Chapter 30
DAVID
Fully dressed before sunrise the next morning, David stared at the beautifully mussed girl sleeping in his bed and sipped the minty lemon beverage he could no longer live without.
Raven hair fanned over his pillows. Her brown skin gleamed against his white coverlet.
She was so pretty, and he was so, so stupid.
How had he let this happen? Where had his self-control gone?
She had to be the biggest mistake he’d ever made. Anna Ainslan wasn’t the kind of woman a man should fuck around with. Crossing her was definitely hazardous to his health. What exactly had he been thinking, casually jumping into bed with a pixie?
A virginal pixie.
He hadn’t been thinking. Obviously.
We make more sense than anything else in my life.
Fucking hell. The woman was so painfully innocent. She had lodged herself like a splinter somewhere between his ribs, uncomfortable. He’d entertained a fleeting hope that this would dislodge her. He’d had her now. Knew the intimate facets of her. Conquest achieved. That was enough.
But was there ever really enough when it came to women like her? Women who clung to the vital parts, like the heart?
Velcro girls.
Hadn’t she flat-out admitted she didn’t want to be associated with him yesterday?
You wouldn’t tell anyone, would you? About us?
What had changed her mind? She was ashamed of her link to him but still let him inside her body…multiple times.
Fucking pixie genetics and their emotion-keyed sex drives. How was he supposed to interpret this? Did she like him? Something here didn’t quite add up. Especially when she ran around saying things like They don’t deserve you.
As if he held inherent value. Mattered.
She knew his past, knew his present and his supposed future, and she still defended him?
It made zero sense. He despised that she’d traipsed her way into this part of him that cared, especially when she’d likely wake from this debacle with a crushing sense of pixie shame for having succumbed to a keila.
The last thing he wanted was to drag her into his mud.
From the moment David had discovered his ancestry, the air around him had been a cage, suffocating and invisible. Isobel’s meddling—with his literal soul, of all things—had narrowed the bars until he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Anna, with her affection and pity-free advocacy, had somehow flipped the lock and set him free. It felt like validation.
Yet he couldn’t find the open door. Couldn’t reach her. Not really. Because pixie particulars aside, no way did she mean it like that. No way would she wake up and think, This was a good decision.
He’d never outrun his blood, not even with Sean Archer’s soul in his body. Adding white to black didn’t remove the darkness. It only muddied them both to gray.
The color of storm clouds. Ash. Gunmetal. Destruction.
He was gray and Anna was pristine white, edged in sky blue. He didn’t want to be her dirty secret, and he didn’t need her sympathy. An afternoon—and half a sleepless night—lost in her exquisite body didn’t change that.
If she were awake, she’d agree.
Mistake. Not to be repeated.
And he needed to get out of there.
David left his room, only to stop short at Autumn’s presence in the hall. He remained still. Measured breaths allowed him time to replace everything behind his safeguards.
Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth. “Can we talk?”
“No.”
Her shoulders fell. “David, please—”
He turned on his heel, heading straight for the cookery to deposit his cup. He’d be disgustingly early to training, but at least Cathaire would be pleased.
“David, I didn’t do this,” she said, following him. “I didn’t even know.”
David whirled on her. “You can read minds, Autumn. Do you really expect me to believe you had no idea?”
Autumn’s hot hand squeezed a death grip around his wrist. “This ability of mine isn’t one I take lightly, David. Do you have any notion of how many secrets I keep?”
He opened his mouth, but her hand shot up to stop him.
“I promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t use what I hear in someone’s mind to alter events.
People think about things they’d never do.
They ponder things they’d never say. They lie to themselves.
If I acted on every bad idea I’d ever heard…
Well, I’ve heard a lot of bad ideas is all I’m saying.
Besides, Isobel and I have been together for almost thirty years.
Do you think she hasn’t learned how to edit herself in my presence?
To make it seem like these stray thoughts were just suppositions?
I swear, I didn’t know until after she did it.
You’d already drunk the wine, and I just thought…
what was the point in telling you then? It couldn’t be undone, and you were already so overwhelmed.
It would have only made things worse. I knew you’d figure it out with time. I’m…I’m sorry.”
The taut pull in his shoulders loosened. In place of his dissipating wrath, the sense of betrayal heightened. “I didn’t deserve this,” he said, wishing his voice was stronger. Angrier.
Her emotions cracked to pieces. Pain split through worry, guilt, and regret like a sledgehammer to concrete. Her voice was a forced calm. “It doesn’t matter. She has no logic when it comes to you two. She acts on impulse alone. Meléan was the same way. You know this.”
When David said nothing, she cupped his neck. The happiness in her touch smeared over his surface emotions, and she gave up on subtleties. Her arms looped around him, hugging tight.
He froze, not evading but not returning the embrace. What was up with all these women hugging him? Heat and happiness soaked through his clothes and battled hard against the icy control he refused to relinquish.
“Your soul may be bound to another,” she said, “but you still belong to yourself. In your heart, you’re still you.”
But how long would that be true? What did it really mean to be soul bound? What was a soul, in truth? Was it his consciousness? His spirit? The complex ingredients that formed his personality? All of the above?
“I’m sweating,” he said instead of voicing anything. “Did you know you’re as hot as the fucking sun?”
She laughed. “Does this mean you forgive me?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Autumn’s smile grew distant as she released him and looked toward the hallway. “Anna’s waking up.”
He pressed fingers into his closed eyes.
“I told you she likes you.”
He pressed hard enough that sparks burst into his mind’s eye, triggering a rare vision. Shimmers of blue lights framed Anna’s face, her expression broken as she whispered, I wish I’d never met you.
Nauseated, David clenched his jaw. “Yeah. She likes me. For now.”
“David—”
Ignoring her, he turned for the door.
On the training grounds, Cathaire smiled at his approach. David did the usual wrist grasp, temple kiss.
“Welcome,” the Blademaster said. “I’m pleased you arrived first. I’d like to speak with you.”
David slowed as he reached for the leather wrist guards on their supply table. “Oh?”
“I need to assess your true skill, David.”
His name sounded strange on the pixie’s lips. David was used to being called Shadow or Djiante or even Galadaine’s heir. But to hear his real name gave him pause. “Why?”
“Our warrior chieftain believes Sean is ready to fight in Viterra. I admit I have my reservations, but what I know is this. Despite what they say you will become, you’ve shown no animosity toward the Savior. Dare I say the two of you have formed something of a…brotherhood?”
David remained silent, though the soul bond jumped straight to the forefront of his mind. Was it really so obvious? Cathaire had been watching them daily for months. Perhaps he only sensed a budding friendship.
“I need to know how you fight,” Cathaire said. “My instinct says you will serve our Savior well if you accompany him on his missions, but you are still a sylph, and I have been wrong in the past.”
“Maybe I don’t want to go on missions,” David said.
He laughed. “I doubt you will be given a choice, my boy. You will be forced to prove your loyalty one way or another.”
David swiped up his bracers, sighing.
As he stepped closer, Cathaire said, “Today you fight the Savior. He’s the only one I believe you’d be willing to put some effort in for.”
He raised a brow. “You sure the crowds won’t revolt?”
A chuckle. “I’d like to see your ability, and you’ll never show it to me with your current partner.”
Anna’s delicate face rose to mind—her pure smile, the way she’d dragged her tongue up his stomach like the taste of his skin was a drug. He particularly hated training with her. Anyone who spilled her blood would pay with their own.
But he’d never admit that aloud.
“Fine, but for the record, I don’t think this will go well.”
After donning his gear, David submitted to Cathaire’s warm-ups and waited for the others to join.
Autumn arrived first, followed shortly by Isobel.
Like Bel, Autumn rarely trained. Unlike Bel, if she wasn’t training, she didn’t follow Sean around like a sycophant and sit at the edge of the clearing, drooling over him.
Autumn was probably only here to head off the inevitable arguments after yesterday’s revelation.
Isobel wisely moved far away, sitting at the edge of the clearing with her usual notebook. Sunny smile in place, Autumn skipped to David’s side and took to her warm-ups with a steady stream of chatter that faded to the background as Anna arrived with Sean.
They laughed, both of them nudging each other, totally at ease.
They had an effortlessness that he’d never possessed with Anna.
From the beginning, a taut pressure had existed between them, probably because he’d wanted to fuck her the moment those blue eyes turned his way, and he’d been thoroughly lying to himself about it.
That seductive stare flicked David’s way, a sparkle of warmth trickling through her emotions. A flicker of guilt licked up his spine as he remembered he’d left her alone the morning after he’d taken her virginity.
Dick move.