But she wanted to walk with him.
She wanted to walk the opposite way, away from her family, and not stop walking until she was free.
Free to be with this male.
Fuery.
“People won’t see us,” he whispered, tempting her into surrendering to him. “I know a secret way.”
“To my home?” She couldn’t hide her shock on hearing that, but managed to conceal the thrill that chased through her at the thought he had wanted to see her again too.
He nodded.
“How do you know where I live?” She studied his face, searching for the answer there, afraid he wouldn’t give it up easily even though he had been nothing but open with her.
Completely unguarded.
It struck her that she had been behaving the same way, that she felt as if she could be herself around him and didn’t have to hold anything back, because it was the way things should be between them.
“I am a scout.” He looked off into the distance, giving her his profile. Such a noble one. He looked as if he belonged to a strong lineage, one elevated in society, but she hazarded a guess that it was quite the opposite. “The commander charged me with mapping the entire area for three leagues around the camp. I spotted you in the garden of a large stone dwelling… and you seemed at home there.”
“And?” She had the feeling there was something he wasn’t saying.
A touch of rose coloured his cheeks again.
His violet eyes began to darken, his pupils dilating to devour his irises, and his deep voice was low and rough as he murmured, “And I watched you.”
“For how long?” She supposed the correct reaction given the situation should be shock, but she felt more fascinated than horrified. Thrilled. Excited.
His violet eyes slid towards her. “Until you went inside.”
A long time if he had caught her at the start of her walk. She had been spending a quarter of her day in the garden recently.
Shaia started walking and didn’t miss the glimmer of satisfaction that danced in his eyes as he followed her, her large basket of sodden clothes held tucked against his bare chest, wrapped in his strong arms.
She forced her eyes and her thoughts away from them before she could imagine him holding her like that. “When was this?”
“Three days ago.” The look in his amethyst eyes as he glanced at her again told her that he had been back since, watching her while she was unaware of him.
While she had been thinking about him.
She blushed at that.
Part of her knew she should tell him to stop, tell him that it wasn’t appropriate and neither was him escorting her home, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it, because he had only been doing the exact thing she had wanted to do.
She had wanted to see him again too.
They broke away from the stream and headed up a grassy hill towards a sparse green forest that crowned it. Her heart thumped against her chest, a heavy beat that dragged her down and slowed her steps. She took her time in the woods, dragging her heels as she picked her way along the dirt path, a sense of dread building inside her with each step.
The edge of the forest came too quickly despite her best efforts, and she paused under the shadow of a leafy tree laced with violet blooms.
Fuery stared off down the long sloping meadow that stretched before them, forming a barrier between them and a two-storey stone building nestled in the bottom of the valley. Smoke rose lazily from the tall chimneys set into the tiled gently sloping roof at the kitchen end to the left and several of the tall rectangular windows had been opened to allow air into the rooms.
Her home.
He was still, his eyes fixed on that house, distant from her, and she wanted him to speak, needed him to tell her what was on his mind and ached to know if he felt the same keen pain in his chest as she did, the thought of parting from him disturbing her very soul.
Shaia glanced down at the grey stone building, loathing it more than ever because it represented a barrier between her and Fuery, a cage in which her parents expected to keep her until they found a male they believed suitable for her.
She looked back at Fuery and saw the male she wanted for herself, needed more than anything despite only knowing him a short time. Her need for him was woven into her being, stitched into her soul, like a ribbon that tied them together and had been gradually shrinking, drawing them to each other.
He closed his eyes, drew down a slow breath and sighed it out as he turned towards her. Long black lashes shuttered his beautiful eyes as he stared down at the basket in his arms and then he lifted them to meet hers. She ached deeper, fiercer than ever at the sight of them and the regret she could read in them.
He held the basket out to her.
She placed her hands on the thick rim of it, close to his, and forced herself to take it even though she didn’t want to.
He refused to release it. His grip on it tightened, knuckles burning from the force of his hold, and he stared at the damp clothes again, his struggle written plainly across his face for her to see.
She knew what he couldn’t say, because she burned with the same need.
She didn’t want to part from him yet either.
It felt too soon. She hadn’t had enough time with him yet. She didn’t think she ever would, even if they had eternity.
“There is a rumour in the camp that we will be moving on soon,” he whispered, each word lancing her heart and sending sharp pain echoing through her body.
She wasn’t sure what to say.
He slowly lifted his head and met her gaze, and husked, “I know it is wrong… you can say no and put me in my place… but I want to see you again.”
It was wrong.
Or at least that was what her family would believe.
But her family weren’t the ones standing in the shadow of the trees with him, heart racing and blood pounding, feeling alive for the very first time.
She was the one here, and to her it felt right.
So she swallowed her fear and pushed out the words she wanted to say, not the ones society dictated she should say.
“Next wash day.”
The clouds that had been gathering in his eyes parted.
His lips curled into a faint smile.
He nodded and stepped back, his motions stiff and relaying how hard it had been for him to place that small distance between them.
“Next wash day,” he whispered, and turned away.
Shaia watched him go, not feeling the weight of the basket in her hands as her eyes tracked him. Everything felt light and bright. Wonderful. It was as if she was floating.
Warmth spread through her, a sort of lingering heat she knew would never fade.
For the first time in her life, she felt truly happy.
But happiness was fleeting.
CHAPTER 8
Shaia fluttered her eyes open, a sigh escaping her lips as she rose up from the dream and reluctantly left it behind. She lifted a hand and scrubbed her eyes, wiping away the tears that tracked down her temples and soaked into her dark hair and the pillow beneath her head.
She pushed back the covers, rose from the single bed and padded across the room. She glanced at the dark wooden wardrobe to the left of the door to the living room, and then away again, fixing her gaze on the masculine clothes she had draped over the back of a wooden chair in the right corner of her small bedroom. It was better to remain in disguise. She didn’t want anyone recognising her.
She dressed quickly, donned her black travelling cloak and headed through her cramped living room to the door of her home. It creaked as she pulled it open, and she stilled as she stopped on the doorstep.
Endless inky blue sky stretched above her but she saw a reflection of how it had been that bright summer’s day when she had met Fuery at the stream and had learned his name, and had discovered the need she had been experiencing had been running through him too, as unstoppable as that river.
Gods, she love
d him.
She loved him with all of her heart, so deeply she ached whenever she thought about him, and cursed herself whenever she considered the assassin’s words and that Fuery’s condition might be her fault. If she had known more about bonds, could she have stopped him from becoming tainted?
Lost?
She gathered her heavy black cloak around her to keep the morning chill off. The fire in her bedroom had gone out in the night and her fingers were stiff, cold to the bone, her hands pale in the slim light. She fixed her gaze on the distance, waiting.
The sky lightened, the portal glowing bright orange and spilling pink across the vault of Hell, as close to a sunrise as she had ever witnessed. It bathed the elf kingdom in gold, gilding the pockets of trees that dotted the sweeping valley below her and the mountains in the distance across the plains. Her eyes tracked the light as it caught on a stream that snaked through the rolling hills, leading her gaze towards a small village nestled close to one of the forests, far below her. The village began to shine as the light streaked over the blades of the windmills and traced over the thatched and pitched roofs of the mixture of pale and dark stone buildings.
Home.
But not her home. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
Fuery had become her home, and when she had lost him, this small house had become her refuge, and had grown dear to her. The village was the place where she had grown up, but this was the place where she had grown into the female she wanted to be.
She wanted to avoid the village now, but it tugged at her, her connection to Fuery and her memories of their time there pulling her towards it. She needed that connection again, needed the comfort of her memories more than ever.
She wanted to head down to the river, to retrace their steps and find the tree near its banks where they had spent time together.
Where Fuery had carved their initials and had told her that their love would be eternal.
She stared at the distant village, her eyes lazily tracking the gently turning windmill blades as her thoughts began to weigh her down again.
Where had she gone wrong with Fuery?
The male she had met with, one she now remembered someone calling Hartt as he had forcibly evicted her from the guild, had mentioned he had a bond with Fuery, and that it meant more than hers with him ever had.
She knew what he had meant by that.
His bond had saved Fuery somehow.
Hers had damned him.
She shook her head, refusing to think that way, to allow Hartt to rattle her with his words. She had returned to the elf kingdom not to lick her wounds, or give up. She had returned to find out more about bonds between mates so she could go back to Hartt and tell him what he had demanded to know, and then she would make him let her see Fuery.
Shaia focused on her body and willed her portal to open, and stepped through the darkness to appear closer to the village, a short teleport that left her legs unsteady. She had almost collapsed after teleporting to her home from the assassin’s guild in the free realm, the distance of the leap taking its toll on her.
She needed to rest, but she couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she had seen Fuery.
She trudged down the grassy hill towards the village, her nerves rising with each step, and chanted in her head that no one in the small gathering of houses would recognise her with her disguise back in place, her hood obscuring her face.
Besides, she wasn’t heading into the village anyway.
She was heading for a windmill on the hill above it.
One where she hoped to find an answer to the question plaguing her.
Where had she gone wrong with Fuery and their bond?
It wasn’t something she could ask her family, and not only because they would be furious with her for disappearing without a word when she was meant to be marrying Eirwyn and would employ a be-spelled talisman to keep her locked in her room, unable to teleport.
No, she couldn’t ask them because no one in her family were fated mates.
Her parents’ marriage had been arranged.
She reached the windmill, and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted Bleu’s mother in a field near it.
Ciana was as beautiful as Shaia remembered, graceful and elegant even though she wore working clothes of a dark brown pinafore over her deep blue dress and her long black hair had been tied back into a tight bun to keep it from her eyes as she tended her crop.
The female looked up and a warm smile reached her eyes as Shaia pushed the hood of her black cloak back, making their amethyst depths shine. Shaia’s nerves disappeared as she basked in that warm light, wishing her own mother was as kind and gentle, and accepting, as Bleu’s was. This was a female who had embraced her daughter’s desire for independence, and had defended her more than once, and worked the fields even though the village scowled at her for doing a male’s work. Gods, Shaia would have given anything to have such a female on her side.
“Is Bleu here?” Shaia said when she was close enough.
Ciana moved out of the wheat field and came to the pale grey stone wall that enclosed it. “He was here. He returned to the castle yesterday with his mate. My… she is wonderful. A little odd, but Bleu clearly loves her, and I am so happy to see him happy.”
She beamed at Shaia, that happiness shining in her eyes and making her positively glow.
Damn. Shaia had missed him.
Her nerves returned, the thought of having to travel to the royal palace terrifying her a little. She had never been there, only knew about it from stories people in the village had told her. Even her parents had never been invited there. It was a place reserved for either the elite of society or soldiers.
Soldiers like Fuery.
She swallowed hard and tried to stifle the ache that started behind her breastbone as she thought about him, pictured him in his uniform of a crisp black tunic and tight trousers, and black riding boots. He had looked so handsome, his face lit up with his smile and pride in his violet eyes, his hand resting on the blade that had hung at his side. One fit for a commander.
“Child, what is wrong?” Ciana asked, shaking her from the memory of seeing him that night thousands of years ago.
Gods, she had been so proud of him.
And she had hated how society had scorned him still, because he hadn’t been born into the echelons of it.
Because he had earned his position.
Just as Bleu had.
They had both worked hard to rise from little into a revered position within the legions.
Shaia shook her head. “It is nothing. I have been travelling too much and I am weary. I was hoping to catch Bleu here so I could speak with him.”
“You are free to go to the castle, Shaia. All are welcome there,” she said with another warm smile, and glanced at Shaia’s cloak. “This matter is obviously of great importance to you… enough that you have clearly travelled a long way.”
In disguise.
Ciana didn’t say it, but it was there in her gentle eyes.
The female reached over the wall, took Shaia’s hand and squeezed it.
“Do not let convention stand between you and that which you desire. If Bleu had done that, he would have been working these fields instead of me. If Iolanthe had done so, she would be here with me, complaining every hour of the day about how males were free to come and go as they pleased.” She chuckled, the sound rich and warm, and full of love. “Bleu was always a bad influence on her… go and let him be a bad influence on you too.”
Shaia nodded, her heart buoyed by his mother’s kind words, and the support that shone in them, telling Shaia that she knew her fear, and what she desired, and told her to go out there and not let convention stop her.
She released the female’s hand, pulled her hood up and focused on the furthest point she had been in the kingdom, and teleported. When she landed on the deep grass that reached up her calves, her eyes immediately settled on the palace in the distance. High walls surrounded it, made of the same mixtur
e of pale and dark grey stone as the castle it protected. Beyond it, mountains rose, a fitting backdrop for the tall towers with their conical roofs that reached towards the sky from the sprawling main building.
Shaia drew down a deep breath to prepare herself for what came next. Even at this distance, she could sense the power that hummed around the castle in the air, and knew the tales she had heard were true. Teleporting into the proximity of the castle would see her pulled to one central portal in the courtyard, a precaution that was necessary to protect the prince from intruders.
She willed the teleport, felt the power shimmer over her skin beneath her clothing, and disappeared.
Her pulse quickened the moment she appeared in the courtyard, on a circle of flagstones in the middle of a beautiful orchard. Paths cut the grass beneath the trees into sections, leading off in different directions, the one before her heading towards the grand arched entrance of the castle.
Gods, it was far larger than she had anticipated.
Imposing.
A little terrifying.
A few of the guards positioned at the end of the avenues that led from the portal landing point glanced at her, some arching an eyebrow as they looked her over. She probably looked like a beggar in her cloak and worn trousers and top.
Or suspicious.
She pushed her hood back, not wanting the guards to get the wrong idea about her. She wasn’t here to hurt the prince they protected.
Where would Bleu be?
She looked around her. To her right, the path led towards an open gate that revealed the countryside beyond it. To her left, it cut through the orchard in the direction of an archway in the wall that intersected the castle grounds, one that gave her a peek at buildings and a congregation of soldiers.
Would Bleu be there, overseeing those males?
Her heart gave a hard, painful kick and she brought her hand up, pressed it to her chest, and rubbed it in an attempt to soothe the pain just the thought of seeing males of the legion, dressed in their finery, birthed in her.
Unchained by a Forbidden Love Page 8
