Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
VALERIAN
She’s scared of me. Terrified. And my shift seems to be the last drop. She turns to flee and falls. Passed out? Did she hit her head?
Fuck.
Of course she was terrified. This is a woman who was taken by my people as a child and scarred for life. Just because she got used to me doesn’t mean the trauma has healed. I don’t even know the details of what happened to her, and dammit, I need to know.
Even if our paths diverge soon.
I force the shift to work faster, or at least, I wish it to finish, but I’ve barely shed my fur when I crawl over to her and gather her into my arms. I’m shaking, with anger, with worry, with the need to rip into something and make my fear of losing her go away, and she’s warm and soft, familiar and beautiful. Cherished.
“Talk to me, Princess,” I whisper. “Open your eyes. Everything is fine. Can you hear me? Princess!”
Her dark lashes flutter and she sighs. Her hand presses against my chest, skin on skin, and fuck, I want to melt against her, merge with her, only I’m not soft, I’m goddamn hard, everywhere, from my teeth that crave her flesh, to my cock that longs to pierce her.
Melting, going so fucking weak for her, and hard, so very damn hard for her.
A contradiction that defines my relation to her, the way my mind contradicts my body, the lust against…
against that deeper need that is taking root in my mind.
My every thought winds around the truth of her, her image, her scent, her voice. Her existence is my bane and my grace.
“Valen,” she whispers and my thoughts flee, every sense focused on her as she speaks my name.
“How are you feeling?”
“Mm… Fine.” She nuzzles my chest and fuck, she’s driving me wild. Worse still, she doesn’t even know she’s doing it, does she? “Can’t remember what happened… You left to climb a hill…”
“Yes.”
She goes still. Her gaze flicks up to mine. “A dragon.”
“Earth dragon. A wyrm.” I growl. “I left you alone. My fault. I almost lost you, and it was all my fucking fault.”
“I…” Her eyes widen. The color leeches from her face.
Oh, shit. Belatedly, I realize I still haven’t fully shifted back. I’m in my threshold form, human-like but with animal parts. My legs aren’t fully human yet, my nails are still black and clawed, and my face… Let’s not go there.
I’m on my knees, holding her in my lap, my wolf ears still out, my tail twitching behind me, and I don’t want to let her go. Dizziness has me in its claws, turning my thoughts hazy, turning her scent into a potent drug.
I’m hurt. That has to be why I’m feeling like that. Blood is running down my side and my leg. The wyrm got its hits in. Those fangs are sharp like broken glass. I’m generally impervious to their venom, but it has some effect on me, enough to make me feel drunk.
It’s the venom, not her.
I still have this under control.
“We should move,” I make myself say and relax my hold on her, allowing her to sit up. None of this is what I want to do, but it’s what I must. “Move now while there is still light.”
Before I gaze at her too long, before I lose all sense of self-preservation and ask her, beg her to let me touch her, lick her, kiss her.
Fuck her.
Claim her.
That’s when I realize that my knot is swelling, and it’s such a surprising feeling, I draw a hissing breath. This can’t be fucking happening.
Leaving her in the crushed grass, I stagger to my feet and clench my clawed hands. The urge to run away, away from her this time, is stunning and consuming.
As much as my desire for her consumes me.
Mate, the voice at the back of my mind hisses again, mate.
She can’t be. She’s not even fae. She’s human. A human I’m not allowed to have. What the fuck is going on here?
She’s silent as she gets to her feet and brushes dirt and crushed stalks from her skirt. Her face is still too pale, which I don’t like, but a flush is rising to her cheeks. Her gaze keeps straying to me and shying away.
Dammit. I make a conscious effort to shed the rest of my animal traits, though nothing I can do about my fae ears and sharp teeth. About who I am. An alien creature who arrived in her world centuries ago, a creature of magic, twisted and corrupted now.
A creature not deserving of her.
I start walking, still fighting myself, and she eventually follows me.
I slow down to allow her to catch up, and we walk past the small grove and through more meadows where deer graze.
As we crash our way through their pastures, they flee like the wind, ghosts of shapes dissipating into mist, almost as if they’d never been there.
Toward the end of the day, when the shadows start to lengthen, she stumbles and I catch her arm.
“I’ll find us a place for the night,” I say.
“Are we far, you think? Did you see Lord Eorl’s manor from the top of the hill?”
“No, I haven’t seen his fucking manor. I saw the wyrm and came racing down the hill as fast as I could.”
“Thank you,” she breathes. “For saving my life yet again.”
“It’s becoming a habit,” I mutter, shaken. “As for this Lord Eorl… are you sure he’s on your side?”
“What do you mean? The arrangement is valid. Just because my family didn’t want to give him the dowry doesn’t mean he changed his mind.”
“Just checking, Princess…” I meet her worried gaze. “I wouldn’t want you to arrive at a scene where more people want you dead.”
“Too much work for you, defending me?”
“I have my schedule to think of.” I’d meant it seriously—I was meant to find out what happened to my mother and return home, check on things there—but I find myself winking at her because…
because fuck the schedule. Fuck things back at home, and as for my mother…
Well, I know now what happened to her, don’t I?
What the fuck was she thinking, attacking a human settlement, and why had her wolves stolen Rosie? Now my mother was dead and had no answers to give me.
“Lord Eorl would never harm me,” she whispers.
“Well, I wish you all the fucking happiness in the world,” I growl.
“Why are you so… Wait, you’re not… jealous?”
“Of whom?”
“Lord Eorl.”
“What right do I have to be jealous of him?” I snarl, but the words taste bitter in my mouth, laced with falsehoods. “Of him, or any man who can hold you and touch you because you want them to. Who doesn’t have to tease you and trick you into touching them.”
“You never tricked me,” she says quietly. “You never had to.”
I rub the back of my neck and look away.
Fuck, I needed to hear that. And I’m absolutely fucking jealous of anyone touching her, be it man or woman, person or beast. At this point, I’m jealous of the air that caresses her, the soil that cushions her steps, and the light that makes her blue eyes shine.
Is this what falling madly in love means? The madly part. I’ve lost my fucking mind.
“Valen… you’re hurt,” she whispers.
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
“I’m telling you,” I growl, “it’s nothing.”
“Valen, your leg is covered in blood.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
“Take off your pants,” she says.
I stop. Shake my head. “That’s a fucking bad idea.”
“Is it?” There’s laughter in her voice. “From the day I met you, you’ve never missed an opportunity to take your clothes off.”
“Trust me, princess,” I tell her, “it’s for the best. I’m hard.”
“I’ve seen you hard.”
“Not like this.” Nobody has seen me like this.
I’ve never felt this way, been attracted this way to anyone, ever, in my whole life.
If I show her what she’s done to me, something worse than any wound, worse than any blow, she’ll run away for good.
She might throw herself into a river, into a forest, heedless of other dangers.
Because she’ll finally realize that the worst monster is me.