Chapter Eleven - Rhea
The wooden door of my quarters slammed a bit harder than I’d anticipated behind me. I wasn’t even sure what it was that had me so frustrated at the moment. It could have been the fact that I’d let Dante again bring me to the point of giving him every private part of me if he only asked for it. Or it could have been how close I’d come to getting them to trust me. I could see it in his eyes: He wanted to take me with him. Damn him for listening to his better judgment.
I ran my hands over my face to try and still the frustrated thoughts. When I opened my eyes, I noticed a small bundle tied with a string on my bed.
Stepping over to it, I found a stack of books that looked older than my great grandmother. I ran a finger over the rough leather binding, relishing the feeling of history against my skin. A bit of parchment stuck out from the front cover of one of the books. I pulled it to find a scrawling note written in handwriting I’d once admired in a tavern.
If you’d like to be more convincing, you could try actually learning something about the history of this war.
I frowned at the paper and balled it up. He was mocking me and my limited human knowledge. If he were in my world, he’d be just as ignorant.
I picked up the first text on the stack and read the title. The Coming of Humans , it read.
As frustrating as it was to know I was thought of as uneducated on a topic I’d spent my entire life studying, there wasn’t much more to do in this manor than read and bother the cooks for sweet cakes. I took the book to the bench by the window overlooking the city, curled my legs to my chest, and opened it.
It was hours later when a knock at the door startled me from my reading. The text had been much more engaging than I’d anticipated, and while it clearly had a bias towards the fae, I gained some tidbits of information that may end up helping me in my journey.
The particular section I was now reading had left me sweating, my hands grasping the book so tightly the parchment was marked with little half-moons from my fingernails.
“Miss Rhea, may I come in?”
It was Kiya peeking her blue-haired head around the door. I cleared my throat and nodded, putting the text onto my lap.
“Some light reading?” she asked, eyeing the stack of books on the bed as she came to sit beside me on the bench.
I nodded again, still trying to clear the dryness from my throat in order to speak. She frowned at me and plucked the book from my lap, her amber eyes skimming the words until they widened, focusing back on me.
“I imagine this information might be hard to digest, judging by your pallor.”
Hard to digest? I had just read that my kingdom, the very citadel where I was raised, was built over a terrible dungeon, a dungeon where fae folk were held prisoner for the entirety of their unnaturally long lifespans, tortured by generations of human captors until their very names and identities were forgotten to time.
The fae folk don’t travel past the veil not because they’re pompous and seek to horde their riches away from the humans. They stay on their side of the wall out of fear.
Kiya’s hand finds mine, as warm and comforting as the look in her eyes. I swallow again, and this time, I’m able to find my voice.
“Is it true?”
“I’m afraid it is. For hundreds of years, this war has raged, and there are many fae folk who still suffer below your citadel.” She looked away from me, out over the shimmering city by the glacial blue lake. Her home. “Many of whom were my friends.”
I placed my other hand over hers. “I’m sorry.” The words feel flat, but she gives me a small smile.
“Such is war. I would have been one of them myself if not for Dante.”
I tilted my head. “But you’re his servant, why would he…”
“Save someone like me?” She raised her hand to stop my explanation. “No, I understand. Not many would risk their lives for a lowborn girl. But Dante did. When my mother and I were attacked on the road back in the days before the veil, it was Dante who slew my captors and brought me safely home. I will never be able to repay him, but I will spend my whole life trying to.”
I looked out the window at the people below. Their hair and eyes were different from the people I’d spent my life protecting, but were they really so different? A mother held her daughter close to a patch of wildflowers, letting her run her fingers through the soft, brightly colored petals that bowed and swayed in the breeze.
“I’ll leave you to your studies,” Kiya said after some long moments had passed between us. “I only came to tell you that supper will be brought to your quarters, but should you like to take your meals with me, you are welcome to find me in the dining hall.”
“Kiya,” I called as she stood. She turned back, her dark auburn gown swishing around her. “Why are you so kind to me? If what you say about humans is true…”
She smiled, but there was a sadness behind her eyes that went deep. “Because you are important to Dante, in whatever way that may be. And because you aren’t afraid.”
Then she left in a sweep of fiery skirts out the door, letting it close behind her.
My heart heavy and my mind a haze, I leaned my head back against the wooden windowsill. More time had passed than I’d thought while I’d been reading. The sun was beginning to set over the peaks of the mountains. In the city, those strange lights that had no source were coming to life.
I couldn’t let myself be shaken. This was war. Had I thought there would be no suffering on this side of the veil? It didn’t erase the evil the fae had caused. There were, of course, the human women who were so often stripped from their beds and made to be slaves. And the atrocities of magic committed against human outposts during the earlier days of the war had been so bloody, some regions had still not recovered even centuries later.
The way to end the terrible acts committed on both sides was to end the war. And I was the only one who could do it.
If Dante is the weapon whose power can destroy worlds, then I am the only one who can wield him for good. The only constraint is how to get him to trust me, how to get him under my control instead of the other way around.
The answer was obvious, though it made my stomach turn like something had come to life inside of me. I had to make him love me. There was no other way to have him fully devoted to me.
I ran my fingers through my hair, letting the braids fall away. As I did, I felt a darkening sensation in the back of my mind. I’d been having feelings like this since the night Dante allowed me to touch his face. I couldn’t deny the simple fact that the darkness in my mind felt unmistakably like him.
I slipped into a nightgown of white silk and settled myself beneath the soft covers of the bed. I’d been too afraid to explore that corner of my mind since that night, but if I were to accept this path, I needed to explore every possible connection.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the storm, letting the darkness in my mind spread over me until my thoughts were no longer my own.
Suddenly, I found myself lying in a bedroll. A brilliant blanket of stars shone in the sky above me as the heat of the dying fire lit my face. My brothers slept beside me, and I was staying awake, taking the first watch.
But my thoughts were far from the forest and the road to the human kingdom. Like so many nights before, I was wrapped in thoughts of Rhea. I saw her as she had looked in my study, her face flush and her eyes heavy with desire. If only I had taken her then and there. I could have swept her in my arms, pressed her up against the bookshelves. Finally, our lips would come together, and I would taste her, her mouth, then her neck, then lower until my mouth found a waiting nipple…
I shot up in bed, panting and flushed. I had been in Dante’s mind. And he’d been thinking about me. He was with his brothers in the middle of camp, and yet he’d let his mind wander to such lewd places.
I laid back down heavily in the pillows, still seeing the way he’d pictured my face, the sounds he so wanted to make me utter. I threw one of the pillows over my face to try and hide from the desire coursing between us.
But then another thought came to me, one that was entirely my own.
I could use the way he wanted me. I could fan the flames of his desires into something more than pure lust. If I could see into his thoughts, perhaps I could invite him into mine.
My face still heated and the pressure between my legs nearing unbearable, I closed my eyes once again. This time, instead of letting his thoughts wash over me, I imagined my own thoughts as a golden light. I let the light seep into the darkness.
At first, I felt the shadows of his mind recoil, building themselves into an impenetrable wall. I frowned but pressed on, curling my golden mist around the wall until I felt it falter. Then I pushed myself inside.
I felt the questioning, curious press of his thoughts against mine, but I pushed past them. I let him feel the burning in my core, and in response, I felt the way it immediately melted him.
I smiled slightly as he opened his mind to me, letting my golden desire seep into every corner of him. His own mind was still heavy with lust, and I gasped as mine joined with his.
So, you’ve found the door between us, have you?
I blinked at the sound of his voice in my head. I wasn’t sure I knew how to respond. Instead, I sent him an image that had been haunting me, the image of his hands as they gripped the side of the bridge, each vein showing against his tanned skin.
His voice went quiet as I imagined what those hands would feel like pressed against my face. I thought of them tightly closing around my throat, pulling my face up to look into his violet eyes for only a second. Then he would press his lips against mine until I opened for him. Our tongues would dance around each other as our bodies pressed tightly, closing any space that might separate us.
My own heat was rising now, mingling with his as I caught a quick glimpse of him stirring beneath his bedroll, desperate to touch himself and relieve the building pressure between us. And yet he could not.
My victorious smile faded in an instant as a sudden wave of darkness swept not only through my mind but through my body. Suddenly, my body was not my own. Dante was in control.
He was laughing softly in my mind as he drew my own hands in soft circles around my neck. Is this where you imagined I’d kiss you next? He brought my other hand to my abdomen, then higher to softly stroke the underside of my breast. Or is it here?
I whimpered desperately, trying to force my body to obey, to send my hands to the place between my thighs that was begging to be touched, to be released from the building pressure.
Not yet, Shrike.
He made my hand trace over the curve of my breast until it found my peaked nipple. He began to draw soft, lazy circles around it, bringing my other hand to match it. The sensation was maddening, and soon, I was arching my back against the bed, wishing his body was here to press into.
Again, that quiet laughter came through the bond, and he tightened my grip on both nipples until I cried out. Then he let one of my hands drift lower, still tormenting one of my nipples with the other, shifting between gentle strokes and sharp, pinching pain.
My hand finally slipped into my silk panties, and for a moment, I felt him falter down the bond. You’re so wet from thinking about me…
My cheeks blazed. The dark desire in his voice had been exactly what I’d wanted, but I had never expected this.
Dante regained his composure as quickly as he’d lost it, and my hands began to move once again. They stroked maddeningly across my slick entrance, and this time, I sent my moan directly to his mind. I smiled as it made him roll his eyes back, but my smile fell as he slipped a finger inside of me.
Slowly, devastatingly slowly, he began to thrust my finger in and out of me. My right hand pulled relentlessly at my nipple until a fire was burning in my core that I knew would explode before long.
Just as I thought I couldn’t bear anymore, Dante set my finger over my clit and moved it in deliciously slow circles. Each pass brought my hips up off the bed, meeting my hand and pushing my finger deeper inside of myself.
Good girl , Dante purred as I panted, reaching a point of no return. In this moment, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to feel the release his motions promised me. Cum for me, Rhea.
At the sound of the words, I did. Waves of pleasure rocked over me, deeper and more complete than I’d ever felt before. It was weeks of pent-up energy finally released. As I lay back in the bed, my hands were again my own.
Panting, flushed, and fulfilled, I heard his final words in my mind before he closed the bond between us.
Remember who belongs to whom.