Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
Today felt different. The leftover magic saturating the soil around Gianna’s grave tainted my land.
I couldn’t believe I failed to sense it before, but neither had I communed with the land here, not so deeply as this.
I sent power through the soil, destroying every tiny trace of foul magic I could find.
Deeper and deeper I went, spiraling down toward the heart of the world, seeking and cleansing every piece of darkness away.
Whatever happened to Gianna had been terrible.
The land gave me no visions, but a phantom pain pulsed through my bones, a lingering trace of terror resonating in my heart.
Cool rain struck my face, but it wasn’t enough to drag me from this task.
I wouldn’t stop until the land was fully mine once again.
Thunder rumbled through my body. A sharp metallic scent hit my nose, reminiscent of burnt electrical wires.
But I kept going. I was almost there, had almost cleared away the scourge rotting the land around this place of death.
The air went still and just as I touched the last piece of rot, white, burning light seared my vision.
Electricity snapped through my body, every muscle and nerve crackling with power. My body bent into an impossible arc as I sent that light down into the ground, and the last piece of that dark magic dissolved with a disturbing pop.
“EVIE!” A roar of sound and a solid body hit mine, separating me from the lightning.
I wrapped my arms around Caelan, protecting him from the backlash as the electricity roared around us, and opened my eyes. My toes were still locked into the dirt, and I let my magic pool out of my body, releasing all the extra power into the ground.
We lay tangled together in the middle of a storm, the once gentle rain beating around us in sheets. Caelan rested his forehead against mine, his breath coming in sharp heaves.
“You idiot,” I croaked. “Don’t you know you never touch someone who’s being electrocuted?”
Caelan huffed a pained laugh. “It wasn’t natural lightning. I thought I’d be safe.”
“Even magical lightning can electrocute you, dummy.” We lay smashed together, Caelan’s heavy weight on top, his arms wrapped around my waist and mine around his. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, my fingers touching lean, muscled, bare skin.
“We should get up,” I said quietly. “The storm is dying down, and it’s safe to move.”
“Mmm,” Caelan said. One of his dark eyebrows rose. “Or we could stay here for a little while and see what happens.” His grin was contagious.
A laugh escaped me. “Get off, you oaf.”
“Last chance, Evangeline. We’re alone. Soaking wet, giving us the perfect excuse to slip out of our clothes.” His lips hovered just above mine, his warm breath caressing my face.
I wanted to. Gods how I wanted to. But this was Caelan, a Shifter Lord, not a faceless man I could enjoy for a little while and never see again. He smelled of a winter forest and wild things, his eyes molten gold with desire.
Caelan brushed a wet strand of hair from my cheek and bent to nuzzle my neck. “Say yes, Evie.” A hot kiss at the hollow of my throat, my collarbone, behind my ear. The slide of his hand down my waist, leaving a trail of heat in its wake.
I’d stopped being driven by most emotions years ago, though anger still got me these days. “We both know it’s a bad idea,” I said a little breathlessly.
Caelan smiled against my neck. “It’s not bad right now, is it?”
Ass. We both knew this was great. “Getting involved with you would undermine everything I’ve built and put me under the Lord’s control.”
Caelan stilled. “You think I’d control you if we took this farther?”
“I think you’d try.”
He grunted and popped his head up, a chill left behind where his lips had lingered. “Why are you so resistant to what’s building between us?”
“Because you are who you are, and I am…me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I think we both know that’s only a small part of the reason.” Caelan shook his head and sighed. “Then how about we get married?”
I laughed out loud. “You think getting married is better than a physical liaison?”
“I think if we get married, we could have more than one liaison.” He grinned. “We could have liaisons multiple times a day.”
Everything tightened inside of me. “Well, my point stands. And Cernunnos outlawed forced marriages, so once again I’m telling you no.”
Caelan rose in a lithe movement and held his hand out. “You’re right, but the Lords have not given up. They’re wary of you and your involvement with the Chimera.”
I wrung my shirt out and grimaced. “If Finn would stop coming around, I’d have no involvement with him.” Or anyone else, I didn’t add.
“Walk with me,” Caelan commanded.
I bristled at his tone, but I wanted to get out of my wet clothes, so I dutifully followed him back to the house. Once we were inside, I tossed him a pair of joggers and an old t-shirt from the small pile of clothes I’d kept after my divorce. They wouldn’t fit him well, but he’d be covered.
Caelan caught them and frowned. “More of your…husband’s?”
“Would you rather be naked?” I snapped.
A slow grin curved his mouth. “Yes.”
I couldn’t stop my snort. “No! Get dressed. I’m going to get changed.”
I hid my grin at Caelan’s loud sigh of disappointment .
When I returned to the living room, Caelan was dressed and parked on the couch with a fresh cup of coffee in his hands and one for me sitting on the table.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” he asked as I curled into the opposite chair.
“Why would there be?”
His stare pinned me in place like an unfortunate bug in a science experiment. “No woman has ever been so resistant to my considerable charms.”
My brows flicked up. “How unfortunate for you.”
“This naturally means you are hiding something.”
I counted to five in my head to stop myself from commanding one of my plants to stab him in the kidney. “And if it does? Are you not keeping secrets from me, Lord?”
His eyes darkened. “Yes, but I am a Lord. Secrets are a job requirement.”
“And I am a person who doesn’t divulge things about myself until I am in a committed, loving relationship, and I am secure in my trust of the other person.”
Caelan studied me for a long moment. “And yet you resist this when I offer it to you.”
I blinked, struck stupid by his words. “You have never offered this to me,” I said slowly. “You’ve offered me sex, and you’ve offered me marriage.”
The Shifter Lord sipped his coffee, a slight furrow between his brows. “I agree the sex offer doesn’t include what you need, but why wouldn’t the marriage offer?”
A crack of laughter escaped me. “Because you’re offering so another Lord will think twice about doing the same thing!”
“So?”
My fingers tightened around my coffee mug, the urge to throw it at his smug face burning like a supernova in my veins. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Have you ever had a long-term girlfriend?”
He frowned at the abrupt change in tactic. “Why?”
“Just answer the question before I plug you with a face full of ceramic.”
Caelan grinned. “I wondered how long it would take you to get violent.”
“Caelan!”
He sat back and studied me. “Fine. No. Not for any length of time.”
“What was the longest relationship you had?”
His forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Three months.”
“Would you have asked any of those women to marry you?”
“No,” he said with zero hesitation.
“Why not?”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand this line of questioning. Are you trying to get to an aha moment or something? That doesn’t seem like you, not in this capacity.”
I waited.
Caelan threw his hands up. “Because they never ticked my boxes. A Shifter Lord cannot marry just anyone, Evangeline. There are certain things a woman must possess to take a Lord as a spouse.”
“But what about Caelan?”
His lips tightened. “What about me?”
“Think of yourself as only a man. Would the man have asked any of those women to marry him? If he wasn’t a Lord or had any boxes he had to tick?”
“You are infuriating,” he muttered. “Like a godsdamn mosquito buzzing around my face and biting me over and over and I’m too slow to kill it.”
“Nice,” I said dryly.
He let out a growl, his stormy eyes flashing with hints of gold. “I’m not sure what you want from me here, but no, I would not have asked any of those women to marry me even if I wasn’t a Lord.”
“Those women were temporary distractions, then?”
“I’m going to strangle you slowly,” he snarled.
“I’m not asking because of jealousy or anything of the sort.” And it was true. The thought of him being with a ton of women made my stomach tight, but I held no claim over him.
“Yes. I knew I’d never marry any of them.”
“Then why on the gods’ green earth would you ask me to marry you if not for the reasons I said?
We have no relationship other than my contracts with the Keep.
We’ve never been on a date or gone to dinner without wanting to strangle each other.
On what planet do you think that makes us compatible?
Admit it, Caelan. You want me because of my power.
You want me because you see the other Lords coveting me.
I’m in your territory and if I accept one of their offers, you will lose me.
You see me as a boon to your own grip on this land, and if you secure my allegiance through marriage, you could be unstoppable. ”
Caelan’s eyes narrowed. “You have a high opinion of yourself.”
I almost laughed. “You know I can stand toe to toe with you.”
“You haven’t seen what I can do, flower girl. I’ve always shown great restraint with you.”
I gave him a sharp smile. “Who says I haven’t done the same?”
A considering look stole over his face. “Told you I knew you were keeping secrets.”
“You aren’t denying anything I said.”
He sipped his coffee. “Because you aren’t wrong.”
Hurt stabbed me, a sharp knife in my gut. I fought to keep my expression neutral.
Caelan set his mug down and took mine from my hands. “But those are not the only reasons.”
“Gosh. The romance. It burns.”
Caelan snorted. Sliding calloused thumbs over the top of my hands, he looked into my eyes. “I am a Lord and always have to consider the good of my territory. So yes, you’d be good for me and my land. You already have been.”
“Debatable.”
“But you refuse to recognize there is more between us than duty. You cling to your identity and your secrets and refuse to believe I care or that I would stand beside you when you choose to reveal them.”
“Some secrets are too terrible for another to bear.”
Caelan froze. “Evie?”
I slid my hands from his and rose. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day, and I still need to check my greenhouse.”
“Just like that, this discussion is done?” Disapproval shimmered in his eyes. “Do you want pretty words, flower girl? Lovely words of adoration? Poetry written in the sky? Roses strewn at your feet, perhaps? Do you want to be wooed? Showered with diamonds and emeralds? Is that what you require?”
Every word he said was another dagger to the heart.
I could not care less about any material thing.
All I needed to be content was a few close friends and a plot of land to make my own.
I wanted to walk in the woods and trail my fingers through fern fronds and run them against a tree’s rough bark.
But if I ever took a husband? Another one?
I wanted; no, I needed so much more than I ever had before.
And so I laid my soul bare to Caelan for this one thing because he needed to understand I was not someone he could shove into a loveless box and abandon.
“I want to be loved in a way that leads to madness. I want someone who cares more for me than anything else in the world. Someone who will choose to stand with me against the world when it comes for me. And it will, Caelan. Soon enough, my secrets will lay bare. Will it be you who stands with me? Or will I stand alone?” An eternity of sadness sank into my bones.
“I know the answer, Lord. It’s the same no matter who answers the question. ”
Caelan rose, his face a blank mask, and came so close our noses almost touched. “How little you think of me, flower girl.” A snort of disgust and he was gone, out the door and off my property in a blur of speed that sent a spiral of fear through my bones.