CHAPTER 15
Shaia lowered her eyes away from Fuery as he fought with himself, his body trembling violently and eyes on the verge of becoming pitch black. Gods. She knew he would hate for her to see him like this—a warrior weakened and rendered vulnerable. A shadow of the male she had known four millennia ago.
It was hard to keep her gaze off him as he struggled, an echo of his emotions ringing in her blood as he waged war against whatever darkness gripped him. She wanted to know, wanted to lift her eyes, close the distance between them and take him into her arms and hold him until the battle had passed and he was on even ground again. Then, she would ask him what it felt like whenever the darkness gripped him, would make him tell her so she could understand and find a way to aid him.
She wanted to shake its hold on him forever.
She wanted to guide him back to the light.
She hadn’t been there for him when he had needed her, had left him alone in this world to face the darkness without anyone there to support him, to help him hold it at bay and vanquish it.
Hartt moved, a slight shift of his weight but enough to remind her of his presence in the huge black-walled room with her and Fuery. It reminded her of something else too. Fuery hadn’t been alone, or at least he hadn’t been alone through every year of the four thousand she had been apart from him.
Hartt had been there for him, had been the guide drawing him back to the light in her place, had bonded himself to her mate in an attempt to save him.
It should have been her.
She felt wretched as she thought that, as she felt it in every drop of her blood and fibre of her being.
She had failed her beloved.
Now, she stood with her head bent, her eyes locked on the black stone tiles beneath her boots, failing him again.
Hartt hadn’t taken his eyes off Fuery.
The elf male offered support to him as he fought, made it clear that he was there if Fuery needed him, silently showing him that he only needed to ask for his assistance and he would give it to him, regardless of the danger to himself. He would fight to bring him back from the darkness once again, even if it attached itself to him in the process.
Gods, she had thought she was sparing Fuery by keeping her eyes away from him, but the hurt in him was mounting, a sense of desperation that made it blindingly clear she had been wrong.
Her actions hadn’t spared him.
They had wounded him.
They had allowed the darkness he had been fighting to grip him harder, because she had weakened him by refusing to look at him, had stirred black thoughts and feelings that beat in her chest—in her heart.
He was wrong.
She lifted her head and held her hand out to him, desperate to show him that she hadn’t meant her actions in the way he thought, that she had only wanted to spare him because she had known he would hate her seeing him like this.
She hadn’t meant to hurt him.
He hesitated, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he would take her hand, and then jagged black tendrils snaked over his body and he disappeared.
She lunged forwards, desperation driving her to seize him before she lost him again, and her hand cut through the shimmering air where he had been.
Her senses reached out, seeking him as her heart throbbed, pain pulsing in it as she cursed herself for doing everything wrong. Her fear and her pain settled as she found him nearby, still inside the guild.
In his quarters?
The tension drained from her shoulders and she sagged as she eased back onto her heels and stared towards the direction she could feel him in, a desire to follow him rising swiftly inside her and urging her to go to him.
To make everything right.
Somehow.
“Stay where you are this time,” Hartt muttered and took swift steps across the polished stone floor before she could respond.
He disappeared down the corridor off to her right, and she shifted foot to foot as she waited, growing aware of the fact she was alone in the grim reception room of a guild of assassins.
Loud footfalls echoed behind her.
Her head whipped around, gaze leaping over her right shoulder. One of those assassins strolled in, his face a black mask as he rubbed at his shoulder through a tight black short-sleeved garment, and muttered something beneath his breath. He huffed and pushed his wild silver hair out of his face, and a deep sigh escaped him as his silver eyes closed.
He drew down another breath.
Stopped dead a few feet from her.
Those bright silver eyes flicked back open, locking straight on her.
“Anyone told you it isn’t wise to wander into a guild of assassins, Little Female? Especially this one.” His voice was a deep rumble, but there was a note of warmth in it she hadn’t expected, one that seemed at odds with his cold expression and lethal air.
“I-I am waiting for Hartt.” She wanted to curse herself for stammering, making herself appear weak in front of the male.
English was not her first language, but she had tutored herself in it during her years in her small home, together with a smattering of other languages, ones her parents would never have allowed her to learn. In society’s eyes, females of her species had no need to know anything other than the elf tongue.
He eased back onto his heels and looked her over, taking in her masculine clothing with an arched eyebrow. “You don’t look like a whore, and last I checked Hartt wasn’t interested in that sort of ‘business’ anyway.”
Her cheeks blazed, and her temper caught fire with them. “I am not a whore!”
“Good thing.” He casually cocked his head to his left and ran another assessing glance over her. “You’re not a patch on Iolanthe and I figure he’s got a pretty big crush on his ex-fiancée.”
She frowned, her anger deflating as curiosity seized her.
“Bleu’s sister? I heard she had been promised to a male.” She looked back towards the corridor, and tried to imagine Hartt with Iolanthe.
Iolanthe was adventurous, a match for him in a way, but Shaia doubted she ever would have married a male against her wishes. It was tradition though. If an elf female failed to find their fated one before their thousandth birthday, they were married to a male of the family’s choosing.
Thinking about that had Eirwyn popping into her head, and how she was promised to him, and would have married him if Bleu hadn’t come to her and told her that Fuery was alive.
Shaia shoved Eirwyn out again, together with the shame that swept through her. She might have been strong enough to refuse her parents before the wedding had taken place. She might have been brave enough to stand him up, as Iolanthe had with Hartt.
The male was saying something to her.
She looked at him, and blinked, feeling awful as he scowled at her, obviously displeased that she hadn’t been listening.
“You know Bleu?” The male tried again, and she nodded. He blew out his breath on a low whistle. “I bet that went down well with Hartt.”
He jerked his left thumb towards the door in the corner of the room that led to the offices, winced, and rubbed at his shoulder again. “I’m guessing he’s not in, since you’re stood here brightening the room?”
Brightening it?
He had an odd way of speaking, and she doubted his clothing came from Hell. She had never seen so many pockets on trousers, or boots with such strange soles. They weren’t made of leather or wood. He looked down at his feet, his silvery eyebrows dipped low, and then he raised his eyes back to her.
“I can get you a pair if you want… the, uh, clothing thing… you into cross-dressing or just find it comfortable? I mean, a lot of females in the mortal world wear trousers and shit, but I haven’t seen many down here dressing like that.” He ran a finger through the air, up and down, and then his frown melted away into a grin that lit up his eyes. “Aya loves tight jeans and t-shirts. Fuck… the way they hug her arse makes me want to growl and grab it every fucking time I see it.”
Shaia presumed Aya was this male’s mate. “I thought the guild did not allow females here. Hartt said—”
“Hartt’s cool with it,” he spoke over her and then added, “It’s Fuery who loses his shit. I have to keep an eye on the mad bastard when Aya visits.”
She growled and flashed fangs at him, her pointed ears flaring back against the sides of her head as fury rippled through her on hearing him speak of her mate in such a vicious, cruel way. His eyes widened, shock sweeping across his face.
A gasp left her as she realised what she had done and she lifted her hands to her mouth, her eyes growing round. “I am sorry… I…”
“Have a thing for Fuery,” he said in a low, slow way that made her feel he was peeling back her layers, seeking the truth inside her, and he wasn’t going to stop until he knew it.
She didn’t want him prying into her personal life, and she refused to allow him to fluster her into saying things she wanted to keep private, so she put it out there before he could speak again.
“Fuery is my mate.”
His eyes widened further.
“Well, fuck… my condolences.” He closed the gap between them and slapped a heavy hand down on her shoulder, a twinkle in his eyes that said he wasn’t being serious but didn’t stop her from growling at him.
Her growl sounded deeper than normal, and very dangerous judging by the way the male paled and eased his hand away from her.
“I would suggest it is unwise to lay a hand on the female, Harbin,” Hartt snarled and stepped around her, coming to stand between her and the male. “Unless you want Fuery swinging you around this room by your tail?”
Harbin swallowed and blanched further, and then shrugged stiffly. “I was just playing.”
Hartt’s expression remain cold and hard. “I am not sure Fuery would see it that way. Shaia is his mate… and you know how a mated male would view what you have just done. Next time, before you act or speak to Shaia, think about how you would feel if someone spoke or acted towards Aya that way, and then multiply whatever black desire you feel by a thousand, and that is what Fuery will do to you in response.”
The edge to Harbin’s eyes said it didn’t really bear thinking about.
He ran a glance over Hartt’s ruined tunic, looked as if he wanted to mention it and ask whether Fuery was responsible for his appearance, and then bent his head. “Noted. I’ll file my report later.”
Hartt nodded, but caught the male’s arm before he could pass him, and glanced across at him. “Shower… because if Fuery smells her on you, it’s your funeral.”
Harbin swallowed hard again and hurried away. Was Fuery that terrifying?
She looked to Hartt for the answer, and saw it in his grim expression as he turned towards her, his violet eyes troubled and laced with concern, worry for his friend.
“Is he… well?” She wasn’t sure that was the right word to use, because she wasn’t sure he would ever be well again.
Even if she could drive the darkness from his soul, he would still be vulnerable to it. It would never truly leave him. He would always be in danger of falling into it again.
Hartt sighed, rubbed the back of his neck and stared at her, conflict shining in his eyes as he studied her in silence. The minutes dragged by as she waited for him to speak, her fear growing, whispering to her that he was going to make her leave again when she desperately needed to stay.
“As well as can be expected,” Hartt finally said but the tension building inside her didn’t dissipate.
She waited for him to continue, feared the words she knew he would say next, and was ready to rebel against his wishes and fight him on it. His violet eyes flicked towards the hallway that led to Fuery, and then leaped back to her, and she braced herself.
“You want to see him?”
Those five words hit her hard, struck her dumb, and she could only stare at the male as they pinged around her head.
The complete opposite to what she had expected him to say.
He sighed when she just stared at him, her mouth gaping open and eyebrows pinned high on her forehead.
“No need to look at me like that,” he grumbled in the elf tongue. “I am starting to feel that Fuery needs to see you. He will not settle. Perhaps you can achieve that.”
He turned away from her and strode back the way he had come, heading into the corridor and disappearing from view. She hurried after him, heart picking up pace as she neared the doorway and doubling in speed again when she took her first step into the black-walled hallway. Oil lamps flickered at intervals along it, lending warmth to the dark walls, chasing over her as she sped after Hartt.
When she reached him, he slowed his strides and she fell in behind him, her steps silent on the stone tiles beneath her boots.
She followed him through the maze of corridors, tensing whenever she passed a door and sensed someone on the other side. Some were powerful, sparking her instinct to protect herself, and she moved closer to Hartt whenever it happened. He glanced at her a few times, his face an unreadable mask that gave nothing away.
When she tried to sense his emotions, she found nothing. No trace of feeling in him. She could catch his scent, could feel him near her, and could hear his heart beating steadily and slowly, but she couldn’t detect a hint of what he was feeling. He had shut her out.
Why?
Because he was worried about Fuery?
He had no reason to hide that from her, because she had seen it in him when he had returned from attempting to get her mate to settle, and had witnessed it back in the reception room when Fuery had been there, battling with himself.
She glanced at a door as they passed it. Had he closed himself off because of the occupants of the rooms around them, wanting to keep his emotions hidden from his assassins?
That made more sense to Shaia.
Hartt didn’t want them feeling his concern for Fuery, because he wanted to protect her mate. He didn’t want his assassins to know that Fuery was struggling.
Because he was a danger to them?
She knew of the darkness. All elves were warned about it from an early age. The darkness could make an elf view a friend as a foe, and there were many tales about elves who had lost themselves to the darkness and had attacked their own kin.
The cautionary tale of Prince Vail was one of them.
That male had turned on his own legion and had attacked them. He had attacked Fuery, and the two had been close at the time, more than commander and subordinate.
They had been friends.
Thinking about that battle dredged up the pain she had felt then, hurt that she had carried through the centuries and had never really faded or left her. It had remained in her heart, burned in her soul still, even though the male she had mourned was alive and she was on her way to see him.
To soothe him.
Hartt stopped outside one of the dark wooden doors, steeled himself and looked at her. “I will be just across the hall.”
She nodded, the nerves that had been swift to rise inside her when she had halted and had felt Fuery close to her abating a little as he gestured to the door behind him. She focused her senses, and her heart went out to Fuery when she felt his pain and something else.
All of the rooms at this end of the guild were empty. Unoccupied.
A precaution to protect the assassins from Fuery?
Sorrow welled up inside her as she thought about that, and imagined how her beautiful warrior felt as he passed his hours in his quarters, aware that he was alone, and aware of the reason for it. Gods, it had to tear at him.
Hartt was there, the only one brave enough to sleep within Fuery’s immediate reach, and it touched her, warmed her heart and chased some of the chill from it. She turned to him, wanting to thank him for caring deeply enough about Fuery to remain close to him when all others had distanced themselves.
He nodded before she could utter a word, turned away and opened the door to his own room. Before he could disappear on the other side, she caught the edge to his expression, the shimmer of something in his eyes that gave away his feelings at last.
He was more than worried.
He feared for his friend.
Shaia turned her head towards Fuery’s door, and resolve flowed into her heart, buoyed her courage and had her nerves settling.
She would alleviate that fear for Hartt.
She would do all in her power to ease Fuery and release him from the grip of his darkness.
She reached for the door handle and froze as Hartt’s door opened again and he poked his head around it.
“Be wary of Fuery’s mood… it can change in an instant.” His violet eyes held hers, cold and sharp, sending a shiver through her that threatened to stir her nerves again.
She nodded, and he eased his door closed, leaving her alone in the corridor.
She swallowed hard, blew out her breath to settle her nerves, and told herself that Fuery wouldn’t hurt her. She knew it in her heart. No matter how fiercely the darkness seized him, no matter how vicious it turned him, he wouldn’t hurt her.
He loved her.
She grasped the handle, twisted it and pushed the door open.
“Hartt, I need to see…” Fuery trailed off as he turned towards her, his words dying on his lips as his eyes settled on her.
She wanted to weep when she saw the violet in them.
A bare thread of it around his pupils.
She reached out to him through their bond, focusing on the connection between them, and that need to cry grew stronger, had her throat closing and tears welling, when she sensed the darkness was receding, freeing him of its vile and wretched grasp.
It continued to fade as he stared at her, a large double bed with black covers standing between them. The lamp on the small table beside the head of it on his side flickered, sending golden light shimmering across his bare chest and over the window at his back.
It struggled to warm the space that felt cold to her, sparse with only the bed and the side table in the room, more like a cell than a home.
She frowned as she looked closer at the bed and saw deep scratches on the wooden frame and headboard, long grooves that looked as if they had been made with Fuery’s claws, and matched marks on the black walls too. Were those marks the product of him losing himself to the darkness?
His shame swept through her and she dragged her gaze away from them, not wanting to upset him, and settled her eyes back on him.
They dropped to his bare chest.
His eyes fell there too and he suddenly moved, reaching for the jacket he had discarded on the bed.
“You have so many scars,” she whispered, eyes charting them all, and he froze mid-reach, leaning forwards with his hand almost on his jacket, and lifted his eyes back to her.
He blinked and swallowed, and she felt the conflict flow through him, tearing him apart, and saw in his eyes that he wasn’t sure what to say.
“I am sorry, Fuery,” she husked, her voice tight as she gazed at all the scars, and imagined all the battles he had fought and how often he must have danced close to death, stepping within its reach. “If I had known more about bonds… I should have known more… I should not have believed you gone so easily… I should have done something.”
He slowly eased forwards, wrapped his long fingers around his tunic, and equally as slowly straightened and put it on, never taking his eyes off her, not even when he buttoned it, covering his chest.
Stealing the scars from view.
When he was done, he flicked a glance at the door behind her and then back at her.
“Are you real?” he rasped.
She nodded. “I am.”
Shaia reached her hands out to him and edged around the foot of the bed, towards him. When he tensed, she slowed, moving more cautiously, her senses monitoring him and Hartt’s words ringing in her mind.
She tried to shake them away.
Fuery wouldn’t hurt her.
She slowly closed the distance between them, and her heart hitched when she was within a few feet and could feel his heat. His masculine scent of spice and earth wrapped around her, transporting her back to better days, ones where she had lazed in his arms in their secret spot on the bank of the river.
The tears she wanted to keep back rose into her eyes again.
Fuery’s black eyebrows furrowed as he saw them, and he looked as if he wanted to reach for her.
She wanted that too.
But she knew he was still fighting the memories he believed real, the ones where she no longer lived, and feared that if he touched her, she would reveal herself as nothing more than a figment of his imagination, his fingers ghosting through her.
Her poor, beautiful, warrior.
He feared touching her, but she didn’t fear touching him. She would give him the comfort he desired, and the contact he needed.
She gently placed her hands on his wrists, over the cuffs of his jacket, and carefully raised his arms, and then let her hands slip towards his. The first brush of their skin drew a sharp intake of breath from him, and his eyes darted from hers to their hands.
His were trembling.
“You are dead,” he whispered and his throat worked on a hard swallow. “I killed you.”
When his corrupted eyes leaped up to hers, she shook her head.
“No. You are just confused.” She offered him a smile, one she hoped would comfort him and reassure him that she spoke the truth. “The bond confused us both. I thought you were dead too. When you lost yourself to the darkness the first time… I felt the connection shatter… and I thought you were dead.”
He looked back down at their hands, the black slashes of his eyebrows pinned high on his forehead.
Gods, he looked so lost.
She could feel him clearer now, could pick apart the emotions that shimmered in their growing connection as it slowly restored itself, reinforced by both of them. He still feared she was a ghost, a vision sent to torment him, but he was beginning to believe she was real.
He was silent and still for long seconds that felt like an eternity, his eyes never leaving their joined hands, and then he whipped his head up and his eyebrows furrowed, a hint of fang showing between his lips as he spoke.
“You thought I had slept with another… that I would ever do that to you…” His face crumpled again and his deep voice dropped to a low whisper that carried all the pain she could feel in him. “When you are everything to me.”
Gods, that made her want to cry.
“I am sorry,” she whispered, despising herself for hurting him, but rejoicing at the same time, because it had pushed him into revealing that he still loved her, and that he had never been with another. “I saw you with that female…”
“A client. She changed her mind about a job and Hartt had me return her down payment.”
Relief blasted through her, so sweet and sharp that it stole her breath. In its wake, came another feeling, and then another. She felt like an idiot for flying into a rage and presuming the female had been a whore, and then she felt terrible for not trusting Fuery and for believing he would ever be with another female.
When he had promised to be hers and hers alone forever.
“The past few weeks have been difficult… and they have taken their toll on me.” She hated that it sounded like an excuse in her ears, and hoped he wouldn’t hold it against her. It wasn’t the first jealous outburst she’d had in their time together, and she recalled they had pleased him once, because they had revealed the depth of her love for him. She studied his eyes and his feelings, trying to see if it still pleased him now, and ached all over again as it hit her that it was her Fuery standing before her. Her beautiful Fuery. She still couldn’t believe it. “I have mourned you for forty-two centuries, and then suddenly you were alive, and you had been living your life without me.”
He dropped his gaze again and his hands tensed against hers, his shoulders going rigid. “I am sorry… I thought I had killed you. I did kill you, didn’t I? You are just a ghost… yet I can touch you.”
He lifted his left hand, hesitated, and then edged it forwards and placed it against her cheek.
That ridiculous need to weep arrowed through her again but she held it back and focused on the feel of his palm on her face. Warm. Strong. Gods, it comforted her more than he could ever know. It made the long centuries alone worth it.
She would have waited forever to feel this again.
“You are so warm,” he murmured, and the tears she had been fighting slipped onto her cheeks. His eyebrows furrowed again as he tracked one with his gaze, and then he brushed it away with the pad of his thumb, bringing more as her heart ached in response to his tenderness. “Life has been so cold without you.”
Shaia lifted her hand and placed it over his, pinning it to her cheek. “I am here now.”
“You are not going anywhere?” His eyes darted between hers.
She shook her head.
His gaze locked with hers, and his mood shifted. She could feel it changing, but she didn’t let it frighten her, stood her ground and waited for whatever emotion had gripped him to reveal itself to her.
His pupils dilated.
His eyes fell to her lips.
He murmured throatily, “I dreamed of you the other night… I dreamed of the ball.”
A blush climbed her cheeks, scalding them, and her heart missed a beat as she remembered that night and how she had wanted so much more than his kisses and that fumbled moment.
He drew down a deep breath, and growled. “You need.”
She flushed all over, startled that he could sense her rising desire, even when she knew it happened between mates. Her pulse picked up when he stepped towards her, anticipation swirling inside her, pushing her to the edge of begging him to take her into his arms and kiss her because he was right and she needed him. She needed him now. It felt as if she might die if he didn’t touch her, didn’t re-enact that night with her against the wall of his room.
He stilled, and moved back, and she wanted to growl at him.
“You do not want me.” He lowered his hand from her face, slipping it free of hers, and cold swept through her, confusion at the crest of it. She frowned at him, unsure why his mood had suddenly changed and what had given him the impression she didn’t want him, when she was burning for him. He looked away from her, towards the window to his left. “You couldn’t bring yourself to look at me.”
Her confusion mounted, clouding her mind. When had she made him feel that way?
The clouds scattered as she remembered the moment in the reception room, when she had felt the same hurt go through him.
When he had lost himself to the darkness and had been fighting it, tormented by it, and she had looked away from him.
“No, Fuery.” She shook her head and seized his hands again, refusing to let him distance himself from her when he was wrong. “I knew you would not want me to see you like that… I thought I was sparing you.”
She stepped towards him, closing the gap between them, narrowing it further this time, so his heat embraced her and he was all she knew.
She lifted her eyes to meet his, held them as they darkened again, and opened herself to him. She would never hide anything from him. She would never hold anything back. Even when confessing such things had her nerves rising, palms sweating and pulse pounding.
“I want you, Fuery… I wanted you from the moment we met and I have never stopped wanting you.”