Chapter 17 Wrath
WRATH
From my place of concealment, I watched her for a while before I revealed myself.
Watched her remove the heavy pieces of her armor that she was strong enough to wear all day before she placed them on the mannequin.
Then I watched her pace in the sitting room, walking over the rug back and forth in her uniform underneath, her hair free because she only wore it in a braid in anticipation of battle.
I understood Talon’s wisdom because of the years he’d lived on this earth.
Almost eighty years old despite his eternally youthful appearance, he’d had the time to become seasoned and grizzled.
Lily was young, but she was already twice as smart as he was.
I watched her eyes work furiously as she paced, thinking and plotting, carrying the weight of a kingdom on her shoulders.
I could watch her forever because whether she slept or stressed, she was hypnotically beautiful. But it was hard to watch her suffer without doing everything in my power to ease her burden. It’d been a long time since I’d been in this position—one where I would give anything for another person.
And I’d give anything, my soul if I still had it to give, for her.
She eventually stopped pacing and stepped into the bathroom to shower.
She wasn’t in the separate villa that she used to call home.
Now she took one of the royal chambers so she could be within the castle at all times, accessible to Hawk and the other soldiers who needed her.
Guards were posted outside her door every moment of every day.
I built a fire in the hearth then waited for her to return once her shoulders had relaxed from the heat of the warm water.
I sat in the armchair and listened for the sound of the door, of the drawers to her dresser as she found something to wear.
With her hair slightly damp, she stepped into the sitting room in a long shirt with her knee-high socks like she knew I was there.
I locked eyes with her, mesmerized by the beauty of her appearance the way everyone was hypnotized by dragon scales.
She was my rose in the garden, the life that I nurtured with my own hands, ignoring the wounds from her thorns that cut me while I pruned her.
I would shield her tender blossoms from the rain in a downpour, provide water if it was too hot, just for the honor of looking at her when she bloomed.
The Covenant may have my soul, but this woman had my heart.
She stared at me in the same pained, loving way then came to me, sitting on the edge of the couch and not in my lap.
The grief of her circumstances was enough to keep her distant from me, at least until I consoled her sadness.
She looked at the fire I had made and then the rug beneath her feet before she looked at me again.
“My mother confronted me. I told her to trust me, and she said she would.”
Talon didn’t have the same sense of calm.
He was volatile and emotional, at least when it came to his daughter.
I’d observed him many times and noticed the way he treated her differently from his son.
Compensating for his loss by loving her more than his heart could scarcely contain, he gave everything to her.
So he couldn’t think clearly or logically.
He was all heart, all emotion. He’d lost Lena decades ago, but that wound had never healed, just scabbed over.
Something we had in common.
“I held his hand and felt it move. Khazmuda said he knew it was me.” Her eyes shifted elsewhere, somewhere past me, sharing her thoughts out loud because she didn’t have to filter or restrain herself with me.
“I’m sure he did.”
“I’m afraid he moved…because he’s worried about me.”
“I’m sure he is worried about you. Because a father worries for his children every moment they’re not within his sight.”
She gave a slight nod. “I’m just afraid his mind is trapped, and the only thing he can do is worry that you’ll hurt me or take my soul. He already lost Lena, and all he can think about is losing me next.”
“With the severity of his wound, I doubt he’s often sentient.”
“Yeah, I hope so,” she said with a heavy breath.
Her eyes eventually focused on mine again, and once they did, I could see that endless affection, like she trusted me more than anyone in the world.
I’d watched her aunt warn her that I wasn’t what I seemed, that I would deceive and betray her, and Lily didn’t hesitate to tell her she was wrong.
It felt good…until it didn’t.
Until shame the size of a mountain collapsed on top of me.
Until I drowned in self-loathing.
Until I wished I ceased to exist.
My eyes shifted away because I felt unworthy of her stare.
Felt inferior to this beautiful queen full of grace and integrity and power.
But my stare didn’t stay away for so long, not when I could feel the magnetic pull of her beauty draw me in.
She was a queen, not a witch, but I felt entranced under the spell she cast. I looked at her once more, and the second I took in those beautiful green eyes, I was lost all over again.
I’d never laid eyes on a woman more fair, more intelligent, more fierce, and I’d never felt emotion so overwhelming.
“I know what substance will heal your father.”
Her stare hardened on my face for the first second, but then her body tightened like a rope before the tension suddenly released like a spring. “Tell me.” She didn’t ask how I knew this information, desperate for the solution and not an explanation.
“Platinum.”
“Platinum.” She said it out loud, tested it on her tongue.
“Similar to steel but with the brilliance of a diamond.”
Her eyes shifted away as she thought long and hard about that information. “Do you know where to find it?” Her eyes came back to me.
“No.”
“I don’t think that’s a material we have on this side of the world. I’ve never heard of it.”
“Perhaps.”
“How do you know this is true?”
“Because Riviana told me.”
Confusion made her eyebrows lift before they lowered once more. “You—you can speak to her?”
“I’m not supposed to. A violation equivalent to treason.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because I fear you’ll lose this battle if only half the dragons can fight. The other half can’t be occupied keeping your father alive. They make themselves vulnerable to attack from the distraction, as well as their weakness from depleted energy reserves.”
“You know I want to save my father more than anything…but not at your expense.”
Every time I thought our hearts couldn’t grow closer, we inched further into each other’s chests.
I wanted to withdraw for the sake of us both, but my heart sang for her like a swallow on the first day of spring.
My purpose wasn’t to bring souls to the underworld to be eaten by the Covenant—but to care for her with mind, body, and soul.
I’d completely lost myself to her, irrevocably and utterly.
I put myself deeper into debt with complete disregard and pretended the bill would never come.
“I’m the last person you need to worry about, Xivin. ”
Her eyes shifted back and forth between mine, starting to water from the connection she could feel as deeply as I could. “That’s hard to do when you’re the person I think of the most.”
Heat from her flames flushed through me, and it was one of the rare times my heart fluttered.
I wouldn’t change my past, never erase the existence of my two sons who still burned like a torch in my heart, but sometimes I wished for a different life.
Pictured myself walking through the door of her villa and seeing her pregnant belly stretch her shirt taut, holding a toddler on her hip, the house a mess from the chaos of small children.
Her eyes would be dead tired but still find the energy to light for me.
There was nothing I wouldn’t give to have that.
“Callum.” Her quiet voice pulled me back to the moment, like she knew my mind had floated off somewhere else, into the lands of eternal yearning.
All I had were these moments with her. She’d be someone else’s wife someday.
The mother of another man’s children. And I would be trapped in the darkness forevermore.
She would spite my memory once she knew my part in all this.
This was just a moment, a flicker in time for me, so I needed to savor it as long as it lasted.
I stood from my armchair and scooped her into my arms before I carried her to bed, her arms hooked around my neck and her eyes brilliant in the same yearning I felt in my heart.
I laid her on the bed before I undressed.
Her shirt and underwear were removed, but her knee-high socks remained before I moved over her, my hips sliding between her soft thighs, my mass making the mattress dip noticeably underneath us both.
She cupped my face, and she kissed me as she slid her fingers into my hair before they explored my shoulders and back, her fingertips pressing into the muscles to feel my strength.
She was tall for a woman but felt so petite to me.
Her arms were sculpted with muscle and I could see the strength in her legs, but she still felt as fragile as a twig on the forest floor.
One wrong step and she would snap in half.
I hooked my arm behind one of her thighs, and I opened her wide so I could sink inside, feel the warm flesh of her paradise.
My breath hitched as it always did when I felt her, immediately succumbing to the desire and the love I could never express verbally.
I watched her gasp in silence as she felt me invade her, taking all of me even when it hurt, accepting me exactly as I was.
I gave her time to adjust to me, slowly thrusting inside her as the slickness started to rise to come to my aid. Then it was perfect, the connection between our bodies matching the one between our hearts, her petiteness ready to handle my thick girth.