Chapter 28 #2
“Is that why you do it?”
I go still.
“The kneeling. The collar. Calling me pet.” Her voice is shaking so much I have to concentrate to make out the words, but she holds my gaze. “Is that why? So I understand?”
“Partly.”
“What’s the other part?”
The question hangs between us. I’m still holding her wrist, her pulse hammering against my fingers, fast as a rabbit’s.
“Because I can. Because you’re here, and you’re mine, and no one is going to stop me.”
She takes in a shaky breath. Holds it, and then lets it out.
“Is that what they said? The ones who did it to you?”
The words are like a blade slipping between my ribs.
I stop breathing.
She’s wrong. I’m nothing like them. I’m repaying a debt. Balancing a scale. Making her understand …
Except I remember the first time a noblewoman made me kneel beside her chair. The satisfaction in her eyes. The smile when I obeyed.
Because I can, she’d laughed. Because you’re here, and you’re mine.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” Her terror spikes again. She knows that I’m on the edge, that one wrong word could end her life … and yet she keeps talking. “You know exactly how this feels. Every humiliation and command. You know because someone did this to you first.”
My grip tightens on her wrists. She doesn’t flinch.
“Shut up.”
“You know how to break someone down because someone broke you down.”
“I said shut up.”
She doesn’t. Her mouth keeps moving, shaping words I don’t want to hear, and I’m close enough to see the tear tracks on her cheeks, the tremble in her lower lip, the pulse jumping in her throat.
My eyes narrow. Her voice falters, and she stops mid-word, eyes searching my face, and whatever she sees there makes her breath catch. Her lips part to say something else.
Then my mouth is on hers. I release her wrists, and fist my hand into her hair instead, angling her head back, and taking her mouth like I can force her to take back everything she’s just said.
She goes rigid, her hands flying up to press against my chest.
The connection between us ignites. Her shock pours through first, then confusion, then heat—unwanted, unwelcome, but there. She doesn’t want to feel this. She’s horrified that she feels this.
Yet she feels it anyway.
I drag her closer, my free hand finding her waist and pulling her against me until I can feel her body through the thin fabric of the tunic.
We’re both on our knees, pressed together, chest to chest, heat spreading like wildfire through my veins.
She makes a sound, and her fingers curl into the front of my shirt.
The connection flares brighter. Her want bleeds into me, heat unfurling low in her stomach, the ache between her thighs, the desperate confusion of wanting something she knows she shouldn’t. It tangles around me until I can’t tell whose desire is whose.
My hand slides from her waist, finding the bare skin where the tunic has ridden up. Her thigh is warm under my palm, and she gasps against my mouth, hips jerking toward me.
Good. Just like that.
The memory crashes through me. A noblewoman’s voice. Her hand in my hair as she guides my head between her legs.
I wrench my mouth away from hers, and let her go.
She nearly falls without my grip to hold her up. Her eyes are dazed, unfocused. Her lips are swollen and red. Her chest heaves with each breath, and the tunic has twisted, ridden up and leaving nothing to the imagination.
I make myself look at her, force away every emotion threatening my control, and when I speak my voice is flat and cold.
“Interesting. At least now I know what it takes to shut you up.”
The daze clears from her eyes. Understanding floods in, followed by hurt bright enough that the connection nearly chokes me with it.
I stand, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, cursing the way her taste lingers on my lips.
“Kneel properly. Therin and Vel will be here soon.”
She doesn’t move, staring at me with that wrecked expression, but as I watch the tears are slowly replaced by the first sparks of fury.
“I said kneel.”
She shifts into position. Her face has gone blank. An expression I recognize. It’s the way every fae looks after a century or two in the cages.
I turn my back on her and stare at the table, while the words she threw at me echo in my head.
She isn’t wrong. About any of it. I am doing exactly what they did to me, using the same justifications.
Because I can. Because you’re mine.
I kissed her because her words cut too deep, and I didn’t know what else to do with what I was feeling.
Except that isn’t true. I kissed her because I wanted to.
And that’s something I’m not prepared to examine.
By the time Therin and Vel arrive, I’ve gotten control of myself. They take up positions around the table, and if they notice the tension in the air, neither of them comment.
“I think we need to start looking at doing that supply run.” Therin points at a location on the map. “The village is here. Half a day out.”
I force myself to focus. “Do we have anyone who’s steady enough to hold a glamour?”
“At least three.”
We discuss numbers, risks, and what we need.
Vel pushes for a larger group. Therin argues for speed and stealth.
The familiar rhythm of their disagreement fills the silence, and gives me something to focus on beside the connection that seems to have become stronger between me and the girl near my feet.
She’s quiet. I told her to be silent and she’s obeying, but it’s more than that. She’s barely present, her energy turned inward.
The conversation moves to the threads of the warriors I can feel beside Therin’s and Vel’s. “They’re clearer now. Two, maybe three. Serath’s is gaining strength. But still nothing from Caelum.”
Therin meets my eyes. “When do you want to move?”
“Not yet. Supplies first, then we reassess.”
He nods. The conversation continues, discussions and arguments that I don’t really pay attention to. Logistics is where Therin and Vel excel. All I have to do is stop them from killing each other.
Below the sound of their bickering, I become aware that the princess’s head has drooped.
I should wake her. Make her hold her position.
Her head drops further, her body swaying, and then slowly, her cheek comes to rest against my knee. My hand moves before I can stop it. My fingers stroking through her hair.
“Cairn?”
I look up. Therin is watching me.
“You have something to say?”
“Several things.” His lips twitch. “But I’ll keep them to myself … for now.”
Vel makes a sound of disgust. “Are we done? I have better things to do than watch you pet your human.”
My hand stills. Pet. The word I used on her.
“We’re done. You can go.”
Once they’re gone, I look down at her. The curve of her cheek, the way her lashes fan out in spikes still damp from her tears.
I reach for the connection.
It’s becoming a habit, checking it and probing its edges, trying to understand what I made. But this time, it feels different. There’s a texture to it I haven’t noticed before. Threads woven through the connection, fine as spider silk.
I follow them. Trace their source.
And recognize them.
The same resonance I share with Therin, and Vel. The one reforming with Serath. The bond that ties them to me through loyalty and blood, and magic.
I look at my hand, still tangled in her hair, stroking her without thought. I think about the way I leaned toward her when she broke, wanting to ease her pain even while I caused it.
It can’t be. The magic has never chosen a non-fae before. But I can’t ignore the evidence rolling through me. The Nightwild magic has chosen a new member for the Guard, and it’s weaving itself into her. Claiming her the way it claimed the rest of my Guard. Not as a prisoner. Not as a pet.
As mine.
I pull my hand back and stand up. She stirs at the loss of contact, making a soft sound that twists in my chest.
I should wake her, and make her walk to the furs herself. Instead, I bend and lift her. She weighs nothing, and she curls into me without waking, face pressing into my chest, fingers catching in my shirt.
The bond hums, warm and content.
I carry her to the sleeping platform, and lay her on the furs. The tunic has ridden up again, baring her thighs. I look at the exposed skin for longer than I should. Then I pull the fabric down, cover her with a blanket, and watch her burrow into the warmth.
Then I turn and walk out into the night.