Chapter 14 #2
A gust of wind tore the roof of our hut and hurled it my way.
I dropped to the ground, cowering under my bent arm.
The roof flew over me, then slammed into someone else’s hut.
The debris then rolled along the beach, tossed and kicked by the storm until it crashed into the Wall with a sound I couldn’t hear over the wind, the raging ocean, and the roars of agony.
“Timur!” I fought the wind on my way to him.
He rolled on the ground, crushing his wings under him. His tail lashed, raising clouds of sand in its wake. He arched his back with a tortured scream, his fingers and claws digging deep grooves in the ground. The next moment, he folded into himself, breathless from pain.
His torture was never-ending. Moving hurt him, but he couldn’t stop moving. Pain wouldn’t let him rest.
“Timur, please…” Crouching down, I tried to get to him.
His tail lashed over my head. Its sharp end embedded into the beach less than a step away. He’d kill me. And he wouldn’t even know what he did. But if I didn’t stop him from rolling and thrashing, I feared he’d break his wings and possibly many other bones in his body.
“Timur! Look at me!” I screamed through the wind and the waves.
But he didn’t hear me. Or maybe he couldn’t process what he heard, blinded by the unimaginable pain.
His injured wing stretched over me like a torn sail, then collapsed, folding like a broken shelter. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled under it.
Timur rolled onto his back, and I climbed on top of him, straddling his thighs and pressing his legs into the sand with my weight.
“Keep still. Please, please… Just try,” I pleaded with him, ducking from his wings and tail that kept lashing and swinging above my head.
He didn’t look at me, didn’t give me a single sign that he heard me. But he could’ve swept me away like a fly, and he didn’t.
I leaned over, crawling closer to his head. My body splayed atop his, with my chest pressed to his and my legs on his thighs, I took his head in my hands.
“Look at me, Timur. Don’t move. Try to relax, and the pain will go away. It always does, doesn’t it?”
He stared up into the stormy sky, breathing in shallow, labored gasps. He gritted his teeth so hard, I feared he’d break his fangs. His muscles were so tense, it felt like I lay on a slab of granite. But he kept still.
Did he hear me? Did he know I was here? Did he realize he’d break every bone in my body if he thrashed again?
“Just breathe,” I whispered, stroking his cheeks. “Just like that.”
I drew in long, measured breaths, as if I could breathe for him. I wished I could take his pain away. I wished he could feel how much I wanted it.
My heart squeezed with compassion, and I wanted him to feel it too.
“Feel me, Timur. Please?” I glided my hands over his upper arms where the shadow fae had their tendrils.
His right bicep was entirely covered by hard, unyielding scales. Chances were he had no more tendrils at all. I touched his left arm. Soft skin and hard muscles were still here—live flesh, the same as every other fae had.
Pain had overwhelmed his senses, and I had nothing to give him to ease the agony, only the distraction of my own emotions.
“Feel me…” I lay down on him, pressing my right arm to his left.
Bending my arm, I kept caressing his skin, right where the tendrils should be…if he still had any.
Something whispered between my fingers, softly touching them. I jerked my head up. Tiny filaments of shadows curled above his skin on his left arm. They were short, no longer than my fingers, but my hope bloomed.
“Oh yes, there you are,” I whispered, moving my fingers among them gently, to coax them out. “Come, just a little bit longer.”
Just one slim cluster of wispy shadows emerged from his upper arm. It barely grew, flickering in and out of life as if it hadn’t been used for so long that it had forgotten how to exist.
“Come out, please…” I begged.
Lying flat against Timur again, I stretched my right arm along his left one, aligning my upper leilatha opening with this one tiny tendril. I could no longer see or touch it in this position. I didn’t know if it continued to grow or if it disappeared again.
“Feel me, Timur,” I whispered into his shoulder. “I’ve never asked you for much, but I’m begging you for this one thing. Please.”
Then, I felt the connection. It wasn’t a physical sensation, it rarely was. I just knew that my feelings were no longer my own. My fear, my despair, my helplessness spilled beyond my own being, uncontainable. But so did my compassion, my care, and my affection too.
I inhaled deeply, then released the breath in a sigh, relaxing my muscles and letting my body melt into his.
“Can you feel it?” I pressed my lips to the warm skin of his left shoulder.
Breathing in his scent, I focused on every shred of positive emotions I had in me. I’d done it so many times by now. I was used to feeling for the sake of others. It came easily to me now.
My fear and worry were strong and more personal than ever before, but I shifted them back into the furthest parts of my mind and my heart.
If there was anything I’d learned in the Alveari Kingdom, it was that even in the darkest moments, there was something positive to focus on if one searched hard enough.
Pressed to Timur’s large body, I didn’t even have to search too hard. It was all there, right here with me.
I loved his scent. It was the scent of sun-warmed sand, with a dash of ocean spray, freshness of a storm, and just a hint of flowery sweetness I couldn’t name but would recognize instantly out of a thousand other scents.
I enjoyed the sensation of his silky skin under my palm as I stroked his chest with my right hand.
I thought about the many times I had relaxed against his chest on our way to and from the fancy tents of our clients.
Little did all those people know that after they had paid for my pleasure, my most favorite part was going home with Timur.
The exquisite pleasure of sitting on his lap with his arms cradling me and his heart beating soothingly against my ear could never be sold or bought.
It was just for us, Timur and me. Except that he always refused to share it with me.
He had never connected to me before. Until now.
“Feel me, Timur,” I murmured again and again.
“Can you feel how much I like this? Being this close to you? When I’m with you, I feel safe, even when you’re hurt and broken.
Let me help you, and together we can get through anything, even in this most dangerous place in Alveari.
I’ve never felt that way with any man before.
I’ve never trusted anyone as completely as I trust you. ”
His chest shuddered with a labored breath.
“Tell me…” he exhaled. “Tell me…about you.”
“Me?”
What was there to tell? I was an ordinary person with a very ordinary life, at least until I was stolen from it. But I didn’t brush off his request. I came from another world, a world that Timur had never seen. To him, nothing about my life was ordinary.
“I’m a kindergarten teacher,” I said. “I teach small kids, ages four to seven. Children of that age are so hungry for knowledge. Sometimes it feels like my head is going to explode with all their questions…”
I am a kindergarten teacher.
I teach…
I had no idea why I talked about that life in the present tense. As if it had just been temporarily interrupted and I would eventually return to it again.
But there was no coming back. Not anymore. Sadness brushed against my heart, but it didn’t feel as devastating as it probably should.
“I have a family. A mom, a dad, and a younger brother,” I continued, “but I left home a long time ago. I’ve been living on my own for many years. I have an apartment… I had an apartment,” I finally corrected myself.
There was no truth in the present tense anymore. I might as well get used to it.
“What’s it like…to have a family?” Timur pushed each word through his throat with effort. It obviously hurt him to speak, but he kept asking questions. Maybe because it worked like I had hoped and having this conversation distracted him from his pain.
The question puzzled me, however.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Did you never have one?”
“No.”
How was it even possible?
Timur and I had never had conversations like this before.
Maybe this wasn’t the best time for one either.
The wind blasted us with sand and ocean spray.
The storm crackled with ferocity, but there was no rain.
Dark, heavy clouds churned above us, blocking sunlight, but they didn’t spill even a drop of moisture, bringing no relief from the heat.
In a slow, measured movement, Timur lifted his wings, arching them above us as a shield from the storm and any unwanted attention.
I wanted to ask him about the wings and about the family he said he’d never had. I had so many questions. But he struggled to breathe, and I didn’t want to make him speak more than he could manage right now. So I spoke instead.
“It’s…nice. To have a family, I mean. I had a good childhood, with holiday celebrations, family vacations, and birthday parties.
I miss my parents. And my brother.” I sighed as my heart tightened.
“I wish there was a way for me to let them know what happened to me. I know they’re worried and they deserve closure.
But my parents and I haven’t been close for years.
I made a point to call them once a month, but there was so little for us to talk about.
My mom would tell me about my brother, and I would tell her that I’m still single, and that would be it. ”
“Why?” he panted.
I smiled against his skin. There might be a bit of old bitterness still lingering in me about it, but it long stopped disturbing my peace.