CHAPTER TWENTY #3
The morning light seeps into the room, and I can’t help but just savor this moment. I glance down and gasp, touching my stomach. The scars are still there, but the mark? Her mark is bright and clear as if it pushed through the scarred tissues, like nothing would let it be hidden from the world.
“What is it?” Rav murmurs sleepily, blinking up at me with concern.
“Our mark,” I whisper in awe, tracing the design of thorned roses wrapping around the sword.
Her fingers run along it, causing me to shiver and my cock to twitch, tenting under the sheet that hangs loosely around my hips. “It’s beautiful, Tal.”
I cup her cheek, leaning down and giving her a soft kiss. “Nowhere near as beautiful as you after a night in my arms.”
She crawls onto my lap and straddles me, pushing me back into the bed, and my breath hitches as fear crawls up my throat. I react, rolling her over and pinning her arms to the bed as I catch my breath and calm my racing heart.
Her eyes widen. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think,” she stutters as she comes to the conclusion on why I would react like that before I do.
“That fucking bitch,” I mutter.
“It’s okay,” she tells me. “Now we know, and I won’t do that to you again. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to trigger you.”
I kiss her softly, letting the panic recede, and once I’m calm I roll off her, pulling her with me.
“You have nothing to apologize for, Princess. I should have known being on my back like that might have consequences.” I sigh.
“You would think I have more triggers with Craven as my father.” A dry, bitter laugh leaves me.
She wraps her arms around my bicep and rests her head on my shoulder as she listens to me talk aimlessly—as I remember.
“It was always mind games with him. He always used other fae I care about to control me.
When I was younger, it was you, Jesp, Aemon and Kill.
Then once Cynder came into the picture after we lost you…
I did everything to keep her safe. Sure, sometimes he would beat me, or starve me, but nothing did lasting damage. After all, we had an image to keep up.
“You know, for awhile, I wasn’t able to see the others? It was for the year before our first year at Phixmery,” I mutter as the memory takes over.
Jesper and I were visiting Killian in Skyrivene. The sun was out and it was a gorgeous day to begin the trek home on horseback.
Killian storms into the stables. “Out!” he snaps at the staff tacking up my steed.
Once they are gone, he turns to me. “I have a bad feeling about you going home. I think you should stay, damn the consequences; we can figure it out. We don’t need to go to Phixmery next year. Things are taking off with our plan.”
I shake my head. “You know if I don’t go back, he will just drag me home anyway. Plus it will only be a few months until I see you both again.”
“Talyn,” he groans, and I know he’s concerned, and to be honest, I am too. Something seemed off about my father’s letter; I know I’m in for a beating, but that I can handle.
“I’ll be fine,” I promise
And I wish I could say that it was the truth. Because after three weeks of traveling home on horseback, I arrive in hell.
My father storms into the stable of Craven Manor and blasts me off my horse with a wave of air.
He doesn’t speak a word, but his anger vibrates around him, stinking the place up with the sour scent.
Vines wrap around my limbs as he hoists me up.
“I will break you, son,” he sneers. “You will be my most perfect weapon.” And then everything goes dark.
I shiver as Rav clings to me. “For a year I didn’t have any contact with anyone.
He locked me away, starved me, beat me. The others couldn’t find me, either.
He told me it was to harden me for Phixmery.
That I would be a formidable warrior. His second in command,” I snarl.
“A lot of that time is missing, but that was when I first found out he promised me to Evera. Some sort of deal with her father, but the more I think about that… It doesn’t make sense why he would want an heir when he has me.
Unless he knew I wasn’t going to break and wanted someone else to mold.
But I suppose I might never get an actual answer for that. ”
“I’m still going to murder that bitch when I find her,” she snarls.
I kiss her forehead. “She’s all yours, my mate.”
She grins up at me and that smile is worth all the pain I had to endure to get her.
“Good; now I don’t know about you, but I am famished!”
Suddenly another voice pops into my mind and I’m not sure how I know, but it’s Nero. “Oh thank the Fates. I was wondering when you two would be done. Someone want to open a window and let me in? Because I’m also starving. So Rav, was his dick as small as I thought it was?”
“Nero!” she gasps. “Maybe I should make you scavenge for your own breakfast this morning.”
“You wouldn’t!”
I can’t help but snicker. “It’s not about the size of the boat, it’s the motion of the ocean, and I’m positive I helped her get her sea legs.”
Ravina turns red and mumbles something about too many voices in her head, but thanks to this new bond, I know she’s happy and that’s all that matters.