Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Titus
One week later.
Training with Selene is both my torment and salvation.
She’s a guiding light that leads you off the edge of a cliff. Pushing. Shoving. Forcing your toes to uncurl so she can plow you off. As I free-fall, I sense Everett’s magic. Time is curious; it pursues knowledge. It halts everything so it can gobble it down.
Keeping Everett's magic asleep is a battle of masking my emotions.
There's another problem. A separate magic is blossoming inside of me. A sensation flows up my spine when I’m near Selene.
Selene senses it yet tips her chin up. I want to curl my fingers around her slim neck, guide her jaw to mine, and force her to acknowledge it.
Tell me I am not the only one! Tell me, Selene.
My fangs throb with a thirst the blinding sun cannot extinguish. A swipe of my tongue over them only tickles it, as my eyes lock onto the temptress.
It’s getting worse, this curse inside of me.
How do I rebuke it?
Tell me how?
Our blades clash as I deflect her attempted attack. She moves around me with a fury, allowing me to stand still and watch as she searches for her next opening.
Mistake. Don’t search. Demand an opportunity. That’s how you defeat your enemy.
Selene’s black hair lashes like ropes in a harbor, forcing me to dock and to look her in the eye. She spins around, blade held high, creating a small whistle in the air. She lets out a growl as she lunges. I force my smirk into a straight line.
She’s not a poor fighter; she’s brilliant, but there’s a sense inside of me that seems to know where she is going to strike next.
Pulverized grass, a light humidity, and the faintest hint of rain scent the field. A light sweat beads on my brow. Not from the exercise. No, proximity to Selene is the cause.
Driving the heel of my boot into the soil, I stand firm. Selene glares up at me; the angle of her eyes looks sharper. I peer at her as I do a flame, admiring its shades and the levels of heat.
With a hiss, Selene slides her blade down mine. “You’re holding back.” Metal screeches like a cat plunged into icy water. That sound transports me back to the battlefield. The ground is so slick that your heels stick. You look down, thinking it’s mud.
How can that be? It didn’t rain.
Oh. Puddles of blood—so many, the earth can not drink them down fast enough—trap the soles of your boots.
Your mind stops fighting. You look around. Trauma forces you to inhale. The smell repulses you more than the swamp of blood and guts did. Sweat, urine, and shit. So much shit.
When you're handed a sword as a kid and told to fight, no one tells you about the shit, or how the body purges everything from it when it dies. They speak only of glory.
I breathe again. Selene’s faint scent works like an elixir, calming my mind.
“You’re my queen,” I answer. I can never fight her as I would another. “You don’t toss a diamond into the dirt and trample it.”
“A diamond was born in the dirt, under pressure. That is how it’s made—by being pressed, nudged, forced to accept more and more weight.
A diamond is more comfortable in difficult times than joyful moments when it’s forced to be nothing but a sparkling object in a crown.
So feel free to toss it in the dirt, stomp on it again, Titus; pressure will not chip or mar it, it will only make it grow stronger.
” She swings her blade; the movement is as magnificent as a rainbow spotted in the thunderous sky.
The sunlight bounces off the steel, blinding me.
I twist, then lunge forward, close enough for her to sense the warmth of my body, before I parry her next strike. “Not anymore,” I murmur.
You are no longer just my queen. You’re something else.
Her next three hits are hard, sending tremors up her arm. Her muscles are fatiguing. She isn’t pacing herself. “The lack of a dick between my legs does not mean I can’t be the one tossing you down!” she shouts in frustration.
My spontaneous laughter startles both of us. She attacks. I lean into my next block, so my lips hover over her ear. “Careful, some men would consider that an open invitation to check.”
The blush on her face makes me hard. She swings, but it’s slow. I catch the blade in my hand and stare into her eyes. “Here’s your chance,” I taunt her.
Her eyes move from her blade to my palm. Her breath hitches as the air crackles. My fingers close on the blade and draw her near.
“Titus!” she pants. My gaze drops to her full lips. Moving my hand off her blade, I grab her wrist.
Air rushes between us, wedging us apart as she steps back. My mouth dries as my gulp sticks in my throat.
Rejected. Rightfully so.
What was I thinking?
Shit! “Selene—”
She replies with another attack. This time, I let her land a few blows on my armor.
“This isn’t the palace,” she pushes back, chin low, eyes sharp. “Fight me as you do on the battlefield.”
I’d have your back on the ground in less than sixty seconds. I’d have you right where the creature inside of me wants you, at my mercy. Defenseless so that I can carry you away. “As you wish.” I nod.
She points her toe with grace as she takes her next plotted step. Her elegance has no place in battle. When you’re inches from the next brawling duo, you have no room for trained luxuries, like perfect footing.
We start circling each other. I like this type of dancing. Blade to blade. Heart to heart. Life and death. All or nothing.
Her foot stumbles. It’s a trick.
She’s baiting me. I don’t bite.
The anger on her face is as hot as the sun above. “Treat me as your equal,” she demands as she lunges again.
I’ll never be your equal. I’m not worthy.
“Which is it you want? For me to fight you as my equal or as my enemy?”
Her nostrils flare, but her lips don’t reply.
“You don’t want me to fight you.” Behind her, the castle is a blur, like fast-moving water. My heartbeat tries to escape through my ears. “You want me to save you. All you have to do is ask.” The fire inside me is whispering to be unleashed.
Her lips separate, eyes dilate, but then she hides it with a stern look. “It was you who needed my help, Titus.”
“I don’t deny that.” I dig the tip of my fang into my lip. “But you renounce what I have spoken, and one day you will regret it.”
“I can live with regrets. I can’t go on living with unsung sorrows.”
“So sing them!” Tell me you wish to escape this life! Beg me to help you.
“I was never meant to be a maiden who sang songs. I’m a tempest who destroys hearts.”
“You are not your twin.”
She averts her gaze, gripping her sword tightly as her deepest fears surface.
“Sometimes I fear I am.” She attacks again.
We spar until Selene makes an uncalculated error.
She stretches her wrist too far, giving me a brief window to strike her sword with mine.
Unable to flex her wrist, her weapon falls.
One mistake makes killing another so easy, like pressing a mold into dough. The more you fight, the more experience you gain. You notice the mistakes, see the moment to strike. Before you know it, you’ve punched out a dozen cookies. A dozen kills effortlessly made.
If this were an actual battle, she’d be dead.
What happens next is a mistake.
Or a mercy.
I advance, grabbing Selene by her collar, chest to chest. Hard muscle to soft cleavage. My sword kisses her neck. I glare at the edge of the blade, wishing the sharp edge were my parting lips.
Her soft exhale hooks me in the cheek, reeling me in.
My shadow masks her face. Such a lovely portrait, I should commission someone to paint, but I have no walls to call home to hang it on.
Our lips… by the gods, our mouths are so close. It’s so tempting, like looking at an open treasure chest. I want to proceed. Ignore the obstacles that litter the path to that treasure.
I want to dream, to imagine how my life would change if I had that treasure in my hands.
“Selene,” my sigh is a prayer a dying man makes. An appeal for clemency and redemption.
Save me from this feeling inside me. Tell me I’m not mad!
Her eyes twinkle like unpolished emeralds—shades of cloudy greens, forces of dark and light, battling to gain my affection so they can slaughter it.
Nobody truly loved her. They used her.
My actions toward her are foreign, so she’s safeguarding her mind from them.
There’s no space between us. We cannot separate or distinguish our breaths.
Selene’s pupils dilate into pools of darkness.
It’s easy to dive in. Unexplored waters call out to forgotten souls like mine.
It’s the light we stay away from; it illuminates all the caution signs and repercussions of our actions.
“What would you do next?” she whispers.
It’s not us speaking; it’s that thing inside of us we both are ignoring.
We’re failing. It purrs in delight.
My mind screams at me to stop. The beast takes over.
Her muscles soften into me like butter on hot bread. You can never separate or scrape it off, because you would ruin both objects. It’s best to gobble it down.
I want to devour her.
Fuck.
If you were not a queen, I’d kiss you. Were I not a gentleman, I’d do far more than steal a kiss from your desiring lips.
I’d use your moans and cries to stake a claim upon this field.
I’d use your fingers—that dig into my back as I claim you—like a shovel.
I’d build a home here, on this field where I first made love to you—where I savored every inch of you, where your tears of pleasure watered the soil for more of our love to grow.
I would completely erase you. Then, I would redraw your definitions. I’d show you what affection is, what love and respect are. I’d make every man I stood next to look less than.
Selene’s eyes glance at my mouth. “I wish we had different lives.”
Why didn’t you want me to hear that, Selene?
With a hard gulp, she tries to swallow her words down. The pain of it parts her lips, inviting me to slip my tongue inside and soothe her.
This is wrong.
I need to stop these thoughts.