Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
N ight might just have been prettier than day.
I sighed as I lay back on the sloping hill, enjoying the feeling of the lush grass beneath me as I ran my fingers through it and looked up at the stars.
“The sky is so far away,” I murmured.
It was always that far away, there just used to be a coin’s roof between us and it.
“I hope I never see that roof again.”
“What roof?” The voice made me flinch in surprise.
I stilled as Master sat down beside me and I only turned my eyes to look at him.
He was so much, this real Fae who existed so casually like he had always been there, just beyond my reach and waiting to rescue me from my eternal solitude.
The moonlight was gleaming off of his inky black hair, a few wayward strands spilling across his forehead and falling into his eyes, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to brush them aside, run my fingers into those satin strands and just touch it.
It would probably feel a lot like being a crazy person who touches other people’s hair.
He raised a dark eyebrow at me and I realised I hadn’t answered his question, my heart beating faster as I got flustered by the feeling of having his attention fixed on me.
I forced myself to move, rolling upright and angling myself towards him while hugging my knees to my chest so that I could look at him properly.
He was really nice to look at. He had the kind of face that could keep me captivated for hours on end and maybe that was just because it had been such an endless amount of time since I’d seen any faces at all, but it felt like it was more than that.
Like his was the kind of face a girl could lose herself staring at, letting the depths of those onyx eyes swallow me up and devour me whole, while the devious curve of those lips forced my body to get the kinds of ideas I’d long since forgotten all about.
He looked like a man who knew exactly how to use those lips for every kind of wicked deed from lying to kissing and so much more besides.
“The coin roof,” I explained. “It’s all I could ever see when I looked up for...a very long time.”
“Looking up is always pretty good when you’re out in the real world,” he commented, his eyes reflecting the stars as he glanced up at them and an entire universe seeming to swirl in his gaze while I watched him. “It’s what’s closer to home that reeks of shit.”
“Do I smell?” I asked in confusion. I wondered if washing in a pool of tears was really washing at all. Maybe I smelled like I hadn’t washed in a millennia. Maybe I smell of cheese.
“No. I meant that the stars always look pretty because they’re far away but the things closer to us tend to be a lot uglier.”
“Like you,” I pointed out.
“No, I’m pretty up close,” he said, throwing me a smile which made something deep inside of me flip over.
He’s flirting with us!
“I don’t think so,” I murmured as blood heated my cheeks and my heart skittered wildly at his attention.
Master frowned, obviously thinking my comment had been meant for him and I recoiled internally as I realised it sounded like I’d disagreed with him.
“You would be the first person I’ve ever met to think that,” he said irritably.
“Would you like to be handsome?” I asked tentatively. “You could just ask for it and-”
“I am handsome,” he snapped.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Things like that were lost to me now. I hadn’t seen any faces in so much time that it was like I’d forgotten where the features were supposed to sit, and I couldn’t decide if his looked right or not.
I was certainly captivated by him, but he was my master and I had been hungering for a master for so long that I was certain I would have been just as captivated by any other who had called me from my coin too.
Maybe if I shifted his eyes so that they were both on the right side of his face it would help.
Then I could look into both of them at once more easily.
“I’m sure,” he growled and I chewed my lip instead of responding.
I didn’t want to contradict him again, but I was having trouble seeing it.
I liked looking at his face, but I wasn’t sure if it was because it was a nice-looking face or just an interesting one, and ugly was always more interesting than beauty anyway.
You would have killed for the attention of a man who looked like him once upon a time.
I wasn’t sure if that was right, but I didn’t want to speak to myself again with him here. I’d gotten myself into enough trouble as it was with one comment, so I wasn’t going to risk a second.
Master looked out over the sweeping valley towards the desert beyond, seeming to be too irritated to talk to me again.
I wondered if the fractured pieces of my personality would ever stitch back together into one person or if I’d always be this confused, divided thing.
I was a broken girl, a forgotten legend, a shadow of whoever I’d once been, and I wasn’t sure that I would ever find my way to being whole again, but maybe he could help me feel a little more like I was.
Maybe this man with the coal black eyes and sin filled soul would be the one to pull me down into the dark and free me once and for all.
I knew I had no chance of aiming for the light anymore, but the darkness was my friend.
It might have been where my monsters awaited me, but it was also the keeper of my secrets and where I felt most comfortable now.
I could tell that we had that in common, he and I.
So I was willing to be a slave to his desires, just as long as he used his power over me to offer me a taste of freedom once again.
“Cassius is still unconscious,” Master said eventually, as if I’d asked.
Which I hadn’t. Cassius wasn’t really my concern; my life was tied to my master’s and nothing else really mattered to me aside from that.
His wants were my sole purpose, and I could sense a need in him which still wasn’t fulfilled, so I shuffled closer as I waited to hear more of what he required of me.
“I was thinking we could talk without him for a bit.”
“Okay,” I breathed. He seemed to mean that. He wanted conversation from me. Nothing more. The idea was exciting and kind of terrifying too. The only person I’d had to talk to for a thousand years was myself and I didn’t even like her.
“I’m not sure me and Cassius are totally on the same wavelength when it comes to me having my desires met,” he said slowly.
I nodded understandingly but I had no idea what he meant. It seemed like the right thing to do though as he went on.
“And I think that he might just try to steal your coin from me,” he added.
“No,” I gasped, unable to believe that Cassius would do that to his friend.
Ideas and bloodlust and death filled my mind as I thought of what it might take to stop that fate from playing out, but I knew it was no good unless that was what my master wanted.
And if Cassius – or anyone else for that matter – claimed my coin from him then I would be bound as their slave in his place.
It was my curse. The owner of my coin was the master of my power, and I was nothing but a pawn designed to fulfil those wishes.
You’re so naive sometimes, it makes me sick.
“Yeah,” Master said in a rough voice which he lowered as he glanced back over at Cassius who had one arm slung over his eyes while his other hand was wrapped around his sword’s hilt.
“And he’s also been saying some things..
.about putting you back in the coin.” He looked me in the eye as my heart pounded and I was struck by how concerned he seemed for me, the way he seemed to truly care, to truly want me to be safe from that fate.
I think he’s more concerned for himself.
I didn’t know if I agreed with that or not, but it was my duty to fulfil his desires and it was clear he needed something from me.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked softly.
“I think we need to do something about the coin so that there’s no chance of him taking it. Or anyone taking it for that matter. So that I can protect you,” he said.
Keep you for himself more like.
I nodded earnestly because even if I had a point.
I didn’t mind – I wanted him to keep me.
I liked him. I wasn’t sure why, but so far, he had given me no reason not to.
He’d let me stay out of the coin when I’d asked to, and he’d given me the brightest smiles each time I’d used my magic for his pleasure.
He even thanked me for it more often than not, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever had a master do that before.
“I don’t want anyone else to take it,” I said. Someone else might make me stay in the coin, but my master was letting me be free. That was all I really wanted after such a long time in confinement, and I needed it to continue the way it was.
“So how could we hide it, do you think?” Master prompted, glancing at my mouth before dragging his gaze up and looking deep into my eyes.
He’s definitely flirting with you.
I frowned, refusing to listen to myself and the ridiculous thoughts I was having as he drew a little closer to me, pinning me down with his dark gaze and the pure masculinity of his powerful body.
The tattoos on his arms were still on show beneath the tunic I’d created for him to wear, and for a moment I could have sworn the one on his right bicep glinted in the starlight, making a knot tighten deep inside me as I looked between it and his face.
“Maybe, I could make the coin appear as an amulet? And place it on an unbreakable chain which you could wear around your neck?” I suggested, wondering if that was a terrible idea.
Maybe I didn’t have any good ideas left in my brain since it had been bottled up for hundreds of years.
Or maybe the only ideas left were the good ones.
The problem was, I couldn’t tell anymore.