51 Dáinn #2
My indignation flares. “I told you I would try and kill you!”
“I thought you were just trying to be sexy and mysterious,” she cries. “I thought it was all part of the game!”
“I—” I choke back my next retort. “Wait, you think I’m sexy?”
Her eyes roll hard enough to cause ocular damage. “So not the point, Daniel.”
Waving the moment away with my hand, I rush ahead.
“No, you’re right. Of course, you’re right.
The point here is that you can stop me. Once is a miracle, twice is a pattern.
You can’t control me entirely, which is a useful revelation.
I find I can refuse your orders when they’re not directly related to devouring your soul.
So, I can haunt you and hunt you. I just can’t feast. It’s quite fascinating, really. ”
“Fascinating?” she repeats. “Really? That’s the word you’re going with?”
“It is,” I assure her, reaching out with both hands. “Birdie, you can stop wraiths—”
“How?” she cries, slapping my hands down. “How do I do it?”
“I don’t know.”
She groans, trying to step away, but I grab her shoulders. “I would tell you if I knew.” I put every ounce of my honor into the words, making them an oath. “My Birdie, look at me.”
She blinks away her tears as she looks up.
She’s so beautiful. So pure and good. I brush a single tear away with my thumb, marveling at how the liquid glistens over her freckles.
“I would tell you if I knew,” I say again.
“Jasper’s right, there can be no lies between us.
Not between us. Not with this aching truth already binding us together. ”
“Binding us?” She leans away. “Am I bound to you, Daniel? Am I . . . yours?”
The words open a chasm of ache in the middle of my empty chest. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to hear her say them again and have them not be a question on her lips.
Is she mine? Are we bound? She’s using words she doesn’t understand.
How could she? Birdie is human. She’s mortal.
How can she know what it means to be bound to another?
How can she know what it means to be mine? Irrevocably. Immutably.
I drop my hands away from her, giving her the truth. “No. You’re not mine. I have no right to claim you for my own. Not when—” I bite back the words. It appears, even with Birdie, this is a truth too far.
She searches my face, her expression softening. “Not when you’re already bound? Is that what you were going to say?”
I groan, shame filling me as I drop my hand away. I can’t bear to touch her and say these next words. “My bond is not of my choice. I would break it if I could. I am breaking it. Jasper is helping me.”
“I know. He told me. And I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” I hiss.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pity me.”
She lets me back her up against the closest tree. She gasps as her back hits the trunk. “Daniel—”
I clutch her shoulder, holding her still.
I want to watch my wraithly hand flex against her pretty skin, but she responds well to this render.
She likes his touch. Just one more cage for me.
I will abide this cage, if only for her sake.
Without it, she wouldn’t let me get this close.
“Do not pity me,” I say again. “I will gladly weather your rage, your anger, your biting resentment. I will drown in your lust and dance in your aching need. But I will never accept your pity. Hear me, mortal, and understand.”
She doesn’t flinch under my anger. Instead, she leans in.
Reaching out, she wraps both hands gently around my arm, giving it a squeeze.
“I don’t pity you, Daniel. I’m just saying I know what it feels like to feel trapped, to feel bound to another with no hope of escape.
It’s how I lived for sixteen years under my adoptive parents.
But I broke free, and so will you. I’ll help you. ”
“You would help a wraith?”
She nods.
I lean away, searching her face. “Why?”
She shrugs as if the answer were a simple thing. “Because no one deserves to be caged.”
Groaning, I lower my face until our foreheads touch. I breathe her in, taking comfort in her pleasing bergamot scent. I have to make this human understand. She must know what I am, what I need. “Birdie, I must tell you something . . .”
“What?” she whispers.
“I’ve been down this road before. Too many times to count.”
“What road?”
“Trying to get close to mortals.” Leaning away, I look down, holding her gaze.
“Have you any idea the toll it takes on a wraith to love and never be loved? To want and not be wanted? To fight our every magical urge in this quest of getting closer . . . only to give in to our creature nature and devour?”
Tears well in her pretty green eyes. “But you’ve tried?”
I stifle a groan. Fisting my hand in her soft hair, I sink against her again.
“Gods, Birdie, you have no idea how long I’ve tried.
I’ve starved myself again and again, all for the sake of feeding the other parts of my nature that crave community and connection.
I’m so tired of being alone. Tired of being feared and hated.
Tired of the endless disconnect. So, I try, and I try again. But in the end . . .”
The soft tips of her fingers brush over my lips. “In the end, a starving man must eat.”
Filled with shame, I nod.
“And everything you eat . . . you kill.”
I nod again. “Yes.”
“But not me,” she murmurs. Her finger flicks under my chin as she tips my face up, seeking to hold my monstrous gaze. “You can’t kill me. Can you?”
“No.” I take in every line of her beautiful face. Every freckle. Every piece of pretty silver piercing her skin. “Not by devouring you, anyway. I suppose I could break your bones. Jasper seems to think I like ripping out spines. I imagine that might work.”
Her soft smile is an absolution. “But you won’t do that to me, will you?”
“No.”
“Because you would never hurt me.”
Rage fills me at the idea. “I would sooner die.” The words come out as one more oath, spoken from whatever dark part of me most resembles a soul.
I press myself against this human, one hand fisted in her hair, the other splayed at her hip, pinning her to the tree.
We’re running out of time. I sense the witch’s approach.
He’s likely fuming. I made him hike rather a long way to get to us. And I made sure it would be uphill.
Birdie strokes my face. Her touch is so gentle and pleasing. “What do you want from me, Daniel?”
The next words leave me without conscious thought. “My name isn’t Daniel.”
“I know.”
Tensing, I lean away, eyes narrowed. “Did Jasper tell you?”
Hera hear me, if that witch betrayed my trust and gave another my name, I will be ripping out a spine today—
“No,” she rushes to say, soothing me with another touch.
Her fingertips dance across my furrowed brow, then down the line of my jaw.
“I knew the moment you said it in the shop. I can’t imagine any immortal creature of death wandering around named Daniel.
It’s not your real name. It’s just one more mask you wear. ”
I groan, leaning into her touch. She lets me nuzzle against her hand, breathe in her perfect scent. She’s not afraid of me. Not even a little. It’s a gift more precious than gold. I find that I’m trembling in her arms. “Birdie . . .”
“You can tell me.” Arching up on her toes, she kisses my chin.
Oh gods, now I feel dizzy. I’m spinning, aching, breaking.
She’s initiating intimate touch, even while knowing what I am?
Does she mean to unmake me right here in these woods?
Eyes shut tight, I grip to the tree rather than the human.
I don’t need eyes to see her or hands to feel.
I know she’s still here with me. “What you ask is not so easy for me to give,” I admit on a breath.
“Okay. Can you tell me why?”
I blink my eyes open, gazing down at her. Sweet Birdie is so innocent. She knows nothing of magic or wraiths, nothing of the power in knowing a name. Would she betray me? Destroy me even? Or could she be my salvation?
Jasper is right, only the truth will do.
For only with truth can we ever have trust. And I want to trust the human in my arms. Jasper trusts her.
He made her part of his coven. I have to try.
Bracing myself, I give her the truth. “Names mean everything to a wraith. To give any piece of my name to another is to give away part of my very essence. It is a gift of trust a wraith can give only once, never to be returned.”
Nodding, she takes my hand and places it on her chest, letting me feel the steady beat of her fragile human heart.
“You can trust me, Daniel. I know we’ve only just met, but you can trust that I’ll never hurt you.
Trust that I’m good at keeping other people’s secrets.
If you need more time before you tell me—”
“Dáinn,” I whisper on a breath. “My name is Dáinn.”
“Dáinn,” she echoes.
Hearing my name spoken from her lips is a revelation.
“Look at me, Dáinn.”
I can only obey. I want to obey. This is not the forced servitude of my bond to Ludmilla. This is merely a show of the devotion Birdie deserves. I look at my human. It’s a privilege to look at her.
“What do you want from me, Dáinn? How can I best help you?”
“Everything,” I whisper, falling to my knees before this human miracle. “Please, gods, I want everything.”