Chapter 31
DORMIUS
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in my study, papers in hand, and my mind was stuck in a strange fog.
How did I get here? I thought to myself.
I took a couple of seconds to blink through my confusion, but it felt like a wall had slammed down in my head.
Looking down at the papers, there wasn’t anything significant written on them that might give some insight as to what I was doing before this.
One was a letter from the palace, requesting my presence. The other—
The door to my study opened, and Stefan walked inside, quietly shutting it behind him. I almost slumped over in relief when I saw his face. Surely he would be able to clear this muck in my brain and help me to remember why I was even here to begin with.
“Stefan, this is going to sound a bit mad,” I laughed anxiously. “But do you know what I was doing—”
Before I had a chance to finish my sentence, he turned and stole my lips in a searing kiss that made me drop the papers onto the floor. He pushed his body against mine hungrily until my back hit the shelf, sending a few of my books tumbling to the floor.
“Gods, I’ve been wanting to touch you all day,” he whispered.
I completely forgot what I had asked him as I lost myself in his taste. He smelled of pine, which meant he had likely just finished his patrol.
“Did anyone see you?” I asked breathlessly between kisses.
“No. The hall was clear.”
With that reassurance, I quickly began removing his coat, sliding it off of his arms as he worked the buttons on my shirt. Perhaps this was what I needed… He is always what I need. His touch alone cured any ailment of mine, and his lips could free every knotted tension in my mind.
Once his shirt fell to the floor beside mine, he pressed our chests together and bit down on my bottom lip, pulling a light whimper from my throat.
“You’re wound so tight, My Lord,” he whispered into my mouth.
Then, his hands cupped between my thighs, and he squeezed gently, forcing me to swallow down the noises in my throat.
“You work so hard.” His lips kissed a line across my jaw and down to my neck. “You deserve a reward.”
A gasp tore from my lips when his hand slid beneath the waistline of my pants, wrapping around my hardening length. But just beside the door, I thought I saw a strange flicker of shadow, like the darkness had grown an inch or two.
“S-Stefan,” I said quietly.
His lips grazed my ear, nipping at my skin in places that made the hair on my neck prickle. “I can’t wait another second to have my lips wrapped around your—”
The doors to the study slammed open, and by the time I could shove Stefan away from me, one of my older priests stood in the doorway, eyes widened in horror.
“Priest Julius,” I rasped, my face hot, and cheeks dubiously red with the guilt I was wearing so openly.
After running a quick hand through my hair, smoothing it away from my face, I reached it out in front of me as if I could protect either of us from the implications in this room. “I can explain.”
Every fear of mine came true as his horror morphed into a sneer filled with pure disgust. His crinkled lips pulled back, his grey eyes turned to Stefan, and he lifted a finger in his direction. “Seize him,” he commanded. “Seize both flesh traitors.”
“No!” I yelled, pushing off of the shelf to block Stefan from the guards entering the room.
But before I could reach him, two sets of hands wrapped around my arms to stop me.
“Get off of me!” I yelled, calling for my magic to slow down time.
I just needed to get him out of here, and to somewhere safe, but… nothing happened.
I couldn’t even feel the energy that normally swam in my blood, accessible at the snap of my finger. I tried everything: wind, water. fire; nothing answered me.
The guards ripped Stefan away from me and began dragging him out as he kicked and screamed, looking over his shoulder at me. “Dormius!” he screamed with fear, and my chest tightened against the hold of an invisible rope as I began to panic.
I knew this would happen. I knew it, and I let it continue…
“Let’s go,” one of my guards hissed in my ear. I couldn’t even think straight enough to decipher who it was.
We were both dragged through the hall, and as we reached the stairs, I was able to shift enough to kick the ankle of the guard to my left.
When he let go of my arm, I yanked myself free of the second guard and raced toward Stefan.
But the moment my foot touched the first step, one of the guards behind me yanked at my shirt.
The fabric snapped from his fingers, but not before sending me tumbling down the stairs.
I landed flat on my face, hard enough that I felt the bridge of my nose crack.
“Stefan!” I groaned, reaching up to cover the blood dripping over my lips. Small droplets of blood were left behind, a stark contrast to the white, marble floor.
His screams vibrated the walls as they shoved him into the throne room.
I placed my palms below me and pushed up to stand, but a foot connected with my side and sent me onto my back.
Cursing from the pain, I tried to roll away, but someone grabbed me by my hair, lifting my head off of the ground.
Once my vision focused on the guard standing over me, I had no time to react before his fist struck my already-broken nose.
I gasped from the hit, swallowing the blood that spilled into my mouth.
Somewhere behind me, Stefan yelled my name again, but his words were slowly fading as the guard’s fist hit me again and again.
He didn’t stop until I began choking on my own blood, the front of my face almost numb from the pain.
I did this… I thought to myself, no longer able to form the words on my lips. I didn’t want this…
Perhaps this was what I deserved. If the gods had known the true desires I kept hidden away, would they have even blessed me to begin with? Would they have left me in that palace to rot instead?
I knew what was and wasn’t allowed. I had known since the moment a merchant had been brought to the palace when I was twelve, under the accusation of being a “flesh traitor.” I hated that term. It was embedded into me that day.
When I watched the merchant’s neck crack as his body dropped from the platform, the rope of his noose so tight it almost snapped his head from his body, my spirit broke, and with it… my identity. The freedom to live the way I wanted. To love the way I wanted.
When I first met Lyra, I had been surprised by the disparity in her regard, compared to the treatment of the merchant all those years ago. She made it clear to anyone with eyes that she loved Morrigan, but the priests had always been softer on women—the sick fucks.
Large hands grasped both of my arms again, and I bared my teeth at the guard on my right as they began to drag me with my legs dangling against the floor.
“I’d shut your fucking mouth if I were you, flesh traitor,” he snapped just as his foot slammed into my side.
The throne room spun, and I slumped into their hold, staring up at the blurring ceiling above me. The chandeliers turned to golden streaks in my vision, and the dull pain slowly turned into pins and needles, trickling over my skin, intensifying with every passing second.
It wasn’t long before they dropped me onto something hard and metal. With the last of my strength, I turned onto my chest to try and stand once more, but the floor beneath me began to shift. My body dropped, and my arms slipped through holes as I blinked away the fog.
“Dormius!” Stefan screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice piercing my ears as they grew distant. “Let him go!”
When I could finally see, I saw the guards holding him somewhere beneath me. I hovered in the air, lying against hard poles. I was… Oh, Gods… I was in a cage.
“Stefan Thornefield,” Priest Julius announced, revealing a large piece of parchment with writing on it that I couldn’t decipher from here.
“You have been accused of a heinous crime. While this would normally call for a trial under different circumstances, we have enough proof to carry out your sentence immediately.”
“No…” I mumbled against the bars as my blood dripped to the floor between the gaps. “No!” I tried to reach for him, begging my powers to help me, but they remained dormant. Even my healing hadn’t kicked in yet. I felt so… mortal again.
Stefan looked up at me with tears in his eyes as the priest continued. “Do you understand that you are to be executed, Mr. Thornefield?”
Stefan didn’t listen to him. His lips, that were now wet with blood, whispered the words, “I love you.”
Immediately after, those same lips fell open, and his body jerked. My eyes flashed to his neck that now had a single, deep gash across the center of it. I screamed.
“STEFAN!”
It was the last of my energy. The guards held him there, his eyes staring up at me until they lost all of their color, and forced me to watch him die as I dangled in the air.
“I’m sorry,” I cried, gripping the bars until my knuckles turned white. “I love you… I’m sorry…”
A second later, everything went black. I felt my body fall until my feet hit solid ground, and when I opened my eyes, I was… I was in my study again… and Stefan opened the door…
No. Gods… No.