Four #3
And he isn’t. He’s lied to me this whole time, but he didn’t…rape me. He didn’t hurt me physically, not really.
What he has done hurts more than anything that has ever happened to me because he did show me freedom. He showed me warmth and choices, he filled my stomach and braided my hair.
“I never wanted you to go to him,” he says softly. “Never.”
I shake my head at the change in conversation. “You made a deal to give me to him.”
“I made a deal to give him an elf, yes.” He looks back at me. “But how could I ever give him you?”
My heart wants to swell and break more at the same time. How I want those words to soothe the hurt inside of me.
“But that’s what you were doing, Rohan.”
“I was trying to fix it.”
“How?” I wonder.
“Dorkin sent a letter explaining that I didn’t have an elf anymore to give.
It would have made him angry and the consequences would have been terrible for us, but it didn’t matter to me at that moment.
All I knew is that I wasn’t going to give you to him.
For the first time, I was going back on the deal. My word.”
I pick at my fingers. I know he prides himself with his word, how much it means to him to take them seriously, it’s the very reason he has never gone back on it.
Until now.
“But he knew you had me?”
“He did, and I suspect Darcia had something to do with it from what Declan said.”
I bite my lip. Is it my fault? I asked Rohan to send her away…
“I know that look, and it isn’t your fault,” he says.
“I suspect she would have found a way to tell him either way. It’s no secret she hasn’t liked you since you arrived.
And with everything Rhett and her did…” he shakes his head.
“It doesn’t matter now, but it’s important that you know I wasn’t going to hand you over. ”
I want to hope this is true, that maybe he did change his mind, but…
“How can I believe you? You could have told me so many times but you decided not to.”
I feel like we keep going back and forth, but I can’t just…forget it.
The chains rattle as he moves, facing me.
“I needed an elf to get close enough to the king to kill him, to try and find a moment where those fucking arrows with Nighturn are not pointed at me. That’s why I agreed to the deal.
I just needed that chance, and I didn’t care how I got it.
I even went and flew over the Elven lands to find an elf and came up empty. ”
“When you told me about the meadow there…” I trail off, realizing, and he nods.
“And then there was you.”
“In The Pit.”
“I thought fate had handed me a lifeline. Give the king an elf, kill him because I will be able to get close enough to hand deliver his death, and The Games stop, then maybe the stealing of eggs stops, the killing of dragons stops. What is one life to those of many?”
I swallow, because as much as his words hurt, as much as I may be struggling to believe him, he’s right about that.
In the end, my life isn’t worth those of so many others. It never has been.
“No,” Rohan says, shaking his head. “Not you,” he says like he can hear my thoughts.
He can always hear my silence.
“I am just one of many though.”
“You are worth more than many and you are mine.”
“If what you’re saying is true, if you give me in exchange for The Games, if it will save the clans… the dragons then… then that is what should happen, Rohan.”
“Not. You.”
“How can you say that? I’ve known all my life that it means so little. Maybe this is a way for me to make it something bigger. Meaningful. You were prepared from the start to do this anyway, what… what happened between us changes nothing.”
“It changes everything because you’re mine!
” he shouts, and I still, my breath catching at his guttural tone.
“Everything I have done with you since I washed your hair in The Pit’s water has been truthful, Alara.
I couldn’t not care for you, be near you, follow you around like you were the very breath I needed to sate my lungs.
It was a need, understand? So how could I give up the woman who has my heart?
The only woman who has ever had it?” His chest heaves, eyes wild, and my hands fist in my torn dress.
“I’ve never felt what I feel for you with anyone.
Not in this life, and I won’t in the next, and you want me to just let him have you?
I physically can’t, Alara. I would rather you take a knife and kill me.
End me. I cannot even bear the thought of it. ”
“R-Rohan…” I stutter.
“Your life is meaningful, and you are meant for far more than you have ever been given. Fuck, Alara, your life is meant to be filled with dragons and roses and braiding and learning. Of freedom and snowflakes and mountains and… and I made a fucking mistake with this meaningful life of yours, and I’m sorry.
I should have told you about the deal as soon as I realized I couldn’t give you up.
I should have been honest from the start, but you had been through so much, you were scared of a simple lift of a hand and you began to look at me with so much trust in your perfect fucking eyes… How could I break that?
“How could I destroy what fire was coming back inside of you? The hope you slowly regained after I stood there and saw you willing to grab that poker and take your own life? How could I risk that?” He’s breathing heavily, eyes wild.
“I was selfish, greedy to have you still look at me like I meant something to you. I thought I could fix it, had fixed it. I thought sending him a letter would do and we would go through The Games, keeping you hidden and I would try to kill him this year or another, extend the deal and find someone else. Anyone fucking else. Anything else.”
He runs his hands down his face, the chains clanking.
“I’m sorry for ever hurting you by keeping that from you, fuck, I’m sorry for even taking you from The Pit to an extent, because you wouldn’t be here right now, but I will never and can never be sorry for falling for you Alara, no matter what the cost of that is to keep you as mine.
” My eyes sting at his words, his declaration.
“You stole what is left of me and made a home there. You made me want you, need you, crave you. How could I ever give you up? Let them take you? I can’t breathe if I’m not near you.
Can’t you see that? You are everything—”
A door bangs, and Rohan is instantly on his feet, regardless of his injuries. “Come to the corner, Alara, now.” In shock over his words, about everything he’s told me, I go to him without thought at his command.
Rohan places himself in front of me in his cell, like he can hide me from whatever is to come as I press against the bars.