Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
ALLERIA
I wake alone.
For a long moment, I don’t move, staring at the ceiling, aware of my body in a way I’ve never been before.
Every muscle feels loose, almost liquid.
There’s an ache between my thighs that pulses when I shift my weight, and a deeper soreness that spreads through my hips and lower back.
My lips feel swollen, and when I run my tongue across them, they’re tender.
I’m going to ruin you.
My face heats at the memory of his voice, low and certain. The way he’d looked at me when he said it.
He kept his promise.
I bring a hand to my mouth, pressing my fingers against my lips.
They’re definitely swollen. I can feel the slight puffiness, the tenderness where his teeth caught my lower lip.
And when I move my hand down to my throat, there are tender spots there too.
Places where his mouth lingered and his teeth nipped hard enough to leave marks.
Rolling onto my back, I push the sheet away, uncovering my body, and look down.
There are bruises on my thighs, purple and red, shaped like his fingers and mouth. There’s another mark on my hip where his fingers gripped me, and more scattered across my breasts. Faint, but visible. Evidence of everywhere his mouth traveled during the night.
I remember his lips closing around my nipple and the scrape of his teeth. The way my back arched off the bed. The sounds I made when his tongue—
I should be horrified.
I should be ashamed.
Instead, I trace the bruise on my hip with my fingertip and remember the way his hand tightened there, holding me while he pushed deeper. The sounds I made. The sound he made, rough and low.
My face burns. I press my palms against my eyes and try to breathe through the rush of heat that follows the memories. I can still feel him inside me. The stretch of him. The fullness. The way he moved, slow at first, then harder when I asked for it.
When I begged for it.
Luchairn.
Say it when you come.
And I did. His name spilling from my lips while my body shattered around him. I said it over and over. And he kissed me each time, swallowing the sound.
My stomach clenches. Even now, sore and aching and alone, part of me wants him back in this bed, with his weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth on mine.
What is wrong with me?
I roll back onto my side, and stare at the wall. The light coming through the curtains is golden and soft. Long past morning. I must have slept for hours.
The last thing I remember is his face above mine in the darkness. I could barely keep my eyes open, and he was looking down at me.
I want one more thing from you before the sun rises, Moirthalen.
I’d tried to answer, to ask what, but my tongue wouldn’t cooperate and my eyelids kept sliding closed.
I want you to close your eyes and sleep.
That was the last thing I heard. His voice, low and soft, and then nothing.
I don’t know if it was magic or exhaustion or both. I don’t know if he stayed after I fell asleep or if he left. I don’t know anything except that I’ve woken up alone in a bed that smells like sweat and sex and him. And my skin is still sticky with the evidence of everything we did.
I need to get up. Pushing myself up onto my elbow, I look across the room, and frown.
There’s steam rising from the bathtub that still sits in the corner. Did Cairn refill it while I was asleep? The same way he did the first time. Did he think about me waking up sore and sticky?
My face heats again, at the memory of him watching as I washed, then when he joined me in the water. I shove the memory away and force myself out of bed.
My legs don’t want to cooperate. The soreness between my thighs makes every step cautious, each one a reminder of how thoroughly he took me apart, but I make it to the tub, and slowly lower myself into the water.
The heat stings against the marks on my skin, and I sink deeper, letting the warmth sink into aching muscles, and close my eyes, tipping my head back against the rim.
One of them liked to grab my hair while she used my mouth.
When he’d told me that, I’d felt sick. He’s made comments before about being owned, but never been that clear about it. Never let me see that much.
Three hundred years. Passed from person to person, and made to service whoever selected him. How does someone live with that? And yet he still asked for my consent. He still bargained with me. He made sure I said yes before he touched me.
Because I want you willing.
I sit up and find the soap and wash cloth.
It rasps over the bruises on my thighs as I scrub, harder than necessary, and I welcome the small pain.
It’s simpler than what I’m feeling. Simpler than trying to reconcile the fae who hurt me and collared me with the one who gave me his true name.
The one who made me kneel at his feet with the one who made sure I was ready before he pushed inside me.
I force myself to finish washing, and climb out.
There are clean clothes on the chair. A simple dress in deep green, fresh undergarments, soft stockings.
I don’t know who left them. Maybe Cairn willed them into existence.
Or maybe they were brought up by someone from the inn.
But they fit perfectly when I dress, and I’m lacing up the bodice when there’s a knock at the door.
“My lady?” A woman’s voice. “May I come in?”
The woman who enters is human, middle-aged, and carrying a tray with a bowl of porridge and a pot of honey.
“We stopped serving breakfast a while ago, but I thought you might be hungry.” She sets it down on the small table by the window. “Therin asked me to tell you he’s downstairs when you’re ready, but not to rush.”
“Thank you.”
She turns to leave, then pauses. “Would you like some help with your hair?”
I touch it, fingers tangling into the knots. The evidence of fingers fisting into it, and pulling my head back. My cheeks warm again.
“Yes. Please.”
I sit in front of the mirror and she moves behind me, working through the knots with patient fingers.
She doesn’t ask any questions, or comment on the marks I can see peeking above the neckline of my dress, and along my throat.
She just combs and braids and pins until I look almost respectable. Almost like a princess again.
“There.” She steps back with a smile. “I’ll leave you to eat.”
I only manage a few bites of the porridge before I put the spoon down.
The longer I stay up here, the worse it’s going to be when I have to face him.
So I open the door, pausing with one hand on the collar at my throat, waiting for it to heat up and stop me from leaving the room.
Nothing happens, so I step through and make my slow way down to the common room.
It’s quieter than I thought it would be. A fire burns low in the hearth, and the air is filled with the smell of freshly cooked bread.
Therin is sitting at a table near the window, long legs stretched out in front of him, and a plate of half-eaten food beside him. He’s alone. No sign of the fae who brought us here, or Vel, or the six fae they freed … or Cairn.
He looks up when I appear at the bottom of the stairs, and his mouth curves.
“Did you sleep well?”
It’s an innocent question, but there’s a glint to his eyes that tells me he knows full well what happened. Heat floods my face, but I manage to keep my voice steady.
“Well enough, thank you.”
I cross to the table on legs that are steadier than when I first climbed out of bed. He kicks out the chair opposite him. When I lower myself onto it, I can’t quite hide the wince. His expression doesn’t change at all. He just pushes a cup toward me.
“Tea.”
“Thank you.” I wrap my hands around it, but don’t drink. My stomach is still too busy churning to risk it.
“Cairn says I’m to take you back to your palace today.”
Back to the palace.
I stare at him.
“I don’t know how you managed to convince him of that.” His eyes drop to my throat and his lips twitch. “Or maybe I do.”
I don’t respond, too busy thinking about the other half of the bargain.
Free to go.
He’s keeping his word. Fae can’t lie. The sun has risen, and I’m free to go.
I should be relieved. Grateful. I should be counting the time until I’m away from him, and back home with Nella beside me.
If that’s so, then why do I want to cry? I cling to something I can focus on instead.
“How am I supposed to explain this to my father?” I touch the collar at my throat.
“It will disappear once you reach the palace walls.”
I twist on my seat to find Cairn standing there, dressed in black clothing, face as unreadable as ever. Those gold eyes sweep the room, taking in everything in a single glance before landing on me.
There’s nothing in them. No sign that what happened last night meant anything to him.
“Disappear? How? I thought it was to stop me from leaving.” I focus on that and not how cool his voice is.
“No. The wards kept you from leaving.”
“Then why did it heat up when I tried to walk out?”
His mouth tips up on one side slightly. A ghost of the expression I saw last night, when he was savoring the way I squirmed under his attention.
“That was nothing more than the power of suggestion. You thought it was connected, so your mind made you believe it reacted.”
My lips part. All that time I believed the collar would burn me if I tried to escape. Every time I felt the heat against my throat and backed away … and it wasn’t real?
“You imprisoned yourself with your own assumptions.” There’s something in his eyes, satisfaction maybe, or amusement, but it’s detached, distant.
“The collar was there to stop mages from scrying to find you. That’s all.
” He turns to Therin. “Go to the camp on the way back and tell them to prepare to move.”
And then he walks out.
I sit there, staring at the space where he stood.
That’s it? That’s all I get? One night where he took me apart piece by piece, where he shared secrets he’s held for years, where he gave me his true name … and now he’s gone.
Therin looks at me, then the door. His lips part as though he’s going to say something, then he shakes his head and stands.
“Shall we?”
He leads me out of the village on foot. The mid-morning air is clear and cool, and I don’t pay much attention to my surroundings as I walk beside him. Instead, I’m thinking about my father and the life I’m returning to.
My father probably thinks I’m dead.
What am I supposed to say to him? What lie could explain where I’ve been, what happened to me, and why I have bites on my throat? And Nella … I don’t know what she’ll say.
“You’re quiet,” Therin says as we reach the edge of the village.
“Thinking.”
“About?”
Everything.
“Vel suggested that I kill you before we reach the palace.”
I stop dead. “What? But Cairn promised to free me.”
“Free you, yes. Never said anything about you being alive when you got to the palace.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “Don’t worry. I said no.”
“Then why say anything to me?”
He shrugs. “She raised a valid argument.”
“Which was?”
“If any mages decide you might have seen anything useful, they’ll demand access to you.”
“I won’t tell them anything.”
“You might not have a choice.” His voice is flat. “There are ways to pull information from an unwilling mind.”
My lips part. I hadn’t thought about that. I’d been so focused on what lies I’d need to tell.
If a mage digs through my memories, they’ll find everything. The village. The fae living there. The humans who helped them.
“Cairn must know that,” I whisper.
Therin makes a noncommittal sound.
“And he’s still sending me back.”
He knows. He knows what could happen, what the mages could pull from my mind. And he’s letting me go anyway. Because he promised he would.
I start walking again, and Therin falls into step beside me.
“Can I ask you something?”
He glances at me. “You can ask. I make no promises about answering.”
“You sound just like him. How long have you known him?”
“Longer than you can imagine. We fought together long before the Sealing.”
“What was he like? Before, I mean.” Before the cages.
Therin is quiet for a moment. “The same,” he says finally. “And different.”
“He can’t be both.”
His lips lift. “The rage was always there. The discipline. The way he moves, thinks, fights … that hasn’t changed.” He pauses. “But there was more laughter. He carried his power differently back then.”
There’s nothing I can say to that.
Therin stops, turning to face me. “Are you ready?” Kaethros appears at his side.
Am I?
I look at Kaethros, then at Therin, and then back at the path behind us.
The marks on my body will take days to fade. The bruises on my thighs, hips and breasts will be easy to hide. The bite marks on my throat … I could use high collars and long sleeves until they’re gone.
The memory of his mouth on mine, his body moving inside me, those will last longer. But no one can see them.
And his name.
Luchairn Vaedráfn.
That’s mine now. Whether I want it or not. A secret I’ll carry for the rest of my life.
Is that what I want? To spend the rest of my life hiding pieces of myself?
Therin is watching me, waiting for an answer. I open my mouth to tell him I’m ready.
“I don’t want to go.”
Therin’s eyebrow twitches.
“I want to stay.”
He doesn’t say anything. A bird calls somewhere in the trees. And he just stands there, staring.
“Do you understand what you are saying?” His voice is quiet. “There’s no coming back from this, Alleria. If you stay with us, you’ll be branded a traitor to your kind. Your father will hunt you alongside the rest of us.”
My father. Who raised me and loved me and will never understand the choice I’m making. Who will have to make his own choice between his daughter and his kingdom … and I already know which one he’ll choose.
“I know.”
“Cairn isn’t going to like this.”
“I know that too.”
He stares at me again. I hold his gaze.
Then his lips curve … and he laughs.
“Well, this just got interesting.”