Chapter 27 Not Real
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NOT REAL
ADELINE
A cabin.
I laugh under my breath when I see where he’s taking me. Exhausted out of my mind as I am, I find it ridiculously funny that he considers the strange ruins in front of us to be a hunting lodge.
“What’s wrong?” he rumbles.
“Nothing. Do all cabins here have pillars? For that matter, does all architecture? Couldn’t help but notice it was a key feature in the library, too.”
“That’s my impression, yeah.” He drags me up the last few yards to the structure. “I’m not an expert.”
“In local architecture?”
“And its key features.”
“You live here.”
“It’s not among my interests.”
“So what are your interests?” I ask. “You know, apart from killing monsters and occasionally succeeding in sending them back into their books?”
“Well, that takes up most of my time.”
“Plus hunting for food,” I prod.
“Exactly.”
“But do you read the books?” I focus on setting one foot in front of the other. “Do you lie on your back and stare up at the ceiling, imagining stories?”
“Why, do you do that?”
“All the time.”
He huffs. It’s almost a laugh. “Right.”
“Do you ride on your phoenix for the fun of it? Chase flocks of birds?”
A small, choked-up sound escapes him. “That would be stupid.”
“But did you use to, long ago? Did you use to have fun?”
“I… suppose I may have done. I don’t remember.”
“That’s sad,” I whisper.
He falls quiet and I curse myself for causing him to clam up again. By now, we’re at the entrance of the ruin, a small portico upheld by slender pillars. We step inside and looking up, I see it has a roof, at least, and the walls are standing.
Thank the Gods for small mercies.
I’m still holding the bundle of my dress with the book wrapped up in its folds, and I place it down before taking a look around.
“Stay here,” he says, “let me check out the place. We don’t want any bad surprises.”
“Where is the egg?”
“Relax. I have it.” He wanders into the dark space, almost vanishing—but not quite, because like before, he seems to glow faintly.
I take two steps toward him. “Roane?”
“Stay there. Stay—”
A screech and something wraps around my middle, dragging me to the side. I scream, batting at it.
“Shush, it’s me,” Roane says in my ear, startling me even worse. “Stop moving.”
Then he proceeds to shove me against a wall and I hear the scimitars sing as he frees them from their scabbards.
What’s in here? What kind of monster was inhabiting this old place until we arrived?
I catch a glimpse of it as he chases it, yelling and clanking his scimitars together. Some sort of… pig? Or wild hog. It grunts and snuffles as Roane clanks his blades again, its pale tusks gleaming in the faint glow coming from him.
Then it turns away and leaves through the open door. Or lack thereof.
“No door.” I push off the wall, wincing. Yet more bruises have added themselves to my collection. “A tiny oversight. I mean, it’s not like this world is full of monsters or anything.”
“There was a door. The last time I was here.” He huffs, sheathing his scimitars. “Not anymore.”
“Obviously.” I wander toward him. It’s that glow, I tell myself, that’s what’s drawing me to him like a moth. Not the way he keeps protecting me, not the memory of the way he called my name in fear and held me as if he wanted to mesh our bodies together.
He’s always glaring at me. Dismissing me. And doesn’t really want me around.
I need to remember all this or else I might touch him, press my body to his again. That would be embarrassing.
“I’ll block the entrance,” he grunts and exits the cabin. Temple. Whatever this is. “Stay.”
“Wait!”
But he’s gone. I glance around uneasily. The boar left but who knows whether anything else might be lurking in the dark? Without Roane, the darkness is complete. What if there are venomous spiders, scorpions, or snakes?
“I don’t like snakes,” Olm says, startling me.
“You could have fooled me,” I mutter. “First thing you did when Roane tried to bind you was to unleash a serpent on him.”
“It was the worst monster I could think of.”
“You threatened me with a dragon.”
“I thought it was a dragon. I couldn’t find a good description.”
The opening of the door is edged with silver light, so I wander half-blindly toward it. A white oval gleams on the floor, next to the bundle of my dress, and I realize it’s the griffin egg.
Standing at the door, I gaze outside. Below the small hill sprawls the city, along with the glowing river, the mountains and the lights flickering on the cavern roof and the walls of this miniature world.
It’s strange and beautiful. Haunting and fascinating.
Like Roane.
The thought is so remarkable, I have to shy away from it.
I rub my eyes. Is this a weird dream? A beautiful nightmare? Lowering my hands, I draw a breath, and then I pinch my arm, hard.
Ow.
It feels real. It’s not a dream. I’m well and truly stuck here, every decision I make entrenching me further in this fantastical world and its inhabitants.
Gods, I don’t know what I’m doing. Why I decided Olm is my responsibility, why I refused to hand the book over to Roane to do with it as he pleases, why…
Why I’m so attracted to Roane, my thoughts losing all sense of propriety and logic when I’m around him.
“Aline?” Roane’s voice breaks me out of my trance. “Watch out.”
I take a small step back inside as he appears. “What’s that?”
He’s dragging with him what looks like… a small tree. A tangle of branches. He enters and pulls the thing after him, blocking the entrance. He brushes dust off his hands. “There.”
“Is this going to stop griffins and other assorted monsters from entering?”
“To a point. And you’ve got me to protect you, too.”
I open my mouth to tease him, but I remember the way he fought the hydra and just shake my head.
That fight had been… riveting. The way his tall body had moved, so perfectly controlled, honed to such perfection, every strike precise and hard, every move exact and smooth.
It had been sexy.
And now that we’re not anymore caught up in a dangerous struggle, when I can actually consider how that felt like, watching him, knowing he was defending me, protecting me… My body stirs.
What bad timing. What a terrible idea.
“And now?” I whisper. “What do we do now?”
“You need to rest,” Roane says, walking around the cabin, again with that faint glow about him. “I’ll keep watch.”
“What about you? You need to sleep.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can go for long stretches without sleep. I’m used to living on high alert,” he says quietly. “I won’t be able to relax, so I might as well watch over you.”
“Watch over you.” My heart melts. That particular organ doesn’t know that it’s misreading the signs, just like my body doesn’t realize he’s not what it needs.
He’s not what I need. What I could have. What would make me happy.
The thought of being imprisoned in this world with him is both a thrill and a torment.
“Come here.” He sits down some distance from the door, his back to the wall. “We have to warm you up.”
“I’m fine,” I say stiffly.
“You’re human. Can’t withstand the cold as well as we fae do.”
“You’re shivering, too,” I point out. “Looks like the fae can’t do everything perfectly, after all.”
“Well, everyone knows that in situations such as these,” he informs me, “sharing body heat is our best bet.”
“Sharing body heat.” Alas, my body is all in. The thought of pressing myself to him is like a drug. I should refuse. What am I doing, getting so familiar with him?
But he’s right, rational thought pipes in. You’ve been wet and cold for a while. You could die. And so could he. This is a necessity. Treat it as one.
With a sigh, I sit down beside him and he wraps an arm around me. “Okay.”
But I’m not okay. As my mind slows, sensations become more acute. His scent teases me, waking up my body even more. The sound of his breathing calms me down.
Outlined against the partly-blocked door’s glow, his own faint shimmer muted, he’s a shadow.
His profile is cut out in black, his dark hair wet and clinging to the strong column of his neck, the tip of a pointed ear peeking out.
His chest is so hard under his wet leathers, and somehow my hand has found its way to it, resting over the thudding of his heart.
He looks so… impossibly beautiful. If I weren’t touching him, I might have thought he wasn’t real. I’d think I was holding a dream or a story, and not a real man.