Chapter 22 #2
How do you stop a shooting star? The only way is to collide with it. But then you destroy the star.
It’s best to let it shine until it leaves your horizon, or it burns out.
I need these feelings to fizzle out!
My nostrils flare wide. Blood.
Shit! My blade cut her.
It’s small, only a paper cut. The drop hangs onto her skin, like a child begging me to catch it as it jumps.
I’ve scented fae blood plenty of times. It’s repulsive. Nature’s warning: consuming it is toxic.
Why does she smell so tantalizing?
Even though I haven’t tasted her, it feels like honey is coating my tongue.
Air fills my palms. My sword drops. My tongue darts out.
Closer, one more inch, and I can taste her. One drop on my tongue would answer all my questions. One drop and my magic and body would know if she was my mate, or if this is a game of seduction she’s playing.
There, I said it. Mate.
Is she my mate?
The beast inside me roars. Claim her. Mine, mine, she’s mine.
“Mine.” I watch the droplet slide down her neck.
The hunger that growls up my throat isn’t from my stomach.
It’s from the mate magic swirling deep, waking up, stretching, readying to fight.
It’s dormant inside us all. Sometimes it wakes; other times, you live life without ever finding your fated mate.
“Titus,” she hisses a warning.
“Do you feel it?” My voice is feral, claws scratching against stone, in a deep, dark cavern.
“Our feelings are irrelevant.” She presses her palm to my chest, blinking away tears. “Control yourself.”
Control? If I drank from my mate, my magic would grow tenfold.
Magic. Would Everett’s magic grow?
That’s why she is denying this. To protect me.
Her hand slides down my torso until she peels it free.
Just one tiny lick would subdue my urges. “Just one taste.”
Metal presses against my lips instead.
Does she think her dagger would stop me?
The game of chase entices my predator.
Oh yes, she sees the truth in my eyes.
“Don’t make me hurt you.” She tilts the dagger up, parting my lips with it. One flick of her wrist and she could carve a permanent smile.
Denying this hurts more than her dagger would. I close my lips around the blade and kiss it.
“You need to stop,” she whispers. Instead of a detached tone, she sounds worried.
Where is the treat?
Wait, it’s me. I caused her alarm.
I stagger back.
Shit! I lost control. The magic between us consumed me.
I turn my back to her, too ashamed to look upon her. My ribs stab my lungs. I can’t take a deep enough breath. Denying this is suffocating me.
“It’s for the best, Titus.” She touches my back. Her words are a bucket of water on my flames. I flinch. Her hand drops.
“Is there a problem?” Tristen shouts as he enters the sparring field, having left his spot near the entrance.
Selene rasps a curt, “No.” Internally, she’s screaming.
I rush towards Tristen. “Give me a vial, please!”
“Titus,” he warns as he hands me a vial of blood.
“I’m fine.”
“Drinking this won’t stop what you feel,” he mumbles. His gaze shifts to Selene as he speaks to me. “You need to admit it.”
“What good would that do?” I rasp.
“It would make you realize we need to leave. What good is finding the Vitalis if you're marked as a dead man? She’s a fae, and she’s our queen; she can be nothing more to you. I’m… sorry. I wish it were different.”
My eyes skim down my unpolished armor, down to my dirty old boots.
I am nothing; unworthy of having a mate like Selene.
Tris is right. I need to ignore this, as Selene is.
I swallow down the blood, tasting nothing. My eyes met his. “I can’t leave.” All the answers are here. Tris knows this. He prefers risking it.
His lips formed a thin line.
“Again!” Selene shouts.
“I can spar this time,” Tristen offers.
“No, Titus will.”
I run my hand down my face. I’m losing my mind; each day I’m near her, the attraction grows.
“Come on,” she snaps.
“He needs a break.” Tristen steps forward. He thinks she’s torturing me. She isn’t.
She’s protecting me, even at the cost of hurting me. It’s noble, a sign of an affectionate leader.
“He needs to learn control. The only way is to confront the issue head-on.”
Deny my need to claim her.
Deny, reject, ignore.
Three days later.
Sometimes, hurting yourself strengthens you. It’s like lifting weights. You justify the ache in your muscles when you see results.
Training with Selene has yielded results. Just not the kind my heart wants.
We learned that time-weaving feeds off my emotions. This week, Selene has plotted a new task for me: teaching the magic I'm the boss.
My fire magic is like a puppy. It’s eager to play, but if I scold it, it listens. Time is like water. You think you can bottle it up, build a dam around it, but it can always find a crevice to drip free from. I have to figure out how to soothe it, convince it to listen to me, not control it.
“Well done,” Selene announces. She settles onto the grass with such grace you’d think the soil was a silken pillow.
Her usual post-training routine is to sit still until the sun sets. She doesn’t want to return to the castle. She skips lunch, spending all her time outside. She’s been eating dinner by herself, avoiding Galen, whom I saw with two different women this week alone.
Her eyes mirror a flower aware of its fleeting season.
“Thank you,” I mutter.
Do it. Sit down. Talk.
Selene and I speak only about Everett’s magic; we’ve yet to discuss runes. Selene still struggles to accept that her brother died for a long-forgotten magic.
Tris and I give her space. We stand guard on the edge of the field, but I can’t allow that to happen today. I need things to move faster. We need to find the Vitalis, understand the runes… and I need to know if she is my mate.
I lower myself to sit beside her. Her eyes silently question me. Our chemistry is an immense shadow that looms over us. It darkens each day; now it thunders.
“I should have asked your permission to sit,” I murmur.
“We are beyond asking, Titus.”
I love the way she says my name. It sounds stronger than I feel.
Maybe I am. Everett picked me, after all.
“I enjoy sparring,” she begins. The tenderness in her voice shocks me.
Its rarity increases its value in my eyes.
“Being outside the castle walls. It’s only then that titles do not matter.
The tip of a blade does not change its shape when it pierces a king or a soldier.
We’re all the same to the weapon, just flesh and bone. ”
She longs to be equal to her people, nothing special, just a peasant who wants to see the sunrise. “If you allowed the people to hear you speak like this, they would love you,” I say.
“I don’t want their affection.” She rips a blade of grass from the soil and tears it into tiny bits.
“Do you act so cold to protect King Galen?”
“What?” She reels back. The sunlight glints off her black hair, making it look like expensive oil.
“They would cherish you more than they worship him. Is that why you do not show them your heart?”
She rolls her lips. “Love is an illusion. Those who cherish monarchs are the first to light the torches and throw them on the pyre. I do not need love from others, as Galen does.”
Bite your tongue.
It’s harder and harder to do. This thing between Selene and me started as a caterpillar, wiggling and crawling. Less than a week later, we have cocooned ourselves in order to remain safe. We try not to feel.
Deep down, I long to taste her lips, to kiss her whole body, to watch her fly as I set her free.
This cocoon we have built is cracking.
Will a butterfly emerge? If so, how long will it soar? Will it feel the air under its wings, or will someone else, like Galen, crush it?
She is married to the king! But… if she is my mate, that changes everything. It happens more often than expected. Bonds form, sealed in magic, unable to be broken. Mating bonds take precedence over marriage contracts. Galen would not be the first king to lose his queen to her mate.
Crossing my legs, I sit and face her. “What do you need?”
She looks at me. Long. Is it a silent answer?
“The truth is,” she swallows, “I fear I will only find out when I release my last breath. Everett knew, that’s why we’re both on this path together.”
She’s changing subjects.
Frustrated, I cast my eyes forward and scan her training field. It’s ideal for keeping her hidden. Tucked down in the middle of a valley shielded by towering rose bushes. A manicured cage.
If it weren’t trapping her, I’d be in awe of the magic. Instead, I contemplate the amount of fire required to destroy it.
I could do it. I’d burn through my first supply, needing a second dose of human blood to fuel me up again. Drinking blood back to back after magic has been depleted is safe; there is no risk of bloodlust.
With an annoyed sigh, Selene closes her eyes. “It’s clear you want to chit-chat, so do it, Titus.” Her walls are back up.
“How do you think everything is going?” I ask.
How do you remain strong, neglecting the heat within us that ignites when our eyes connect?
“Don’t tell me you’re the type of man that needs to be praised and worshiped.” She flicks her long hair off her shoulder.
“I’m not.” I smirk, but it deflates like a cake pulled too early from the oven.
The words fly out before I can stop them.
“Your walls are so hardened, I fear no amount of screams or hushed whispers can penetrate you, Selene. I lay awake at night, formulating the correct way to arrange my words for you, because every time I ask you something, you act like I’m stealing the crown from your head.
” I flash my fangs. “Why is it so hard for you to speak to me like we’re friends? ”
She looks away as if I had slapped her. “Friends are uncovered enemies, Titus,” she mutters.
Closing my eyes, I massage my forehead, hoping I can push out the throbbing pressure.
“If you are sick, then it’s best to vomit it all out, Titus. Say what else needs to be said so we can move on.”