12. Chapter 12 #2
The realization slammed into my mind like a sledgehammer, echoing in my heart before sinking down into my very soul. To have stared death in the face and be saved by this goddess, only for her to embrace me with an acceptance I’d never known before, was nothing short of a miracle.
Lucky didn’t describe half of what I was.
If I didn’t look away now, I never would, so I forced my eyes down the page.
Dread Reavers of the Fae Empire
Born of the Blackline, they carry inherited shadows. A Nocthel’s magic rises against all danger to defend the land, their people, and most fiercely, their bonded kin.
Because of this, Nocthel children are taught:
—to master stillness before fury.
—to guard without cruelty.
—that strength exists to serve, not dominate.
For these reasons, Nocthel are never raised alone. They are rare and cherished by all Faekind for their devotion and sacrifice.
Cherished? I’d spent my life trying to leash myself, believing my control was the same as denial of everything good in life. Yet this spoke of restraint as purpose and duty instead.
My shadows stirred in quiet agreement. They’d always answered most fiercely to threat. Reina had taught me how to master that response—slow my breaths until my pulse steadied—the same lessons her father had given her.
I’d been raised with these exact tenets in mind. I’d been raised just like a Nocthel—even if Reina and my grandfather hadn’t known what they were doing.
The world around me shifted then my denial gave way, and the solid ground I’d been standing on crumbled. For the space of two absent heartbeats, I was falling from the sickening sense that something fundamental within me had irrevocably changed.
The words sat in my lungs like a stone I couldn’t cough up.
I’d spent years building careful walls between what I was and what I allowed myself to want.
If I were mistaken about the first, what else had I gotten wrong?
My eyes drifted to Lunette without my permission, and something shifted dangerously in my chest. I looked away.
I wasn’t going to unravel twenty years of self-understanding over a children’s book while a beautiful woman watched.
I searched for differences, for any detail that would separate me from the inked stranger. A mistake. An exaggeration. Anything.
It felt impossible. Absurd. I was no legendary shadow-wrought guardian from a forgotten empire. Not a hero like these people seemed to be. I was simply the result of royal training and an accident of inheritance from my grandfather.
But the longer I looked, the less distance I found. At first, recognition crept in, a tightening in my chest I could almost mistake for caution. Then it deepened, sinking further until it was no longer something I could hold at arm’s length.
“Rowan?”
Lunette’s voice pulled me back from the brink of spiraling thoughts that only led to dark places. I dragged my gaze away from the book. She’d moved closer, her eyes wide with worry, taking in everything. She reached out and squeezed my hand gently.
A sudden warmth, like static, passed between us, electrifying the air and making my magic hum.
A guiding light in the darkness. Moonlight. I remembered calling her that the first time now. She’d looked at me then—like she did now—far too deeply and with too much undeserved compassion.
I’d never expected to share this part of myself with a stranger. It felt like shrugging off a burden I hadn’t even known I was carrying—while being handed another. But somehow, when she looked at me with those soft eyes, it didn’t feel so heavy.
I thought for certain she’d pull her hand away. Instead, her fingers tightened.
“It’s not bad news,” she said softly.
It felt like encouragement, so my eyes found the book again.
When one of their own is threatened, a Nocthel will react with violence. This is not wickedness. It is their instinct to protect.
When a mate bond settles upon a Nocthel, it is demanding. As with all Fae, males feel the bond before the female. Changes in behavior must be met with patience, honesty, and care—lest the shadows turn inward.
My eyes snagged on that passage and refused to move on. I turned the page with more force than was necessary. It meant nothing. Correlation was not causation. I was injured. She was kind. And I was simply…grateful and lonely.
“Huh,” I mumbled, my mind still struggling to make the pieces fit together in a way that didn’t entirely rearrange who I was. Had I been misunderstanding myself all along?
Her hand still gripped mine, and damn it, I was tired of holding myself back.
I didn’t want to think about what being a Nocthel meant while she touched me—it simply didn’t matter.
I placed my hand over hers and stroked it lightly with my thumb, desperate to feel the warmth and softness of her skin, desperate for the grounding I somehow knew she could give me.
Her lips parted just slightly, breath catching as the tips of her ears turned a lovely rosy color.
Her thumb brushed my hand, a fleeting caress that might’ve been a trick of my mind, before she snatched her hand back.
Then Lunette sprang to her feet with such force that her chair clattered to the floor with a resounding crash.
Muffin growl-hissed, jumping down from his perch and landing on the bed, ready to fight whatever had flustered his lady.
“Time to clean up and get ready for another healing,” she said briskly, shattering the moment so abruptly that my disappointment was a physical sensation—like tripping over my own feet.
“I can help,” I said automatically. Moving would help me tuck everything I’d just learned away into a nice, safe, quiet corner of my mind. It might also distract me from the battle over my attraction to her that I was currently losing.
“No, you need to rest,” she muttered under her breath, but fondly. “Straining yourself now will only make my healing work harder.”
I waited until she was distracted with the washing up and slipped outside.
The air was cold enough to clear my head.
And with clarity came the realization that my previous suspicions about her being an Assembly agent or a Gelidian sympathizer were absurdly wrong.
Lunette was exactly who she appeared to be: a healer with too much kindness and too little safety.
When I returned inside, she was humming again while finishing the cleaning. It was a soft sound, perfectly on key, so gentle it wrapped around the darker corners inside me and pressed them into stillness. Absolutely lovely. I wondered if she even realized she was doing it.
Once I’d mistaken her singing for death calling me. Now I knew how wrong I’d been. It was the sound of truly living. I also realized how right I’d been in my prediction—she was the most enchanting person I’d ever beheld.
And not just because of her physical beauty, though that was undeniable.
She gave so much, risked so much, all while asking for nothing in return. Her humor was as sharp as any blade. Her patience, endless. I couldn’t wait to learn what else there was to this moon-born goddess.
Back inside and ready to tuck in for the night, I stubbornly lowered myself to the floor, but she immediately rounded on me. “Bed. Now.”
“But you—”
“No. Bed. We’ll share.”
I had commanders with less authority in their voices. Something in me obeyed instinctively before my mind caught up. Moving ungracefully, I swallowed the unmanly yelps pain tried to force from me.
Reluctantly, I scooted onto the mattress, pressing myself tightly into the corner to give her room. This was going to be…intimate. Too intimate because there wasn’t enough space to form a physical barrier of pillows between us. My pulse quickened with a nervous flutter.
This night might turn out to be torture.
She lingered at the edge of the room, putting out the candles one by one, wiping her hands on her apron almost compulsively. She’s nervous too. The realization that I wasn’t alone in this eased the ache in my ribs.
In a moment of utter idiocy, I asked, “You’re going to sleep in your dress?”
She looked down as if noticing her own body for the first time. “Well… I have been these past few nights.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “I’ve already taken so much of your generosity—and now your comfort. Please, Lunette. Make yourself comfortable.”
She looked down at her dress again. “Okay…”
She crossed to a different trunk and pulled out a bundle of cloth before hesitating, glancing at me from beneath her lashes. “I’m just going to…uh…”
I slapped a pillow over my face. “Safe now,” I said into the stuffing. Gods preserve me.
Fabric rustled. The trunk shut. My entire body strained with the desire to look—agony in its purest form.
“All right,” she finally said, voice light. “Ready.”
I lowered the pillow.
And promptly forgot how to breathe.
The men’s trousers she wore were a sleek second skin, hugging the curves of her hips and thighs as if they’d been tailored to destroy me. On top, she wore a long-sleeved shirt that tightened just beneath her breasts, lifting them up to kiss the low neckline. She was… She was—
I swallowed hard, fighting the blood surging to my groin. How my cock could stand at full mast with how I’d been feeling, I didn’t know, but it seemed eager to prove that it could.