Chapter Eighteen - Dante
Rhea’s hair gently swayed from side to side with the gait of her horse. For the second day, I was content just to watch her ride. I was glad for the view of her before me, even if there was no telling what would become of us once we reached the citadel.
I shouldn’t have brought her here. Even with how much she’s seen and how much more she knew of my world, there was no guarantee that when the time came for her to pick a side, she would choose mine.
But none of it mattered anymore, not after she knelt before that beast and saved it from the torment of its own making. When I’d seen her touching his side with such tenderness, my heart no longer let me have a choice. I loved her, and I would love her until the end of my days.
Rhea looked back over her shoulder, perhaps feeling the heat of my gaze or sensing the ache in my heart through the bond that tied us together. A soft smile crept onto her features, but it wasn’t the false one she’d worn for so long in the beginning.
I smiled back at her, and the ease of it only made the ache in my chest throb deeper.
She slowed Neera until she walked by my side, then she leaned towards me. “Tell Aeon we’re taking a detour,” she whispered. “I want to show you something.”
“I can hear you,” Aeon said from in front of us, exasperated. He reined his horse to a stop and looked in the direction of a thicket off the side of the road. “We need to stop and rest the horses anyway. We can’t follow the road from this point on, it's too likely we’ll be spotted.”
I nodded, and the three of us dismounted, Aeon leading the horses towards the thicket as Rhea took my hand and led me deeper into the trees. She was practically bouncing with excitement.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked as she pulled me across a rushing stream, soaking us both to our ankles.
“It’s a surprise!”
We were both laughing as the leaves and branches pressed against us when she skidded to a halt. My brow furrowed as I looked past her shoulder to see only a wall of green vines.
“Stunning,” I muttered sarcastically. She made a face and pushed the vines away with a flourish.
Behind her was an outcropping of bright red rock that carved through the forest around it like a scar. On the surface of the red rock, three pools had been carved away by time and filled with bright blue water. The lowest pool, closest to us, bubbled and foamed. Steam rose off it, and a light breeze swept it towards us, warming my cheeks.
“Hot springs,” I said, smiling at her. “How did you find them?”
“I’ve scoured every inch of this part of the continent, looking for a way through your veil.”
I stepped through the vines and up to the side of the pool, dipping my hand into the hot water. It made my cold fingers prickle as the blood in them heated. When I turned back to Rhea, she was stripping out of her leathers.
I smirked at her, watching as she stepped out of the tight pants, her eyes on me as mine roved over her body. I would never get sick of the sight of her, her tanned skin and the supple curves of her body.
Hot desire rose in me as she shimmed out of her tunic, leaving her in nothing but a pair of underpants. She stepped up to me with heavy eyelids and put her hands on my chest.
“Your turn,” she purred, untying the leather string on my shirt. I ran my fingers through her golden hair as she made quick work of freeing me from the rest of my outer clothes. She stepped away from me and let her eyes drift over my nearly naked body, her cheeks heating.
“We’re here to swim, right?” I asked with a knowing grin as she snaked her arms around me.
“Swim, right,” she answered, but her voice was heavy with the intention to do something else entirely. I laughed and pulled her backwards until we were both up to our waists in the sweet, heated water.
Rhea shrieked as she sat in the pool, the hot water soaking into her hair. I settled in beside her, wrapping an arm over her shoulders. I wondered for a moment if this maddening need to be touching her at all times would ever lessen. Part of me hoped it wouldn’t.
“Savior of all, reduced to whimpers from a bit of hot water,” I teased, letting my hand slip lower to cradle the curve of her ass.
When she turned to look at me, all the playfulness had left her eyes. “Savior of all, killer of love,” she said quietly, moving to rest her head on my shoulder.
The words of the prophecy brought me to seriousness as well. It seemed more real, now that we were here in the human kingdom. How would it come to pass, her use of me to destroy the world? Would I try to stop it, or was all hope of that passed now?
“Will you stay here?” The words hurt me to utter, but they needed to be asked. “Will you return to Havern?”
“I didn’t realize I was allowed choices…” she said with a sad smile. I could feel through our connection that she knew she was not a slave to me anymore, if she ever truly was. Something had changed between us.
“I had once hoped to have control over you. I thought it would be the best way to keep the prophecy from coming to be. But you will be safer here, away from the fae.”
“I might be safer, but isn’t it more likely the prophecy will come true and one of our worlds will burn?” She turned her face to look up at me, and I ran my thumb along the line of her jaw.
“If you are left unharmed, then let it burn.”
Her eyes softened as she leaned into me, a familiar feeling washing over the both of us. She had tried to hide it from me, but I could feel the way her power over me made her feel conflicted and confused. There were things she wasn’t ready to tell me yet, but those things didn’t matter. I had seen exactly who she was on the road with the werewolf and again when I’d entered that tavern and my own people were terrified of me. She had run into my arms and smiled, even as my face was splattered with blood.
Rhea saw me, truly saw me, and she did not fear. For that, she could use me in whatever way she wished. My body and soul were hers.
I pressed my lips against hers and continued to caress the curves of her face. When she reached down to touch the growing length of me beneath the water, I stopped her.
But not with my hands.
She blinked as I sent my shadows over her, pulling her to the edge of the pool. They twined around her arms, forcing them upwards over her head, where they locked together, holding her in place with just her lower half below the water.
Rhea may have hold of my body and soul, but I had hold of hers, as well. Her eyelids lowered as heat filled her, and my shadows snaked their way over the exposed skin of her body. Goosebumps rose on her skin as the coolness of my shadows mingled with the heated temperature of the pool.
“Don’t you want to touch me yourself?” she asked, trying to sound confident and alluring, but the desire coloring her voice betrayed how she truly felt. I loved to see her like this, so beyond the point of burning need that she would do anything to feel me inside of her.
My heat rose as I watched her nipples peaking at the caress of the shadows that drifted up and down her body.
“Oh, I will, Rhea. But for now…” I leaned back in the pool, casually stroking my cock as her eyes drifted downward to it. She bit her lower lip, and from her mind, I could tell she was remembering how I tasted, how I felt when I thrust myself to the back of her throat.
I had to take a long breath to keep up the charade and stop myself from having her right then and there.
She writhed in frustration, trying to get to me, but my shadows held her firm.
Then, I let my shadows trace the lower curve of her breasts. She sucked in a breath as her body arched. The shadows drew higher until they found the pointed peaks of both her nipples. With a single thought, they hardened around them. Rhea moaned as I watched. The view was exquisite. Her body moved in perfect rhythm with each pull and pinch my shadows made.
Her eyes met mine again, then lowered to my cock just showing above the water’s surface. “Let me taste you,” she begged, straining her arms against the shadows that held her.
“As you wish,” I said darkly, one moment before my shadows danced from her breasts and up her neck. Her eyes widened as they filled her mouth, pouring themselves into her throat. “I love watching your little mouth filling up just as much as I loved watching it the first time. Do you remember how my shadows tasted then?”
She nodded her head as her eyes rolled backwards. I could hardly take the sight of her anymore, but I allowed myself one more delicious sight before I would have her myself.
Her mouth still full and her breasts wrapped in the loving caress of shadow, I willed more of them to creep up her legs. Rhea whimpered past the shadows in her throat, her eyes opening to meet mine as my shadows slid across her sex beneath the warm water.
She held my gaze as I made them enter her and moaned as she was filled again. I pressed them further, deeper into her until she threw her head back, arching her hips up to take them deeper still.
“Gods, you’re perfect,” I breathed as I drew the shadows out of her, only to relentlessly drive them in again. “Tell me, do you like being filled like this?”
She nodded, but I wanted to hear her say it.
Do you like being filled like this, Rhea? I demanded in her mind, relishing the heaviness of her thoughts, the way her heart skipped at the sound of my voice.
Yes, Dante. But I want you.
I soaked in the sight of her in that moment, hanging there helpless and desperate for me, mirroring the way my body burned for her.
In my mind, I could feel she was close to breaking from the pleasure, and I was as well. I stepped towards her, and with no easing into it this time, thrust myself inside of her. She screamed against the shadows in her mouth, and I let them dissipate to hear her pleasure. I closed my lips around her as she whimpered my name. The taste of her tongue and the press of her hips as they rolled against me sent me tumbling over the edge. As I felt her body tense and shudder around my cock, I knew she’d gone with me.
This time, as I spilled myself into her, I felt something cracking open deep in my chest. Something flowed from my very soul to mingle with hers. The sensation of it sent me reeling, my head thrown back in ecstasy as her fingernails dug into my shoulders. The tether of the rope I kept tightly tied around the power that lived within me had come undone and surrendered itself to Rhea’s golden soul.
We sat in the hot water of the pool, blinking at each other for a long moment. But before we could speak, a guttural scream came from the direction of the road.
“Aeon,” I breathed before picking her up and placing her on the mossy bank around the hot springs. Without hesitation, she threw on her leathers as I dressed in mine as hastily as could be done. Another scream rent the air as we began the mad dash back towards the road where my brother was camped with our horses. My mind slipped into the cold calm that came before a battle, and I drew the sword I had strapped to my back as we neared where the shout had sounded from.
When I pushed through the thick pine branches, my breath caught in my throat.
Aeon sat astride his stallion, sword in hand, surrounded by at least a dozen human warriors.
Rhea was at my side an instant later, her silver sword drawn as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Oh no,” she whispered as she took in the sight before us. I pulled her down behind an outcropping of rock before the humans could see us. “What will we do?”
I held her hand for a moment, taking one last look into the green depths of her eyes. Then I reached for the power that dwelled in the center of my being. Rhea’s eyes widened, then the world went dark, consumed by shadow.
Aeon shouted triumphantly as screams of confusion and fear came from the humans who had him surrounded a moment before. I let a path clear through the shadows and pulled Rhea with me towards Aeon. He reined up his horse at the sight of us, throwing a fist into the air before digging his heels into the horse’s side and urging it onwards down the path of light I’d made in the darkness.
The darkness seeped over my mind as it always did when I released it so far. Shadows whispered to me, reminding me of the atrocities committed by humans, urging me to let the shadows burn and blister them.
Then Rhea’s golden light spread through me, and her hand tightened in mine. Tears stung the corners of my mind as I realized what it meant to give her access to these black places in my soul. I didn’t have to fight it alone, not anymore.
We ran after Aeon down the path of light, shadows rising up on either side of us. He had galloped further down the path where our horses were tied and was readying them for us to hastily mount them.
Suddenly, on our left side, a shape burst from the darkness that towered over us. Rhea yelped as a man slammed into her from the side, sending her tumbling into me. I whirled, pulling her out from his grip and tossing her to the side.
The man stumbled, then in a quick move, found his feet. His dark brown eyes set on me as he drew a silver sword, nearly identical to Rhea’s. In fact, his leathers were of the same make and pattern as hers, and they bore the same mark.
The mark of the citadel.
In a flash, his sword flew through the air towards my head. I blocked his strike but nearly missed the second as he turned and struck at my exposed side. He was fast, inhumanly fast. When our swords locked again, his face was inches from mine. I saw his dilated pupils, and rage filled me. He had drunk an elixir, a particularly powerful one judging by the speed and strength he displayed.
The fight stole all of my concentration as he hammered at me again and again with increasingly frenzied strikes. The darkness that had hidden the other human warriors began to fade, and my eyes snapped around the clearing to find us hopelessly surrounded.
I snarled and threw my own fury into an attack, sending the swordsman backwards a few steps. In the momentary pause, I sent my shadows after him. He shouted in dismay as they dislodged the sword from his hand and pulled at his arms, connecting them to the ground and driving him to his knees.
The other warriors halted, a gasp of disbelief and fear breaking through them.
Good. Let them understand exactly who they were attacking and let them see the price of it. I raised my sword to the man’s throat. To his credit, he showed no fear, only continued to stare at me with all the hate and derision his kind held for mine.
I drew back my sword to deliver the killing blow, but in that moment, Rhea took hold of my arm.
“No!” she shouted, her voice a desperate plea. “No, Dante, please!”
I looked down at her to find tears streaking down her cheeks. Strong waves of emotion washed over her as she looked from me to the man in the dirt. This was more than mercy. This man meant something to her. The thought sent a pang of jealousy through me, but I allowed my sword to drop to my side.
Rhea held onto my arm as the humans found their courage, drawing swords and arrows. Something shifted behind her eyes, and she fell to her knees in the dirt.
“Help me, please, brothers!” she cried, reaching out towards the men. They faltered a moment, dropping their gazes to her.
Fly , she demanded in my mind, her inner voice showing none of the terror and helplessness that she showed to the humans. I tried to respond, but she shouted, GO! and closed the wall between us.
Rhea threw herself away from me, holding onto the closest man and causing such a scene that the rest of the men were caught in her theatrics, none looking towards me. If I were to escape, if I were to preserve any chance of saving my sister, I had to go now.
My heart ached at the display, at the role she would have me play as the evil enslaver. But she had given me this opportunity. I could not waste it.
With a snarl and a pulse of black power that sent the humans staggering back a step, I let the wings I kept hidden from the world spread wide from my back. As they beat the air and lifted me towards the sky, my shadows fell behind me in dark waves. I climbed higher, risking only one look below to find Rhea watching me, tears staining her cheeks. My shadows wrapped themselves lovingly around her, until they disappeared.
I flew higher as the man I’d fought wrapped his arms around her and she let her face fall against her chest. The last sight I saw was his eyes locking on mine, full of hate and the threat of vengeance.