Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
PLOT OF THE WILD HUNT
Nuala
The moment we had returned from the aes sídhe camp, Rian made me comfortable at the fire and sat down facing me with the teine ceangal.
Darragh suggested he should take éadrom and the other vargr to hunt for which Rian thanked him.
He promised to recall the shifter as soon as we had some more information.
Now we were alone in the tent, sitting in front of one another with our legs crossed and staring at the dark glass orb resting between Rian’s palms.
“You cannot touch the stone while I use it,” Rian said. “It would sear the flesh from your bones, but perhaps you will sense something if you touch me whilst I use it.”
I nodded in agreement with his plan and then reached out tentatively to place both hands on his forearm. I made sure to stay away from his hands, which I assumed would soon be burning hot as he used the stone.
“Ready?” he verified, and I nodded as I closed my eyes to try and focus.
I wanted to keep my composure while touching him, but it was impossible not to become wholly enraptured by him when his fire magic ignited.
I was lost to the warmth and light gleaming upon my closed eyelids.
Lost to the way his skin heated and hummed from the magic rushing through his veins.
Lost to the feeling of his muscles as they flexed in his arm when he turned the orb.
Lost to his scent so warm and calming, like lavender and amber, as it was intensified by the use of his magic.
Lost to all the intimate secrets I knew about this man but had not yet experienced with him…
Like how sex also intensified the intoxicating scent of him to the point that I’d want to just bury my face in his shoulder and breathe him in as he fucked me. Or how his skin would heat the same as it was now under my hands just before he climaxed. And the sound he’d make…
I drew in a deep breath and released it slowly through my nose to bring my mind back to the present.
Ever since Ornella healed my body, it had been steadily becoming more and more aware of him.
In my prison, the longing had always been mental and emotional.
Now I ached for him in new and much more delicious ways, and if I was not more careful, he would sense exactly where my mind had gone.
There was no way to explain without telling him the truth of what caused my reaction.
There was silence while he presumably probed the orb with his mind. I was unsure whether or not he was even talking to someone else, but I tried to be patient.
“Sense anything?” he asked after a few moments.
“Nothing yet,” I answered, shaking my head before remembering his eyes were likely closed. He made a soft grunting sound of acknowledgement, and then we were both quiet again for a bit.
“I am sorry for causing strife with your family,” I said after a moment when the silence became too unbearable. Silence had been my life for so long that I could barely stand it anymore.
“Do not be sorry, Nuala. Shay is always standoffish, especially with strangers, and Darragh told me that you did nothing wrong. If anything it was… I appreciated it,” Rian admitted haltingly. “I have grown used to being the one they turn to. The one they idolize and then blame.”
I could not help smiling at his admission and hoped his eyes were closed as I nibbled on my bottom lip.
“I will always defend you, Rian. I believe in what you are doing, not just for your own people, but for all—”
My words were cut off by a sudden gasp of pain when the breath was knocked out of me. I went ramrod straight, and my head whipped back so hard it felt like my neck snapped when a phantom hand grabbed my throat.
A voice screamed in my mind. Vicious and accusatory. Ancient and hateful beyond anything I ever felt before.
It was the last thing I remembered before the darkness descended upon my mind.
I groaned as I stirred beneath a soft and familiar blanket. There was a throbbing pain in my head, and my throat felt stiff and raw as if my flesh had been burned. Trying to turn my head sideways to look around caused even more pain to lance down my neck and spine.
“Rian,” I murmured, my voice scratchy.
“I am here, you are safe,” he assured me as his fingers interlaced with mine on my stomach. I instantly relaxed, his touch enough to chase away the nightmares.
After a moment, I peeled open my eyes, wincing at the brightness of a nearby lantern as I tried to look up at him. Rian saw my flinch and immediately dimmed the light with magic until it no longer hurt my head.
“Nuala, what happened?” he asked me urgently.
I was just trying to recall that myself as I lay on his couch with him kneeling on the floor beside me. The way I’d been kneeling next to him when he was unconscious.
The bizarre encounter had not lasted long, but that did not matter. It had been enough of a connection for my intuition to tell me all that I needed to know.
“I know who has the missing stone. She tried to hide from me. She tried to scare me away,” I murmured.
“She did not merely try to scare you,” Rian growled, his voice deepening in apparent anger.
I frowned in confusion, and he seemed to deliberate for a moment before he rose to walk into his bedchamber.
Sitting up gingerly, I massaged my aching neck that was strained from being grabbed so roughly in the astral plane by a powerful immortal.
I was untrained in such things, but even I knew it was unusual for the physical body to be affected by such a projection.
Then again, the female who had assaulted me was very far from an average magic user.
I tucked Rian’s mother’s blanket around me and swung my legs over the edge of the couch.
I was ready to go and see where he’d gone, but Rian emerged from the chamber.
He was carrying what looked like a silver statue with an oval disk on top of a slender stem and round base.
It was not until he sat beside me and presented the item to me that I even realized it was a pedestal mirror.
My breath caught as I found myself suddenly looking down at my reflection.
I saw what he meant to show me, the imprint of a hand burned around my throat, which was why my skin felt so stiff and raw there.
It seemed he had put an ointment on the red and blistered skin, but I knew from experience that such a wound would take my human flesh months to heal.
But as troubling as that should have been to me, it was nothing I had not seen before. What was most shocking to me was the rest of me…
It had not escaped my notice that Rian had covered every reflective surface in his tent to prevent me from seeing what my brother had done to me. But Luke was too proud of his work not to show it to me whenever he could shove a mirror in my face.
Look, little whore! Look how hideous you are. No one will ever look upon you with anything but disgust now!
But I knew that was not true. I had faith in my visions and the man in them who was meant for me. If he could love me as I was, then I resolved to become comfortable with the creature in the mirror. To learn to love her too.
I am a monster. I am ugly and wicked. I am wrath and vengeance. And he will love me anyway…
That had been my mantra.
Rian wanted to protect me from that deformed face as if she did not live inside me.
As if she was not the thing that had survived.
She was all that was left of me after everything else was carved away.
And I was not sure how to feel about the fact it was actually this pretty face that scared me.
No longer the sullen child or the bruised and bleeding prisoner or even the monster, but a stranger with an undetermined path.
Who was she? Did I get to choose this time?
I saw Rian cock his head, obviously noticing that I was staring at myself and not the burn, but he held the mirror steady for me.
He watched as my hand rose nervously to touch the smooth skin of my face, and I inhaled sharply with surprise.
Feeling the brush of my fingers and seeing them in the reflection on flawless ivory flesh was surreal.
This is me. I am inside that face.
I was still pallid, and my skin was sunken and slightly discoloured under my eyes, but it would all improve with sunlight and nutrition.
Most of my hair was so dark that it looked blue in the flickering of the lantern with strips of dark burgundy that gleamed almost purple in the firelight.
Everyone always said it was strange to have two colours in my hair, but I thought perhaps it was pretty.
Unique. And the colours went quite well together.
Much like my mismatched eyes, which were the only thing in the mirror that seemed truly familiar to me.
Even now that they were rimmed in black lashes that seemed to naturally curl up toward my full brows.
I shifted my hand from my cheek to trace down the straightened bridge of my nose to my mouth where my fingers lingered on soft and supple lips.
“Did she… make me this way? When she healed me, did Ornella make me like this?” I clarified as I turned to look up at Rian who was still watching me.
“That is not how aistriú works. You are naturally this beautiful. Ornella merely restored you,” he assured me.
My brows rose, my mouth opening in surprise as my fingers slid free of my lips while I stared at him.
“You think I am beautiful?”
“I would either be blind or a fool if I did not see that,” Rian smirked, and then he set the mirror down before I was done processing any of it. My reflection. His words. “That surprises you,” he observed curiously before giving me another teasing smile. “Did you think I was a fool?”
“No, of course not, it is only… Your kind are so much more beautiful than a mortal could dream to be. I never imagined that you would find my physical appearance as anything more than… tolerable.”