Chapter 40
KAELERON
Adark, warped thing writhed inside me as I stared out at the city of Ereborne, drowning in that labyrinth of buildings and the crushing tide of my memories.
Anger twined with them, rage so hot and fierce that it burned a trail through my blood, threatening to sever the threads of my fragile control.
Images flashed across my eyes, tormenting visions of Saphira in Oberon’s arms and how comfortable she had looked there, how she had appeared to be enjoying herself before I had found them.
Now, she looked miserable.
And it was my fault.
I should not have brought her here.
But I had needed her to see.
I had needed her to know.
The unseelie gathered in the ballroom had revealed things to her that I had tried so many times to tell her—things I had known would pain her. Things I had known she would see if I brought her to Ereborne, because I had known what the high king would demand.
I had needed her to see that in some things I had no autonomy.
My senses remained fixed on her, my mastery of them long gone as I stood there with my back to her, feeling as if everything was crumbling around me, falling apart because of me.
I had thought I could play my role. I had thought I could behave as expected of me.
But when I had risked a glance in her direction only to find her gone, absent from my sister and Rhyn’s sides, panic had torn me apart in seconds, my iron will no match for it as I had scanned the crowd for her, fearing the worst—that Kalyn might have sunk his claws into her again.
By the Great Mother, I had never been so afraid.
Fear I might have lost her trumped fear of displeasing the high king and I had been quick to return Vaeleryn to her father.
Quick to go on the hunt for my little wolf.
Only to find her dancing.
With another male.
I risked a glance over my shoulder at her, the wretched weak part of me fearing I might see her dancing there, held tightly in Oberon’s arms.
What I saw cut me deeper than that sight could have.
Tears trembled on her lashes, and several had already fallen to dampen her pale cheeks.
She was quick to wipe them away with the heels of her hands when she noticed me looking at her, erasing all physical evidence of her pain, as if that could hide it from me. Her blue eyes shone with it and other emotions, ones I did not wish to acknowledge or name.
She rubbed at her eyes. “I yawned, that’s all. I’m tired… and so over this ball.”
I was not convinced.
Darkness brewed within me, my shadows growing more and more restless by the second, eager to tear into whoever had made her cry even when I would have to tear into my own flesh.
I looked at the unshed tears in her eyes, forcing myself to see what I had done to her by bringing her here.
I was a bastard.
“I am sorry,” I whispered, those three words tumbling from my lips so quietly I feared her sensitive wolf hearing would not pick them up.
She turned her cheek to me to gaze at the glass doors to her right, her voice quiet and so distant as she said, “I could never dance like they are.”
I frowned and looked at the dancers, and then back at her, wishing she would rail at me, that she would shed her melancholy air and turn on me with fangs bared as I deserved.
I wanted to take hold of her and rattle her, to make her unleash every barb she was holding prisoner beneath a mire of misery.
“You danced beautifully,” she softly admitted and that veil of melancholy she wore shifted enough for me to see the truth of her.
She was jealous.
As jealous as I had been upon seeing her dancing with Oberon.
But worse than that, she was hurting, and it was my fault.
I had known tonight would reveal a truth to her, but I had never intended to wound her.
I was not really sure what I had planned.
That she would be made aware of my position with the high king and that I had meant it when I said no one refused him.
That my world would see that my heart belonged to someone at last, and that I would destroy all in this world to protect her—to have her.
That I did not care what people whispered about her, because there was no other in this world as beautiful, and warm, and deserving of love as this little wolf stood before me.
That the high king would see that I loved Saphira and would allow me to be with her.
Guilt gnawed at my insides as I studied her, feeling as if she was drifting away from me, whatever flimsy thread that had begun to connect us in danger of snapping.
If it did, I would deserve the pain that awaited me.
I would deserve far more than that for hurting her, for not realising that my actions would wound her so badly when I knew she abhorred betrayal and had been scarred by rejection, and what I had done was tantamount to both of those things.
I had no excuse to give her. I could not even blame what had happened on the fact I was still unused to thinking about how another might feel if I did something, too used to doing as I pleased or as others demanded of me, acting in whatever way benefitted my court the most.
The high king had requested that I dance with his daughter, and out of habit I had obeyed without hesitation.
Without truly considering how Saphira might feel.
And that made me undeserving of her.
“Saphira.” I held my hand out to her and she barely glanced at it before she returned her focus to the dancers, wrapping her arms around herself.
That action was a dagger in my chest. One I deserved, but not one I would succumb to.
I would not let this night end like this.
I would not let us end like this. “I am sorry. Come, my little wolf, you cannot attend a ball and not dance.”
She was quick to say, “I have danced.”
“And not dance with me,” I amended, still holding my hand out to her, silently willing her to take it and to forgive me.
She ignored it.
Turning her profile to me.
I felt that cold wall rising between us, slowly encasing her heart as she withdrew beyond it to protect it, shielding herself as she hurt because of me. Because I had not been strong enough. Panic lanced my veins and my claws came out, desperate to tear it down and reach her as she shut me out.
“Saphira,” I said but she did not take her eyes from the ballroom. “I am sorry.”
“Is that all you can say?” She did not look at me. “How did it feel when you found me dancing with Oberon?”
She turned cold eyes on me.
Wounded eyes.
“I wanted to kill him… even when I know I am not strong enough. I wanted to tear you from his arms, placing you beyond his reach, because you are mine and I could not bear to see you with another.”
“And what else did you feel?” she snapped as she squared up to me, her blue eyes flashing dangerously.
This was what I wanted.
I wanted her angry with me. I wanted her fire. Her fury. Even when it carved up my soul and made me feel like an utter bastard. Because this fury—this wrath that blazed in her eyes—was better than her shutting down and shutting me out.
“Betrayed,” I whispered, hating that I had done that to her, that I had wounded her in the same manner her mate had, even when what we had done was vastly different. She could not see that difference though. To her it would feel like the same—the same pain, the same fear, the same loss.
The same anger.
She smirked right in my face.
“Betrayed.” She pivoted on her heel, spitting that word over her shoulder, throwing it like a blade at my chest. “I hate my mate for betraying me. I still can’t get over what Morden did to forgive him.
Not one hundred percent. I still don’t trust him.
So forgive me if I’m not feeling particularly chatty or in the mood to see you right now.
I’m certainly not in the mood to dance with you when you smell of another woman and every time I look at you, I see you with her. ”
The sensible part of me said to remain silent.
The desperate part of me that needed her in my arms, needed to know I had not messed everything up and lost her, pushed the words from my lips.
“I had no choice.”
She snorted as she turned on me again. “You had no choice. And if the high king wants you to fuck her, you don’t have a choice in that either?”
I flinched.
“Saphira.” I reached for her and she leaped out of my grasp, evading me.
“If the Forgotten Princes can deny him, refusing to bend the knee, then you can too,” she snapped.
“Believe me, little wolf, I wish that were the case. Oberon and his allies only survive because they control a land that is sacred to the unseelie. If they dared to settle anywhere else in Lucia, the high king would hunt them down and eradicate them.” I held my hand out to her, desperately willing her to take it.
“I cannot lose my head and expose the Shadow Court to his wrath over a dance. Would you rather I refused him and died?”
Her lips flattened.
“By the Great Mother, I do not want to argue with you, Saphi. I do not want this. I did what I must, but in doing so I have discovered even I have my limits. Even I have things I will not—cannot—do for the sake of my court.” I looked over my shoulder at the grand ballroom, wishing I had never brought her here.
Wishing I had never come here. Wishing so many damned things.
“You have every right to be angry with me.”
She drifted past me, her distant gaze on the ballroom and the glimpses of dancers that flashed between the watching crowd.
“Dance with me.” I stretched my hand towards her, imploring her to take it as I felt that icy wall rising between us again and show me that not all was lost.
That there was still hope for me yet.
“We can remain out here. It is a nice night. We do not need to return to the ball. In fact, I would rather we did not. I fear this is what the high king had in mind when he arranged this affair.”
Her gaze snapped to me, shock dancing in her eyes before they darkened and grew sombre. “I don’t like these games you fae play.”
She wrapped her arms around herself.
I frowned at her. “I am not playing a game, Saphira, if that is what you are implying.”
She lowered her gaze to my boots and then lifted it, locking it with mine. “You’ve played games. Toyed with me. Amused yourself with me. You’re no better than—”
“The only game I played was with myself,” I barked as I seized her face, coming to loom over her, and all my anger deflated as I gazed down at her, as I saw so much hurt and doubt in her eyes, even as she did her best to conceal it as she tried to wriggle free of my hold.
“I pretended, I played a role, I lied to myself over and over again about my behaviour towards you, labelling it as teasing and tempting, as amusing myself, because I was so damned afraid of falling in love with you.”
She went terribly still.
I lowered my head, wanting to growl when our masks collided, stopping me from making contact with her as I needed.
“What did you say?” she whispered, her breath bathing my lips.
I knew the word she wanted to hear, the one I had not dared to voice before.
Love.
“I am in love with you, Saphira Harper,” I breathed back at her, all of the fight leaving me as I stood there holding her face, replaced by fear as that infernal music continued and I waited for something terrible to happen, for the high king to make his move and somehow rip her from me, destroying me in the process.
Nothing bad would happen. I chuckled mirthlessly as I continued to lie to myself.
“I am in love with you… and I am terrified of what that means.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and whispered in my ear.
“I’m in love with you too… and, yeah, sometimes it scares the shit out of me.
” She held me tightly, her fingers pressing into my shoulders through my tunic jacket, digging in so fiercely I was sure she would leave puncture marks in the fabric.
“But you’re mine, and no one will take you from me.
No one. Wolves don’t share. If he even thinks to order you to dance with her again, he will find that out. ”
Fierce little wolf.
Willing to face an unseelie high king to put him in his place and stake a claim on me.
Reckless little wolf.
I held her to me, unwilling to let her do such a thing. There were other ways to achieve the same goal, ones I would think about more later.
But for now…
I released her and bowed, extending my hand to her one more time, daring to hope she might take it this time.
“I can’t dance like you do.” She jerked her chin towards the ballroom. “I can’t dance like they do. I don’t know the steps. Oberon used magic to help me.”
“You do not need magic to dance. You do not need to know the steps.”
She only needed to be in my arms.
I needed her in my arms.
I needed to feel her there, moving against me, smiling and laughing at me, erasing everything that had happened and giving me the courage to get through the next few hours without doing something reckless that might damn us both.
“Could you not dance with me as you did with Oberon?” Those words came out harder than I had intended, a bitter edge to them that I feared revealed too much.
Or perhaps just enough judging by how she looked at me.
I let her see it in me, that writhing and wretched jealousy I felt over seeing her in another’s arms. I let her see how much it had angered me—wounded me—and that I was sorry I had inflicted such pain upon her.
I should have been braver. I should never have brought her to this place, knowing what she would see.
But she needed to know. I needed her to know, before things between us went any further, or our bond grew any deeper.
I needed her to know.
Rather than taking my hand, she shrugged and looked skywards, towards the aurora that chased across the stars, drifting away from me again.
I refused to let that happen. “I taught my sister to dance and she lacks coordination.”
She scoffed. “I’ve seen Vyr fight, remember? The last thing she lacks is coordination.”
“Saphi,” I whispered and she lowered her blue gaze to me, and then the hand I still held out to her.
That gaze wavered.
She wavered.
I could see it in her, feel it in her, as she stared at my offered hand.
My little wolf was tempted to take it and step into my arms again, but still she fought what she wanted, refusing me.
She could punish me all she wanted, the goddess knew I deserved it, but I would not stand by and let her punish herself at the same time by denying herself something she wanted.
I clamped my jaw and reined in my shadows, halting them as they crept towards her, because they were of no use to me here. I would not force her.
Instead, I would speak from my heart to hers, and hope hers answered.
“Dance with me, my love.”