Chapter 54
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Briar
I froze as Gizzi leapt off my shoulder and scampered under a pillow. The door opened as I turned to it; I’d just registered that the lock didn’t click before Knox entered.
Memories of my Needing flooded me as his large frame filled the doorway. His flame-colored eyes found me instantly.
“You’re awake,” he stated.
“You’re observant.”
His mouth compressed into a flat line. “When did you wake?”
“A few minutes ago.”
He glanced around the room, his nostrils flaring, before his eyes returned to me. I wondered if he’d scented Gizzi, but he hadn’t detected him yet, and he didn’t say anything.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
My rumbling stomach answered before I could. “Yes.”
“Then get dressed and join me in the dining room.”
I bristled over his commanding tone but wasn’t in the mood to argue. I wanted to learn more about my sudden ability to communicate with Gizzi, but I was also starving.
“How long has it been since my Needing started?” I asked.
“Three days.”
“Three days,” I whispered.
I’d lost three days of my life to my Needing and sleeping afterward, but it was over! I didn’t have to dread it anymore; I didn’t have to wonder what would happen to me and didn’t have to fear I’d fail in my determination to prove I wasn’t like the other casters.
I’d come out of it as… well, I didn’t know what I’d come out of it as. I hadn’t chosen either day or night and wasn’t returning to Nightshade or going to Luminaire, as every other caster before me had.
I wouldn’t enter a temple to bind myself to either the sun or moon god. I was free from the traditions that ruled all casters for as far back as our history existed.
What would become of me? Would I have any powers?
But I already knew the answer to that. If not a power, I at least had a whole new ability to communicate with animals… or maybe just Gizzi. Maybe, for some strange reason, I’d formed a bond with him that allowed me to hear his thoughts.
Or maybe you’ve gone batshit crazy, and your sanity is flying around a belfry somewhere.
That was a distinct possibility too.
“Are you going to join me for breakfast?” Knox inquired.
“What? Oh… yeah… I’ll… I’ll be right down.”
When he folded his arms over his chest, the large muscles in his biceps bulged beneath the thin material of his black shirt. The long sleeves covered his tattoo, but I’d memorized the pattern of the thorns and that perfect black rose.
I looked away as I tried not to recall his tender touch while he rubbed my sore muscles. The memory of his breath tickling my neck sent a shiver down my spine. His mouth had been so close to mine; if either of us had moved a few centimeters, we would have kissed.
He would have devoured me if I let him… or if he allowed himself to give in to his lust for a woman he despised.
And I didn’t kid myself into thinking his desire meant anything about his feelings for me; he’d said he’d never claim me as his mate again, but that primitive instinct remained within him.
“I’ll see you soon then,” he said.
“Am I allowed to wander free?” I blurted before he left the room.
He stopped in his retreat to the door. “Not outside of the castle grounds.”
Excitement lurched through me, and I took an involuntary step toward him. “What will become of me now? Am I still a prisoner? Am I to be tortured until you get answers I don’t have, or will you set me free?”
The clenching of his jaw made his scar more visible. When he pushed the door shut, I gulped at the idea of being alone with him in this room with the bed so close. I tried to ignore the electrical impulses racing through my body as my skin tingled with awareness of his nearness.
“And where would you go?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Even if I wanted to go back, which I don’t, I wouldn’t be welcome in Nightshade.
If, for some reason, my mother took me back, it wouldn’t be to set me free, but it doesn’t matter because I’m never going back there.
I don’t think they’ll take me into Luminaire either, not unless I bind myself to Sol, the sun god, and I have no intention of doing that. ”
“Why not?”
“I told you that I won’t be like any of my kind. Plus, I’m not binding myself to anyone. For the first time, I’m free, and I will stay that way… or at least I’m sort of free considering I’m still your prisoner. It’s still better here than in Nightshade.”
Something flickered through his eyes, but his face remained stony and distant. I was sure he felt the same way Lyra did about my experiences over the past ten years.
So what if I’d been kept in a tower and kept under surveillance? That was nothing compared to the way they were used, abused, tormented, and terrorized for years on end. My life had been miserable, but I didn’t endure the atrocities they did.
“If you’re not going to return to Nightshade or Luminaire, where would you go?” he asked again.
“I don’t know.” My gaze traveled to the windows and the distant mountains. “Maybe to Terra to find Devnair. He said he’d help if I needed it, or maybe I’d go to sea. There must be more lands or islands if the dragons live out there.”
That was something we once hoped to discover together, but fate had other plans for us.
“That would be incredibly dangerous,” he said.
I shrugged. “I don’t have many options.”
He rocked on his heels while studying me. “When you were sneaking out of Nightshade to meet me, could your mother have realized it?” he asked.
I tore my attention away from the window and frowned at the change in topic. “I was always very careful. I knew that if she ever discovered what I was doing, she’d make us pay for it, and I wasn’t willing to take that chance.”
“And I always made sure no one followed you, but do you think there is some way she figured it out?”
I bit my bottom lip as I pondered this. “Maybe. I don’t know. I was careful not to be happy and to avoid seeing others after meeting you. She’d hate seeing me happy and would do whatever she could to take it away from me… which is exactly what she did.”
There was that strange flicker in his piercing orange eyes again. “If she somehow did learn of us, could she have cast a spell over you to get the truth without you knowing?”
When I crossed my arms over my chest, his gaze dipped to the valley of my breasts, barely visible through the slight opening in the robe he’d given me. Hunger blazed through his eyes.
My pulse quickened. I resisted looking at his cock, which was probably showing against the outline of his black pants.
“I… I’m not sure. Actually… that’s not true,” I whispered. “She’s far stronger than me. She’s stronger than all the other casters, or at least the night ones. I’m not sure about Cozameal’s powers; whenever the king of the day casters visited us, my mother locked me away.”
“Why would she do that?”
“At first, it was because I was a child and told to stay out of the way. Later, it was because I was an embarrassment to her that she preferred not to see, but I’ve never met the man.”
“I have, when I was a child, and I recall him being extremely powerful. So do you think she could have cast a spell over you without you knowing?”
The idea of it made me sick; to be violated in such a way wasn’t something I’d ever considered, but… “I wouldn’t put it past her. She cares little for me, or what such a thing would do to me, but I don’t think she did.”
“Why not?”
“Because she wouldn’t take the memory of it from me. She’d want me to know I was the one who told her everything about us. She would have loved gloating about it every chance she got.”
Knox’s eyes grew distant as he pondered before replying. “You’re right. She would have.”
“I don’t know how she found out about us, but I swear I didn’t tell her. I wouldn’t have done that. I loved you more than I ever dreamed possible. You were my future, my joy, and my love; I would have done anything to protect you.”