Chapter 26 #2
He jolted awake at the hissing voice, his power bursting forth in a bid to protect him.
Stumbling to his feet, the wineglass in his fingers slipped to the ground, shattering.
He’d clearly fallen asleep, aided by the wine.
Foolish to drink when he knew his physical body was being pushed to the point of exhaustion.
It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes since Kailia had gone to the bathing room.
Unless she’d returned to find him sleeping and had let him be.
Something to figure out later because at the moment he was alone with one of the phantoms, and this time, he didn’t have an arrow to use or a stolen arrowhead.
“Who sent you?” Cethin asked.
“You shall see when you meet him, blood of the traitorous ones,” the creature purred in that eerie way of theirs. The same answer the last one had given him months ago in the castle.
“What do you want?” Cethin attempted, trying to remember all the questions he’d posed before.
The phantom’s bloodless lips pulled up in a poisonous smile, its unseeing eyes seeming to glow brighter when it answered simply, “You.”
“Why?” Cethin demanded, sidestepping as the being drifted closer.
“Your mother. Your uncle. Your grandparents. Any blood of those who betrayed him,” the creature replied.
“That didn’t answer the question,” Cethin gritted out, putting a sofa between them.
“But it did,” the phantom hissed.
Cethin couldn’t decide if the things were sentient or not. Their answers were uniform, all of them responding the same as though they shared a collective mind. But they could also hold a conversation, albeit a stilted and frustrating one.
Kind of like conversing with Kailia.
“How did you get here?” Cethin asked, edging closer to the bedchamber to see if Kailia was sleeping.
He could send a message to Razik, but the movement might cause the thing to attack.
It had long been proven that his own magic was defenseless against them.
No, his options were the wife who begrudgingly tolerated him or the dragon who despised him.
A part of him debated if taking his chances with the phantom was perhaps the best option after all.
“I go where I am summoned. Where the traitors dwell,” the creature answered, pulling a gold dagger from a swirl of white mist.
“Right, right,” Cethin grumbled, having heard that answer before. “But how did you get here? To this realm?”
The phantom’s head tipped too far to the side, its ear nearly touching its shoulder. If it had eyes, Cethin was certain it’d be studying him.
“The cursed king sent a call into the voids,” the phantom recited. “Foolish when anything can answer.” Then it straightened, head snapping to the side. “You’re too late this time.”
Distracted, Cethin turned to see who the phantom was speaking to, only to turn directly into the path of an arrow. The thing embedded in his chest, below his collarbone on the left side, and curses flew from his lips as another whizzed past him.
“Get down!” Kailia cried, and by the Fates, at what point had it become normal that he couldn’t godsdamn protect himself?
But he dropped to his knee a second before a gold dagger flew through the air right where he’d been standing. The blade hit the wood mantel above the fireplace, sinking in deep, while that keening wail filled the room.
The door to the space burst open, and Kailia let two more arrows fly.
“Fucking Fates!” Razik barked, lurching to the side to avoid a fate similar to Cethin’s current predicament.
Or to avoid the phantom that drifted into the room behind him.
“Two?” Cethin growled, grabbing the arrow shaft and yanking it from his shoulder.
“Glad to see those basic arithmetic lessons stuck,” Razik growled, summoning black flames. It was just precautionary though. Kailia had already taken care of the being, another wail echoing the first.
“Make sure there aren’t more of them,” he told the male. Razik nodded, muttering under his breath as he left the room, and Cethin turned back to Kailia.
A very naked Kailia.
Warm brown skin on full display. Wet midnight hair hanging over her shoulders and covering her breasts. Droplets of water running down her flesh, clearly having come straight from the bath. Her bow still in hand with another arrow nocked and ready.
Just…
Fuck me, was all he could think as he swiped a hand down his face. Razik had seen her. The phantoms had seen her. Those things were dead, but Razik—
A sound rumbled in his chest as he sent his darkness to her, wrapping it around her and hiding…everything.
Kailia slowly lifted her arm, studying his magic clinging to her.
Ashes fluttered as she sent her bow to what he assumed was a pocket realm, but by Arius.
Feeling her magic alongside his only heightened the possessive and primal turmoil in his soul right now.
Between their conversation in his study the night prior, the talk of touching in the town square, and now this?
He needed her to give somewhere. He’d settle for being able to press his lips to her cheek at this point.
She was clearly being affected too. He could see her chest moving a little faster, and he knew that wasn’t adrenaline from the second fight of the night. Not with the way her lips were slightly parted and the way she was looking at his magic.
The door opening again is what finally broke whatever spell they were under, and Cethin whirled around to find Razik back. Cethin was across the room in a few long strides, blocking Kailia from view.
“Relax, Sutara,” Razik drawled, dropping into the same armchair Cethin had been sitting in. “I already saw, and Lia is well aware I’m not interested.”
“You’ve discussed it?” Cethin demanded. Who had instigated that conversation? Was she interested?
“She asks a lot of questions,” he said with a shrug, toeing at the broken shards of glass on the floor.
That had a muscle ticking in Cethin’s jaw as he ground his molars. Kailia rarely asked him questions. He had to coax any information from her.
Ignoring the comment, he turned to face Kailia.
Before he could say anything though, she was stepping closer, eliminating space between them.
She reached up, fingers hovering over the arrow wound.
Her head tilted to the side, hair shifting, and he found himself internally cursing Razik’s presence yet again.
If he weren’t here, he wouldn’t let his power hide anything.
“You didn’t die,” she murmured. Then her gaze flicked to his hand. “And you have my arrow.”
“Gods forbid this all becomes about an arrow again,” he retorted, rolling his eyes and extending the thing to her.
She snatched it from his hand, bringing the point close to her face as she studied it intensely. Confused, Cethin glanced over his shoulder at Razik, but the male just shrugged, taking a drink directly from the wine bottle he’d found next to the chair.
“Something wrong with your arrow?” he finally asked, returning his attention to his wife.
“Yes. You didn’t die,” she answered.
He heard Razik’s snort of amusement, but he ignored the male as he usually did.
“Guess you’ll have to try harder next time,” he said, and her gaze snapped to his.
“If I were trying, you’d be dead,” she retorted.
“These ‘accidental’ stabbings are becoming a little too coincidental, tiny fiend,” he mused, watching her amber eyes swirl faster in her irritation.
“It is hardly my fault you keep getting in the way of my blades,” she admonished. “Especially not when I was protecting you. Again.”
He hummed in response. Something that only made her bristle more.
“Perhaps you should put some clothes on. Then we can discuss what to do from here,” he suggested.
“I thought we were staying until morning?”
He blinked at her incredulously. “That was before I was impaled with an arrow. I need to see Niara.”
“You do. Razik and I can stay,” she argued.
“No,” he ground out.
“It’d probably be better if you go anyway,” she continued thoughtfully. “Those things only show up when you’re in the company.”
“That’s not—” But he stopped speaking as he thought about her words. That couldn’t be true. Could it? Yes, they always focused on him in the fights, but were they only showing up where when he was present?
Then again, when he’d asked that phantom what it wanted, the answer had been crystal clear.
You.
Kailia said nothing else before she turned and went into the bedchamber, and Cethin made his way back to the armchairs, taking the one across from Razik.
“Is she right?” Cethin asked idly. Not really speaking to Razik, just speaking out loud.
“The only time you weren’t there from the beginning was the first time we saw them,” Razik replied, rubbing at his jaw. “But as soon as you showed up, you were all they cared about. It’s been that way ever since.”
“But all the Fae deaths these last decades,” Cethin argued, trying to make the connection.
“Maybe…” Razik released a heavy sigh before he said, “Maybe they’re not related at all.”
And Cethin couldn’t stomach the thought of that.
If that were true, then they were dealing with two separate threats.
He’d garnered this arrangement with Kailia under the belief that these beings were the threat to the Fae.
Having her weapons to fight against them was to protect the Fae and his people.
If it were true they were fighting two separate enemies, it would appear as if he forced her to his side simply to protect him.
“Do you really need Niara for that?” Razik asked, jerking his chin at the wound.
Blood had soaked into the fabric around it, and he was still filthy from the first fight. Maybe he could take a bath and clean it well…
“Tell her we’ll come back in a few days,” Razik suggested when Cethin didn’t answer.
“Zayan had a fit when I rescheduled these two days. I can’t imagine if I blow off the next several,” Cethin muttered.
“That’s odd,” Razik said.
Cethin glanced at the male. “What is?”
“Thought you were the king.”
Cethin sent him a bland look. “If you understood anything about responsibility, you’d understand why my duty has to be put first.”
Razik’s answering smile was razor sharp. “I understand responsibility just fine. I’m the one who spends my days with your wife while you’re fulfilling your so-called duties.”
“Only because you wormed your way into the position using your relationship with Tybalt,” Cethin bit back.
Razik shrugged a shoulder in that apathetic way of his. “Better than forcing a marriage using the power of my title.”
“Fuck off, Greybane,” Cethin snapped, more of his darkness appearing and drifting across the floor like the fog outside.
Razik smirked, black flames appearing at his feet.
“My jilted lovers theory stands,” Kailia announced, garnering both of their attention.
She wore a robe, the sash cinched tight at her waist, and her wet hair was braided over her shoulder. Cethin stood, crossing the room to her.
Guilt churned in his gut, but he refused to leave her here alone with Razik.
The phantoms were one thing. The other creatures that prowled around Shadowfen were something else completely.
More than that, this wound wasn’t even beginning to heal.
He could still feel a steady flow of blood, which meant he definitely needed Niara. And sleep apparently.
“I’m sorry, tiny fiend,” he said with a sigh. “We need to go back to Aimonway.”
The disappointment was evident, her features falling and lips pursing. But she nodded, saying simply, “Fine.”
They quickly paid an extra fee to Tenebrae for the mess and inconvenience before Traveling back to the castle.
Razik immediately went his own way once Kailia was settled in their rooms, and Cethin found Niara.
He’d been right. The wound needed extra care, much like when he’d been stabbed by Kailia’s dagger.
He’d been feeling groggy, and his vision had even blurred some.
He’d assumed that was his body demanding rest, but now he wondered if it had more to do with her weapons.
The arrowhead was smaller than the dagger, and that would explain why it’d taken longer to affect him.
When he finally pushed through the doors to their rooms an hour later, he wasn’t surprised to find the sitting room empty. He was surprised to find her still awake though, sitting against the headboard with that book propped against her knees.
She looked up, gaze lingering on his bare torso before sliding to the wound and finally his face.
“Still not dead,” he said with a wink.
“Those are different pants,” she replied.
He huffed a laugh. “Niara insisted I bathe before she treated the wound. Said it’d be pointless otherwise.”
Kailia nodded, eyeing him warily. “And now you will disappear to wherever it is you go in the nights?”
“Are you missing me, wife?” he asked wryly as he removed his shoes.
When he turned back, she was watching him, hands smoothing over the furs on the bed. “I…enjoyed the time in Shadowfen. The fighting, yes, but also the… I enjoyed the time. Would you have slept there?”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You never sleep,” she said in exasperation. “Would you have slept if we’d stayed there tonight?”
Perplexed by where this conversation was going, he said carefully, “I sleep, Kailia. Not often, but I do. I need to sleep, actually, and I was planning to do so in another room.”
She nodded again, hands still moving over the furs.
“Unless you want me to sleep here?” he ventured, bracing himself for whatever innocent snark was about to come from her.
But instead, she nodded to herself before she said, “I think sleeping in the same bed would be a small start.”
He blinked in surprise. “Kailia… Are you sure? People move around when they sleep.”
“I know that.”
“Okay, and if you wake up pressed against me or my arm is around you, am I going to be stabbed?”
“Possibly,” she affirmed.
He stared at her for another long moment before he silently made his way to the bed.
Pulling back the covers, he blew out the candles on the bedside table before he slipped between the sheets, relaxing into the pillow.
Truth be told, he had rarely slept here even before Kailia had become a part of this.
He’d actually forgotten how comfortable this bed was.
His eyelids were already heavy, and he felt her shift next to him.
“Relax, Kailia,” he said into the dark room. “I can feel your heart racing.”
“You cannot,” she scoffed, but her tone was breathy. Anxious.
Cethin reached for one of the extra pillows, placing it between them like a barrier.
He couldn’t promise it would keep them from finding one another in their sleep.
If anything, their magic was going to seek each other out.
But the point wasn’t to prevent anything, only to give her a semblance of comfort.
This was a small start, and as he finally gave in to the sleep that called to him, all he could think was that maybe the stabbing would be worth it.