Chapter 5 #2
He never says anything about it or acts any differently toward me.
I actually might have thought he didn’t notice at all, except that he’s been growing incredibly irritable toward the soldiers the longer time wears on.
By the end of February, Fox has become so savage during training that everyone starts to notice.
“I don’t understand what happened,” Alix complains to me and Odessa over tea one afternoon.
“Daemon said Fox was in a much better mood lately, so we assumed the soldiers were improving, but now it’s like we’re back to square one and he’s giving Navy seal bootcamp meets fraternity hell week.
I swear to God, dude needs to get laid.”
Odessa and I glance at each other, and she shrugs. Alix is always using human phrases that we don’t understand, but pointing it out to her gets so tedious that most of the time we try to keep up through context. This time, though, I can’t even begin to pick apart what she’s trying to say.
Alix seems to realize this on her own, because she takes another sip of her tea and rephrases. “Sorry. I meant, we know that turning all those guards into real soldiers was a huge undertaking, and we thought things were going better, but clearly not.”
“Ah, got it,” Odessa smiles. “But what’s laid?”
“Fucked,” Alix says bluntly. “I’m saying he seems stressed and should probably work out that tension some other way—sorry, Aurelia, are you alright?”
“Yes,” I cough. “Sorry. Swallowed my tea wrong.”
Finally, in March, I don’t have any choice but to go to the barracks—it’s an emergency.
It’s early evening, but Fox must be tired because he’s already in bed with all the lamps off when I burst into his room. Obviously he wasn’t expecting me because he leaps out of bed, his eyes almost as wild as the first time we were together.
“It’s just me,” I say, holding one hand up in surrender.
Fox stares at me for a long moment, opening his mouth like he’s going to say something, only to close it again. Then, his gaze falls on the creature in my occupied arm. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a rabbit. What does it look like?” I kick his door shut with my foot and wave a hand to turn on the oil lamps, then cross the room to set the fluffy black and white rabbit I’m carrying down on Fox’s bed. “There you go,” I croon, petting the rabbit softly. “You’re okay now.”
Fox makes a strangled choking sound, and I glance over my shoulder at him. He’s backed up as far as he can go across the room like the rabbit might be contagious.
“Calm down,” I begin
Recovering from his initial horror, Fox finds his voice again. “Get that fucking rodent off my bed!”
“It’s okay, he didn’t mean it,” I croon to the rabbit.
He makes a growling sound which I take to mean: “Like hell I didn’t.”
I straighten up, hands on my hips, and glare at him. “She’s hurt! Look, her ear is bleeding, see? I think a wolf was chasing her.”
His ice-blue eyes widen, and he looks away from the rabbit for the first time since I entered. “A wolf? Where?”
“In the garden.”
“A wolf couldn’t get into the garden without someone noticing.”
I shrug. “Well, it wasn’t there anymore, but I found this poor thing cowering under a rosebush. She’s trembling, look!”
Fox looks at the rabbit, still frowning. “It’s a rabbit. They always tremble.”
“Don’t be so dismissive.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, looking pained. “Why did you bring it here?”
“Well, my animal cage is occupied by some injured birds at the moment, and coming here was obviously the closest option—don’t look at me like that! This was an emergency, of course I would bring the rabbit to the closest safe location.”
Fox drags a hand down his face and growls low in the back of his throat. The rabbit goes suddenly tense, as if sensing danger, and I pet her furry head. “Shhh. It’s okay. He’s not that scary.”
Fox glares at me. “You’re not planning to keep it in here, are you?”
“Of course not—” he looks slightly relieved, but his face falls again as I finish. “—I was planning to keep her in that big room down the hall we use for meetings sometimes. Hardly anyone ever goes in there, so she’ll be perfectly safe until her ear heals.”
Fox looks agitated, like he’s going to argue, but then sighs. He shakes his head, obviously resigned. “Fine. Do whatever you want. Just get it off my bed.”
I scoop up my rabbit. “Fine.”
“Fine,” he echoes, sounding deeply annoyed. He pauses for a long moment, then sucks in a breath. “Aurelia?”
I pause, just outside the still-open door. “What?”
“When you put that thing in the other room…are you coming back?”
I huff an exasperated sigh. “Yes. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Did you know Kastian has a soul-bond?” I ask one spring night.
Fox turns his head to the side and looks at me, eyebrows raised. “What?”
We’re lying in his bed, having just finished an especially long session where he made me come three times with his fingers and tongue before finally flipping me over and fucking me into the mattress until I saw stars.
We rarely make small talk afterwards. In fact, I rarely linger for longer than it takes to get dressed, but I’ve been dying to talk about this, and Fox is probably the safest person to mention it to.
It’s not as if he’s going to go gossiping with anyone else.
“Kastian has a soul-bond,” I repeat, staring up at the ceiling.
Fox frowns. “Odessa?”
“No…that’s what I thought too, actually…but he said it was someone else. He told me about it a few weeks ago.”
Fox sits up, leaning back on his elbows and looks down at me. “Why would he tell you?”
I glance at him, startled by the sharpness in his tone. “I guess it’s a complicated situation. He wanted to know if I had any seer abilities.”
“Do you?”
“Not really. I mean, I’ve always thought I had good intuition, but I’m not a real seer like Kastian is looking for. I gave him the name of someone who might help.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Fox asks, still watching me.
“I just thought it was interesting…I had no idea he was already bonded.”
Fox makes a noncommittal sound and lies back down, turning his gaze to the ceiling.
“What?” I ask, for once unable to interpret his wordless answer.
“I just assumed his bond was Odessa. He looks at her like…”
“Like what?”
But Fox just shakes his head and doesn’t answer.
After that first conversation, we start talking more and more.
Or at least, I do.
Other than when he’s talking me through an orgasm or praising how well I’m riding his cock, Fox never grows much more talkative himself, but I linger longer and longer in the evenings, talking through whatever happens to be on my mind, while Fox nods along, making the occasional monosyllabic comment.
If he were anyone else, I would think I was annoying him, but for some reason, I think he likes listening to me.
Of course, I’m only guessing. I don’t really know that much about Fox beyond the surface level. As time goes on, though, we have enough small exchanges that I can piece together an incomplete picture of who he really is.
I know he’s from Thermia and was a soldier at some point. Of course I know he was sent to Dyaspora—the most infamous and dangerous prison in Ellender—because he met Daemon, Kastian and Jett there. But I don’t know what he did to be punished so harshly.
Sometime around Beltane, Fox mentions that he likes sleeping in the barracks because he’s never really been alone before, and is used to all the people.
“Because you were in prison for so long?” I ask tentatively.
“Yes,” Fox grumbles. “But not just because of that. I was in the army, and it was always crowded in the camps.”
“What about when you were young? Were there a lot of people around then too?”
He looks at me blankly. “Yes. In the army camp.”
My brow furrows. “I mean before that, though. When you were a child.”
“I joined the army when I was six.”
I reel back, shocked. Six? How would that even work? Why on earth would he be drafted so young? Does he remember his parents? Or maybe they were soldiers too…
I open my mouth to ask him to elaborate, but then I glimpse his expression. It’s dark and wary, and I instantly change course. “How long were you in Dyaspora?”
“About forty years,” he says, some of the darkness clearing from his face.
My eyes narrow. Most people probably wouldn’t want to talk about Dyaspora—that would be the worst experience of almost anyone’s life—but Fox looks almost relieved to be asked about prison rather than his childhood in the army. That can’t be a good sign.
“How old were you when you were sent to prison?” I ask, hedging around the question I really want to ask: why were you sent there?
“Twenty five,” Fox says without inflection.
I do the math quickly in my head and grin. “I’m older than you.”
He snorts a laugh. “Sure.”
“I am!” I sit up, grinning widely, and look down at him still lying on his back. “I’m way older than you. When you were born I was already—mmph!”
My voice gets muffled as he reaches out and puts a large hand over my mouth, before rolling me onto my back beneath him. “Stop. I don’t want to know.”
“Why?” I giggle. “Does it bother you that I’m older?”
“No, it’s just not really true.” He’s smiling now—that extremely rare smile that I’ve only ever seen a handful of times, which makes the dimple appear in his cheek. “You might be older in years, but not in experience…or in size.”
He reaches one large hand out and grabs my thigh, stretching his fingers until they nearly wrap around my entire leg to prove his point. I squeal, laughing and trying to escape his hold until he moves his fingers higher up my leg and I forget all about talking.
Summer arrives, bringing changes to Vernallis.
By midsummer, the King of Hydratta asks for Odessa’s hand in marriage, which finally pushes her and Kastian together.
I’m happy for them, but I don’t really want to listen to Dessa screaming all night, so I go to the barracks for the second time that week.