CHAPTER 22
The pretty thatched cottage looked just as Fuery remembered, always in a perpetual state of summer or possibly spring, with blood red roses blooming against the creamy stone walls of the one-and-a-half storey building and threatening to creep high enough to start clambering over the reeds that formed the roof. His gaze followed the line of the roof as it undulated in sweeping curves over each window on the upper floor. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney, drifting high into the clear blue sky as it turned towards evening.
He drew down a deep breath and waited for his nerves to dispel, using the sight of the cottage and the flowers that bloomed in a hundred colours in its walled garden to soothe him. Nature. Pure, beautiful, nature. It calmed him as it always did, even though she bared her fangs at him if he tried to connect with her. He still loved her, still felt the deep draw to her that all elves did.
Even the tainted.
Those she despised.
Gods, he missed the connection to nature, one he now felt he had squandered, had never really appreciated until it had been taken from him by the darkness.
How many elves treated her the same way as he had, thinking that connection to her would always be there within them when they needed it to drive back the sliver of darkness all of his kind held inside their hearts?
How many elves now felt the same way as he did, as if he had been a fool, had treated nature with little respect and none of the reverence she deserved, and now she was gone, he would do anything to have her back in his life?
His black heart said the elf that lived in this magical cottage in the mortal world, surrounded by nature and held deep in her embrace knew his pain, suffered as he did.
No. Not as he did.
Vail still possessed a strong bond with nature.
One that had a vile snake hissing in Fuery’s heart, and a need to turn on his heel and leave blasting through him.
He ignored them and marched forwards along the narrow country lane, soaking in the birdsong and the deep quiet of this remote part of England, his eyes roaming the distant green hills, and the verdant forests, and then drifting back to the colourful garden of the cottage.
He could see why his prince lived here.
Felt sure that if he was to spend only a few days here that it would do him some good, would drive back the darkness and perhaps even help him form the fragile beginnings of a new bond with nature. He could make it work. He had felt the benefit of visiting this place had been waning, but perhaps he had been drawing away from it, refusing to allow it to flow into him in order to stop hope from building inside him, hope that had been liable to destroy him when the darkness crushed it.
But now Shaia was in his life again, and with her she had brought a flicker of light, and he wanted to get better. For her. So he could be with her. He wanted to embrace that light and use it to drive out the darkness. He wanted to forge a new connection with nature and embrace her again, was no longer afraid to hope.
He reached the sun-bleached arched wooden gate that intersected the low sandstone wall and stopped with his hand on it. Magic hummed in the air, penetrated his skin and sank deep into his bones. Magic laced with nature.
It was that magic that had the flowers blooming out of season, and the trees to the left and right of the cottage ripe with fruit. He stilled and absorbed that magic as he watched bees flit from flower to flower, buzzing gently as they raced to gather nectar before the sun set. A bird dipped and bobbed in the air as it flew past, another chasing it through the hollyhocks and the poppies, disturbing the bees as they ambled around the lavender. The second bird twittered and chirped, and Fuery soaked it all in, sighed as it eased his nerves and steadied his racing heart.
He was welcome here.
He could feel it in his bones, deep in his troubled soul.
In this place, and only this place, nature opened her arms to him.
He pressed down on the rusted metal lever and lifted the latch on the gate, and eased it open. It creaked, and the air seemed to still, everything suddenly stopping.
The air shimmered in front of him.
A male appeared there, tight armour covering him from head to toe, the black scales flowing over his muscles and rising up to form a helmet that flared back into spikes like a crown and dipped to a point above his nose.
His violet eyes were bright, flashing with a need for violence that dulled as the male recognised him and he eased back onto his heels, the tension draining from his shoulders.
“Fuery,” Prince Vail whispered, a note of warmth in his voice that spoke to Fuery and told him that the male was pleased to see him.
His helmet disappeared, the scales filtering back down into the rest of his armour, clearing his wild blue-black hair and revealing his handsome face.
The door of the cottage burst open and Rosalind came bounding out, her knee-length black dress flapping around her thighs and her wavy ash blonde hair bouncing with each step. When she spotted him, she ground to a halt, bent over and pressed her hands to her knees, breathing hard.
She glanced up at him, her blue eyes sparkling.
“I thought you were an intruder.” She turned her gaze from him to her mate and scowled. “You bloody scared the shit out of me disappearing like that.”
Fuery looked between them, and his eyes slowly widened as he noticed that Rosalind’s dress was on backwards. Heat bloomed on his cheeks, and his mind swiftly filled with images of Shaia standing before him, naked and bared to him, desire flashing in her eyes and need flaring in his blood. Her need.
“I can come back,” he muttered, and went to turn away, shame sweeping through him as he pushed the fantasy of Shaia away and was faced with a very rosy-cheeked Rosalind and caught Vail staring at her with hunger in his eyes, a need to continue what they had started before he had disturbed them.
“Not at all.” Rosalind looked down at herself, a flash of horror crossing her face as she realised her dress was on the wrong way around.
She fixed it with a wave of her hand, and Vail scowled for a different reason as the hum of magic in the air grew stronger. She cast a watchful glance at her mate. He scrubbed a hand over his tousled hair, huffed and began pacing, his tension flowing through the air the magic tainted.
When his pacing grew more intense, she went to him, and stopped him by slipping her hand into his. He looked down at them, his eyes glassy, distant, and then up at her face.
She smiled softly. “We have a guest.”
He glanced Fuery’s way, and his violet eyes widened, and then he blinked and they cleared, growing sharp again. “Sorry. The magic…”
Fuery shook his head, telling his prince not to apologise. He understood, and knew he would probably react the same way, the darkness inside him pushing, if he had suffered the things Vail had.
If he had known all those centuries ago, when Vail had attacked his own men outside the town of Valestrum, the reason behind it all, he would have helped him. He should have known. He should have helped him. He had been Vail’s second in command, but he had been unaware of the male’s pain, had been blind and hadn’t seen the witch they had found and taken care of hadn’t been Vail’s fated one, but an imposter, a dark witch bent on casting a spell on him in order to seize his kingdom and set herself up as queen of the elves.
Gods, he couldn’t imagine, didn’t want to imagine, the horrible things Vail had endured as her slave.
Fuery killed because it was his job, and he had chosen it.
Vail had killed because Kordula had commanded him to do it, using him against his will. She had forced him to fight his own beloved brother, and he had been under her spell for four thousand years.
It was little wonder Vail despised magic.
But he was growing used to it, learning to control his darkness around it.
In the short time Fuery had been visiting Vail, the male had made great progress, could now endure Rosalind using basic spells in his presence without losing himself to his darker urges.
“Would you like tea?” Rosalind offered him a kind smile as she laced her fingers with Vail’s, and Fuery shook his head. “Some fruit juice then?”
He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten, so he nodded, grateful for her kindness.
“I’ll bring it out to you.” She turned away, but Vail kept hold of her hand, stopping her.
She looked back at her mate, her blue eyes soft with affection and understanding, and returned to him. Fuery tried to look away, but he couldn’t as she lifted her free hand and cupped Vail’s cheek. The male leaned into it, his eyes closing, and eyebrows dipping low above the elegant slope of his nose.
The petite witch tiptoed, and Vail seemed to know what she wanted because he dropped his head for her. She brushed a kiss across his lips and whispered something, voice so low even Fuery’s heightened hearing couldn’t pick it up, and then rocked back onto her heels. She smiled Fuery’s way again, and then squeezed Vail’s hand.
Vail released her this time, and she stepped away from him. His violet gaze tracked her as she walked back towards the house, and lingered on the door as she disappeared from view, and Fuery could sense his desire to follow her and take her up on whatever promise she had whispered to him.
He turned towards Fuery instead and nodded towards the winding golden gravel path to Fuery’s right, the one that would take him to the back of the house where they always passed his visits.
Vail led the way, his armour disappearing as he walked, replaced with black leather trousers, heavy boots and a thick dark violet jumper that looked out of place on him.
When Fuery continued to stare at him as he followed him towards the rear of the cottage, Vail looked over his shoulder and shrugged.
“It is Rosalind’s idea. She believes it makes me look more… approachable.”
Fuery could see that, but the mortal clothing still didn’t suit his prince. It was strange seeing him in anything other than formal clothing of tunic, tight trousers and riding boots, or his armour.
He looked down at his own armour, and focused on his body and his link to everything he owned. He called a pair of black trousers, and his boots, but couldn’t bring himself to call his tunic. Instead, he materialised a dark shirt that Hartt had given him, and let the tails hang loose over his trousers.
Vail ducked beneath the washing line that spanned the gap between two apple trees in the huge rear garden of the cottage, and continued deeper into the orchard, following the grass as it began to sweep down towards the valley below them.
Fuery stilled and looked down at his feet, at the very spot he had appeared before Vail while he had been lost to the darkness. His memories of that day were still fragmented, patched together by things Hartt had told him that had been relayed to him by Vail and Rosalind when his friend had finally found him.
“Do you still suffer the blackouts?” he whispered to his feet.
Vail’s booted ones appeared in view. “Yes… but they are rare now. As I learn to control the darkness again, I learn to sense them coming and I can prevent them… sometimes.”
That gave Fuery hope.
“I hate them.” Admitting that lifted an invisible weight from his shoulders—from his chest.
He swallowed hard, gathered his courage, and lifted his eyes to meet Vail’s violet ones, and an ache started in his heart, born of a desire to have eyes like that again. When was the last time he had looked in the mirror and seen more violet than black in his irises? Shaia had spoken of his eyes, had been shocked by the sight of them, and he wanted them to look as she remembered, wanted the violet back and those flecks of lilac she had mentioned.
“Do you think I… I… could learn too?” His eyes leaped between Vail’s as he waited desperately for the male to answer him.
His prince sighed, clapped a hand down on his right shoulder, and squeezed it, no trace of a lie in his eyes as he spoke. “Of course.”
He released the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding and followed Vail as the male turned away and strode into the orchard. The trees were heavy with fruit but also blossoms, the leaves rustling as a gentle breeze blew through them, stirring the scent of their blooms. He breathed deep of it, drew it down into him together with the scent of the grass he crushed beneath his boots, and the earth beyond it, and the sunshine that bathed his skin.
Vail seated himself on the rickety sun-bleached wooden bench beneath one of the trees, his amethyst gaze fixed on the valley and his noble profile to Fuery. When he patted the spot beside him, Fuery took it. He gathered his courage again, and leaned back against the broad trunk of the single oak tree in the garden, and waited.
Waited.
But nature didn’t bare her fangs at him.
The expected pain of being rejected by her didn’t come.
He felt only peace.
As if she reached for him, wrapping him in her gentle embrace and welcoming him home.
Because of the light Shaia had awoken in him?
“You are different today.” Vail’s deep voice rolled over him just as he closed his eyes and he opened them again and looked to his right, to his prince. The male glanced at him and then set his eyes on the distance again. “Not in a bad way. In a good way. You feel…”
“Lighter?” Fuery offered, because it was the only word he could find to describe how he had felt since Shaia had come back into his life.
Vail nodded. “The last time I saw you, you were unwell… sick in mind and body… but now you seem a little better. What happened?”
Fuery sighed and closed his eyes, sank deeper into nature’s tentative embrace, well aware it was in part thanks to the male next to him and his unbreakable connection to her. It bled over into him when he was this close to Vail, as if everything the male came into contact with, or even just remained near for a period of time, was touched by her grace too.
“Shaia,” he whispered, and sensed Vail’s gaze come to land on him. He sought the words, struggling to find them as he mulled over everything and found he wasn’t sure where to begin. Hartt had told him once when he had been fighting for the words that it was easier to begin at the start. So he did. “She is my fated one. We mated before…”
Vail tensed and said what he couldn’t. “Valestrum.”
Fuery nodded and opened his eyes, checking his prince’s ones for any speck of black, afraid he had stirred the darkness in him with his careless words.
Vail managed a smile, although it was tight and he struggled to hold it. “I remember I sensed a difference in you back then too… you felt happier… lighter. I did not know where the change had come from, but it must have been from your mating. I know this because mating with Little Wild Rose changed me too.”
Little Wild Rose was Vail’s term of endearment for Rosalind, one that spoke of his deep love for her.
Fuery wanted to know more about it, about how Rosalind had changed Vail, but he feared it at the same time. He wanted to nurture the hope Shaia had brought back to life inside him, believing it possible to reverse the damage he had done to himself, but if he discovered that it wasn’t, that hope might crush him when it died.
He stared at Vail, studying him and forcing himself to see the truth—Vail was even less darker now than the last time they had met like this.
If it was his bond with Rosalind taking away that darkness and allowing light back in, then there might be hope for him too.
Fuery saw the truth in that hope when Rosalind rounded the tree, a silver tray gripped in front of her, two tall glasses of golden juice on it. She smiled at her mate, and Vail’s eyes brightened, the light in him shining through them for Fuery to witness, and he could feel the darkness receding in him too, driven out by his love for the witch.
Vail rose and took the tray from Rosalind, and she thanked him with another smile. He pressed his side close to hers, lowered his head and nuzzled her fair hair before pressing a soft kiss to her brow, one she leaned into as her eyes slipped shut.
Her cheeks grew rosy again as she opened her eyes and looked at Fuery, and she cleared her throat.
Vail huffed and stepped back. “You do not need to be so embarrassed around Fuery, Little Wild Rose… he too has a mate.”
Her blue eyes widened. “You do?”
He nodded. “I thought I had killed her, but she is alive.”
Rosalind looked as if she wanted to probe into that, but merely smiled and glanced at her mate. “If you need anything else, you know where to find me.”
Vail nodded, balanced the tray on one hand and swept his other arm around her waist, hauling her up to him so quickly that she gasped, her hands flying to press against his chest. He swallowed the gasp in a brief, fierce kiss that had her blushing as he released her and had Fuery imagining Shaia in his arms like that, her lips on his and her hands against his chest.
The witch scurried away, Vail’s eyes tracking her, never leaving her as they darkened with need. They cleared when the door to the house closed in the distance, and he sighed, set the tray down on the bench where he had been sitting, and patted the grass.
Evidently pleased with what he found, he sat on the ground and lifted one of the glasses from the tray.
He sipped it, grimaced and shuddered. “Little Wild Rose thinks it is funny to slip grapefruit juice into her smoothies. She does it to tease me.”
Fuery eyed the concoction he had been in the middle of reaching for, his hand frozen near the glass on the silver tray. “Is it dangerous?”
He wasn’t familiar with grapefruits. They sounded harmless enough.
Vail pulled a face.
“Only if you drink half a carton without taking a breath.” His prince shrugged stiffly when Fuery looked from the glass to him. “I was thirsty and did not read the label. I was not aware it was a sharp citrus fruit. Rosalind happened upon me when I was choking on it.”
His mate had a strange sense of humour.
“Now she slips it into my drinks just to watch me react to the sourness.”
Fuery cautiously lifted the glass to his lips and sniffed. Vail was right, and there was a sharp bitter note hidden among the sweeter ones. He was familiar with some of them. Mango. Pineapple. Banana. Vail’s mate certainly liked the more exotic and sunny fruits.
He sipped it.
The sweetness was pleasant, and he couldn’t see what Vail had a problem with.
And then his mouth dried out and his eyes watered, his right one developing a vicious tic as a thousand tiny needles stabbed his senses.
Dear gods.
He set the drink back down and glared at it.
Vail sighed. “It will pass. I believe she does something with a spell to make the first sip hit as if you had swallowed an entire sour grapefruit.”
As if to prove his point, his prince sipped the drink again, and this time he didn’t grimace at all. He even smiled.
Which Fuery found amazing. Not because the drink was no longer toxic, but because Vail had mentioned Rosalind using a spell—magic—on the concoction and he was still willing to drink it, and there was no sign of the darkness pushing inside him.
During his second visit, Vail had explained that being around magic had an adverse effect on him, driving him into the waiting arms of darkness, and he found it hard to control his blacker urges around Rosalind when she was using it.
Now, barely weeks later, he could tolerate small spells and even trusted her to place them on his drinks and still consumed them.
What magic was she working on Vail?
He must have asked it aloud, because Vail looked up at him.
“She calls it exposure therapy.” Vail swirled the golden liquid around in his glass, his eyes on it now. “She creates a safe environment, one where I know I am in no danger, and will use a small spell, just enough magic to make me feel it.”
It sounded fascinating.
Vail set his glass down, leaned back and splayed his hands out on the grass behind him, propping himself up. “Each time she will make the magic a stronger spell, allowing me to grow used to the feel of it, and to overcome my fear that I will be the target of the spell.”
That sounded dangerous.
“But what if you react?” Fuery took another sip of his drink, waited for the sourness to hit him, and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t.
Vail tipped his head back and stared up at the sky as it began to change colour, becoming threaded with gold and pink. “I am in control at all times. If I feel the darkness rising, if it becomes too much and I remember things, I tell her to stop and we stop.”
His prince’s darkening eyes and the tension that radiated from him said that sometimes they weren’t quick enough to stop the memories from seizing him together with the darkness. Sometimes, the darkness won.
Would such a thing work for him?
What was it he feared?
He stared at the distance, watching the trees sway and a deer cross a meadow as he searched his feelings while thinking about Shaia.
“I fear killing her,” he whispered and felt Vail look at him. “How do you overcome that?”
He lowered his gaze to meet Vail’s, needing to find an answer in them.
Vail’s expression turned sympathetic, his eyes softening as his lips twitched into a slight smile. “I have the same fear. I hurt Rosalind once… more than once… but she is strong, both of body and of heart, and she forgave me… and gave me as good as she got.”
“Shaia is strong.” Fuery felt that in his heart, knew that if he were to lose himself, she would be able to defend herself, might even be able to defeat him. It didn’t stop him from fearing the worst though. “But I do not want to hurt her… I do not want her to see me like that.”
Vail sighed. “I did not either. I expected Little Wild Rose to turn her back on me when she saw the darkness in me… my other side. She surprised me by embracing it instead, by embracing me… by loving all of me.”
Shaia’s words came back to Fuery, echoing in his head and in his heart, her voice in his mind telling him that he might have changed, but her love for him hadn’t, and she still loved him, because he was still the same male inside.
He had felt the truth in her words when he had been holding her in his arms, watching her sleep, trusting him to protect her and not hurt her. He hadn’t hurt her. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind, and he hadn’t feared it happening either.
What if he could use the same sort of therapy as Vail was undergoing?
But how?
How did he overcome the fear of killing her?
Vail feared magic because it made him feel he was about to be controlled, forced to do things against his will, and the darkness within him responded in order to protect him.
Being exposed to magic allowed Vail to overcome that fear, seeing that he wasn’t going to be controlled whenever he felt it around him.
Fuery feared the darkness consuming him and waking to find he had hurt Shaia. Killed her.
He wasn’t sure there was a therapy that could fix that, not without placing her in grave danger, exposing her to his darkest side. He wanted to overcome the fear, but he couldn’t risk her, would die if he came around to find he had killed her. He wanted to be with her, but part of him felt it would be better for her if he never saw her again.
It would be hell for him though.
Living his life, aware that she was out there, would destroy him.
Vail’s hand came to rest on his knee, drawing him back to the world, and he looked down at it and then up into the male’s eyes.
“Sit a while with me?” Vail gestured to the grass, and Fuery did as he bid, easing down onto it.
The moment he placed his hand down to prop himself up, the blades of the grass tickling his fingers, calm swept through him, easing his fears and scattering the black clouds in his heart and his mind.
“Better?” Vail said, and Fuery nodded. “Do you see how the light can chase back the darkness?”
It struck him that he had been losing himself, sinking into the dark abyss, and just touching nature had been enough to shatter the hold the darkness had been gaining on him.
“Shaia woke it in me,” he murmured and brushed his fingers over the long blades of grass, feeling their coolness on his skin as warmth in his heart as he savoured the connection to nature that had been denied him for so many years he had lost count. “I thought I would never feel this again.”
The part of him that wanted to destroy all hope in an effort to protect himself whispered that it was only Vail’s strong connection to nature that was allowing him to feel her now without her baring her fangs at him.
Vail seemed to read his mind. “It is not me. There is light inside you, Fuery. Light born of love. Endless. Unbreakable. The darkness can try, no doubt despises it and wants it gone, but it will not smother it.”
The darkness was trying to do just that. Before Shaia had awoken the light inside him, the darkness had come and gone, leaving him free of it from time to time, brief moments of respite from its torment.
Now, it was a constant thing. He could feel it lurking in the background, always there, as if it refused to leave him now there was light in him again.
Because it feared losing its hold on him.
That hit him like a thunderbolt.
He feared the darkness, but the darkness feared the light. It feared Shaia and her love for him, and the light that grew a little brighter inside him whenever he was with her. Vail had said he was different now, and he felt that deep in his soul. Since Shaia had walked back into his life, softer feelings had been trickling back into his heart, ones he hadn’t experienced since the darkness had taken hold of him. Ones that tempered the violence and his black hunger to inflict pain, and experience it, and to shed blood and revel in it.
Was it possible that simply being around Shaia would be enough to help him ease the grip the darkness had on him?
When he looked to Vail, that question balanced on his lips, he found the male staring at the cottage with darkness in his eyes. Black spots coloured his irises as his lips peeled back off his fangs and his pointed ears flared against his wild short blue-black hair.
Fuery focused and stilled as he sensed the magic, but it didn’t feel like Rosalind’s.
It felt darker.
Vail shot to his feet and his armour swept over him as his clothing disappeared, the tiny black scales covering him from toe to neck, and forming sharp serrated claws over his fingers.
The magic humming in the air disappeared, together with the second heartbeat Fuery had just locked on to in the house.
His ears twitched as a door opened, and he sensed Rosalind approaching.
The darkness in Vail’s eyes only grew as he narrowed them on her.
She stopped just short of him, huffed and planted her hands on her hips. “He knows you hate him, you know?”
“Who knows?” Fuery looked from Vail to Rosalind.
She sighed, let her hands slip from her waist and her shoulders slumped. “An old friend… Atticus Darcy. He’s a witch. Vail made it very clear the first time he visited that he wasn’t welcome.”
“The male is a damned lothario.” Vail flexed his claws and scowled at the cottage, as if the male was still there. “He hardly has the appearance of a witch. Am I to sit idly by while he seduces you out of my grasp?”
Rosalind’s eyebrows rose. “Lothario? Where did you learn that word?”
“The television.” A flicker of unease crossed Vail’s face. “It is the correct usage of the term, is it not? He strikes me as a male determined to seduce females.”
“Well… yes… that is the right definition… and I don’t want to know what sort of TV you’ve been watching to learn it… but… hang on.” Her eyes narrowed on Vail. “What do you mean he doesn’t have the appearance of a witch?”
Vail looked away from her now, fascinated by his feet. “He is too handsome.”
She huffed, and bit out, “So witches are meant to be ugly?”
His eyes shot up to meet hers and he took a step towards her, his right hand lifting to reach for her as his eyebrows furrowed. “No… I… you are beautiful… and you know that is not what I meant, and it is not my fault I do not like the male. It is his fault. He looked at you.”
She frowned at him, her lips settling in a mulish line. “He has eyes… that tends to happen when people have eyes!”
“Not like that. He looked at you.” Vail ran a pointed and lustful glance up and down her, as if to illustrate the way the witch had looked at Rosalind.
She turned her gaze towards Fuery, clearly seeking his support.
He held his hands up. “I would have killed him if he had looked at my mate like that.”
Her eyes brightened and she leaped on the change of subject like a fiend possessed. “You thought you had killed her?”
He nodded, weathered Vail’s growl of displeasure as the male glared at him for allowing his mate to divert the course of their conversation, and said, “I think the darkness muddled things. Even when she came to the guild to find me, I thought her a ghost, an apparition sent to torture me with my sins. Sometimes, I still believe I have killed her.”
Vail slumped back onto the grass, crossed his legs and grumbled, “It happens.”
“She thought I was dead too.” Fuery picked at the grass, idly plucking a few stems, and wove them together as he talked. “When I became tainted—”
He cut himself off as Vail tensed.
Rosalind was swift to sit beside her mate, her hands gliding over his stiff shoulders, massaging them as she whispered sweet things to him. The darkness in the male’s eyes slowly receded, but the hurt lingered, pain that Fuery had caused with his careless words.
“I am sorry,” Vail whispered. “It is my fault.”
Fuery shook his head. “The darkness was always there in me. We were trained to use it, and I allowed it to take hold of me like that.”
He leaned towards Vail, placed his hand on the male’s leather-clad knee, and waited for him to look at him before continuing.
“I hold nothing against you, my prince. You did what you had to do in order to save the lives of everyone else in the kingdom, including my Shaia.”
“Pretty name,” Rosalind murmured softly as she rubbed at her mate’s shoulders, kneading the tension away. “I bet she’s a looker.”
Vail tilted his head towards her, his amethyst eyes clearing as they sought her. “No one is as beautiful as you.”
She pushed his shoulder, jerking him forwards, and grinned. “Charmer.”
Fuery wanted to say that Shaia was even more beautiful than Rosalind, but he liked being alive now that she was back in his life and was sure Vail would kill him if he dared to voice that opinion.
Rosalind settled beside her mate, her left side leaning into him as she pulled her knees up to her chest. Vail slipped his arm around her and pulled her closer still, his fingertips pressing into her arm as he clutched her. Blotches of black still marred his eyes, a sign that he was still thinking about the male Rosalind had been meeting with at the cottage.
Fuery made a mental note to look into Atticus Darcy and see about eliminating him.
“Hartt believes my bond with Shaia might have been holding back the darkness all this time, stopping it from taking me completely and bringing me back.” He inspected the braid of grass, plucked a few more stems, and began weaving them into the others to extend its length.
“It is possible,” Vail said, a thoughtful edge to his eyes as he frowned. “My bond with Rosalind does much the same. Even when she is away from me, I am affected by it.”
Fuery sighed and lowered the braided grass into his lap as he thought about Shaia, and the hope in his heart threatened to shatter. “There is blood on my hands though. I am not the male I once was, and though she says she still loves me, I know I am changed. I’m no longer noble or good, and I’m not sure she will be able to say she loves me if she witnessed the things I did… the person I become. How can she love a monster?”
The heavy silence that descended on the orchard pressed down on him.
Rosalind broke it before the weight of it became too much.
“If Shaia loves you… truly loves you… then she loves all of you. The things you have done will not stand in the way of that love. She will understand and she will still want to be with you.” The witch brushed dirt off her knee and fixed him with a soft look, one filled with warmth and overflowing with understanding. “You say she came to you at the guild?”
He nodded.
She smiled. “Then she knew you are an assassin, Fuery. She knew the things you did and yet she still came to you… she still wants to be with you.”
He had never thought of it like that.
Hartt had told him that she had travelled the free realm looking for him, had visited several guilds in the course of her search, and she must have learned of his reputation in that time, and yet she had still come to find him.
She had stayed when she had.
Even when Hartt had turned her away, she had refused to leave, had remained close to the guild.
For his sake.
Because she wanted to be with him.
“If anything,” Rosalind said, pulling him back to her, “she will want to be with you more, because she will want to help you, as I have helped this heavy-handed somewhat-grumpy and hellaciously-jealous man beside me.”
Vail’s eyebrows knit together as she spoke about him and then his expression softened as he smiled and corrected her. “As you continue to help me.”
Fuery reached for the connection between him and Shaia, needing to feel her, growing aware of the vast distance between them as he watched Vail and Rosalind, and the witch’s words sank in. The link was weak, but he could feel her, and warmth spread through him, feeding the hope in his heart.
Hope that whispered that Rosalind was right.
Shaia had come to him knowing of his past, knowing what he was, and she had remained. She had taken care of him when he had come to her, hadn’t pushed him away or looked at him with disgust in her eyes. She had embraced him.
She had still wanted him.
Even when he had been thinking dark things, wicked things.
Things he had thought would horrify his delicate female.
The desire he had sensed in her had only grown stronger. She had responded to him so beautifully, but he had failed to see it at the time, had been convinced she wouldn’t want him if he was unable to control his passion for her and became rough with her.
Gods, he had been so blinded by fear that when he had been kissing her, gripping her so fiercely, drowning in the urge to take her in a frenzied outpouring of his need, he had mistaken her excitement for his own. She hadn’t been shocked or horrified by him using his strength on her, trying to bend her to his will and dominate her.
She had been thrilled.
He needed to return to her, needed to see if she was still willing to embrace him like that, accepting all of him.
Loving all of him.
Because he was sure being with her in that way, both of them made vulnerable and trusting each other, was the key to overcoming his fear of hurting her.
The link between them flared.
Fear swamped it.
Not his.
He shot to his feet and black stilted smoke stuttered over his body as the desperate urge to teleport rushed through him.
“Shaia.”