nonchalance I could muster despite the hurt I felt in my heart.
“Because it’s the truth. You said it yourself. They will realize our intimacy and hurt us both.”
She flinched. “But you just said you could pretend!”
The fury over the reality of the situation incinerated me.
“I would have to pretend either way!”
The words exploded out of my mouth, and I jumped from the bed, pacing the floors as she stared at me open-mouthed from the rumpled sheets.
“I leave you, then I must pretend you didn’t exist as if you didn’t completely change my life. If I stay and I must pretend you broke me to convince your mother. And what happens when that occurs? What will you do, huh? How long before you’ll be made to take another lover?” I lost my voice, and I realized how much that thought hurt me, burned me, filleted me raw, right under my ribs until I have a hard time breathing.
She realized this and slowly stood, walking to me, wide eyed and concerned. She took my hands, and I looked away, ashamed of myself for revealing so much in such little time. I didn’t know how she unraveled my walls, but I felt like I was nothing but the ruin of a castle I once carefully constructed with tears and suffering.
“Look at me,” the command was a soft intonation, and when I met her eyes, I found they were filled with concern and sadness. Infinite sadness. “My mother and father. He was her first, just like you are my first. She took other lovers, as she had to, but her heart… her heart was his. My older sisters and I are his children.”
The mere imagining of such a thing disrupted the reality I understood. Women didn’t love their men, didn’t allow them the place of fatherhood. Men didn’t know their children, and parenthood was something foreign.
“And what am I to do, Nalla? When the time comes?” My voice was low, speckled with such hurt that I scarcely comprehended it. I didn’t know its origin. “Will you take others after me?”
Despite being naked before her, I’d never felt more vulnerable. Like I was nothing more than that young child ripped from my mother’s cold skirts.
Nalla’s mouth opened and her eyes saddened, but she bravely nodded. “I would have to. To keep us safe, I would have no choice.”
I swallowed, feeling the acidity of bile thicken my throat. “So, after holding you and being held by you for months or years, what shall I do? Stand on the other side of this door knowing that here, in this same bed, you do to another all the things you’ve done to me?”
She inhaled sharply and her hand slid into mine. “It would be different.”
“How?” I asked quickly.
I needed to know. Would she return to me after the days required for the taming and slip into my bed smelling of another man’s cum? I was filled with a mixture of jealousy and the sense of being disposable, discardable, replaceable. I felt used understanding that I was just a cock, just a hole, for her to use.
She came closer to me and though her hands caress my chest; I felt terribly alone.
“Tannor.” My name sounds like sawdust on her tongue.
“We made a grave mistake, didn’t we?” I asked. “That’s why it’s a taming. That’s why I should hate you. So that when you finally find another cock to distract you, I would feel relief. But somehow, you’ve not allowed me to hate you and thus… you’ll break me. Even if it’s not your intention.”
The denial is on her tongue as she pulled my face to hers, pressing her nose into my cheek. “It wouldn’t be like that at all!”
“Then how? How would it be? You’ll brand me and I’ll allow you because I know you wish it, because I know you want it and now I find myself thinking of ways to please you, to keep you smiling. Then you’ll brand another. I’ll pass him in the halls knowing that he too carries your mark. Your devotion.”
I pulled from her, overwhelmed with the reality I’ve ignored while she’d slept in my arms. Lulling me into the false sense of belief that what we had was special. And different. That I was special and different to her.
“Until this tiny world that you created for us is filled with your devoted men, and the only difference would be that I was the first. That perhaps you’ll allow me to father your children, but never be allowed to be their father.” The thickness is heavier in my throat. “That my boys will be taken from me and lost to a heartless pit and my girls will hate me on the principle that I’m a man.”
She shook her head as she cried, swallowing her tears and pressing herself against me. I knew she felt the injustice of it all. The raw reality of this awful, dark world we lived in.
We, the children of humanity, continuously paid the price for the sins of the past.