Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
SHE HAD RUINED ME
Rian
What does it mean?
I rolled my eyes when I realized that Ciaran must have given up his interrogation, and it was Darragh’s turn.
Whatever could you mean? I responded sarcastically, attempting to keep my expression unreadable as I walked Nuala into the bathhouse to which I’d portalled us.
I was completely soaked with blood, and Nuala had gotten it all over her dress from standing so close to me.
Which was a shame because I really appreciated the way this particular dress looked on her.
I had already decided that I needed to replace it because the lavender silk was exquisite against her porcelain fair skin and dark hair.
You know what I mean, the demidragon retorted.
Nuala and I reached the doorway where patrons could enter the public bath or choose one of the more secluded pools in the bathhouse.
I guessed Nuala would be more comfortable with a little privacy, but I had no intention of leaving her all alone in a strange place.
So I guided her into one of the small stone chambers with me and warded the door behind us to ensure no one else could intrude.
The humid air smelled of the herbs that had been added to the hot water as we stepped into the dim room where the only light came from flickering wall sconces.
I have already told you both that I have no idea why she is unaffected by my power, I reminded Darragh.
But why would you not tell us about this before now? What if she is dangerous, Rian?
I scoffed aloud at the thought of Nuala ever becoming a threat to me, which drew her attention.
“Is it Darragh or Ciaran?” she asked with amusement, although there was still a hint of the reservation that had been in her eyes since we left the prison yurt.
“Darragh. But they are both concerned by the fact that you can touch my shadows. They would also like to know what it means,” I informed her, trying my best to keep my voice light and playful.
Nuala did not smile as she plucked the bag of bathing supplies I had packed for us from my hand.
“I already told you what it means,” she told me quietly before she walked around the pool to a stone bench where she dumped our bathing supplies.
“You said you are mine. You did not explain what that means or how it allows you to interact with a power that incinerates everyone else,” I insisted.
I was determined to get a real explanation out of her this time. I needed to know why she seemed…
Familiar? Comfortable? I couldn’t begin to explain the way she felt to me.
And even more concerning was this growing sense of contentment in her presence.
If she were not mortal and much too young, I may have worried she was somehow my mate.
But obviously there was no way we could have shared our first breaths when mine had been taken almost a thousand years ago.
Nuala hesitated, her head half turned toward me before she twisted away again and began to loosen the laces at the front of her bloodied dress without answering.
“Do you even know?” I asked when it occurred to me that she may not. Perhaps there was no real explanation in a similar way to how no one could explain why éadrom and the other vargr belonged to their riders.
“You also have… premonitions,” she hedged.
“Yes,” I conceded as I followed her lead and began to peel out of my clothing. My shirt fell to the floor with a sickening plop, leaving my skin feeling sticky from all the sappy dryad blood that had soaked through.
“So I believe we both have a sense of how important our alliance will become,” she mumbled.
“An alliance does not explain how you are the only one aside from éadrom who is able to touch my shadows without being consumed by them,” I maintained.
Nuala remained quiet, trying to focus on loosening her corset-style dress, which she was still learning how to lace properly on her own. I’d helped her lace it that morning, so I would probably need to help unlace it too.
I made sure my steps were loud enough that she could hear me approach, and she let me turn her around to face me so I could tug the busk laces loose. I thought she was keeping her head low to avoid my questions, but a glance at her downturned face showed me rather differently.
She was devouring the sight of my bare torso without a shred of shame or any care that I was still covered in the blood of the males I had tortured.
Her mouth was parted, her pupils had dilated, and her pulse was fluttering in her slender throat.
When I breathed in her lavender and rain scent more deeply on an impulse, I was rewarded with the heady and intoxicating addition of her arousal.
The sight and smell of her reaction shocked me at first because it was not something I would have expected from the little witch.
But then the warm and spicy scent of her desire fully permeated my brain, and there were no more thoughts about what she should or should not be feeling.
There was only the visceral and primal reaction to what she was feeling for me.
I was not remotely prepared for the pure adrenalin that flooded my veins after this realization.
The intensity of the reaction bordered on violence, and it was all I could do to stop myself from grabbing her.
All I wanted to do was bury my nose in the crook of her neck and inhale the scent of her more deeply.
Let it drive me into a frenzy. And it was a damned good thing that she was immune to my magic because my shadows streamed from my hands and forearms. They had already curled around her body before I could even think about stopping them.
I had never had such a powerful reaction after merely sensing someone’s attraction to me, and it was dangerous.
Especially when I could not act on the impulse.
Not only because she was a fragile mortal and so very vulnerable, but because I wrecked people.
I failed them. And I knew the last thing Nuala needed in her life was a domineering and insatiable hedonist who would inevitably break her.
“Be careful, little witch,” I growled, my voice huskier than I had intended. “I can smell those kinds of thoughts, and they will get you into trouble.”
I expected her to be mortified that I had sensed where her mind had clearly taken her. But when those eyes flickered up to meet mine through her long dark lashes, there was no trace of embarrassment.
“Our ideas of trouble must be different,” she replied, her voice a seductive purr like what I would have expected from an experienced courtesan in Lystby.
I repressed a growl when my cock rebelled against all my best intentions, and I had to resist the urge to adjust it in the confines of my pants.
“I am the last thing you need now, Nuala,” I insisted, but the warning only made her raise one brow at me.
“Because you think you are too broken. I am not sure if you noticed,” she began with a slow and sarcastic tone, “but I am not exactly untarnished by darkness either.”
You think you are too broken.
She had not meant to, but her words only proved that she saw too much for us to ever be romantically involved.
It had always been easier for me to be with people like Geera who were too enamoured of who I was to look so closely at me.
Geera was happy to share my bed with any number of others in order to earn the esteem of her noble counterparts in Mionlach.
None of them ever questioned whether I thought I was too broken to be with them.
As suddenly as the air between us had become fraught with sexual tension, it turned to ice. Nuala tried to turn away from me, the warmth gone from her striking eyes, but I snatched her chin to keep that frigid gaze on me.
“You have been suffering from bouts of melancholy ever since we left the prison yurt,” I noted suspiciously. She glowered at me as if offended by the observation.
“Who is that woman to you? The one from Mionlach,” she clarified coolly.
“Geera? She is what is called an Auxiliary. It is her job to act as an intermediary between foreign dignitaries who visit Mionlach and the City Council. She was assigned to me long ago. I have tested her loyalty beyond a doubt if you are concerned about that,” I tried to assure her.
“She is your lover,” Nuala stated curtly, and I frowned at her as I tried to hide the way my stomach twisted with dread at the familiar threat of judgment and possession.
I had never made a secret of the fact that I enjoyed sex often and with a variety of people; even when it earned disapproval from most of the aes sídhe.
They could not understand that I could never be like the other males in the village.
Not when my mother had been prophesying my birth centuries before I was conceived.
For the first few decades of my life, I was revered as a guardian of the aes sídhe and had become my tribe’s pride and joy.
Until my father was killed, I lost control of my power, and then I’d become their greatest fear and shame.
It still tormented me to know that they must have been waiting for me to fulfill my mother’s promise and save them from slaughter when the Fuath attacked. And I tried not to wonder if she cursed the day she had given birth to me before she died alongside the rest of our village.
People had always either wanted something from me or they were terrified and envious of my power.
So I had learned early in life to only give away the pieces of me that I didn’t care about.
I tried to be honest with potential lovers about that so they knew I would never belong to them fully or exclusively.
But Nuala and I could never be lovers, so I did not feel a need to explain myself to her.
“I fail to see what my history with Geera has to do with anything,” I said guardedly.
Nuala gave a sharp huff of frustration and pushed my hands off her. She turned away and yanked her loosened dress down her torso, which exposed her bare back.