Chapter 11
I wonderhow much time I bought myself as I push away from the wall, sprinting straight back between oak trees. Eventually, Oren will come looking. When he doesn’t find me, I’m sure he’ll alert the others. I have to assume that they’re good at tracking. I’ve nothing to base that assumption off of, but I would rather hope for the best while planning for the worst. Given how my luck has been this past day, they can no doubt track a beetle across a mountain range.
Far enough that I know I’m out of view, I begin to cut left and head in the direction we came from. There was a creek not too far back. I’ve heard tales of people crossing bodies of water while being chased by dogs. Something about washing off your scent trail. Fae seem to be part beast, so maybe the premise is the same. It can’t hurt.
The small motes of light that illuminated the forest in the daytime have made their beds upon the dark moss, turning the forest floor into a sea of stars that ripples away from me as I run through and closes back in over my footsteps. The trees shimmer like water—what can only be described as magic pulsing off their trunks and into the leaves before falling back down to the earth as luminescent haze. Everything here feels alive, awake, feels like I’m being watched with every step by ancient beings.
I press my hand into my side. It aches and my lungs are burning. I catch my breath for only a second and keep running. If I can make it to the creek, then maybe I can throw them. I paid attention to the path we took today. I’ll find my way back and then I’ll head into the mountains. I’ll cross the Fade. If they can do it, so can I. After all, I have this magic of kings, or whatever it is that their ritual was supposed to create. I can do this; I know I can.
The creek comes into view.
I jump down the shallow bank, splash in the water, and leap across. It’s as my feet touch down on the other side that I see the blur of movement in my periphery. I spin toward the source on instinct.
A man pummels into me. He came from the sky—a blur of bloodred iridescence and starlight. We hit the ground together. I bring up my knee on instinct, looking for the soft spot between his legs that will surely shake him and instead finding his ribs due to the awkward way we fell. He’s half on top of me, pushing off the ground now, trying to catch my wrist as I struggle to free myself.
“Unhand—” A large palm clamps over my mouth.
Davien’s bright green eyes meet mine. The only thing keeping his nose from touching mine is his hand. His hair cascades over his shoulders and tickles my cheek.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he snarls.
I try and speak against his hand, the muffled sounds unintelligible until he removes his fingers. “Your friends kept telling me all day how I’m going to die anyway. I might as well hurry it up.”
“And yet we’re still trying to keep you alive.” He has yet to pull away. His body is crushing mine against the creek bed. Water rushes against my side in cool contrast to the heat of his firm muscle.
“You know who else tried to keep me alive? My mother and sisters. You know how they did it? Locking me in rooms, preventing me from having friends, taking anything that brought me even the slightest amount of joy. They treated me like a thing more than a person.” I blink up at him, my eyes burning.
The words spill from me uninvited. I don’t want to be saying these things, not to him, not here, not now. But in this moment, it feels as though there can be nothing hidden between us. He’s compressed all the space where secrets could live into dust. It’s just him, assaulting my senses like he has been for weeks. Except now I can see him. Now I can stare into those bright green eyes as they expose me. Now it’s more than the barest of touches and I can feel his body on mine as his weight crushes my barriers.
“I want to live—more than anything—and because I want that, I refuse to spend my hours as someone’s thing. I’m going to live my life, the way I want to live it, or die trying. So help me live or be ready to kill me,” I finish, voice quivering.
He opens and closes his mouth. Still undecided on his words, he shifts his weight and presses a hand into the ground by the side of my head. With space between us once more, I can breathe again. I’ve never felt so laid bare.
“Get up,” he says, barely more than a grunt. “You’ll catch a cold if you lie in the water.”
Davien makes room for me to stand. I brush the dirt and rocks off of my tattered robe. My nightgown is alarmingly translucent on the side where the water flowed over me. I close my robe about me a little tighter. If he noticed the impropriety, he made a point not to look.
“Live your life the way you want to live it…” he echoes and laughs softly with a shake of his head. “What a selfish aspiration.”
“Excuse me?” It’s my turn to close the gap between us. I rise to my tiptoes to try and stare him in the eye and still come up short. “What did you say?”
“You want to live your life in total disregard for everyone and everything else. It’s selfish.”
“I made my sacrifices. I earned this.” I shake my head, backing away. “I don’t have to defend myself to you, or to anyone.”
“You’re right, you don’t, because you clearly don’t care for others.” He shrugs. “Not that I could understand someone who chose to live their life that way.”
“Oh? And how do you live your life? Holed up in a manor in the human world? Finding brides whose families have the things you need for your nighttime rituals? Am I even the first human bride you’ve taken?” I’m surprised at how much I want him to say that I am. How wounded I would be if I was just one of many.
“You are.” He gives me a glare so cold I shiver. “And I did not accept you as my bride lightly. Had I a choice, I wouldn’t have. I never wanted to involve you in any of this. If your father had just given me that damn book when I first demanded it years ago, none of this would’ve happened. I had to wait and prepare an offering I knew your family could not refuse.”
“My father’s death—”
“I had nothing to do with it,” he interrupts firmly, but still somewhat gentle around the delicate subject. “Nor do I or did I find joy in it. I sent Oren expecting him to negotiate with your father, not Joyce. I didn’t even know he’d passed to the great Beyond, only that he was away and rumor of your family’s hard times.”
I heave a small sigh of relief.
He continues, “But last night…when I finally, finally had everything I needed in place, years of work all coming to fruition for a cause much bigger than myself—much bigger than you will ever know…I—I…”
