Chapter 34 #2
She continued pacing the mural. “You want to know something that makes me feel sick?” Without waiting for his approval to continue, she confessed, “I used to brag at Vaukore how my Uncle killed the last dragon. How he traveled all the way to the Dark Planet and slew the final beast. ‘The last Ironclad’.” She halted.
“I was so stupid. Content believing the things I was told were right and good weren’t worth comparing to my own instincts.
A perfect contradiction sitting in my own home.
The skull of a dragon, claimed like a trophy, while judging the ones who killed my brother for being part wolf.
” She looked back at him, shame present on her face.
“Not just judged. I had them killed. Their entire family. And by that logic, if any dragons remained who loved the one my uncle killed, they should kill me.”
Reeve crossed towards her until he stood before her, their shoulders squared with one another. “An endless cycle of death and destruction,” said Reeve softly. “Which benefits no one.”
Maeve looked away from him, as he was suddenly too good, too pure, and too holy for her stained and dirty attention.
Reeve’s hand moved in her periphery, brushing her hair off her shoulder and exposing the side of her neck.
His fingers trailed up to the side of her jaw, tucking beneath it and drawing her attention back to him.
Their eyes met, and that thread of Magic between them pulled her one step closer.
“You’re not responsible for the sins of those who came before you,” said Reeve. “Your own will suffice when your judgment time comes,” he added, his voice lighthearted. “And your list is long, kitten.”
“And who will deliver my judgment?”
“A god, of course,” he purred, sin alive and raging through his voice and his half-lidded eyes.
“I hope you aren’t referring to yourself,” she challenged as his fingers slid up, running through her hair and across her scalp.
“I imagine you’ll want to seek judgment from a different god,” said Reeve. “One who hasn’t already decided your punishment.”
Heat pooled low, low, inside her, pulsing between her legs. Reeve inhaled deeply through his nose, his chest expanding as his lungs filled with air. And when he exhaled, his fingers tightened, gripping her hair as his eyes rolled back to a close.
“Please, ask me another question,” he said, his voice strained.
Maeve’s mouth was suddenly dry, and her mind was blank.
All she saw was a man trying his hardest to deny himself his trapped prey.
Because she was. Signals fired off in her brain telling her to let herself fall apart beneath his desire, completely trapped by his hands, his eyes, his voice, and his words.
Reeve straightened his arm, his elbow locking in place as he put distance between them. His hungry eyes landed back on her with a sharp exhale.
“Another question,” he commanded, raw desperation dominating his tone.
Maeve swallowed, trailing back to the list of questions she’d prepared. She stumbled across forming words, until at last she asked, “What about your mother?”
Reeve’s hold on her hair loosened, as if her voice had broken some spell, and he pulled back from her, running his fingers through his own hair as he continued past the mural and ventured deeper into the palace. “She was good and kind. She died just after. . . She passed on a few years ago.”
“Died?” asked Maeve gently, quickening her pace to catch up to him. “She was Immortal?”
“She was,” he answered.
“And so was Leandra”
Reeve nodded.
Maeve stayed in step with him. “I’m sorry, I guess in my mind Immortals don’t die. I never thought about it.”
“Immortals bleed like any living thing.”
Maeve didn’t press him further. He had witnessed the most horrible death in her life, something she hated that he’d seen. Stood there and watched. Didn’t move to help until—
She stopped the spiraling thoughts and moved to another topic as they walked.
“How did you know you’d inherit the power of Aterna?”
“Veto,” said Reeve without missing a beat.
Maeve’s mouth fell open in protest. “You don’t trust me?”
“It has nothing to do with that, Maeve. I don’t talk about inheriting my father’s power on my best day, so I won’t be discussing those dark days today.”
Maeve was speechless. That was the most he’d ever spoken of his past to her. Or of his father. He offered her one last bit of himself.
“You have no understanding of what it’s like to be forced against your father. Ambrose honored you. And you honored him.”
They had brought to light three out of the four of their combined parentage. Only one remained unspoken of.
“Is there truly a chance that someday you’ll be able to tell me about my mother?”
Magic whipped across Reeve, so potent, Maeve could feel it. He closed his eyes and let out a singular, small groan. With gritted teeth, Reeve nodded once.
The sound of birds and running water met her ears as they stepped from the palace into one of its many contained gardens. A wide bridge arched over sparkling water, feeding various forms of plant life in the lush environment. She stopped along the bridge, her fingers trailing the ornate railing.
It was so serene, so peaceful, so reminiscent of a time when her biggest problems were exams and one-upping her sister. Her sister, who regularly occupied her thoughts and worries, like so many she’d failed to protect the day she freed Shadow.
“All out of questions?” asked Reeve, pulling her out of her thoughts.
“Hardly,” she said with a soft smile.
Reeve leaned against the opposite railing, a perfect picture of male ease. The places on her neck and scalp where his fingers had been, lingered with warmth, like little pockets of his mark. His essence.
“C’mon,” he encouraged. “I know you’ve got one eating away at you. You wanted to ask it earlier and wouldn’t let yourself.”
Maeve frowned. “If you can read me so easily, then why don’t you just answer it?”
“Because someone’s got to teach you how to communicate with words.”
She frowned deeper.
“Ask me.”
She huffed a sigh, hating that she cared, that she was curious about him at all in that way. “How many have you been with?”
Reeve pretended like the question completely blindsided him.
“Quit that,” she whined, turning her back on him once more to look over the water. “You knew what it was.”
He moved behind her in a flash that her senses didn’t register until his chest brushed against her shoulders.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, his voice dropping.
She whipped around, pressing back into the railing. “It’s just I would assume the total is much greater than mine.”
Reeve nodded, placing his hands on either side of the railing and caging her in. “I have been in this world for three hundred years, of course it is.”
Maeve swallowed. “And?”
Reeve shook his head and clicked his tongue three times. “You want the answer? You won’t like it.”
“I want the answer,” she confirmed, keeping her voice casual.
Reeve sighed and hung his head.
“You’ve promised to be honest with me,” she reminded him.
He nodded in agreement that indeed he had. “I’ve lost count.”
Maeve’s shoulders fell, and she let out a sound of complete disbelief. “That’s not possible.”
“I’ve been alive a long time,” he hummed. “It’s no different than losing count of how many times I’ve done countless other things.”
“It’s very different,” she argued.
“It’s very different to you because you’re brand new,” he said, offering her a dazzling smile.
Maeve smiled back at the sentiment.
“We can have this conversation again in a hundred years, and then you can tell me if you remember how many times you ate dessert in the past eighty of them.”
Maeve laughed, truly laughed, content and warmth spreading through her body, forgetting Mal’s immortal promise that he had forever to lord over her. “Fair enough.”
“I felt you this morning,” he said, changing the subject matter completely, “in my armory. You can handle a larger siphon with the Dread Ring on your finger.”
Maeve nodded and noted that there was both gratitude and regret in his voice as she looked back and forth between his eyes.
“That’s good,” he said. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”
He pushed off the railing and continued across the bridge, Maeve following soon after as he continued their tour.