Chapter 23 #2
I sank down to my knees to the back of the cramped space, a shiver rolling through me at the weight of my saturated clothes. This would not be a night of comfort like those which had preceded it.
Hendrix sighed as he sat too, his knee knocking against my thigh in the darkness, my skin heating at the contact.
“Any chance you had a store of food in that bag you almost died for?” he asked in a low voice which broke over the crashing of the rain on the tiled roof above our heads.
“I gathered some berries while we were walking,” I admitted, my hand moving to the bulge in my pocket to draw out some of the succulent fruit. “But I wanted to inspect them properly before eating them. Just in case I collected the wrong thing in my haste with the rain beating down.”
Hendrix snorted. “Clever little thing, aren’t you? Always planning your next move, always ready for the worst.”
“Perhaps you lived too long in comfort,” I said. “But where I grew up, the worst tended to come looking for you if you weren’t expecting it.”
Hendrix fell silent and I was unable to see more than the deeper shadow which marked his outline, so it was impossible for me to tell if he was considering my words with scorn or compassion, though of course I assumed the former.
No doubt that insufferable smirk was tilting up the corner of his lips, those deep green eyes of his sparking with malice and amusement at the pathetic woes of the human he disdained so very much.
“What are you waiting for then?” he asked when the silence stretched and only the pounding of the rain sounded between us.
“Waiting?”
“The berries,” he prompted.
“I told you, I need to inspect them before risking-”
“Go ahead then.”
“In the dark?”
There was a moment’s pause before Hendrix’s dry laughter rolled through the room, the sound catching me off guard and making my heart leap in alarm.
“What?” I hissed, tensing as he aimed his mirth my way, embarrassment raising its head in the pit of my stomach – though I had no idea why he was laughing at me.
“You cannot see?” he taunted, his arm waving across the space between us, the movement making me flinch minutely as its shadow passed too close for my liking.
“I am not blind,” I bit out. “I can see enough to know where you are and where the door is, but no, I cannot see well enough to be able to spot a blueberry from a black nightshade berry.”
“One is blue while the other is black,” Hendrix scoffed.
“I am well aware of that. Just as I am aware that I picked them in a hurry while the rain pounded down on a forest which is well known to enjoy playing tricks on desperate Champions. I have no intention of eating any of them without getting a clear look at what I am putting in my mouth. But by all means – you try them.”
I took a handful of the berries from my haul and held them out into the space between us, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness of our shelter. I could see a little of his expression now, though mostly it was just a slight gleam to his eyes.
Hendrix hummed in thought, making no move to take the berries from me.
“Scared?” I taunted.
He snorted in dismissal, reaching out to snatch the handful from my grasp, his fingers grazing against my palm as he took my meagre offering and pressed the lot of them between his lips.
I sucked in a breath as surprise and alarm mingled within me and I lurched forward an inch as if I might strike him to knock the fruit from his mouth.
“Are you insane?” I gasped, but he only held out a hand to ward me off as I attempted to reach for him.
I watched the shadow of his jaw as it worked while he chewed, saying nothing, though traitorous thoughts arose within me.
If he died from eating nightshade berries, then I’d be free to claim his amulets.
My fingers curled into a fist in my lap, the stain from the berry juices sticky against my palm.
My heart leapt and pounded at the thought – of course I should be hoping for that outcome but instead I only felt horror at the idea of it coming to pass.
I couldn’t see him well enough to be certain of it, but I felt his gaze boring into mine while I watched him chew and chew and-
“Spit them out,” I demanded, pushing forward and taking hold of his chin as if I might force his mouth open were he to refuse.
Hendrix’s hand curled around my wrist and he tugged my hand from his jaw, his stubble raking across my skin as he relocated my grip to his throat. I could feel it bob as he swallowed in defiance of my command.
“Worried about me, lightwing?” he mocked, his other hand moving to brush a strand of hair away from my face in a touch so gentle it had me scowling.
“Why did you do that?” I hissed.
“Silly me,” he said, not seeming the least bit chastised. “Looks like I trust your judgement even more than you trust your own. You’re no fool, Ferris Creed. You wouldn’t pick nightshade berries by mistake. It’s not in you to be that ignorant even if you tried.”
“I told you, I-”
Hendrix leaned forward until I could practically taste the sweetness of the berries on his lips, my hand still curled around his throat, our bodies all too close to one another.
“Tell me, pretty human, are you afraid of the dark?” he asked, his voice a low rumble which broke over me with a deeper tenor than the thunder which crashed in the heavens beyond our hiding place.
I swallowed, feeling his eyes on me, though I still couldn’t see nearly enough of him to be able to glean what game he was playing with me.
“I don’t like the dark,” I admitted finally, my voice an exhale that seemed to expel the fears which swum within my heart. “Not because I know to fear it. But because it’s too full of memories. The kind I wish I could banish but know I never will.”
“Tell me,” he pushed, and for some reason I found I wanted to give him that answer.
I hadn’t spoken about her openly in so long.
Everyone in our town knew what had happened and the gaping hole in my family spoke of her every day, but I never said her name, never spoke of it, never revealed this truth in me as if it were some secret.
But it wasn’t a secret. It was a tragedy.
One which had led me into the darkness of this forest. One which had brought me to this place with a Fae male who I had every reason to distrust, but still I found myself wanting him to know about her because she was important.
She was everything. And here we were, halfway through our time here, hiding from the dark outside, as close as I had ever come to fulfilling the promises I’d made to her so long ago, so why shouldn’t I speak her name?
“Eight years ago, the forest took my sister, Rissa, as its sacrifice.”
Hendrix stilled, his grip on my wrist tightening, his other hand falling against the base of my spine, pressing against me as though he might draw me closer to him, or at the very least, stop me from running away.
“She was taken to be a child of the forest?” he confirmed.
That old wound tore open in my chest, memories of that night flooding through me, of waking up to find her missing from her bed, our mother’s screams of anguish, our father’s silent despair.
I’d run from our home in nothing but my nightgown while the rain poured down not dissimilarly to the way it was doing right now beyond the walls of the grain store.
My bare feet had carved fissures in the mud as I followed the trail of her footprints from our home towards these cursed trees, my throat had been ripped raw with my calls of her name.
But it hadn’t just been her footsteps I’d followed.
Alongside Rissa’s bare prints had been a set carved with boots far finer than any worn by a human.
“She wasn’t simply stolen by the trees,” I hissed, trying to pull away from him, this beast who shared heritage with the one who had stolen her from me.
Hendrix fell entirely still as realisation dawned on him, but his hold on me didn’t waver, he refused to let me retreat.
“The Fae offered her up?” he asked, his voice rough with the words.
“Yes,” I bit out. “One of your people broke into our home while my family slept and stole her away from us on the blood moon to give her up as that year’s Offering.
One of the Fae deemed – not for the first time – that the sacrifice made should be human so that their kind – your kind – wouldn’t have to face the burden of the payment.
After all, what value does a human life hold when compared to that of the great and immortal Fae? ”
“I fought against that notion,” he said, his voice brittle, his fingers hard against my spine.
“When I was still welcome at court and the curse of the forest was a distant but constant threat to our peoples, it was well known that the trees were luring children to them in sacrifice. I stood against those who wanted to ensure the humans always paid the price.”
I shook my head, trying to escape him, and he let me scramble backwards, but he followed, prowling after me on all fours as my spine hit the sacks of grain and I was left with nowhere to retreat to.
“Hear me, Ferris. I fought against it with blood and steel. I fought.”