Chapter 8 #6
Most of the abbesses in the Reliquary had similar stories; young women who had “stained” their family name.
But as Rhiain had discovered in her tenure there, what the Reliquary was really doing was supplying Castien Edevane with enough satisfying distractions to keep him from terrorizing the community at large. “You were there a year?”
“A little less. More than enough time for Castien to set his sights on me. I will never forget, never, how open he was with his predilections and how those in authority allowed him to continue. He had me moved to his own chambers to ‘serve’ him, and no one in power said a word. Not one. Some looked at me with pity in their eyes, but none offered protection. For ten months he terrorized me, isolated me, and ground me down so far, all I could see was him. I learned later he usually discarded his amusements after a few months, that I was the longest. Some were rescued by Asterin, paid, and sent away for another chance at life. The others disappeared, and no one knows where. If Fabrien hadn’t visited and taken a shine to me, I wouldn’t be talking to you now.
I was under no illusion that a man who would choose a wife from a woman in my position would be a gentleman, but had I known what awaited me in Whitechurch.
..” She rolled her lips. “I came to envy those girls who disappeared.”
Her story was not the same as the young women in Sestinn Edevane’s cellars, but it was close enough to rhyme.
How many ways were there for rotten men to spread their terror?
For all the girls Jesstin and Sesto—and Gennady, but he kept thoughts of him stored away—saved, there were many more they hadn’t.
There’d always be more. A breached dam was not fixed by catching the water in buckets.
“If no one has told you this, you were very, very brave,” he replied. She needed his calm, not his chaos, and it was all he could manage to get out without losing it.
Elloven bowed her head. “At first I thought if I were to get with child, Fabrien would have to leave me alone, but he told me if I had a child, and it didn’t look exactly like him, he would take it to the top of the perch, high in the trees where they lorded over all of Whitechurch, and drop it at my feet.
” Tears splashed onto the table. “I could do nothing, and he knew it. He knew with the way he passed me around it would be like rolling dice. I tried to seek out remedies to prevent pregnancy, but I had no friends there, Jesstin. Not a single ally, except my sweet handmaiden, but even she wouldn’t go against them, and I wouldn’t ever have expected her to put her entire family at risk for me.
Eventually, that fear subsided though, because.
.. After all that was done to me, it’s unlikely I’m even capable of bearing a child. ”
Jesstin had to remember to breathe. “I’m so fucking sorry, Elloven.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Forgive me. You brought us here to have fun, not dredge up the past.” But how could he be anything but a reminder, he realized, when he shared blood with one of the monsters who had terrorized her?
“You’re the first person I’ve ever been able to share this with,” she said. “And I shouldn’t have said you’re like Sestinn and Castien. You’re nothing like them, not even on your worst day.”
“I’ve made the choices I have because I’d rather die than be like them.”
Her expression froze. She blinked hard, frowning. “You really believe their blood is that powerful?”
“Blood is blood. Maybe...” He opened his hands out. “Maybe I’m not like them, but what if my child is? Sestinn Edevane has four sons, at least the ones he recognizes. Theo and As are good men. Castien is just like our father. I’ve done the math. If the rot skips me, my child’s odds are even worse.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works, Jesstin,” she said softly. “Castien is like his father because he’s who taught him. Any son of yours would have a strong heart, like his father.”
“Elloven.” Everything he wanted to say jammed his throat, trapped by shame.
“I need to tell you... My feelings for you...” He massaged his neck.
Every little hurt he’d inflicted—upon her, himself, others—flew in the face of her comfort, which he had not earned, and even that was an injustice against her.
“The man who kissed you tonight was the man I wish I could be always. For you.”
She slid her hands across the table, palms up. Why he took them was a question for his conscience, forever unresolved when he was near her. He had crossed worlds for her, but it didn’t exonerate him of the wrongs he’d done. “Let’s go back to the room,” she said.
He’d heard many women speak those words, in that tone, and every time, they’d been a temptation he could outmaneuver. There’d never been another woman who could make him forget his oath to himself, and there’d never be another.
She must have sensed his hesitation. “I respect your conviction to yourself. And I have no more to offer than you, nor the courage to try. Certainly not the courage to try and fail. But you’re still the only one who has ever made me feel safe, and after everything that’s happened, the only thing I want is to fall asleep knowing you’re there. ”
With his breath unsteady, his heart more so, Jesstin raised her hands to his mouth and held them there. “Let’s go.”
By the time they left the tavern, it was pouring rain, with hail mixed in.
Elloven had come to fear all storms in the Infinitum because there was no predicting their duration or their intensity.
The squall she was looking at, from huddled under the covered portico with Jesstin, was the kind that stung the skin. The inn suddenly seemed so far away.
Jesstin pulled her out of her stupor by grabbing her hand.
“On three?” he asked.
Elloven nodded, already shivering.
“One,” he said and tugged her forward as he bolted into the storm.
Mud splashed them as they raced across the road.
She was already imagining another awkward conversation with the cellar staff, but as she sprinted through the deluge with the man who had defied the very laws of death to save her, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt such pure, childlike bliss.
Everyone ran like chickens scattering in a barnyard. Some had jackets to protect themselves, others whatever they could find. Bin lids, planks...
Elloven was distracted watching a man strip away his shirt and missed another one running straight for her.
The force of the clash carried her sideways.
Her hand broke free of Jesstin’s. The slick mud sent her sprawling, and her leg instantly exploded in pain.
She hadn’t even pulled herself up before Jesstin was doing it for her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked as he adjusted her in his arms.
“I might be.” Elloven nuzzled her head to his neck and breathed through the pain as she bounced.
“We’re almost there.”
The jostling as he sprinted up the stairs was even more painful. He clicked the handle to their room and shoved it open with his hips, then closed it the same way.
“Where does it hurt?” Jesstin set her upon a chair and started inspecting her before she could answer.
“It will... heal fast.” She had to bite down to keep from screaming.
“Where?” he demanded.
Her hand shook so hard, she could barely point at her thigh.
Jesstin ripped her gown up the center until he found it. Her heart jumped ahead of its rhythm when she realized her prominence birthmark—and her horrifying mutilation from Fabrien’s brand—was exposed. His sudden silence made her forget her pain.
She couldn’t look at him.
“Elloven,” he said seriously. “Do you know you have freckles on your knees?”
Elloven was so taken aback, she cackled in a most undignified manner. “What?”
“I said—”
“I heard you.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I believe I’m aware, yes.”
“And how often do a woman’s knees see the sun?” Gingerly, he used his fingertips to push her leg to the left, then right. He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “This is deeply concerning.”
“Is it now?” Elloven dithered between amusement and befuddlement.
Jesstin gave a tight-lipped nod. He continued his careful examination of her leg. “You’ve been frolicking outside in the nude.”
“I—what?”
“How often? Once, twice, thirty times a day?”
“Jesstin!”
“How’s the pain now?”
“That weird berry did something to your head, didn’t it?”
“How’s the pain?”
“It’s...” She frowned. The pain was slowly fading, and he’d distracted her through the worst of it. “Better. Thank you.”
“You might bruise, but luckily it won’t last long.” Still on his knees, he sat back on his heels. “Nothing seems to be broken.”
“Oh, you’re a medic?”
“Most who come to Mythgarde prefer to have their problems dealt with in-house,” he explained. “A little nursing is part of the job.”
Elloven was incredibly conscious of her spread legs... of him still on his knees. She snapped them closed and angled away, but he gently placed a hand on her knee. His other hand hovered over the brand on her outer thigh. She held her breath, waiting for his pity.
“May I?” he asked.
Her nod was more of a twitch. She had no inkling what she’d agreed to.
But when he leaned in and brushed his lips to the scarred flesh, a gentle gasp rose up and her tears returned, though they weren’t the same as before.
The man in front of her would have taken his sword to everyone connected to her pain, right down to the blacksmith who had fashioned the branding iron.
But he could offer her no authentic piece of himself.
He ran his thumb along where his lips had been. “Scars are battles won, not lost, Elloven.” He kissed the spot again and then again. “You’re stronger than any man I’ve ever known.”
“That can’t be true.” Her voice was breaking, and her heart... Her heart was too, but it had also never been fuller.
But there was another sensation. It was one she had not felt for many years and hadn’t believed she would ever feel again.
Desire.
“The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves.” He looked up at her. His thumb traced gently over the Q seared into her thigh. “Any man worthy of you won’t be afraid of your scars. They’ll see what I see.”
Elloven relaxed into her discomfort. The tension in her legs eased. She didn’t know what was happening, only what she wanted, but asking him would be a betrayal of her promise.
Jesstin’s eyes traveled back to her leg but lingered, a second too long, on her undergarments. After a jerky breath, he lifted his eyes back toward hers.
His question blazed there.
Her answer arrived in a messy nod.
But if they were honoring scars, there was one more she needed him to see. “I’ve never... That is, no man has ever...”
“No man has ever prioritized your pleasure,” he said, finishing for her.
The same thumb that had lovingly caressed her brand skimmed against the longing she couldn’t hide.
It moved in circles against the fabric. She slid her hand down and pulled her undergarments aside, and when he leaned in and dragged his tongue down the center of her, her whole body lit up like she’d set it on fire.
Her hands twisted over the chair, and she ground her toes in her boots as she lifted in involuntary response.
He was so gentle, the depth of his restraint evident in his white knuckles, gripping her thighs, and she slid further into the moment by falling back, helping him drape her legs over his shoulders one by one.
The old urge to disconnect, to self-protect, was still there, and perhaps it always would be, but she resisted and focused instead on protecting her stillness, so she could commit every detail to memory, so she could replace the ones that had left her believing that moments like these were not hers to have.
Jesstin’s fingers dug against her thighs as he pinned her in place, watching her receive his gift.
The sheer hunger in his eyes was the moment of her undoing.
She released a cry from the center of her chest, a pleasure so intense, she almost couldn’t bear it.
He never slowed, even as she murmured it was too much, but he seemed to know she still needed more, and he was right.
Jesstin’s name slipped from her lips in a tormented whisper as she finally melted against the chair.
His flushed face flowed in and out of her drowsy vision as he fell back. The fearful, insecure pieces of her searched, uneasily, for any indication of his remorse, but it wasn’t there, and she knew if she asked, just then, he would throw everything he’d promised himself away. For her.
It seemed, even, that he wished she would ask.
Which was why she would not.
Jesstin drew a steadying breath. His tongue slid along his glistening lips with a pinched groan. “You’ll, um, need something new to wear,” he said and stood. “I can run across the way.”
“Jess. Wait.” Her muscles felt like mush as she worked herself out of the chair.
She cupped his face between her hands and kissed him.
“Thank you,” she murmured against his mouth, tasting herself.
His arousal stirred against her belly as she rose onto the tips of her toes to kiss him properly.
How she wanted to do for him what he had done for her, but there was too much darkness tied to that particular act for her. “I didn’t know I could feel this way.”
“I got a little carried away,” he said with a smile that was almost sad. He seemed to go somewhere else.
“I have other clothing in my satchel. Let’s just go to bed.”
Jesstin kissed the top of her head and gave her shoulders a spin. “Get yourself into something dry, all right? I’ll be right back.”
“You’re not really going across the road? Now?” Her body was still coming down from the incredible high as she, in puzzlement, watched him walk away.
“I won’t be long,” he said and left still wearing his soaked clothing.
Jesstin searched until he found a private nook in the near-empty tavern under the inn and sank into a chair. His mouth was still full of the taste of her; his thumbs prickled with the imprint they’d left on her thighs. And his heart... his heart...
He bent over, buried his face between his knees, and quietly wept.