Chapter 36 #5
“Okay.” I dropped it into my pocket but the warmth of it slid into my heart.
If I couldn't remember the last time anyone had gotten me a gift, so it was perfectly possible that no one ever had before.
Which made this my first. Stolen from a man who had insulted me by one who had defended me.
There was power in that. “Can I get you anything, do anything for you? Make you something or serve you in some way?” I offered, my attention dropping to his injured leg as the need to heal it itched at me.
“No, thank you little goddess, but I am quite content at the moment. The only thing I am in need of is a bath and my legs are quite capable of delivering me to the bathhouse without putting you out,” he said. “Isn’t there something you would like to do for yourself?”
“For myself?” I asked with a frown, uncertain what he meant.
“Yes. You know, don’t you have any hobbies? Hopes? Dreams?”
“I dreamed of getting out of the coin. And you made that dream come true, Master. So now all I want to do is please you.”
He stopped suddenly and turned to look at me.
We had made it to the middle of the decorative gardens, completely alone for once amid swathes of stunning flowers and the gentle buzz of the insects pollinating them.
A towering pergola arched over us, hiding us beneath a fountain of trailing yellow blooms and as I looked up at him, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d even mind if the rest of the world just faded away and all that was left behind was me and him.
My breath caught as I turned so that I was facing him, finding us too close together, the toes of his shoes bumping against mine, the almost touch enough to make my heart tumble into a race, though I made no move to back away.
“You don’t want anything at all for yourself?” he asked, and the idea didn’t seem to sit well with him, his brow furrowing and his stare intensifying until I felt captured by it.
He had looked at me plenty of times, studied me even and learned my face well, but this was different.
This felt like he had peeled back the layers of what I was and what had been done to me an eternity ago so now he was looking right at the broken creature I had become while I was trapped inside that coin.
He saw it and the longer he looked, the more he seemed to dislike what he found.
I bit my lip, sensing that if I said no to his question that he would be displeased, but not having any other answer to give him.
It had been too long since I’d walked in the real world and been a real girl.
Any wants, desires or dreams I may have once held had faded away and gotten lost to the abyss which now resided inside of me.
He stared on, waiting for a response, a truth which I suddenly felt ashamed of, but when he refused to look away, it became clear that I had to admit it.
“I only want to make you happy, Master,” I murmured, letting him see the honesty of those words as he searched my eyes for it with that frown still marking his brow, the words which every other master had loved to hear from me seeming too sour for him.
“Don’t call me that,” he muttered, his lips forming a hard line as he swallowed thickly, shaking his head a little as if he had just realised something he should have already known. “I don’t think I like it anymore.”
Panic bled into me at his words, the possibility of him no longer wanting me to belong to him rolling through me and the reality that presented filling me with an unending fear which made me want to turn and run as fast and as far as I could.
If he was done with me, then he could discard the coin, banishing it and me, allowing the magic to return it to that hellish cave where no one ever came to look for me.
My torture would begin anew, except this time, it would be worse because I had begun to regain myself.
Just the smallest of pieces, but they were here, returning to me bit by bit and I liked them.
I wanted them. Needed them. I couldn’t bear for it to be over so soon when it had only just begun.
“But you are my master,” I said in a rush, pushing forward as if I might touch him before jerking back, still too afraid to cross that line and risk the end of this pretty dream because I needed it far too much. “My purpose is to serve you and-”
“When that arsehole lord spoke about you like you were nothing but some object he could take possession of if I only allowed it, I fucking hated it, Kyra. I wanted to rip his cock off right there and then, and let him bleed out at your feet in front of all of those pretentious people who believe that being upper somehow allows for that kind of entitlement. I didn’t fucking like it, little goddess, and I don’t like the thought of you believing I have that kind of power or sway over you either.
This magic between us may mean you’re stuck with me, but I don’t want you to think I want to own you like that motherfucker would have wanted to.
So have your own thoughts and dreams and be your own person.
Don’t call me Master anymore. Just call me Drake, like everyone else,” he said firmly and his onyx eyes burned with so much intensity that I was forced to nod.
“Okay... Drake.” My heart raced at the taste of his name on my tongue, and I swallowed thickly as I stared up at him, wondering if he truly meant what he’d just said or if he’d change his mind now that I’d spoken his name.
I hadn’t had a single master who had ever looked at me like he was now.
Like he saw me instead of only seeing what I could do for him.
Like he cared about me being my own person outside of the magic which bound us.
It was overwhelming and unexpected, and it made the broken fissures inside me ache with longing for all the things that I must have been once.
Because I was afraid that after all this time, now that I had finally found someone who wanted to see who I was, it would turn out that I wasn’t anyone anymore at all.
Drake smiled at the sound of his name on my lips, his dimples both showing, a bright kind of honesty lighting his dark eyes and something so undeniably genuine about the expression that I found myself forgetting to breathe all over again.
He shifted a little closer to me, eating up that too small space between us until I could feel the heavy weight of his presence pressing against me despite the fact that we were still a breath away from touching.
His height forced me to tilt my head back so that I could keep looking at him as I hesitantly smiled in return, really feeling the emotions that went with that expression and trying not to tremble before him as he awoke things inside me which I had forgotten that I was even capable of.
“And do me another favour,” he said, his voice low now, like what he spoke was a secret only meant for me.
“Anything,” I agreed, sucking in a breath as a lock of my hair got caught in the breeze, whipping before my eyes and getting trapped in his fingers as he caught it on instinct.
He wasn’t touching me, not really, but as I held his gaze and he carefully placed the lock of hair back over my shoulder without once touching my skin, I shivered.
The near unnoticeable tug on the individual strands sent a burst of energy prickling across my scalp, and I had to bite down on my tongue to halt the soft moan which wanted to roll up my throat and escape me from the almost contact.
He was so close, so impossibly, tangibly close, and yet this distance seemed impenetrable at the same time.
He wasn’t done imploding my world yet though and as he asked his favour of me, I found myself stilling like a fresh spring freezing over at the first sign of winter frost, frozen in that moment and unable to continue while I tried to make sense of what he was suggesting.
“Try to think of something you’d like for yourself. You were Fae once, you had desires of your own. Maybe you should try to remember some of them. Or even just come up with new ones.”
I found myself nodding, wanting to agree to whatever he asked purely for the fact that he had cared enough to ask it.
Even though I had no idea how to even begin doing what he'd suggested. How could I remember what I’d wanted for myself before I was cursed when I couldn’t even remember my sister’s face?
Dreams, wishes, wants, desires, all of that was long lost to me, even further removed than the memories of whoever I had once been, and yet there was something to his request, like a sweet taste on the back of my tongue which made me ache for something I could almost imagine.
Like knowing I was hungry without having any idea of what I wanted to eat.
His words made that want in me blossom and though it was more than a little terrifying I had to admit that I was curious so see if it could bloom.
“By tonight I want you to tell me something you want for yourself,” he said firmly, seeing the uncertainty in my gaze. I found myself wanting to please him almost as much as I wanted to dive into the possibilities which could be gained by trying to discover my own desires.
“Okay,” I breathed, like it was nothing. Simple. But the look in his eyes told me that he knew it wasn’t.
I hardly knew where to begin with figuring it out, but I did know that I wanted him to keep looking at me like that, like he saw me and liked what he was looking at. It lit me up. Woke me up. and made me feel a little more like me every time he did it.
Drake nodded, seemingly satisfied by my response before turning away, breaking the spell of his nearness, and leading the way towards the bathhouse.
My mind whirled with the knowledge of what he wanted from me, nothing at all coming to mind as I tried to consider what it was that I yearned for.
It seemed an impossible task, yet I was determined to do as he’d requested.
I simply had to think of one thing I desired for myself. How hard could that be?
You can hardly even think of the right colour for the sky. And you might as well be reaching for it if you’re foolish enough to try and reclaim the girl we once were.
The bite of my own doubts cast cold water over my ambitions, but even as they threatened to snuff out that little flame of hope which had begun to burn in me at the thought of reclaiming something of the girl I’d been, I threw myself over them, protecting them from the storm.
That flame may have been small, but it was blazing brightly, and I refused to let it go out.
I just needed one little desire to add to the fire, a single piece of kindling to help it grow.
And if I managed that then maybe I could find another piece and another, more and more until eventually the blaze might burn right through me and return at least some of what I’d lost.
Likely it was a fool’s hope, but that was still better than having no hope at all. So I clung to my tiny flame with all I had as my mind turned inwards, and I tried to come up with a single thing that I truly wanted for my own.