Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
I woke in the middle of the night to the feeling of the mattress shifting beside me and I twisted around, grasping beneath my pillow for the dagger I’d stashed there.
Before I could locate it, my eyes fell on the figure in my bed, forcing me to still and Kyra bit her lip as she watched me.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears and adrenaline trickled through my veins in response to being woken so abruptly.
I couldn’t force my thoughts into line quickly enough to tear my gaze from her mouth and the curve of her full lips which begged for far too much of my attention. What was she doing here?
She was barely a foot away from me, laying on top of the silk sheets while I remained beneath them, and her proximity was drawing a reaction from my flesh.
She had changed into a pale yellow night gown, the silk trimmed in lace which brushed against the skin at her chest and thighs, making me all too aware of her body and how close she was to me.
“Are you awake?” she whispered, and I half wondered if she’d come here to offer her body to me, but the look in her eyes wasn’t filled with desire, it was merely curious.
I cleared my throat, trying to banish the errant, lust filled thoughts which had pressed in on me all too easily at the sight of this beautiful creature creeping into my bed in the middle of the night and focus on her question.
“I am now,” I murmured, my voice rough with lack of use as I gave up on hunting for my blade and shifted my hand to rearrange my overexcited cock instead.
It had been too damn long since I’d had a woman and the unexpected torture of her company was only going to make that need in my flesh grow if she lingered here looking like that.
“You need to get up soon for the fight,” she said.
“Really?” I glanced over my shoulder towards the open window which was letting in a cool breeze. It was still night, and the brawl wasn’t until mid-morning, so I turned back to her with a frown.
“I’m not sure. Time doesn’t really mean much to me anymore,” she admitted, smiling shyly like she was embarrassed by that fact, but I found those kinds of details about the way she’d spent the last who knew how many years fascinating.
I probably should have been annoyed at her for waking me, but I couldn’t quite summon any anger at her as she watched me with her wide, golden eyes, the weight of her stare making my body react in a way which was only really going to lead me to the kinds of thoughts I shouldn’t be having.
I pushed my fingers through my hair and made an effort to scrub the alcohol fuzz from my brain, but I’d drunk three bottles of wine before passing out to keep the nightmares at bay, so I wasn’t likely to manage that too easily.
Kyra watched me like I was the most interesting thing she’d ever laid her eyes upon, and I couldn’t say I hated that.
What man would object to a beautiful woman staring at him the way she did at me?
The only problem was that in our current situation the only thing her proximity was doing was making my cock ache and my mind wander as I considered all the things I’d like to do to her body while we were alone here in the dark.
I shifted an inch closer to her then stopped myself with a grunt of effort.
I’d never kept a promise to a woman I’d bedded before, and I wasn’t sure if I should cross that line with someone who I had no intention of getting rid of.
Besides, I wasn’t sure if she even desired anything like that in her current form.
She certainly didn’t give me any indication that she found me attractive despite the way she watched me all the time.
Which doesn’t piss me off at all.
I had to remember that this form was all magic anyway.
She wasn’t a woman, she was something…else.
And I couldn’t forget that. Especially when I was here to claim the most beautiful woman in the land.
A princess. And yet as I stared at Kyra, it was hard to think of anyone but her.
Hard to imagine any creature more desirable to me.
But perhaps that was all a part of her gifts, ancient magic bound in tempting flesh.
“So did you have any other reason for waking me?” I asked, just to be sure, trying and failing not to think with my cock, but it was pretty fucking difficult when she’d climbed into my bed in the middle of the night dressed like that.
Kyra rolled onto her stomach and twisted towards me, resting her chin on her fist as she looked down at me.
Her black hair fell around her face and coiled across the sheets between us, almost brushing against my bare skin.
A strange feeling filled the space that separated me from it, almost like heat radiated from her and I wondered what it would be like to touch her.
Would her skin feel as soft as it looked?
Would I feel the spark of her power beneath her flesh?
Or would my hand just pass through her the way Cassius’s fist had when she’d first emerged from her coin?
“I was sitting in the dark, waiting for the monsters to come...but they didn’t.
It was so, so quiet,” she whispered. “After a while I started to wonder if any of this was real or if maybe it was just this beautiful dream sent to tell me that I really was insane. Then I got this feeling, right here-” She tugged on the top of her nightdress, pulling the material down so that she could press her fingers against her heart.
My gaze lingered on her exposed flesh and the full curve of her breasts before trailing back up to her eyes which had suddenly filled with tears.
“-and I thought that maybe you weren’t real at all. And I was still all alone inside the coin.” A tear spilled down her cheek, glimmering silver in the faint moonlight which filtered in from outside.
I reached out to brush it away and she recoiled, a look of fear in her eyes which made me fall still.
“I won’t hurt you,” I breathed, dropping my hand to the space between us again, leaving it there on top of the silk sheets. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Kyra smiled hesitantly, blinking away the tears and the sight of it made warmth grow in my chest. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be stuck alone inside that small space for so long and now that she was free, I wanted her to know she could stay that way for as long as she was with me, that I’d never confine her to that hell again.
“You promise?” she asked, and I found myself nodding.
“You’re safe with me,” I swore, wondering at the words the moment they left my lips.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t told those kinds of lies before, it was more the feeling that I wasn’t lying at all.
That I really meant that and intended to ensure it was the truth.
I just didn’t understand why I would care about her any more than I did about anyone else because I certainly had never made such an oath with the intention of keeping it before.
“I feel like I am,” she agreed, twisting her fingers together like she wasn’t certain she even wanted to admit that.
We fell into silence and I shifted against my pillows, placing a hand behind my head while leaving the other on the sheets between us. I wasn’t sure if it was an offering or not, but I was starting to suspect that she was afraid to touch me for some reason and I wasn’t sure what that would be.
“You said you don’t remember who you were before you were bound to the coin,” I said softly. “But what about after that? Do you have any memories of things you have done with the other masters you mentioned?”
Kyra started nodding then stopped abruptly, a frown pinching her brow. “Yes, but he doesn’t know I killed them,” she hissed to herself, and I arched a brow.
“You killed them?” I asked making her gasp and scramble backwards like she meant to run from me.
“Wait,” I called, and she fell instantly still, her fingers balling into fists as she knelt at the edge of my bed, the night gown she wore bunching up clinging to the curve of her hips and making me swallow thickly as I looked at her.
“You don’t have to run. You could just explain. ”
“Explain?” she breathed, her eyes darting to the door again nervously and I waited, giving her a moment to consider that offer. “He can command me to stay anyway,” she muttered, in argument with herself once again. “So it’s not like I can run far. You remember what it was like with Master Ramish.”
“What was it like with Master Ramish?” I asked curiously and she flinched again, like she never expected me to hear or react to any of the things she said to herself.
“He was…strict,” she said with a shrug which was too casual for the dark look which passed across her eyes or the shiver which passed through her body.
“Strict?” I questioned, moving to sit up and patting the bed beside me, inviting her closer again.
“Yes,” she breathed, a little more of that darkness passing through her expression before it was replaced with the hint of a wicked smile, the kind which teased at the bad in me, beckoning it forth. “Until he wasn’t anymore.”
I arched a brow, wanting to hear more but she remained quiet, muttering something to herself about saying too much, but I was pretty saw I caught the gist of what she was trying to keep to herself.
“He hurt you?” I asked, my voice low and my muscles tightening at the thought of it, the violence inside of me writhing with the desire to act. “Punished you when you didn’t please him?”
Kyra nodded just a little and a low noise rumbled in my chest. I may not have been anyone’s hero by any means, but I had seen and experienced enough of the way some Fae treated those they thought themselves above, to harbour a deep hatred of anyone abusing their position of power like that.