71. Chapter 71
CHAPTER 71
Dynalya
R aiden led Dyna away from the dance floor to the king’s table and pulled out a chair for her. She sat then he took the seat beside her, scotting closer to hers.
“You look beautiful tonight. That dress becomes you
Dyna flushed under his stare. “It’s a lovely dress, thank you…”
Raiden straightened in his seat as he looked at something past her. She didn’t need to turn to know who it was. The bond was already thrumming. “Did you need something?” he asked flatly.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Cassiel replied in an even tone. Dyna forced herself not to look up at him. She hadn’t spoken to him since last night and her lips still tingled with the memory of it. He sat in the other empty chair beside her and asked in a softer tone, “May I speak with you?”
She frowned. “Only if you don’t send anymore gifts to my room.”
Cassiel nodded, his mouth hitching on one end as his eyes raked over her. “At least you liked one of them.”
Dyna blinked. He had sent her the dress.
“As you can see, I am already having a conversation with Lady Dyna.” Raiden leaned his arm across the back of her chair.
His jaw clenched. “No, you’re having a conversation with my queen, and it may the last one you will ever have.” He took the arm of her chair and slid her to him.
The sudden movement caused Dyna to knock her fork to the floor. She glowered at Cassiel and bent to retrieve it.
“Mind yourself, Soaraway. We are in the presence of the King.”
As she straightened up, Dyna noticed Cassiel’s hand covering the corner of the table.
“It seems I need to remind you, Raiden. You are already in the presence of one.” Taking her hand, Cassiel pulled her to stand. “Pardon us, King Leif,” he announced to the rest of the table, drawing all attention. “We thank you for inviting us to your joyous occasion and may the God of Urn bless the next Heir of Greenwood. Forgive us for not staying longer, but my wife and I must retire early.” He met Raiden’s stare and added, “The journey to Avandia was quite trying.”
“Of course, King Cassiel.” Leif lifted his goblet. “Have a goodnight.”
Drawing Leif’s attention forced Raiden not to interfere as she was led away from the table. Cassiel made his way for the doors. Dyna held her skirts, nearly running to keep with his quick pace. Her face heated beneath everyone’s stares.
“Cassiel, what are you doing?” she hissed as they entered the hallway. “Where are we going?”
He pulled her into an empty library. The last of the evening light streamed in through the large glass doors that lead to a garden. A light drizzle fell outside.
Cassiel stopped a few feet away from her. She could practically see the waves of heat hovering on his silhouette. His fire pressed beneath the surface, warming the room.
“I despise feeling this way…” he said quietly.
“Are you angry that I avoided you or that I chose to dance with him in favor of you?”
Cassiel shook his head.
The veil of their shields thinned, and Dyna saw herself from his point of view. She looked happy dancing with Raiden, held close in his arms. Her big green eyes glitter under the chandeliers as she smiled at him.
Cassiel couldn’t stand it, and she couldn’t either because secretly, a part of her had been doing it on purpose.
“Let us not pretend what this is,” he said.
“The only one pretending is you,” Dyna shot back. “You’re jealous of him.”
Cassiel prowled forward, and she stumbled backward until her spine became flush against the wall. Bracing his arm above her head, he leaned down, his silver eyes holding hers. “What I am is territorial.” His low, gravelly voice sent a scatter of currents over her skin. “Jealousy is due to wanting something that isn’t yours. And you, Dynalya, are mine .”
Her breath caught, her pulse climbing at the possession in his gaze. His want and desire, his anger that another dared hold her. It awoke an instinct in her that could only be described as thrill.
“Cassiel—”
“No, I’m finished standing by. My tolerance with him has reached its limit. Whatever he touches you with will be removed off his person. His hands. His mouth. His c–”
“You have lost all right to dispute who touches me.” Dyna shoved him off her and moved away from the wall. “If I want to peruse Raiden, then I will. That is my choice.”
It wasn’t as if she had any interest in a relationship with him or another man, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
Cassiel stared at her a moment. Then he chuckled, and the low dark sound sent scatters down her spine. “Very well. Then it will be my choice in how I send him through the Gates. Do make sure he has a pleasant time before I do.”
He turned to go.
After seeing him nearly fight Raiden last night, she wasn’t sure if he was jesting anymore.
“Your arrogance is staggering,” she said. “On what grounds do you have to harm him? Raiden has been nothing but kind to us. He’s a good person.”
Cassiel stopped by the door, his back to her. His quiet voice floated in the room. “My heart will always be filled with none other than you…”
The reciting of the vow she had made to him was a blow to her stomach. It reminded Dyna of how her lips had burned when she kissed someone who wasn’t him and how much her body hated it.
“’I will live each day worthy of you,” she replied in return. “Maybe you should have kept your promises if you expected me to keep mine. Our vows were broken the moment you broke me.”
Cassiel took a breath, and she knew her blow had landed.
“It hurts doesn’t it? Being lied to. Being betrayed by the one who swore to love you always.” Dyna’s chest heaved with her anger and tears stung the back of her eyes. “You are being selfish, Cassiel. You told me to move on and I am trying but you won’t let me. That’s not fair.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I did ruin us. I thought I could let go, but I can’t stand seeing you with him or anyone else. When it comes to you I am selfish and its maddening. The tether that binds us as mates is what drives me to protect what is mine at whatever cost.”
Rain beat against the glass, darkening the room as Cassiel turned to her. “I have told you once before and perhaps you forgot or didn’t believe me, but I will tell you again. I am not a good person. But you’re right, Raiden is. And what do you think he would do if it came between choosing your life or his father’s? Or better yet his mother or his people? What if he had to choose between the greater good and you?” His black wings softly brushed the floor as he drew closer to her. Dyna swallowed, her voice trapped beneath the intensity of his stare. “He would do the right thing and save them, but not I.” A faint blue glow spiraled in Cassiel’s eyes, and he took a lock of her hair, entwinning it around his fingers. “I would gladly render the world to ash and become whatever monster I needed to be. A good man would sacrifice you for the world. I would burn it for you.”
She knew he would.
And one of the sacrifices had been their souls.
The thought reached him, and his hand dropped. He closed his eyes, his long dark lashes brushing his cheeks. “Is it senseless to cling to the hope that can I mend what I destroyed?”
Emotion rushed up at her throat at the brokenness in his voice. The hollowness in her chest ached and she knew it coming from him. Somehow, whatever shred of their bond that remained allowed her to feel him.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Cassiel…”
“Don’t tell me it’s over, Dyna.”
She clenched her jaw, fighting back her tears. “It is.”
“Then prove it.” His eyes softened in a way that seemed to see right through her. “Drop your shield and show me there is truly no place for me in your heart anymore.”
Her pulse hammered in her throat, and she curled her fingers tightly in her palms, because all she wanted was to touch him. To brush the hair out of his forehead and fall into his arms, but she couldn’t.
“I don’t need to prove anything to you. Gods, and I don’t want to speak about this anymore. I already said everything that needed to be said.”
Dyna stormed for the glass doors and went outside into the gardens. Her feet crunched over the graveled path as she wandered in no particular direction until she found a stone bench. Dyna sat there simply let herself breathe. The cool evening breeze cooled her skin. Birds chirped with the coming twilight as she breathed in the scent of dynalyas. The garden was full of them, gleaming like rubies.
Cassiel walked around the bench and kneeled in front of her. That was always him. He never stood above her, as was his habit. Always eye to eye.
“You asked me if it hurt,” he murmured. “It hurts more knowing how much I hurt you…”
On his face she saw countless days of torture. Of shame. Punishment. She saw the racking guilt and bone-deep agony and stark regret. That was what pained her the most. That she could see it, despite everything that’s happened, that he was still choosing too suffer right here—for her.
“And even more when I make you cry.” He reached up and she didn’t flinch away as he wiped the tears from her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Dyna. I will say it to you every day for the rest of my life.”
As the sun lowered, a light shone from his pocket.
“What is…?”
Cassiel drew out her crystal necklace.
Dyna stared at it in shock. The last time she’d seen it had been when she threw it into the lake at Skelling Rise. “Where…where did you get that?”
His silver eyes dimmed a little, though he hid it with a soft smile. “Sowmya retrieved it … for safe keeping.” He looked down at glowing crystal cradled in his palm. “I broke so many promises to you. I beg you to allow me to keep this one.”
The gentle plea made her eyes sting. He made it too difficult to hold onto her anger when he treated her this way.
Shifting around, Dyna lifted her hair and exposed her nape to the cool air. Cassiel sat on the bench beside her. The chain gently grazed her neck as his hands fastened it at her nape. Her skin tingled at the touch of his warm skin. It reminded her of Hermon as an indulgent warmth faintly flooded through her body at his proximity. He was so close, she felt his every moment. When Cassiel finished they remained still, simply breathing in the sweet air and each other.
“Thank you…” he quietly said.
“For what?”
He expelled a low sigh, and his breath drifted down her shoulders, making her shiver. There was no need to say it. He thanked her for allowing this small reprieve from her resentment. For allowing him to get this close. He didn’t say it, because she felt it.
Dyna looked up at him and found him close. The wind picked up, carrying the hint of rain and his scent that made her heart race. Looking at his lips, a deep ache of longing sank through her.
He was inexplicably beautiful, an entity not of this world. Oddly enough, the feeling was still there, a mix of familiarity and love and awe that dove deep as she looked at him.
They were enclosed in bushels of dynalyas, and for a moment, she lost herself in the depths of silver. His gaze silently begged her to close the remaining distance between them. To take the kiss he so desperately wanted to give her.
She wanted it.
She wanted so much to go back to who they were.
But her heart was still bruised from the last time she trusted him with it. She couldn’t let him hurt her again.
Dyna looked away. “I need to go.”
She moved from the bench and stepped onto the garden path.
Cassiel caught her wrist. “Don’t go to him,” he pleaded.
He stepped closer, his dark hair tangled across his eyes and dripping with rain. Long pretty lashes framed his eyes, the flecks in them gleaming in the last rays of the sun.
“Please don’t run from me anymore.”
Her vision blurred. “I need to … because it’s easier than admitting … that I…”
Cassiel shifted closer and wrapped her in the warmth of his wings. He cupped her cheek, stroking her lips with his thumb. “Ani mitga’ah’ge’ah elayich.”
Dyna shook her head. He knew speaking to her so lovingly in his language always made her cry. “I miss you, too, Cassiel. All the time. But my heart is too broken.”
He took her hand and placed it over the beating one in his chest. “Then take mine. Do with it as you wish. Tear it apart or shatter it to dust if that will right my wrongs. Without you, I have no use for it anyway.”
His soft voice was so raw, so painfully open, she couldn’t move away.
“Don’t tell me those words when I am so angry with you,” Dyna pleaded.
She wanted to reach out and give him everything again. But she was terrified. He could hurt her again and she may not recover from it this time. But then his eyes grew wet, and she realized that he was as afraid as she was.
Afraid that he may hurt her.
That he had already lost her.
Afraid that he could not call her home.
“Why do I hear your soul pleading for me?” she asked.
Cassiel offered no reply. He didn’t need to. The answer was right there in his watery gaze. Her heart squeezed into itself, because he looked at her with so much love it completely dismantled her.
“Stop it,” her voice broke. “Please stop.”
Stop loving me.
Cassiel sighed as he kissed away the tears from her lashes. “Impossible.” His lips drifted over her cheek, planting small kisses to her the corner of her mouth. “You are asking me to stop breathing.”
“Oh, I hate you,” she said in defeat, pulling him toward her. “And I hate that I don’t quite hate you enough.”
Cassiel’s arms immediately wrapped around her, capturing her mouth. He tasted of sheer divinity and salted tears. Her entire body was thrumming, and the bond glittered in her chest.
The rain picked up, pattering on the leaves in time with the beat of her heart. They broke apart with an exhilarated laugh. Standing, Cassiel grabbed her hand, and they ran back to the castle. Instead of the library, he led her to set of stone steps that led up a terrace adorned in more flowering bushes.
He kissed her again as they stumbled toward the doors and into his bedchambers. She knew they were his because his scent lingered in the air. His mouth came over her racing pulse as she tugged at the buttons of his coat. He moved backwards, pulling her with him, simultaneously tearing off his coat.
Cassiel tripped over a snag in the rug, and they stumble against a wall. She giggled and his warms hands came over her waist, hauling her to him. Their mouths cashed in an urgent kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck, rising on her toes, simply drawn into him. He flipped her around and pinned her against the wall as his mouth planted heated impressions of his lips up her neck to the shell of her ear.
Desire unfurls deep in her stomach. Then there was a shift in the room. The air became thicker, the sound of their panting growing louder.
His fingers lightly trailed down her spin, making her prickle with goosebumps. He murmured soft foreign words against her skin, yet her heart understood him completely.
Heat traveled through her body as his mouth devoured hers. His hands were everywhere, holding her, caressing her in every way she needed.
Gods, she needed this. Needed him.
Lifting her by her waist, Cassiel placed her on the table beside them, never breaking apart from her lips. He hitched her leg up as he leaned forward, his body invading her air. Dyna gasped at his sudden clutch of her hips. He hauled her closer against him and she felt the hard press of his arousal between her thighs. Her heart lurched into her throat, pounding faster, liquid heat building at the stroke of his fingers moving up her thighs beneath her dress.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, needing him. Closer. Deeper. Cassiel groaned against her lips as she stroked his wings. They were a tangle of fabric and hands as he pulled up her skirts and she yanked at his tunic, tearing the buttons. His skin was hot and pale in the dark room with nothing but the glow from her crystal necklace and the vows lighting up on his skin. She traced the shape of the letters on his chest, feeling him shudder.
Her eyes drifted shut as Cassiel traced the one he had written on her throat with his mouth. She leaned her head back as he made his way to her collarbone and her heart pounded wildly, all of her warming beneath his touch.
Lips against hers he faintly asked, “Can you forgive me?”
Dyna froze.
Her eyes flew open as a culmination of shock and a chill instantly washed the arousal from her system.
Feeling the change, Cassiel immediately stopped and shifted back to look at her. By his torn expression, he knew whatever spell had come over her was broken.
“Dyna—”
She pushed him off and ran out of the room without another word or look because she had to. Because no matter how much she craved him, she hadn’t forgiven him yet.
And Dyna was afraid she never would.
Even if every part of her screamed to run back into that room.