Chapter Twelve - Rhea
The days passed in the manor, and I spent them either lost in the books Dante had left me or lost in thoughts of him. Some days, Kiya and I would walk in the gardens, talking of her world and mine, finding we had more in common than we did separating us.
A few times, we’d run into males in the manor or in the garden, but each time, they’d quickly looked away from me and hurried about their business. After one such instance, Kiya had laughed.
“It seems the word of what happens to males who put their hands where they don’t belong has gotten around,” she said, slipping her arm into mine and leading me further into the gardens.
“A pity, really. I haven’t gotten to use my skills for making men suffer in much too long. I’d like an excuse to lay some of them on their backs.”
“You could practice on me, if it pleases you,” Kiya said, moving in a flash to pin my arm behind my back. I let out a startled yelp, then spun, using her body weight to throw her off balance. I caught her the moment before her head hit the cobblestones of the path.
“You aren’t much of an opponent,” I said with a wink, pulling her up to her feet. She scoffed and dusted her skirt off.
“Then I suppose you’ll just have to wait until my lord returns. I’m sure he’d be happy to allow you to put him on his back.”
I turned towards the patch of lavender flowers to keep her from seeing the blush that found my eyes. Dante hadn’t crossed the barrier between our minds since the night he’d used my hands against me, but I wasn’t able to fall asleep without finding myself lost in the memory.
Kiya swung her hip into me. The easy companionship we’d found had been magnificent in these past few days. I would have driven myself insane in that room with nothing but stories of a war I thought I understood and desires for someone I was destined to destroy unfulfilled.
“Tell me something about him, about Dante,” I said as she bent down to smell some of the flowers growing along the path. The sun was high above us now, reflecting like ocean waves off the flowing locks of her hair.
“What do you want to know?”
“They call him prince, but from what my people know, the fae king had only a daughter, his heir.”
Kiya stood, a delicate flower in her hands that she stroked tenderly as she gathered her thoughts. I gave her the time she needed, still unsure of how much I was entitled to know. Things had changed since coming here, but I wasn’t so naive to think my station here as Dante’s slave had changed at all.
“When Dante was a child, he was brought before the oracle.” I braced myself, remembering the story of when my parents brought me before the oracle. And the way everything changed afterwards. “He was marked and prophesied to carry a great and terrible power, one that would someday end worlds. His father feared and hated him and kept him locked away from the world for a long time, until he could control the power that plagued him. It is said that he would have destroyed the child had his mother not convinced him otherwise.”
She was quiet for a time, looking only at the flower in her hands, but her eyes were far away from it. “His sister was named heir. Dante was allowed to walk free only after a terribly rigorous trial under which he displayed ultimate control over the dark power inside of him. Even now, when he is our prince and fights for his people, they all fear him and the fate he will someday succumb to. Even his mother.”
The story weighed heavily in my heart, a story I could so acutely relate to. I’d never been a princess or anything close to it, but my simple sweet life in my family’s seaside home had been ruined by the oracle. I was feared, and I was used in the citadel. And even Sam, my closest friend, had done nothing to help me when I was commanded to the outer cities that lined the veil.
“Come on,” Kiya said, taking my hand and placing the violet flower in it. “Let’s go to a tavern tonight. We’ll have some food and drink and think of nothing but merriment.”
I smiled and nodded. “It takes much less than that to tempt me into a night of debauchery. Are you sure it’s alright if I leave the manor?”
Kiya snorted a laugh. “When has the rule of my lord ever stopped you from doing what you pleased before?”
“Never,” I replied with a grin that Kiya quickly returned.
It wasn’t long before the two of us were strolling into a rowdy tavern by the lakeshore. A cool wind blew in through the open windows from the lake and the mountains beyond, but it felt good as it pricked against my warm cheeks.
Kiya brought us two more pints of ale and sat beside me at our table looking out over the room. There was a battle happening tonight just on the other side of the veil, and from what I could gather from eavesdropping on the tables near me, it was a bloody one.
I drank deeply from the pint and picked at my nails until Kiya slapped her hand over mine.
“It will do no good fretting over men in battle. The gods decide their fate whether we females worry or not.”
“I can feel him,” I admitted, wincing as another sharp bolt of pain racked through my side. “I can feel every moment he fights, every wound he earns…”
Kiya searched my face, her own drawn and worried. “You are bonded,” she said softly. I nodded, drinking again until my pint was drained. She leaned back in her chair, adopting an easy smile. “Then that means he is alive, and we have naught to care about but the sound of the fiddle.”
As if cued, the fiddle player broke into an upbeat, rambling solo. I smiled at the blue-haired female across from me, grateful for the blessing of her company as another bright red flash shot through my mind.
Kiya stood in a sweep of skirts and held her hand out to me. “Shall we grace this godforsaken place with our dance?”
“Such is our duty,” I answered with a mock bow before taking her hand. I yelped and barked out a laugh as she pulled me briskly between the bodies on the floor until we stood directly before the fiddler and his companions on the stage.
We danced, and the fiddler was invigorated by our attention. He played faster, stomping his feet along, and we spun and twirled and laughed in time with the music. Kiya took my hand and threw me out away from her before pulling me back in. My red skirts billowed around me as I moved faster and faster, laughing until I couldn’t catch my breath.
I hardly heard it when the door to the tavern swung open. But the fiddler did. He stopped playing, letting his bow fall to his side. The rest of the room went silent, an eerie sound in a busy tavern.
Panting and confused, I looked towards the entrance.
Three soldiers clad in black leather walked through the doors, their armor covered in spattered blotches of red. My stomach turned at the sight of it. Human blood.
I realized I knew these males as the biggest one ducked under the archway to enter the room. Dante had called him Horst, and the other, Aeon, was by his side. The two looked drawn and haggard as Aeon called for ale.
Dante was the third. He walked into the room like the angel of death with his head lowered, shadows moving slowly around his feet and over the side of his face. My heart leapt at the sight of him. He was alive, he was here, and he was alright.
The rest of the room parted where the three stepped, their faces drawn in fear as they flinched from the touch of the shadows that now covered the floor. It made my blood boil to see their disdain for the very males who had spent the past days defending them and their home, making it possible for them to listen to a fiddler and drink beer in a tavern.
None met his gaze as he walked into the middle of the room and raised his eyes. When they met mine, my feet moved of their own accord. I was across the room, and my arms were wrapped around him before I even knew what I was doing.
I didn’t care that he was a weapon. I didn’t care that he was covered in blood. I didn’t care what dark power lived within him.
He was alive, and he was home.
I pressed my face against the hard leather that covered his chest and felt hot tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. His body had gone rigid under my arms, but after a long moment, he relaxed and let his arms snake around me. His cheek pressed against the top of my head as I pulled him closer.
I knew I was this man’s slave and that we were in a tavern full of fae folk watching our every move. But at that moment, none of that mattered. I wished that time could hold us here, safe in each other’s embrace, for eternity. Then, there would be no prophecy to fulfill and no worlds to save. There would only be the feeling of his chest rising and falling against my cheek.
In my mind, something that was hard and dark softened ever so slightly. I wrapped myself around it, feeling nothing but quiet content. And when his arms let go of me, I looked up into the dark shadows of his face.
Dante was smiling at me, and the sight was so new that I felt it warming every inch of me, down to my very core.