Chapter 12 Drayven #2
I shake my head and head back to the lagoon, where I clean myself and my clothes.
They’ll dry by the fire. She’ll need my shirt—her dress was already flimsy, but is now scrap, barely holding together on her body.
But I won’t undress her. After every choice has been taken from her, this feels like the final straw.
So I lie behind her on the soft, leafy ground and wrap my arms around her, careful to avoid her wound. My nightmare flickers in my mind, and I tighten my hold in case she floats away. I wouldn’t put it past Amara to take this last piece of heaven on earth back to the stars.
Staring at the flickering campfire, I try not to think about my failings. But they’re lurking in the shadows, waiting for me. Everything I’ve done is to keep her safe, and it’s not enough.
The day crawls by, and night closes in, each second an eternity as I hold Flori’s fragile form against me. Her trust in me is a brittle thing, but in this moment, it feels unbreakable.
During the night, Flori whimpers, and rolls to face me. I welcome her into my arms, whispering comforting words and pressing my lips to her forehead. I tell her silly tales of giants and witches, of pirates and mermaids, until my voice chases the shadows from her mind.
She settles back into a peaceful slumber, and I continue to hold her close, my fingers tracing the delicate curve of her jawline.
Every detail of her face is etched into my memory—her full lips, long lashes, soft skin.
It’s the freckles scattered across her nose that I dream of most. They’re almost an identical pattern to mine.
Sometimes, in my weakest hours, I imagine it’s because we shared so much time together as children that the sun thought we were one soul.
Eventually, morning comes, and with it, a new set of worries.
A rustling in the undergrowth snaps my attention away.
I tense, ready to defend our sanctuary. But it’s just a small rodent, scurrying past. Still, the intrusion reminds me of our precarious position.
We’re not truly safe here. The Trickster God won’t allow a single bride to remain unclaimed.
I gently wake Flori, trying not to startle her from sleep.
“We should get going soon,” I say as she blinks at me.
“Where are we?” she asks.
“In an abandoned temple.”
“Oh yes. I remember.”
“Do you think you can eat?” I nod toward the food I’ve left on a frond.
“I’m starving.” Flori sits up slowly, wincing as the movement pulls at her wound. She takes note of our surroundings with curiosity before turning back to me.
Her gaze lingers on my chest. Kasaros’s invisible mark feels obvious beneath my skin. My cheeks and ears that heat with shame. It doesn’t help that she’s practically naked. I clear my throat and move to check the dampness of clothes hanging on a branch nearby.
I feel her watching me as she picks at berries and nuts.
“I found a small lagoon,” I say, “behind the statue. I used it to clean myself and my shirt. I think it’s dry now. You can use it.”
I don’t know why I’m rushing. When the sound of her chewing fades, the silence is deafening. My shirt is dry, so I face her but remain on this side of the smoldering campfire.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Like a herd of frost giants trampled me. But I’m okay. I’ll live.”
“Giving me that much blood was reckless,” I chide.
She shrugs. “It’s not like I do it every day.”
I think about how long she’s been locked in the Pen. “Does anyone else know?”
“Only Demaya, another Vesper.” She hugs herself. “The High Priestess probably has an inkling.”
I stride over and offer her my shirt. “Put this on.”
She takes it but drops it on the leaves beside her. “Are we going to talk about the drei in the room?”
“That you should have told someone about your gift?” I throw my hands up, exasperated.
“I heard nothing of your power. Most gossip from the Pen about the Queen Bride centered on whether the rose growing from your blood was fake. If they knew what you truly are, you could have bargained for your release. Demanded it. At the very least, healed in exchange for freedom.”
“My blood does more than heal, Dray.”
“What do you mean?”
“It kills too. Can you imagine if that power gets into the wrong hands?”
I swallow hard, frowning. “You’ll be used as a weapon.”
Her brows raise. “And people will die. Innocent people.”
“Of course,” I grumble. “That too.”
But I don’t care about other people. I’m already thinking of ways to keep her secret safe, at least until she’s in a position to make demands.
“That’s why,” she continues, “the moment I learned what I could do, I stopped trying to escape from the Pen. Besides, there’s only so much blood I can use before I’m dead.”
My pulse skyrockets. “Exactly how many people know about this?”
“I told you. Demaya. Maybe the High Priestess.” She hesitates. “Probably the Baron.”
Shit.
I crouch, head dropping to my hands. “I’ll need to kill them. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“Fuck you.”
“Pardon?” I look up, and she’s giving me the death stare.
“You don’t get to pretend you’re dead for a decade and then kill off my friends willy-nilly.”
“The Baron is your friend?”
“No!” She releases a frustrated growl at the broken ceiling. “The others are. You know what I mean.” She stomps to where the smiling mask lies discarded beside my weapons and kicks it. “You haven’t told me anything.”
“I don’t know how you removed it. It’s not supposed to come off.”
Her eyes squeeze shut. “Stop avoiding the topic.”
“Hey.” I walk up behind her and gather her into my arms. “I’m sorry.”
She tenses but then relaxes into me and whispers, “Dray, why didn’t you tell me?”
Shame burns through me. “I couldn’t. I thought… I thought I was—”
A flash of my face buried between her thighs, tongue probing against the mask for more of her sweetness, my fingers thrusting in and out of her tight, silken core.
Arousal reignites in my bloodstream with a vengeance.
I shut the memory out with a frown. Every ounce of my being aches for her, even without the mask’s magic binding me.
These feelings will only intensify when I put it back on.
But without it, I am weak. I am just a man incapable of protecting her. I am nothing.
“Dray, it’s me.” She turns in my arms to face me. “You don’t have to hide from me.”
I meet her gaze and find nothing but compassion. Only for me does she melt like this. Everyone else gets the steely-spined future queen. My resolve wavers.
“I wanted to tell you,” I admit. “Every Gods-damn day, I ached to reveal myself. But the mask… it changed me, Flori. Made me into something I’m not sure I can come back from.”
She cups my cheek. “You’re still you. I see it in your eyes. ”
I lean into her hand, savoring the contact. “Am I? The things I’ve done…”
“We’ve all done things we regret,” she whispers.
Her thumb traces my lower lip, trailing fire in its wake. And when her hand moves lower, down my neck, toward the scars slicing my torso, I struggle to focus.
She’s so beautiful. Somehow she still shines while covered in dirt and torn silken strips. I pluck a twig from her blue hair and tuck the disrupted lock behind her ear.
“These were self inflicted,” she notes, distracted by the thin ridges of scar tissue on my front. “Why?”
I don’t want to answer, but she’ll keep asking. Her tenaciousness is one of the things I love about her.
“It’s how I summon Kasaros,” I confess.
Her eyes clash with mine and flicker with recognition. “You did this all for me, didn’t you? I thought you were dead, but somehow you lived. Because you became the Huntsman.”
A sad smile teases my lips when she feels around the oldest scar—the one the previous Huntsman gave me. I want to capture her hand, but I’m too much of a coward. I want her clever fingers sliding lower, just like they did yesterday. If the mask was on, I’d do exactly that.
“Dray?”
My voice comes out rough. “I think I fell on your blood that day. It wasn’t much, but that and the snow staved off death long enough for me to summon Kasaros. I was desperate to save you.”
“And you did. Again and again.” She circles her arms around my waist and presses her ear against my chest. “You’re the reason I kept being overlooked each year for the Bride Hunt.”
My hands hover behind her head, wanting to press her close. But I can’t. I drop them to my sides and exhale. “And I doomed so many others. It doesn’t erase—”
“No,” she interrupts, squeezing me tight. “But it matters. You matter.”
“I thought I was protecting you,” I whisper. “By becoming the Huntsman, I could keep you safe. But I was wrong. You almost died healing me.”
Flori steps back to meet my eyes. “You’ve always protected me, Dray. Always watched over me, even when we were children. Now, it’s my turn to protect you.”
There’s no point in arguing with her. I peel her arms from my waist, intending to feed her so we can get moving, but the moment she disengages, her knees buckle. I rush to her aid and hold her up.
“You’re not okay,” I growl. “Little liar.”
The look she slices me is both cheeky and affectionate. I hate the way my chest squeezes at its familiarity, at the sick feeling afterward, because I know I’ll likely never see it again.
Not after today.