Chapter 19
MORRIGAN
My back arched as my fingers dug into the sheets, scared that if I didn’t hold onto them, I might actually float away.
“Gods, I love how you taste, Morrigan,” Kaiden groaned as his tongue flicked at my center. I was practically squirming beneath him, feeling my own heat sizzling beneath my skin. “Does that feel good?” he asked, slipping two fingers inside me.
I moaned as my eyes closed, my orgasm climbing to the surface while my core burned with a fire that begged to be released. “Please,” I begged. “Don’t stop.”
My breaths were coming in heavy pants, and then I felt them—the shadows.
It started as a slight prickling sensation on my skin, like I could somehow sense the moment they seeped from him.
Tickling my legs, they crawled up my calf, over my thigh, and to my waist. When they reached the area just below my breasts, I sucked in a sharp breath as they traced a line below them, teasing me in the most pleasurable way.
“You’re mine,” he said against my skin. “My pretty little dove.”
Suddenly, the air around me felt colder, and the color in the room faded to a darker grey. I didn’t pay it any mind, though, not when my release was so… close…
“I’ve wanted to taste you from the moment you stumbled into my room,” he panted, lifting his head from between my thighs, but keeping his fingers inside me.
“Say you’re mine.” The moment they curled, a cry ripped through my throat, and I felt the knot beginning to tear open. “Say I can keep you, Morrigan.
Kaiden’s voice changed.
It was so subtle that it would have been easy to miss. It was no longer his own, but similar in a way. Finally, I turned my head to look around and realized that I wasn’t in Kaiden’s bed anymore. The walls were empty now, and the bed that I was lying on looked too familiar.
When I looked down, my heart hammered as I realized it wasn’t Kaiden between my legs. No. The markings on his skin were darker, and they trailed up to his face, over his eye… But I couldn’t stop the orgasm that rippled through me as he watched. Nor could I deny just how good it felt.
“Tristan,” I whispered breathlessly.
I woke with a startle, sweat sticking to every part of my skin, and my heart racing faster than a horse.
What the fuck was that, Morrigan?!
I could hardly catch my breath. Every part of me felt like it was on fire, and now… this incessant… tension coiled in my core. I need water.
I shoved the sheets away and threw on a robe before walking out of the room. By the time I reached the dining hall, I could hear the loud conversations drifting from the door. The absolute last thing I needed right now was to be around Tristan.
Gods… Why… Why did I have to have that dream?!
Before I could turn around, Malakai stepped out of the room and paused when he saw me. “Hey, princess!” Then, his eyes squinted before he leaned his head closer. “You alright? You’re looking a little flushed.”
I forced a smile and waved my hand. “Oh! Yeah, I’m fine. I just, uh…” I stumbled back a few steps, trying to think of an excuse to walk away. “I just need some air.”
“Why are your cheeks so red?” he asked, tilting his head to the side as a smirk spread along his lips.
Ignoring him, I turned on my heel and began walking in the opposite direction, keeping my head down. “Sorry! Just let Tristan know I’ll meet him in the—”
Just then, I slammed directly into the chest of the last person I wanted to see at that moment. Hands wrapped around my arms, steadying me, and I pinched my face together as I squeezed my eyes shut.
Neither of us moved.
“She was looking a little feverish,” Malakai teased behind me, loud enough for the entire castle to hear. “Her entire face is as red as a beet!”
My cheeks seemed to blaze even more as I stood there, stuck between the two of them. But eventually, Malakai’s laughter faded as he retreated back inside the room. Finally, I let out a ragged breath and stepped back from Tristan, but averted my eyes to everything but his face.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice a little shakier than usual.
“I’m fine, just… wanted to step outside for a little.”
“Say you’re mine.”
I huffed as I remembered his words, and began to walk past Tristan, but he grabbed my elbow to stop me. Feeling his hands in that moment sent me back into the dream, and I had to clamp my lips shut as that ache only grew larger in my core.
“You’re burning up, Morrigan,” he whispered.
“Say that I can keep you, Morrigan.”
With a frustrated groan, I pulled my arm free from his grasp. “I’m fine!” I snapped, then stormed off toward the courtyard.
That’s it, Morrigan. The fun is over. Figure out these mental shields, and then you’re leaving.
I needed something to protect me against Aamon’s mind rendering.
Once I had that, I felt confident that I could protect Azrael on my own.
All I knew was that I couldn’t keep betraying the lords like this.
They were searching for me. Lyra, Eowyn…
They were probably tearing Andonia apart to find me, and here I was, playing house with… And now I’m dreaming of…
A tear slipped free, and I quickly wiped it away as the sounds from the dining hall disappeared behind me.
You’re disgusting.
“Focus,” Tristan insisted, and I clenched my jaw in response.
“I am focusing.”
“You’ve barely produced a single flame,” he argued. “Three days ago you wouldn’t have even broken a sweat, and now your eyes are flickering like a dying candle, Morrigan.”
“Stop saying my name like that!” I yelled at him.
“Like what?! It’s your name!”
“And stop standing so close to me.” I took a couple of steps back to get some air, and Tristan just stood there, gaping at me in confusion.
It had been two days since I had that dream, and I still couldn’t bring myself to look Tristan in the eye. But the tension I felt never went away. I was on edge constantly.
“Princess!” Azrael called out from the other side of the garden. “Practice with us!”
I turned to see him smiling as he turned back around, lifting his tiny blade and throwing it. It landed in the tree, right at the center of the “X” that Malakai had drawn.
“Come on!” Malakai waved me over. “I’ll teach you!”
“Go,” Tristan agreed, taking his own step back from me. “Maybe you could use a break.”
Without sparing him a single glance, I turned and jogged over to them. Azrael was walking to the tree to retrieve his dagger, and Malakai pulled one of his own from his chest belt. “Have you ever used one before?”
“I very much doubt it!” Mara yelled nearby.
I looked over my shoulder and saw her sitting on a small patio. She was watching us, but the look on her face conveyed that there were likely hundreds of things she would rather be doing.
I turned back to Malakai. “A knife?” I teased, trying to ignore the girl behind us. Then, a quick image of Maeryn lying beneath me caused a lump to form in my throat. “Yeah… I’ve used a knife.”
He ignored the change in my tone and placed the blade into my hand before turning my body to face a different tree.
This one had marks all over it, punctures from Malakai throwing his blade beside Azrael.
The blade in my hand looked different than the ones that the lords typically carried.
The hilt was flat instead of rounded, making it uncomfortable to hold the normal way.
Wrapping my fingers around the handle, I peeled it back over my shoulder, but Malakai stopped my arm with his hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he laughed. “That’s not how you hold it, spitfire.”
“Spitfire? What happened to princess or Your Grace?” I meant it only teasingly. I actually hated being called those titles. It made me feel less of a person, and more of a construct that had been written onto a piece of paper.
He shrugged off my comment, and moved the handle to the tips of my fingers, making me pinch the end of it. “Would you like to know how I met Tristan?” he asked, moving behind me.
“Yes.”
His hand covered mine, and he lifted it like it was his own, raising it over my shoulder. “When you release, flick your wrist and follow through. Keep your eyes on the center of the target.”
He let go of me, and I did as he instructed, but the blade landed almost a foot below and to the left.
“When the gods sent us here, we weren’t dead like most others in this world.
No, we were just the pawns of their war that they needed to dispose of.
But, if they needed to use us again, they wanted to make sure we were still accessible to them.
” He placed another blade into my hand, and I turned my head to look at him, but he turned my head to face forward again with his fingers. “Sight on the target, spitfire.”
Rolling my eyes, I lifted my hand over my shoulder, as he had shown me before, and tried to throw again. This time it landed to the right.
“They didn’t just drop us here, though. They had tried to undo the magic that gave us the ability to change into mortals, but something went wrong. Instead, most of us were stuck in this nightmarish state of shifting over and over again.
We continued a pattern of me throwing, and him handing the blade back to me. I didn’t move or speak, not wanting to interrupt him.
“Tristan happened upon me one day while he and Mara were searching for a way out of here. He saw me shifting, crying out in pain. I had always been a little unhinged—more animal than man…”
“You don’t say,” I chuckled.
His chest pressed against my back as he laughed with me. “Yeah… Well, I don’t know how long I had been in that state, but it broke something. Something I can’t seem to fix.”
I threw again, this time a little closer to the target, and waited for another blade as he continued.
“Somehow, Tristan was able to break it. It took a while, but he figured it out. He didn’t have to help me.
He wanted to help me. And then, we found the others…
Each and every one of them. He made sure that not a single alpha had been left in pain.
I decided at that moment, I would follow him anywhere. Into anything.”
My heart cracked a little. Everything I had ever been told about our gods… Nothing had ever pointed to such cruelty. They had carefully placed this lie, hidden behind every false accusation and treasonous secret.
“They used you all, and blamed Rosina for it,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone else. Then, anger seeped in, and I felt the burning in my fingers. “And every one of them got away with it.”
I threw the blade harder than I had anticipated, and just as it left my fingers, a small line of fire traced the edges.
Then, it slammed into the tree, hard enough that the entire blade forced its way through the wood.
I gasped, feeling the heat in my core sizzle back down, and realized that I had done that.
“You’d be surprised by the secrets that those you hold close to you hide in plain sight, princess,” Mara said somewhere behind me.
I startled when I felt Malakai’s hand on my shoulder. “I just wanted you to know… every single one of us here… we know what it’s like to hurt. We know what it’s like to be kicked aside. We know pain.” When I turned my head to look up at him, his lips were curled up in a small smile.
Rejected. That’s what they were. I didn’t know Mara’s story, but I could only imagine it was somewhat similar.
Tristan, torn from his mother… Malakai, tossed out like he was no more than a pet for them to control…
And Andonia’s tarnished “princess.” I had at least twenty scars on my back that proved just how similar we all were in different ways.
“We should make this a part of your routine,” Malakai said, taking a step away from me. “You’re quite the natural, and it might be good for you to know how to defend yourself without your magic.”
“Wow!” Azrael yelled, running over and leaning into my side. “You have to show me how to do that!”
I hugged him with one arm and looked back at the castle to see my mother standing on her bedroom balcony, smiling down at us.
You don’t belong here, I tried convincing myself. But with each day that passed, the line between which place felt more like home had begun to blur, and I couldn’t seem to piece it together anymore.
I looked back at Malakai and nodded, smiling. “Yeah… I think I’d like that.”