Chapter 20
“Can we get the Seeing session over with? I really would like to be anywhere but with you two.” Sylaira glared at her keepers, every muscle in her lithe frame tight. We’d been forced to march into the darkness, the midday attack putting us behind schedule.
Everyone was tired, shaken. Some were grieving those lost to the spirit bears.
I savored my mate’s visible rage, the way she continued to embody defiance when I still had to pretend to accept my cage.
Malice flashed in Althirion’s eyes. “Fine. Find a spot where you feel most comfortable.”
Sylaira didn’t wait for him, or for any of us, before stomping away. I strode after her, smothering the grin that wanted to rise, and forced the two keepers to jog to catch up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Althirion huffed.
“To sit with my mate,” I replied coolly. “Is that a problem for you?”
He said nothing until Sylaira had chosen a spot closer to the mountains, where rocks interspersed among the trees. “Won’t you be a distraction?”
“Does your mate consider you one?” I purred, stepping closer, towering over him with my large frame. “I mean, I know I do. Pesky errand birds who can’t stop hovering, waiting for their moment to plunge from the sky in a desperate attempt to snatch a worm of power.”
Satisfaction purred inside me as his face turned a darker shade of red than the most powerful Demon irises.
“She’s probably glad you’re gone, isn’t she?” I taunted, raking my eyes up and down his form. “My mate may hate me for my lies, but at least she still desires me.”
Sylaira covered her mouth with her hand. Amusement trickled down our connection.
“Perhaps we should start?” Nymirae interrupted, like she was trying to save her counterpart from further scorn.
“Spread everything out then,” Sylaira sighed, gesturing to the spot she’d chosen.
I winked at her as the two snapped out a blanket and unrolled the bag of objects to help my mate See.
She settled with her back against a gnarled root, closing her eyes.
I took my place a few feet away, pulling out my favorite dagger and a whetstone.
Sharpening the blade while glaring at the two keepers was a great way to irritate them.
The next hour passed without a sound from my little fugitive. Without so much as a flicker of Sight coming over her.
“I don’t think the Goddess has anything for me today,” she told them, rising to her feet.
“Are you sure you–” Nymirae started, reaching into her bag to offer something.
“No,” Sylaira cut her off. “We’re done here.”
I sheathed my blade at my thigh and followed her, leaving the two scrambling to pack up.
“I want to dance again,” she spoke in my mind.
“Let’s lose them,” I replied, yanking her into the shadows while they weren’t looking. Energy sparked under my skin where we touched. And she didn’t flinch away.
Together, we crept along, the inky night hiding most of our movements. Once we were certain we’d left them behind, I found a clearing for my mate to move.
“What are you going to dance for me, little fugitive?” I crooned, leaning against the rough bark of a mahogany tree.
She flicked the barest hints of white light into the air, casting a shimmer over her silver hair and glacial eyes. “Nothing. Because I’m not dancing for you.”
“And yet, I’m still here when you could have sent me away.”
“You are.” She heeled out of her boots, leaving her feet bare on the mossy ground. “And I’m going to pretend you aren’t.”
I grinned as she turned her back to me, lithe arms rising over her head. Her first starleap was graceful, and the second, powerful. She bounded around the glen like a doe, spinning on her toes to pivot in a different direction.
Each move was lethal beauty, the dance sharp and refined.
My cock pressed painfully against the ties of my pants. I let her sense my desire for her, dropping all walls between us.
Exhilaration glimmered in her eyes as she airstepped in my direction. I reached for her, planning to catch her and bring her to my chest, but she spiraled out of the way at the last moment, much like she had when she ran from me in the mountains.
“You may flee now, little fugitive, but I know your truth.”
“What’s that?” she panted, holding a crescent, muscles trembling.
“You want to be caught.”
“By you? Never.” She slipped from the pose into a graceful arc, her left leg rising high behind her.
And fuck if she didn’t know what she was doing.
Dark desire swam in my veins, images of me driving into her from that position flashing like strikes of lightning.
A flush rose to her cheeks and across her chest as she released the position and spun into the next one.
On and on she danced, and I could do nothing but be hypnotized by her.
Until she stopped, breathless, her fingers spread gracefully in front of her, pointing directly at me. Chest heaving, our eyes locked.
The barrier around her emotions lowered. Sorrow glided past, twisting with a heady dose of longing. A note so complex, it reminded me of how she flowed from piece to piece of her choreography.
“Why did you have to hurt me again?” she whispered, dropping her arm.
“It was never my intention.”
“But you knew betraying me, lying to me, would all the same.”
“I did. I only hoped that in time, you would forgive me.”
“So why?”
“Because if there was even the slimmest chance you could See a way forward without bloodshed, I wanted us to be able to take it.”
Her breath hitched as I stepped closer.
“Because your visions are powerful. Because I selfishly wanted to use them for my own plans. To stop Iaoth and Stadiel. To stop the war.”
Sylaira’s face tipped up, and realization flickered in her eyes. “They think I’m going to deliver the realm from this war. Do you?”
I clasped her shoulders and brought her into my chest. “You saved me. Why couldn’t you do the same for others?”
Something fearful swept across her expression, so fast I thought I’d imagined it.
“I don’t think I saved you,” she whispered.
I tucked a tendril of hair that had come loose from her top knot behind her ear. My fingers lingered on the stones studded into the point. “You did. From a betrothal I didn’t want. From the duty I hadn’t realized was a set of shackles in disguise. You pulled the hood off my head.”
Her eyes dipped closed, and she sighed. “You did the same for me.”
My brows shot up at her concession. The smallest shake of her head had my grip on her arm tightening.
“What if I give you a truth? Something I’ve never told anyone else,” I murmured. “Would that help you trust me again?”
Her lips parted, a breath leaking out. “Maybe.”
But that one word was enough. It was hope. It was a chance.
Yet fear flayed my nerves. There was every chance she’d flee once I told her what I’d done. Proved to her that I was in fact the monster she’d always feared.
I wrenched my jaw open and forced the words out, even as bile crept up my throat. “I killed my father.”
“What?” she questioned. But no disgust, no terror flickered in our connection.
“I thought ending his life would make me feel better. That it would break whatever hold he had on me…” I trailed off, the rage of that moment where I realized I was still bound returning.
“You said earlier that you were sorry for whatever makes me obey. His magic still lives inside me, all these centuries later.”
She gasped, tears welling in her eyes.
“But…how?” she asked, fingers digging into my chest. But she didn’t push me away. “If you murdered your father, how did you maintain your position at court?”
“By the time he was found, his body had been mangled by wolves. But Iaoth suspected, though she doesn’t have concrete proof. That, combined with how I got this scar,” I gestured to my bisected brow, “would be enough to cast suspicion.”
I waited for her to tell me I was unlovable. Damned. Broken.
She reached up, palm cupping my cheek. Warmth spread across my skin. Though my heart. “When you told me about him before Heraphia’s funeral, I didn’t realize that it ran that deep. That it still affected you.”
An ache bloomed behind my ribs. Because Sylaira’s actions, words, felt a lot like acceptance. Like I might still be worthy of her love.
“No one else knows it was me. Not even Maelsar. You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”
Her fingers mapped the side of my neck, palm coming to rest on my chest, over the well of power that no longer undulated with white. Her lips parted like she was going to say something else…
“There you are!” a feminine voice exclaimed.
I whirled and shoved Sylaira behind me, finding Nymirae standing a few paces away.
This bitch.
Rage roared inside me, but I forced a cool sneer instead.
“We thought we’d lost you to a jaguar,” she continued like she actually fucking cared about my mate’s wellbeing. Althirion emerged from the darkness, his bubble lights following.
Of course, Sylaira and I had finally stepped on solid ground, and these two had to cause an earthquake. I had half a mind to take my newly sharpened dagger and plunge it into the sides of their necks.
“The jaguars, like everything and everyone else, fear me,” I growled, stalking forward. To prove my point, they both shrank back. “Now be good little errand birds and stalk us back to camp.”
Sylaira shot them a glare and strode forward, falling in step with me. We didn’t speak again, not with the shadows on our heels.
And by the time we slipped into our tent after dinner, that moment of tenderness had long since passed.