34. Aemon
34
“ L ean on me,” Katya says, tugging on my shoulder.
“If I lean any more of my weight on you, I’m going to knock you over.”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, unless you want everyone here to know about your magical-shifter healing powers, then you need to make it look somewhat believable.”
“It is believable.” I gesture to my bandaged torso. Katya did a truly horrific job wrapping Jael’s makeshift bandages around my chest and back, but she did think to wipe up the blood with them first, so it looks like I’m still bleeding into them. “People see what they expect to see, and nobody here expects me to heal myself.”
“No, but anyone who saw your back would be questioning your ability to walk right now. People don’t just get up and walk away from injuries like that."
“Fine.” I shift almost all my weight to her and her knees buckle .
She barely keeps her feet under her, while also somehow managing to deliver an elbow to my ribs. “Stop that.”
“You said to lean on you.”
“Yes. Lean being the operative word in that sentence, not crush.”
“Are you calling me fat?” I lay a hand on my chest in mock disbelief, but I can’t hold back my smile. She’s just too easy to tease, and if I’m being honest, I’m just so gods damned happy to be here bantering back and forth with her, I’m down-right giddy. I do lift a little of my weight off of her though because, truthfully, I’m not sure how much longer she can remain upright like this.
Katya gives me a flat glare, but before she can respond, somebody shouts, “Aemon. Katya.” We both turn toward the sound to find an irritated Jael jogging toward us. “Are you insane?” She slips under my other arm then leans forward to speak to Katya. “You should have asked for help.”
“Uh, I’m right here,” I say.
And without a shred of humor in her voice, Jael looks up at me and says, “Yes, but you’re a male. I expect you to be a stubborn idiot.”
Katya spits out a laugh.
“You realize that means she’s calling you a stubborn idiot,” I tell her.
Katya shrugs. “You were the one pleading with me.” She presses a hand to her cheek, and in a high-pitched voice that sounds nothing like mine, she says, “Oh, Katya, please help me. I can’t stand the others seeing me in such a state.”
Jael and I share a look. “You know I did not say that.”
She nods, but her attempt to stifle the smile tugging at her lips is half-assed at best .
Jael leads us to join a group sitting around a small fire made up of twigs and weeds. It gives off a negligible amount of heat, but the warm glow makes me homesick for the surface. The girls help lower me onto a rock, and I grit my teeth and grunt and hiss and do my best to behave as though my back is still ravaged with pain. I’m not the greatest actor, and Katya gives me a sidelong look that I’m taking to mean I’m overdoing it. I feel like a complete idiot, but Katya’s right, the fewer people who know about my abilities, the better. I’m honestly surprised at how easily she accepted it. I would have expected a lot more questions, but I guess when you grow up surrounded by magic, the way she did, those things maybe aren’t so shocking.
“You thirsty?” Jael asks.
I smack my lips together. Shifting always turns my mouth into a desert. “Yes, please.”
Jael purses her lips, then turns to Katya and jabbing her thumb at me, says, “Well, look at who’s got manners.”
Katya chuckles. “He can be quite the gentleman when he chooses.”
“Thank you,” I say with a bow of my head, even though I know she’s going to follow that up with some snarky remark.
She lifts her chin and smirks. “He just has a tendency to make poor choices.”
And there it is. “Yes. If only I’d made the choice not to go after you.” I cock a brow, daring her to come back at me.
But she doesn’t. Instead, that smile slowly falls and her gaze goes distant. “Yes, well…” She turns to face the fire, giving her back to both Jael and me. We share a concerned look, then Jael pats me on the shoulder and slips off .
Katya doesn’t turn back around or even acknowledge that Jael’s leaving. Instead, she kneels in front of the tiny fire, her hands stretched out towards the warmth. The golden light limns her body and sets the flyaway bits of hair floating about her head aglow. I want to run my fingers through those silky locks, watch them flow between my fingers like a black waterfall.
But I don’t.
Humans of all shapes and sizes, and a smattering of surface fae, surround the fire. Some sit on the circle of rocks like me, others closer to the fire like Katya. There’s a hum of chatter that feels comfortable, homey even. I scan the slaves around the fire, then look past them to the various clusters of people dotting the wide-open space. There are males and females huddled together, some throwing homemade dice while others cheer them on, many more swimming in the river or washing the rags they call clothes. There are even children running about playing made up games. It’s all so normal if you ignore the guards, shackles and a stone ceiling where the sky should be. Then it hits me suddenly that I see males, females and children, but there are no babies. Not one. I wonder if the blood fae have been adding a contraceptive to the food or if something about the environment makes bringing an infant to term more difficult.
Jael returns with a tin cup of water and hands it to me.
I tip the cup back, gulp half of it down in one go and let out an appreciative sigh. The water’s tepid at best, but it’s wet and right now I’d drink warm piss if it quenched this thirst. “Thank you.”
Jael just smiles. Then she walks around the fire and over to a lanky guy sitting on a flat rock. The two exchange a few words, and he moves over to give the healer room to sit. I wouldn’t be surprised if the small fae had a contingent of males catering to her every whim.
A skeletal old man with about five strands of hair on his scalp and even fewer teeth, takes a seat beside me with a groan. “Jael says they set one of the creatures on you,” he begins, skipping over any niceties, like introductions. “What kind of beast was it?” The chatter around me suddenly stops, and I glance up to see that every person sitting around that fire is looking at me.
“You draw the short stick or what?” I ask the old man.
He waves a hand and gives me a gummy smile. “Nah, I volunteered. I’m Rand, by the way, and this is Tara, Gaven, Becca, Luci, Terrek and Mathias,” he says, finger traveling around the circle of people as he names them off. “You already know Jael.” She smiles and waves. I wave back, much more awkwardly. “And that’s Luc.” He gestures to a young man who has moved from his perch on a rock to sit on the ground beside Katya. “Watch that one with your lady-friend. He’s a bit of a rake.” Though I’m not familiar with the term, I can deduce by the feral gleam in Luc’s eye as he speaks to Katya that “rake” is the old-man term for man-whore. Luc isn’t particularly good looking. He’s short—probably a result of growing up down here—with oddly narrow shoulders and a yellowish hue to his skin that might have held a nice tan on the surface, but down here just makes him look sickly. But he’s also one of a handful of relatively young men in this place, so I’m guessing he’s accustomed to having his choice of females. Poor idiot doesn’t know he’s playing with his life talking to mine. He gives Katya a slimy smile and sneaks a little touch to her shoulder.
My skin goes hot, chest tight. My hands curl into fists of their own accord while images of little Luc screeching bloody murder while I break each of his fingers one-at-a-time flashes through my mind.
“Hello?” the old man, Rand, says, pulling me from my violent thoughts. I drag my gaze from Luc’s breakable fingers to Rand, who is now giving me an odd look, like he’s trying to decide if I’m a safety risk or not. Not to you, old man.
“What? Sorry.”
“What did they have you fight?” he asks.
“A manticore of some sort, maybe. I’m honestly not sure.” I’m about to elaborate, when I hear a female call Katya’s name. Katya spins around just as a pretty young woman flops down on the ground beside her and the two hug. Good gods, does she have to be friendly with everyone?
“Did you find your friend?” the girl asks.
Katya twists around and points to me. “Leina, this is Aemon; Aemon, this is Leina. She was at the arena with me.”
Leina examines me up and down, her eyes so wide they’re virtually popping out of her head. “Shouldn’t you be lying down somewhere, trying not to die?”
“I’m a fast healer.”
Her eyes narrow. She definitely doesn’t believe me, but keeps that to herself, thank the gods.
“You’re lucky to have survived,” Luc decides to pipe in, astounding us all with his staggering ability to state the obvious.
“Cutting off its head certainly helped.” I say the words flippantly, without any hint as to how much it pained me to kill that poor creature. I’ve killed before. Tortured men until they spilled their guts to me, both figuratively and literally. But those were spies and soldiers and politicians who’d probably ordered more deaths than they could count. Taking the life of an intelligent creature for some barbaric entertainment… that felt like murder.
I don’t know if this kid is trying to impress Katya or if he’s just really, really stupid, but his dumbass turns to me and says, “Yeah, well, they only sent one after you. Next time, I doubt you’ll be so lucky.”
Katya and Leina shout his name, “Luc,” in the way a mother might when chastising a child. The old man just lays his head in his hand.
And this is why I hate people. That creature was trying to kill me to survive, but this guy’s just an asshole. Never mind the fact that I’ve thought the same myself; what really pisses me off is that he said it in front of Katya.
But I’m cool, collected. I simply lean forward, my elbows on my knees, so I’m almost close enough to touch his ugly face. “That may very well be true, Luc,” I say, emphasis on Luc . “But you lay another finger on my lady”—I jerk my chin toward Katya—“and you won’t live to see the day.”
“Aemon,” Katya warns.
Now, you’d think living in a place like this, a man would learn a little about self-preservation. Not Luc. Nope. Luc actually looks me dead in the face and scoffs. “Yeah, right.”
He doesn’t see me move.
In a flash, I’m on top of the boy, my knees holding his arms down, hand around his throat. He kicks his legs and bucks his hips futilely, while his face puffs up like a shiny red tomato. Behind me, Katya shouts my name and shoves at my shoulder. She’d have an easier time moving this mountain. Nobody else is even brave enough to try. I lean in so we’re nose to nose. “It would take nothing for me to kill you. I could snap your neck between one breath and the next, and you’d drop dead before you even knew what happened. But touch what’s mine again…” I flex my fingers around his throat. “And I’ll make it slow.”
“Aemon,” Katya shouts again, and this time, I let him go.
The boy scrambles backward, clutching his throat and crying softly. Good. I hope he has nightmares.
“Aemon,” Katya says for the third time.
“What?” I whirl around to look at her. I could almost laugh at how pissed she looks—not frightened, pissed. She’s positively glaring at me, her cheeks adorably flushed, arms crossed over her chest. She doesn’t show even the smallest hint of fear, and fuck, I love that about her. I love that she knows I would never harm her.
“Can we talk, please?” It’s a request, but really, it isn’t. Her eyes flick to the left, and I realize she’s looking at the group of people surrounding us, their mouths hanging open in shock. I smile and wave, and they all suddenly find something else to look at.
“Lead on,” I say, gesturing for her to go ahead.
She turns on her heel and heads back the way we came. I follow. She’s got her hands balled into fists at her sides and her steps are a tad bit heavier than necessary. We’ve only gone a few meters when she ducks behind an outcropping of stone and whirls on me. “What was that?”
I cross my arms, raise my chin and calmly reply, “That was me putting a jackass in his place.”
“Not that.”
I draw back. Now I’m confused. “Then what are you talking about?”
“You, with this archaic, I ‘belong to you’ garbage. ”
“So let me get this straight. You don’t care that I almost killed that guy. You’re just pissed I told him you belong to me?”
She huffs and makes a face. “Well, when you say it like that…”
I step forward, and to my delight, she steps away until I’ve got her backed up against the rock wall. Then I rest my arms against the cool stone on either side of her head, caging her in. “Let me make this clear, witchling. You are mine.” A hint of anger flashes across her face. Ignoring it, I take another half-step forward so our bodies are almost, but not quite, touching. I can feel the space between us, like a living thing moving against my skin, urging me closer. Arousal swirls in my gut, making my cock ache. Tipping my head, I place a soft kiss to her cheek, and when I speak, it’s with my lips brushing her silky skin and my breath dusting her face. “I knew it from the first moment I saw you.” I move to her other side and brush my lips against that cheek. “You belonged to me then.” Then I back up again, stopping when my lips hover just above hers. “You belong to me now.” I grab her by the nape and her breath hitches. “You will always belong to me, and I will worship you until my dying breath.”
Then I crush my lips to hers.