Chapter Five #2
“Your stubble is determined to sandpaper my face off,” Newt groaned, though his hands contradicted his complaint by pulling Vaughn closer.
“Want me to stop?” lips asked against skin that tasted like warm honey.
“Ask me again in ten minutes.”
The whimper sent a fresh surge of heat through him. Vaughn slid his hand down Newt’s side, over the borrowed shirt that had ridden up to expose a strip of pale stomach. His fingers traced the edge of his mate’s waistband then dipped lower to palm the hard length straining against thin fabric.
Newt’s body went rigid. His hand shot out, grabbing Vaughn’s wrist in a grip that belied his size. “I—”
The single syllable shut everything down instantly. Vaughn pulled his hand away, fighting to keep his expression neutral when everything inside him crumbled.
“Sorry,” he said, forcing a smile that felt like broken glass cutting his lips. “Got carried away.”
Newt’s brow furrowed, mouth opening as if to say something more, but Vaughn was already moving, untangling himself from the blankets and Newt’s limbs.
Vaughn had survived torture, had endured pain most couldn’t imagine. Yet, somehow, the rejection felt like hot coals raking over his bones.
“Nature calls. Be right back.” His voice was the only steady thing about him.
He untangled himself from the blankets and Newt’s warmth then crossed to the bathroom in long strides.
The sink’s porcelain was cool under his palms, grounding him in reality. His mate just rejected him. Why wouldn’t he? Vaughn was damaged goods, a wolf who couldn’t even sleep through the night without attacking the person he was supposed to protect.
He closed the door, the click of the latch sounding like a gunshot. He gripped the edge of the sink, knuckles whitening under the pressure. as he stared at his reflection. The mirror reflected a stranger—hollow-eyed, hair mussed from Newt’s fingers, lips slightly swollen from kisses.
“Fucking idiot,” he snarled to his reflection. “What made you think you deserved this?”
Newt didn’t want him. Why would he? Vaughn was damaged goods. His head was a minefield, his sleep a horror show. Last night he’d nearly killed the fae in his sleep. What kind of mate would he make, jumping at shadows and waking up screaming?
Water rushed from the tap, filling the small space with a soothing white noise. Vaughn splashed his face with the cold water, feeling it shocks him back to his senses.
He scrubbed his palms over his cheeks, trying to erase the memory of Newt’s startled expression, the way his hand had gripped Vaughn’s wrist.
The mirror reflected a truth he couldn’t escape. He was broken in ways that might never heal properly. Expecting someone else to want him, especially someone as bright and unscathed as Newt, was laughable.
A soft knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.
“Vaughn?” Newt’s voice filtered through the wood, tentative and small. “Are you… Can I come in?”
Straightening, he swiped away the water from his face with the back of his hand. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat.
The door opened slowly, Newt standing there appearing fragile. The borrowed shirt hung to his mid-thigh, making him look even smaller than he was. His hair stuck up in tufts where Vaughn’s fingers had mussed it.
His mate was breathtaking.
“We should talk,” Newt stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He leaned against it, hands behind his back. “It’s not that I don’t want…that.”
Vaughn crossed his arms, keeping the sink between them like a shield. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Actually, I do.” Newt’s gaze dropped to the floor then lifted again. “Where I come from, we have rules. Lots of them. And one big one is that fae don’t mate outside their kind.”
“That’s a dumbass rule considering your kind doesn’t control the shots when it comes to mates.” Stop being so pissy and hear him out.
“You’re not the only one who thinks that.” Newt leaned his back against the counter. “It’s been argued in the court many times, but falls on deaf ears.” He picked at a piece of lint on his shirt. “It’s forbidden to leave our realm, but the more adventurous fae sneak out.”
“Like you.”
“Me, adventurous?” Newt laughed, a sound between delicate petals opening and jagged glass. “No. Not me. The most daring I’ve ever gotten was swiping an extra cookie from the pantry. Then the guilt ate at me, so I confessed my criminal ways to my mother.”
Vaughn had never known such an innocent life. He was glad his mate had never faced true evil the way he had. No whips. No cattle prod. No whispers at his ear that made him want to crawl inside himself.
“But you came to the human realm.” He leaned beside Newt, resting his hands on either side of him so he wouldn’t touch. “That was adventurous.”
Newt stared incredulously at him. “Have you forgotten my welcoming committee? Three enthusiastic vampires whose idea of a greeting is relieving me of my blood.”
Vaughn studied his mate. There was something else going on besides a sudden rebellious streak. “Why would a law-abiding citizen break a major rule?”
“Bad things happened. Your body remembers.” Newt’s fingers twisted in the hem of the oversized shirt.
Somehow Vaughn knew his mate wasn’t talking about him. Had someone hurt him? Was he running from abuse? The thought of anyone hurting such an innocent creature made his gut twist in ways that demanded vengeance.
“What if the mind remembers to?” Newt glanced up at him. “What if…” He glanced back down at his hands.
“What, sweetheart?” Vaughn gently pressed.
“What if your value is tied to how tradable a commodity you are? A means to someone else’s end? Does that count as bad things happening? How disposable you are?” he asked with a cracked whisper.
There was an ache in his voice, a depth that carried more than just the words. A history, a story, a pain that lived in the spaces between the syllables.
Vaughn breathed heavily through his nose, tension radiating from every muscle, praying Newt wasn’t saying what he thought he was saying. “What kind of commodity are you being traded as?”
“Marriage.”
That single word should’ve come with a profound sense of relief. Instead, understanding dawned on him. “You’re already promised to someone.”
Newt’s silence was answer enough.
“An arranged marriage,” Vaughn said flatly. “That’s what you’re running from.”
“Among other things.” Newt glanced away. “My father arranged it. I’ve never even met her.”
“Her?” Vaughn’s eyebrows rose.
A bitter laugh escaped Newt. “Yeah. Apparently my preferences don’t matter when it comes to family alliances.”
The pieces clicked into place. Newt’s reluctance, his hesitation, the way he’d looked at Vaughn with equal parts want and regret.
“So last night, when you said you had to go home—”
“I have to go back,” Newt finished for him. “If I don’t, they’ll hunt me down.”
Vaughn absorbed it all, the implications settling like stones in his gut. His mate was not only promised to another but to a woman he had no interest in, for political reasons that would sacrifice Newt’s happiness and autonomy.
“And if they find out about me?” Vaughn asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.
Newt’s expression darkened. “The punishment for mating outside our kind is death.”
That hadn’t been in the realm of answers he thought Newt would give him. Death. Not banishment, not social ostracism. Death.
“That seems extreme,” he said, understating it by a mile.
“Welcome to Unseelie politics.” Newt’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Where everything is extreme and nothing makes sense.”
Vaughn stilled. “Unseelie?”
A flicker of panic crossed Newt’s face before he schooled his features. “I may have…not been entirely truthful about that part.”
“You’re dark fae.” The revelation should have bothered Vaughn more than it did.
Unseelie were known for black magic, for deals that ended badly for anyone foolish enough to make them.
But looking at Newt—small, vulnerable, with hair the color of cotton candy—it was hard to reconcile that reputation with reality.
“Born and raised,” Newt confirmed, chin lifting slightly. “Does that change things?”
Did it? Vaughn considered the question. He’d spent his life avoiding complications, steering clear of anything that might trap him the way his mother had. Yet here he was, drawn to a mate who came with more baggage than an international flight.
“No,” he said finally. “It doesn’t.”
Relief softened Newt’s features. He pushed away from the counter, taking a tentative step forward. “I wanted to tell you. But I’m told people tend to react badly when they hear Unseelie .”
“People are idiots.”
That earned him a genuine smile, small but real. “True. But in this case, the fear isn’t entirely unfounded. Some of us earned that reputation.”
“But not you.”
Newt shrugged, the movement making the oversized shirt slip off one shoulder. “I can barely make my magic work right. Hard to be threatening when your concealment spell turns you into a nightlight.”
Despite everything, the complications, the danger, the impossibility of it all, Vaughn found himself smiling. This small fae with his fabulous hair and self-deprecating humor was somehow worming his way past defenses Vaughn had built over centuries.
“So…” Vaughn uncrossed his arms. “What happens now?”
Newt moved closer, stopping just short of touching. “I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to go back yet.”
Vaughn found himself reaching out, fingers tracing the curve of Newt’s cheek.
“Then don’t,” he said simply.
No law superseded a mating. Even if one of them decided to walk away, to become that tradable commodity or sink deeper into madness, they would only come right back. Their mate bond was already too strong and only growing deeper.