by Imogen Sera
Vodan spoke behind her. “You don’t mind if I kill her now, then?”
“I mind,” said Tate. “Of course I mind. She’s done nothing to deserve death, and if they return for her and she’s gone, I think they’ll haul me back and arrest me. But don’t be mistaken—if you do it, I won’t trade more of my life to reverse it.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Vodan, but Elsie didn’t believe him.
Tate shrugged. “Do it, then,” he said. “But when I’m taken away and the mountain erupts, it was your own doing.”
Vodan released her in the same moment that he shoved her forward, and Tate caught her by the shoulders to steady her. There was nothing more, though, no caress of his thumbs over her skin, no tightening of his fingers over her, no recognition in his eyes. He only made sure that she stood on her own, and then released her.
By the time she’d turned around, Vodan had stalked around her and was disappearing up the passageway. The creatures scuttled up the walls, up into darkness and out of sight. She shuddered as they did, as the beasts that had once been humans moved in a way that no human ever could.
“Walk,” Tate said quietly. That was all he said, so she walked slowly, her hands balled into fists at her sides, her legs growing heavier with each step.
Each moment he didn’t pull her into his side, each second that passed without a kiss pressed under her ear was confirmation that he hadn’t lied to Vodan. His silence, his distance from her, the way that he wouldn’t embrace her and promise that she was his mate, that he wanted no one else—it all was agonizing.
They returned to their fire—his fire—and he separated the furs and blankets until Elsie had her own little place next to the fire, as she had when she’d first slept there. Her heart sank as she shivered in her nightgown. The truth was out, now, and there was no reason for him to pretend anymore, even if his pretending had been the most wonderful thing that Elsie had ever known.
She laid down in her new little bed, her heart pounding and her stomach hurting and her chest aching. She chanced a glance at Tate; he was finally looking at her. There was regret on his face, and there was also pity. She looked away quickly.
She was pitiful. The feeling washed over her. She wondered how she could have thought that this might have been true, how whatever had been between them could have possibly been real. It had been lovely—she’d been in love with him. She still was.
Elsie had never been anyone’s choice: her sister had left her, her father hadn’t cared enough to even try to live, and Madame Brodeur had only used Elsie’s desperate need to be chosen.
She didn’t sleep, and she thought that it would be a very long time before she would again.
•••••
Elsie awoke to a gray morning, and it felt all too appropriate. She’d rolled over several times in the night, reaching for him each time, wondering where he had gone before she remembered. Each time, it felt like a fresh wound in her chest; each time, it broke her heart.
She laid silently in her bed, closing her eyes, not wanting to see his hateful pity. She was silent when he disappeared past the back of the cave—and silent when he came back and settled on his bed with a book.
Three days, she thought. Three days that would pass too slowly and too quickly, because this was torture and she was desperate to be home, and because she adored him and she would never have enough time.
She hadn’t realized that a heartache could actually be just that—something physical. There it was though, settled down deep in her chest, and she didn’t know how to make it stop.
She wanted to be angry, but...she couldn’t. Because of course he would do anything to protect his actual mate. Because she’d lived with his kind for over a year, and she’d seen what they would do for their mates.
Still, though—did he have to make her fall in love with him? If only he’d been slightly less convincing.
“I lied too,” she said suddenly. She didn’t know why she said it, she didn’t know why she cared. She wanted to hurt him, though, in some small way, and she had lied.
He didn’t say anything, but his book was forgotten and his gaze was so sharp on her face that she thought she might feel it.
“I said that Reis came before the stupid auction,” she said. “But he didn’t come until almost a year later. I was a whore that whole time. I didn’t want you to think I was...used up, or something, but it doesn’t matter now.”
He opened his mouth as if he would speak, but he said nothing. The way he watched her made her feel pathetic, though.
“I said that Reis wanted my loyalty, but that was a lie, too. He wanted me, also, and I accepted without a thought because I would have accepted anything to get away. He had me every day, until he betrayed the king and queen and disappeared.”
She wasn’t quite sure why she was continuing, why she was telling him all the vulgar details, but she enjoyed the way his face screwed up as she spoke.
“So there you go,” she said, smiling wryly. “I’m a traitor’s whore. It’s much better for you that I’m not your mate.”
She turned away from him abruptly and lay back in her terribly uncomfortable bed, and shut her eyes. When he said her name softly, she pulled her blanket up over her face and pretended that she was anywhere else.
Twenty-six
Elsie looked peaceful as she slept; her face was so different without the determination that had settled over it the last several days.
Tate liked the gentle curve of her jaw when it wasn’t set in frustration, and he liked the way her lashes swept over her cheeks when her eyes weren’t narrowed in defeat. He liked the way she looked completely unburdened, totally free; just the sweet softness that he’d come to adore.
Tate had thought himself so self-sacrificing when he’d struck the initial bargain for a chance at his mother’s life. He’d thought that maybe changing something—changing everything about who he’d been and who he was—would be enough to turn back time and bring them all back. The thought had been easy, once he had decided to do it; what was ten years compared to the rest of their lives? When it hadn’t worked, when the ten years had been traded for nothing, it had at least seemed an appropriate penance for him.
The decision had been easier when Demetri had died. It hadn’t really been a decision at all. It had been a long time since he had seen Demetri; nearly a decade since he’d seen the brother with whom he’d come into the world. But at the moment that he’d felt his brother’s death, at the time that the strange bond that had been in place all of his life had been snapped, there hadn’t been any other options. There wasn’t a single thing that he wouldn’t have done to save his brother who was so like him, but so much better than him in every conceivable way.
The addition of Elsie complicated things, because as fiercely protective of Demetri as he’d found himself, that paled in comparison to his mate. Having her here, so close to Vodan’s reach, made him constantly sick, constantly on alert, constantly wanting to scoop her up and get her away from the place as fast as possible.
Her life had been forcibly changed many times, and he hated that the latest time had been almost entirely his fault. If he hadn’t told anyone about the dreams, if he’d just focused on his single duty and ignored the woman that came to him every night, then Elsie would be at the palace at that moment. He knew just what she looked like, asleep in her bed; she wouldn’t need to sleep in heavy clothing or keep furs pulled up over her chin or only half-sleep so that she could be prepared to add more fuel to the fire when she began to chill.
It was unnatural, he thought, her being up here. She wasn’t made for the cold. She belonged somewhere warm, somewhere bathed in yellow sunlight and clothed in the pretty dresses that she preferred. She’d seemed so ashamed when she admitted to liking pretty things; like they weren’t everything that she deserved. He only wanted pretty things in her life—he wanted her only worries from then on to be frivolous.
It was unnatural, too, how Demetri had been brought back to life. It was un
natural how Tate hadn’t even questioned it, how he’d decided that it needed to happen without a second thought. What was especially perverse, he thought, was how he was currently keeping his mate here—putting her life at risk—in order to continue the strange reversal of his brother’s death.
The decision came easily, with the revelation that he’d been selfish in order to be self-sacrificing—because it wasn’t only himself that he was sacrificing, now, and Elsie hadn’t been given a choice. She’d never been given a choice.
“El,” Tate murmured, gripping her shoulder firmly. “Wake up. We’re leaving.”
She frowned and sat up right away, tossing her curtain of gold hair over her shoulder. “Leaving?”
He didn’t like the way that she leaned into him before remembering and pulling away, or the way her chin quivered after she’d done that. He was disturbed that she’d believed his lie to Vodan so thoroughly; still, it was safer to let her believe it, to let everyone believe. He could atone for it later, when she was safe, when he had countless other things to atone for. “I’m not keeping you here any longer.”
She blinked sleepily and got to her feet. “Did Mira and Tarquin return?”
He shook his head. “I’m not waiting anymore.”
“You’re leaving with me?” she asked, dutifully wrapping her cloak around herself. “Doesn’t that mean that the bargain is—”
“Yes.”
“What about Demetri?” she asked quietly, from underneath her hood.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Alright,” she said quietly, nervously, in a voice that made him want to hold her to him and kiss her sweetly and demand that she never doubt his affection again.
“Is there anything you need to get before we go?”
She shook her head, and the misery on her face made him want to cry. “Nothing.”
•••••
Elsie stumbled over loose rocks and pebbles in the pre-dawn darkness, and tried to ignore the way that Tate’s guiding hand on her back warmed her thoroughly. She was surprised to be going home like this, with him, and was more surprised at her lack of emotion regarding finally returning to the palace. It was all she’d wanted for a month, but now...she wanted so much more.
She was eager to return, though, if only to be able to hide away from him, if only so that she didn’t have to mourn the loss of him—of his love—in front of him. She would hide in her room, she thought, for days or weeks or months, until the thought of him didn’t make her heart hurt; until the thought of him didn’t make her knees weak.
She wasn’t sure why the time was now, but she wasn’t going to argue.
“I haven’t done my...work for a few hours,” he said, as she looked down over the little hill that she’d climbed with Juliette when she’d first come to this place. It looked so small now. “It will be any time now. I want a distraction before it’s discovered that we’re gone.”
She nodded, but kept a wary eye on the smoking peak. She could see more smoke billowing than she ever had before, and she thought that if she felt very carefully she could feel the ground rumbling under her feet.
He paused at the edge of the cliff and turned to her, and wound an arm around her waist and cupped his palm against her cheek.
“You know it’s you, right?” he asked. “I’m sorry for lying, El; I didn’t know how else to save you. It’s always you, though.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead as she was still processing the words, and then had shifted and briefly spread his gleaming copper wings. She watched him wide-eyed for a minute before remembering that they were in a hurry, before remembering that they were running from this life. And when she scrambled up onto his back she felt very light, and when she was seated and secure and he left the ground, she could see the camp becoming very small behind her. She looked up; she looked ahead, and she even lowered her hood for a minute. The wind through her hair didn’t feel as cold as she’d remembered.
•••••
It hadn’t taken long for the smoking peak to erupt under the strain. They were too far away for Elsie to see it, but she could smell it. The sulfur—ash—wrong smell that had plagued her senses since she’d been dropped there had been overwhelming, suddenly, and when she’d turned to look behind she could see a plume of smoke that seemed miles wide. She couldn’t feel anything, of course, being in the air; but when she looked down she could see the earth below positively trembling, the hills moving in a way they never should, the ground buckling. It was perhaps the eeriest thing she’d ever seen, and she hoped silently that the members of the tribe would be alright.
Elsie was silent when they finally landed. They were just outside of a small town—a settlement, really—but smoke rising from various chimneys smelled delicious, and she wasn’t about to complain about accommodations. She had no idea how far they still were from home, and although she was eager to get there, she was glad they’d stopped. Her stomach had begun to cramp from lack of food.
She didn’t know what to think about Tate, and perhaps it was easier to focus on her stomach. Her solitude had given her time to think. She was relieved, certainly, because she’d begun to think she would spend her life irrevocably in love with Juliette’s mate. And she adored him—she adored him every second. But she still couldn’t understand why he had lied to her, why he’d insisted on pretending she was nothing to him when they were alone.
So when he’d shifted and pulled on clothes, she was silent, but she didn’t pull away when he reached for her hand. She could feel his gaze on her, could feel the weight of it as she walked quietly beside him, but she ignored it all in pursuit of lunch. Just as soon as she’d eaten something, she promised silently, she would figure out how she felt and what to do.
It wasn’t lunch, of course, that made her delay; just an overwhelming rush of all that had happened in the last day, the last week, the last month. She didn’t have the capacity to deal with it all at that moment, but maybe—maybe—with a full stomach and a clearer head she would be able to.
“El,” Tate started as they walked, but she just shook her head at him. She tried to soften it with a smile, because she wasn’t necessarily feeling mad; she was just feeling everything.
She was relieved when he guided her right to a place with food. Not just food, but warm food too. She was relieved also when he sat right next to her and ate with his wrong hand so he could hold hers the whole time.
“Did you feel anything?” she asked quietly as she politely sipped at her stew. “Anything to do with Demetri?”
The eruption would have been the end of the bargain, so if Demetri hadn’t survived, perhaps Tate had been able to feel—it as he had the first time. Things had felt different since Demetri’s first death, though, Tate had explained. So perhaps he wouldn’t have felt anything at all.
He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m relieved to not have felt it outright, but...I won’t be able to relax until I know for sure.”
She turned and studied him as he ate, pulling a strand of her hair between two fingers. He’d sacrificed everything for his mother and sisters, and then for his brother, and now, a third time, for her. He’d characterized himself to her as selfish, and maybe he had been, once; she didn’t think that there was a less fitting description in the world.
She abandoned her spoon and leaned into him, and reached her hand behind his back to pull him closer to her, for once.
“I love you,” she said, her face pressed against his arm. “I’m confused and I’m exhausted but...I know I love you.”
She felt a great shudder go through him, but he didn’t speak.
“We won’t be home today, will we?” she asked, looking up at him, keeping her arm around him.
He paused and stared at her with wide eyes. He shook his head after a moment.
She spoked reluctantly. “I know the sun’s not even down yet, and I know we’re both eager to get to the palace, but,” she paused, “could we find a room here? We cou
ld leave really early tomorrow morning. I’m just so tired, and...I want to hold you.”
The smile he rewarded her with answered her question, and the thorough way that he kissed her made her warm all over.
Twenty-seven
Elsie’s questions disappeared from her mind, once they’d eaten and she followed him upstairs with a key in hand. She knew he hadn’t meant for his kiss to awaken something in her, she knew he hadn’t meant for the way his fingers brushed across her neck to be anything other than affectionate. But his kiss had been searing and his touch had felt like fire. She needed more of it.
He seemed almost surprised that she launched herself at him after he’d latched the door. There should have been nothing surprising about it, not from the way that she’d run her hand down his back as she’d walked behind him through the hall, not from the way that she’d put her hands on his shoulders and stood on her toes and kissed the back of his neck.
He only should have been surprised that she’d been patient enough to wait until they were securely in the room.
He did seem surprised, she thought, but not disappointed, as he lifted her ass and encouraged her to wrap her legs around his waist. She kissed his neck and his jaw and his chin and his mouth, and he held her tightly and kissed her back. She’d missed the way it felt to touch him, the way she could abandon all pretenses of decorum and turn herself over to need, knowing that he was as crazy for her as she was for him.
Tate deposited her on the small bed in the room and then covered her with his massive frame. He kissed her cheeks sweetly, and her mouth softly. He kissed her neck, and then down, down, until he kissed along the top of her nightgown. She squirmed under him to pull it from her shoulders, to allow him access to her breasts, to demand more from him.
He chuckled against her flesh before helping her. It wasn’t too hard to pull down her sleeves, with his help, and then before long her breasts were exposed, and then her stomach, and then all of her. When he’d pulled it from her legs and held her ankles, then placed her feet gently back on the bed, he paused for a long moment and stared at her.
