CHAPTER 21
Fuery stood beside the double bed in the musty room, his gaze locked on the female sleeping on top of the pale blue covers. Shaia. The last few hours felt like a dream, and for once it hadn’t turned into a nightmare.
She loosed a soft sigh and rolled onto her side, her right hand coming to rest on the pillow where his head had been as he had held her. Held her. His chest still felt warm from where her head had rested against it, his heart on fire and soul blazing from her allowing him to be so close to her, trusting him not to hurt her.
Her blue silk robe slipped as she eased onto her back again, clearing her creamy right shoulder and barely clinging to the peaks of her breasts.
His blood burned for a different reason.
Heat spread through his limbs, pooling low in his belly, and he wanted to growl at the sight of her and the need that ran through him.
He growled quietly at himself instead, chastising himself as guilt swelled inside him, shame born of the wicked thoughts that swam around his head, coaxing him into kneeling on the bed, parting her thighs and waking her by delving his tongue between her soft folds. She would cry so sweetly as he pleasured her, and then again when he took hold of her wrists, pinned them above her head on the pillow, and speared her with his cock, sinking it deep and taking her hard.
Claiming her.
He forced himself to turn his back to her as the need to act out that fantasy grew so strong that he had to fight to stop himself from going through with it.
Gods, it was a battle he wasn’t sure he would win.
He wanted her.
Not just the mate in him, but the male too.
When she had offered herself to him in the bathtub, he had wanted to make love with her, to pleasure her and satisfy her.
Fear had held him back.
Fear that had been crushing at the time, and choked him now as he tried to push away thoughts of mounting the bed and feeding his cock into her so he could feel her heat scalding him, clenching him tightly as he drove into her.
The fantasy in his head took the same turn it had when he had been in the tub with her.
It twisted into a terrifying vision of him killing her.
He shoved his fingers through his overlong black hair and gritted his teeth, his lips drawing back as he fought the urges running rampant through him.
He couldn’t bear it.
He didn’t want to hurt her, and he didn’t feel strong enough to hold back the darker side of himself that pushed him to seek violence and pain in everything he did in order to satisfy it.
The thought of inflicting his darkness on Shaia sickened him.
As much as he wanted to stay with her, needed it with every fibre of his being, he had to leave and grow stronger before he could risk being around her again.
He needed to be strong enough to hold back the darkness.
Fuery looked back over his shoulder at her as she moved again, curling up on her side, her long black hair brushing across her cheek and spilling across the pillow beneath her. Her fine eyebrows furrowed for a moment before she settled back into a deep sleep.
It struck him that he had never really tried before. He had convinced himself that he had been fighting to hold back the darkness all his life, doing all he could to stand against it, but now he could see the truth.
Those fights had been half-hearted, and he had always let the darkness win. He had wanted the oblivion.
He had coaxed and nurtured it, letting it steal more control from him and allowing it to grow stronger.
Now he needed to fight it with all of his heart, and he feared he wasn’t strong enough, and he never would be.
He stared at Shaia, feeling that shake him to the very depths of his soul, the same soul that ached to find that strength because finding it was the key to being with her—his one true love—his mate.
He needed to speak with Hartt.
Fuery pulled himself away from her, treading silently across the wooden floor, and eased the door open. He glanced back at her as he closed it behind him, silently promising he would be back.
He followed the winding steps down into the main part of the inn, and issued a glare at every male present, especially the owner. The large male swallowed hard, paling a little as he polished a glass for a customer.
“Anyone goes near her, they answer to me. Understand?” He growled and eyed all the males again, making sure they got the message.
They all quickly nodded.
A couple teleported away.
Good.
The less males near his female, the less likely he was to create a bloodbath in the inn. None of the males were warriors. It would be a massacre, and Shaia would hate him for it, and he would hate himself for it too, but gods, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
Shaia was his.
What she had said to him in the bathtub came back to him, and he grimaced as he felt the truth of it.
He always had been possessive.
But possessive wasn’t a strong enough word to convey the way he felt about her. He would slay the Devil himself for her.
He stalked across the span of cobbles between the inn and the guild, a tight feeling growing in his chest with each step further he went from her. It birthed a need when he entered the guild, one that drove him to return to her. He rubbed at his bare chest and ignored the looks the males in the reception room gave him as he stormed across it to the corridor that would take him to Hartt’s office.
He had to focus hard to get his senses to move from Shaia to what was ahead of him, but eventually they shifted. He scoured the room beyond the dark wooden door at the end of the black hallway as he walked towards it, and relief poured through him to ease his tension away when he sensed only Hartt inside it.
He didn’t bother to knock.
He pushed the door open, strode in as Hartt’s violet gaze lifted to him from the papers strewn across his ebony desk and sat down without saying a word.
“You did not return after completing the mission. I presume everything went well?” The worry Hartt felt coloured his voice so Fuery couldn’t miss it.
He nodded.
Hartt looked back down at his papers. “Is Shaia well?”
There was a smile in those words. A grin. Fuery scowled at his friend, hoping to make it clear that he wasn’t in the mood for teasing. Not today.
Hartt’s steady gaze drifted back to him again, piercing him with a demand to know the answer to his question, and Fuery realised for the first time that Hartt was becoming attached to Shaia.
Cared about her.
He bared his fangs at that as they punched long from his gums and the darkness rose within him, slithering upwards to swamp his heart.
“You know I’m only asking as a friend, Fuery,” Hartt said in a soft, calm voice, one he often used to soothe him.
Fuery managed to rein in his anger enough that he could answer. “She is fine.”
Hartt nodded towards his neck. “You have injuries.”
He looked away from his friend. “She took care of them.”
The elf male sighed. “And now you are struggling, unsure of yourself. Why?”
It turned out Fuery couldn’t speak to Hartt about it after all. Just the thought of admitting his dark desires to his friend had his mind conjuring pictures of Hartt in those positions with Shaia, and it had the hunger to bloody his claws rising inside him.
He stared at the black wall beyond Hartt, struggling with that terrible need, aware that even glancing at his friend before he was back in control would lead to him attacking him.
When Hartt moved, he closed his eyes and lowered his head, buried his face in his hands and thought about why he had come to Hartt in the first place.
To talk.
“You are afraid of hurting her,” Hartt whispered, as if he was reading his thoughts—his deepest fears.
Perhaps he was. Their blood bond tied them deeply, as deeply as the one he shared with Shaia. It would be easy for Hartt to sense his fear. He wasn’t exactly being guarded with his feelings. He was too tired, spread too thin, his mind leading him down paths that only wore him down even more.
He nodded.
“I thought I had killed her once…” Fuery raised his head and pushed his hands over his hair. “What if I…”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Hartt sighed, his expression softening. “You will not. You would never hurt her.”
He wanted to believe that.
His friend leaned back in his chair, rested his hands behind his head and kicked his feet up onto his desk.
“I always thought it was my bond with you that brought you back from the darkness whenever you lost yourself in it.” Hartt’s violet eyes lifted to the dark wooden ceiling, and then lowered back to him as he said, “I was wrong.”
Fuery frowned at that.
“I have heard the things you talk about when you are lost, oblivious to the world around you, and I have long suspected that you are the one who pieces yourself back together. My link to you only gives you a chance to do that, as does Shaia’s bond with you… but it is your endless love for Shaia that gives you the strength to come back, and her love for you.” Hartt dropped his feet, sat up in his chair and rested his elbows on the desk between them as he leaned towards Fuery. “It’s that light she kept burning inside you all these years… the light that will save you.”
Fuery could only stare at him as he felt the gravity of that.
He reached for his bond to Shaia, warmth running through him as he felt the strength of it and realised that it had survived all the centuries, had endured the darkness within him, withstanding it.
A bond that tied them deeper than either of them had known.
He was sure of it now.
Shaia had kept it alive.
Her undying love for him was the only reason he had survived so long without losing himself completely and falling into the black abyss. She had never stopped loving him, she had told him that herself. All the centuries they had been apart, she had held on to that love, and she must have been subconsciously nurturing the weak thread that linked them, keeping it alive and giving a sliver of her light to him.
His chest and lungs tightened.
The sensation he’d had before returned, stronger this time. The reason he hadn’t lost himself, had never given up even when he could have embraced death, and the reason he had always come back, was his endless love for her and awareness that the bond was still there between them, tying them together, and hope that one day he would return to her.
Just as he had promised.
That hope kindled in his chest, becoming a flame that burned in his heart, bright as the light she had awoken in him when she had opened their bond again.
Hope that he could tame the darkness.
Because everything he had ever wanted and thought lost forever was back in his life, and he wanted the future they had dreamed of together.
That hope faded a little as the darkness within him pushed, snaking inky tendrils through his limbs, reminding him that they would never have the future he wanted, because he was different now.
He wasn’t worthy of her.
Not as he was now.
She seemed as bright and pure as she had been as a youth, and he was tainted by darkness. Gods, the irony wasn’t lost on him. He finally felt unworthy of her. Truly unworthy. He hadn’t felt it back then, lowborn and nothing more than a soldier, nothing of value to his name, not like her other suitors. When her family had called him unworthy, he had fought back against them, had kept his spirit strong and refused to see himself that way. He had looked at all he was doing to better himself, and he had seen he was worthy of her. He had listened to her words, and had believed himself worthy because she had chosen him.
He felt it now though, and it wasn’t even his position as an assassin or the things he did as his work that made him feel unworthy at last.
It was the darkness.
Because she was so full of light, shining so brightly it blinded him.
He wasn’t worthy of her. Not as he was now.
But he wouldn’t give up, would never give in. Somehow, he would make himself worthy of her again.
No matter what it took.
No matter how long it took.
He knew where he needed to start.
He pushed out of the chair and nodded at Hartt, and the male’s clipped nod in return told him everything. It warned him to be careful, and wished him good luck, and asked him to come back soon.
He would.
Without looking back, he exited the office and strode through the guild building, heading back out into the town. He crossed the road to the inn, ignored the owner again as his legs swiftly carried him through it and up the stairs, taking him to where his heart needed to be.
He couldn’t leave without looking upon her one last time.
He needed to see her again, to brand her face on his mind and her scent on his soul, all to give him the strength to face the darkness.
He carefully eased her door open and slipped back into her room. She slept soundly still, curled up on her side where he had left her. He silently crossed the room to her and stared down at her, absorbing her beauty, together with the fact she was real. He hadn’t killed her, and he wouldn’t. He would make sure of that.
He would find a way to fix himself, so he could be with her without fear.
Fuery lifted his hand to his hair and unpinned the silver clasp that held the top half of it tied back. He lowered the delicate intricate band and stared at it, remembering everything about the day she had given it to him as he brushed his thumb over the swirls and patterns raised on the ring.
She had gifted him with it before he had left her that fateful day, a token of her love for him and a memento to remind him of her on his travels, but just like her, it shone too brightly for him to look at right now.
One day, he would be worthy of her again.
He was going to fight to make it happen.
Until then, until he felt worthy of her love, he didn’t deserve to wear the clasp she had given him.
He set it down on the blue pillow beside her hand, and whispered, “Keep it safe for me. I will be back for it. I will be back for you.”
He hoped.
He leaned over, drew down a deep breath of her sweet scent, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then to her lips. She stirred, kissing him back for a brief agonising moment that tore at his will to leave before she sank back to sleep.
Fuery straightened, tied the top section of his overlong blue-black hair back with a leather thong, and stared at her.
More than ever, he needed to know how Vail did it. He needed to know how he was coming back from the darkness. He hadn’t believed it possible before, but he needed to believe it was possible now.
He turned away from Shaia, determination in his stride as he left the inn and the guild behind, his eyes fixed on the other end of the town and his destination.
A portal that would take him to the mortal world.
To his prince.