Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Knox
The cabin was much warmer by the time Briar finally emerged from the bathroom. A cloud of steam followed her out the door before dispersing.
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from her as her damp hair cascaded in dark waves around her shoulders before tumbling down her back.
The clothes were much too big on her; she’d rolled the sleeves up to her wrists and the bottom of the pants up to her ankles, but she couldn’t fix the baggy fit hiding her lush body.
I’d managed to mostly get the beast back under control after the eagle attack, but now it surged back to life as it panted within me. I could never fully cage the monster while around her, as both it and the man wanted nothing more than to fuck her until she couldn’t walk.
My shaft stirred at the idea of stripping her clothes and burying myself inside her. She’d be as tight and wet as I remembered.
I shook my head to clear it of memories before studying her more carefully. The hot water had brought some color back to her face, and the shadows under her eyes were gone, but she couldn’t hide her lost weight. I’d felt the prominence of her spine and ribs while riding with her.
She hugged herself as she gazed around the room, unwilling to meet my eyes. She’s keeping something from me.
While I didn’t think it was that she’d indeed revealed our plans to her mother, my instincts said she was hiding something. I tossed another log on the fire before rising.
My movement drew her attention, and her eyes flicked to my erection before darting away. When her tongue wet her lips, my balls clenched and the beast growled. How badly we both wanted that delicate, pink tongue lapping the head of my cock.
I’d vowed never to stick my dick in her again, but I’d gladly skull fuck her. Oh, who was I kidding? I’d fuck her anyway I could get her.
The beast purred in response.
I ground my teeth together as she huddled deeper into herself. She was keeping something from me, and all I could think about was entangling her hair around my wrist and pumping into her until she was begging for release.
I’ll fuck her until she cries, and then I’ll fuck her some more.
I inwardly recoiled a little as that idea rose unbidden from the deepest recesses of my mind. I didn’t want to make her cry. Scream my name, yes, but not her tears.
Why did I think that?
Because you’re completely fucked in the head.
And that was the entire truth of it. I had to get images of screwing her out of my mind and figure out what she was hiding.
“Come sit by the fire,” I commanded gruffly.
Briar hesitated before approaching with the wariness of one advancing on a dragon. I didn’t blame her for that.
With care, she perched on the edge of a chair. Her back remained ramrod straight as she held her hands out to the fire.
I settled into the other chair and leaned back as I stretched out my legs and crossed them at the ankles. While I relaxed into my seat, she remained rigid.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some clothes?” she asked.
I grunted out a laugh. “I’ve literally been inside you, Briar. There’s no room for modesty here.”
Her head turned stiffly toward me. “Do you always have to be so crude?”
I clasped my hands and rested them on my belly. However, I couldn’t hide the stress building within me. Did she always have to smell so good?
“I’m simply being honest,” I told her.
“You can be honest without being an asshole.”
“Maybe, but why bother? Do you not like reminders of our past?”
“It’s you who doesn’t like reminders of our past… or at least of the man you used to be.”
I shrugged, but her words had struck a nerve. “I’m fine with who I am.”
She stared at me before shifting her eyes to the fire. She fiddled with the sleeves of her shirt, rolling one side down and then up again.
“Are you fine with who you’ve become?” I asked.
“I don’t think I’m much different than the girl you knew.”
Oh, she was very different. Not as much as me, but she didn’t smile as often. And when she looked at me, it was with a newfound suspicion in her eyes, yet there was also a yearning that spoke more words than she ever could.
Her body had also ripened into something more womanly. Something I wanted to get my hands on so I could trace every one of her curves.
“I think you’re different,” I said.
“You think I’m a liar.”
“No, I don’t.”
Briar’s head swiveled toward me. Her lips parted on a breath, but she didn’t say anything.
“I believe your mother did find out about us some other way; I don’t know how, but I don’t think it was you,” I told her.
She blinked at me as if she were trying to make sure I wasn’t a hallucination. “Why do you believe me now?”
I pondered how to answer this. When I settled into this chair, I hadn’t expected the conversation to take this turn. A part of me wanted to doubt her because that’s what I’d done for years, but if I were honest with myself, I believed her.
“I watched you go through your Needing; you’re not like the other casters,” I said.
“I already told you that.”
“And I could tell you the many horrific things your mother and the other casters told me… about you… while they had me imprisoned, raped, and tortured. I’m sure you can understand it took some time for me to move past that.”
She winced and squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again. “I can,” she whispered.
“I won’t tell you those things; they’re better left in the past.”
I stared into the fire as my claws dug into my hands. Blood welled in my palms as rain and wind battered the cabin.
“She put you there because of me,” she whispered.
“My choices put me there; we both knew what we were doing could destroy us.”
“I thought about you every day. I spent countless hours plotting a way to save you and then imagining that once I did, we’d run away together as we’d planned. It was the only thing that got me through all those years.”
“I spent countless hours plotting how to ruin you.”
She winced again and pulled her hands away from the fire. I didn’t like that she looked much smaller and more fragile than I’d ever seen her before.
“I bet you spent a fair amount of time wishing you never met me,” she said.
“I did,” I admitted. “But not now.”
“I’m still the reason you lost everyone and everything you knew. I’m the reason your kingdom is cursed.”
“And that is also because of my choices. Were we reckless and foolish when we were younger? Yes. But we were in it together.”
And if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change anything.
I kept that astonishing realization to myself. My kingdom was in ruins, and I’d spent seven years as a plaything for the casters. I should want everything to be different, but I didn’t.
Before the harem, I’d experienced the only true happiness I’d ever had in my life… with her. I’d loved and been loved in return. We’d healed each other, made each other stronger, and given more to each other than we took.
Because of Briar, I knew what it was like to feel true joy, and while things had gotten completely fucked-up, I could still recall what that felt like.
If I could change anything, I would have taken her away sooner, so none of this would have happened. And Marina still would have cursed Wildwood.
Once she and my father realized we were missing, they would have put the pieces together and turned on each other like rabid dogs. And then they would have hunted us to the ends of the kingdoms… wherever that was.
I would have kept her safe from them and gone so far away that none of this would have mattered.
Those plans were selfish, especially since many would have died in the fallout from our actions, but we’d both been too young, too in love, and too foolish to consider the consequences.
We’d only been focused on us and our freedom.
“My mother did awful things to you.”
“You’re not your mother,” I told her.
“I know.” Her haunted eyes met mine. “She’s going to come for me.”
“Without their collective power to back them up, the casters won’t go against the tribunal.”
“You underestimate how much my mother hates me and wants to see me suffer. My mother placing you in the harem had more to do with me than her catching us together. She knew she sliced me to pieces by doing that to you. You were caught up in her wrath.”
“Why does she hate you so much?”
Briar shrugged. “I don’t know; she always has. She tried to abort me, but for some reason, she couldn’t.”
I frowned at this revelation. Everyone knew the night casters could work that kind of magic, and they were the ones to go to if the need should arise.
“How is that possible?” I inquired.
“How do I know? I was nothing more than an embryo, and then a baby she hoisted off on every wet nurse and nanny she could find. She told them not to treat me kindly, and they didn’t.
“I don’t know why she didn’t throw me out in the woods to let me die there; maybe she was afraid I’d somehow make my way back to her, or maybe she believed the gods were the reason she couldn’t abort me and was scared of incurring their wrath.
She never told me why she didn’t kill me outright; although, there were many times when she told me that she wished she had. ”
Her mother was an evil bitch; I’d never doubted that, but I couldn’t imagine inflicting such cruelty upon a child. My father never hid his disappointment in me, but he was never purposely vicious in such a way.
“And you never knew your father?” I asked.
She’d told me that years ago, but it could have changed while we were apart.
“She said he was a priest, but I never truly believed her. If he were a priest, he would have come to visit, as Rosalie’s father did. And she would have told me if he’d died.”
“Does she know who he is?”
“I believe so.”
“And no one else from Nightshade told you anything about him?”
“I doubt she told anyone the truth about my heritage.”
“Hmm,” I murmured.
I retracted my claws and wiped the blood staining my hands on the towel Briar had hung by the door for me. I pondered her father… the missing entity in her life that Marina preferred to keep a secret.
Why?