98. Ayres
Ayres could see the old pain, the old scars the Wolf had given her so clearly in that moment it made his chest ache.
Guilt, shame, and regret sliced him across his chest so deeply he was sure if he looked down, he would see his blood dripping from his heart. “Rorax, no. Stop. It’s not like that, it’s not the same.”
“No. No, it’s not that same. I’m not burning down the biggest city in your Realm or butchering thousands of innocents just because you asked me to. Yet.” She laughed bitterly and the sound almost made Ayres drop to his knees. “You lied to me, Ayres, just like she did. You all lied to me, and I am so sick of the people I trust deceiving me.”
“Listen to me, Ror,” Ayres took two steps forward, his palms offered to her. “I didn’t do this to hurt you, this had nothing to do with you, I was doing this a long—”
“I. Don’t. Care,” Rorax spat, the freckled skin of her nose scrunching in anger.
Marras help him, he wished she weren’t so fucking beautiful.
She turned on her heel, furiously striding away from him, her long black hair flipping over her shoulder, trailing all the way down her white dress to the top of the soft curve of her ass.
Ayres lunged out and grabbed her arm, and with a sharp push of his power he transferred them down the ley line, into his favorite cave.
As soon as they touched the ground, Ayres swayed on his feet at the effort of it, his head spinning violently.
Gods he hated transferring.
Rorax used his momentary wave of exhaustion to wrench away from his hold on her arm. Her heels caught on the rocks, and she tripped, landing hard on her hands and knees.
“Fuck,” Ayres grunted as she moved her hand a fraction and left a small streak of blood on the rocks.
The situation was quickly getting away from him. He felt like he was trying to wrestle water. “Rorax, here.” He offered her his hand, but she flipped over onto her backside and scrambled away from him, leaving bloody smudges on the stone from her palms and getting the back of her white dress dirty.
Her white eyes were wide and panicked as she quickly looked over the cave.
Ayres”s stomach tightened, all too familiar with people looking at him like that. He fought the urge to avoid her frightened eyes, to nurse his disappointment and shame in private, but he couldn’t. Ayres stood transfixed, unable to move, until the expression in her eyes switched from panic to wonder. She took in the waterfall, and the pond, enchanted to be so still, it perfectly reflected the stars above them through a hole in the ceiling of the cave.
The moon was nowhere to be found in the sky, letting the stars shine so bright you could see each one.
Ayres didn’t say anything as he watched her. If Rorax felt genuinely threatened by him, nothing would have been able to distract her from the threat.
She wasn’t scared of him, not really. That nugget of truth sparked something small, something warm, and something that felt dangerously like hope in his chest. Ayres kept his eyes pinned to her as he murmured softly, “I can do a lot of things, Ror.”
Her head snapped around to glare at him. She stood, and Ayres felt a pinch of self-loathing when he saw the blood trickle down her calf from the cut in her knee.
“Take me back, Ayres,” she hissed.
“I can’t. We need to talk about this first.” Ayres tightened his arms around his chest and forced himself to look unaffected even though he felt scared and raw. Gods, he didn’t want to lose her. “Piers, Milla, and my whole Guard could be affected if this came to light. Piers could lose his head for impersonating a prince.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Rorax snapped. “I still need a Protectorate. It’s too late to change now.”
“You could ask Kiniera to be your second house,” Ayres pointed out. “I want a Blood Oath from you and then I will take you back.”
“No,” she growled. “You don’t deserve anything from me, Ayres Sumavari.”
“I can’t risk my Guard.”
“You’re just going to have to trust me.” Rorax turned her back on him.
Did Ayres believe her? Did Ayres trust her enough to risk the lives of his Guard? Of his best friends and family?
No, he had too much to lose to trust her.
“You agree to a Blood Oath, or I kill you. Right now. Right here.” Ayres felt his power rumble, begging to be released even as his heart begged him not to.
Rorax raised her chin, her eyes spitting fire and brimstone at him. She opened her mouth, then closed it, too angry and hurt to speak. She reached over and ripped a knife out of Ayres’s belt, then sliced a cut open on the inside of her arm right below her elbow.
“Do it, you reeking, traitorous bastard,” she hissed.
A drop of blood trickled over the thin scar of the Blood Oath she had made with the Guardian. Inwardly, Ayres winced as Rorax deftly flipped his knife and handed it to him. Ayres took it, slicing open his finger. He pressed the blood to hers. “Do you swear on your life, Roraxiva Greywood, that you will tell no one who I am and what my abilities are?”
“I swear,” Rorax responded with gritted teeth.
“And you swear to never release the true identity of Piers Olufsen?”
Rorax’s jaw flexed. “I swear.”
With the words, Ayres pushed a bit of his magick into her, sealing the oath.
Rorax jerked away from him and smashed herself against the wall of the cave, getting as far away from him as she could get. Horror and disgust etched into every line of her face.
Fuck.
Ayres took a step away, but she charged him until they were chest to chest, angry tears filling her eyes. “You just violated me, Ayres Sumavari. Violated my soul, my very blood.” Her angry tears dripped down her cheeks, and every single one of them shredded into him.
Fuck. “Rorax, I—”
“Take me back,” she demanded, more tears slipping down her cheeks. “Now.”
Ayres shut his mouth and looked into her eyes before he nodded. He loosely took hold of her arm, then transferred them back to the castle.
As soon as they arrived, she ripped away from him. “Do not touch me ever again.”
Rorax wrapped her arms around herself and tried to flee, but then she was in the hands of another man.
Conrad.
Conrad threw an off-balance Rorax against the wall and placed his blade against Rorax’s neck.
“I told you if I ever saw you again, I would slit your throat you wretched bitch,” Conrad seethed into her face.
Ayres had forgotten the pair knew each other. Conrad had been in the castle the night of the Siege in Surmalinn. And while Conrad had tried to protect Rosalie and failed, in the end it had been Rorax who had been Rosalie’s savior. Ayres let out a low warning growl, wondering if Ye-Jun had seen all of this transpiring in his vision.
“Do it,” Rorax spit back to Conrad. “Kill me. Right now. You were a coward then and you”re a coward now.”
“Let her go, Conrad. We’ve promised to protect her,” Piers said, his mouth pressed into a tight line.
“He could kill me. Promises and honor apparently don’t mean anything to Death without blood to secure it,” Rorax hissed, the words cutting into Ayres’s heart a little deeper. Ayres reached out and grabbed Conrad’s arm and viscously yanked his brother back from Rorax.
“If you touch her again, I’ll tear your arm from your socket,” Ayres growled.
Rorax blinked at him, heartbreak and confusion seeping into the planes of her face, before she turned her back and ran down the hall. Ayres had a sinking feeling as he watched her run away from him, that she was leaving him for the rest of his life. Despite what she had promised last night, she would never be his again.
When Rorax disappeared around the corner, Ayres sank to his knees and stared at his hands, at his blood mixed with hers, and tried to ignore the indecision and regret roiling around in his chest.