by Brindi Quinn
“…You mean what I saw while you were bathing?”
He slipped one hand behind his pink head, feigning indifference, and gazed at the ceiling. “You weren’t meant to see it. It’s grotesque.” He chewed his lip in contemplation. “Though with your unfortunate habit of spoonery, I don’t expect I’ll be able to hide it from you much longer, will I?”
In fact, I had already taken a closer look at it in the forest ruins.
Not that he knew it.
“I’ve been dreading this part,” he said to the ceiling. “I meant to ease you in by letting you feel it in the dark while we slept, but—” He gave a lengthy sigh. “It’s only right that you learn all of me. I can’t expect you to feel safe with me if I won’t let myself feel safe with you.”
My breath caught because it knew a big moment was coming.
And then, in a borrowed bed, under the warmth of a single flame, Windley disgracefully rolled onto his side, fully exposing the disfigurement of his flesh that looked to have been torn and mended and torn again. My poor, sweet, brave knight.
Fighting the ache of it all, I spread my fingers over his scars.
“Don’t force yourself, lion queen. I know they’re offensive.”
His voice was shameful, like he had done something to deserve them.
“They’re from Ascian, aren’t they?” I exhaled.
“The longer ones. The shallower ones are from Flora’s dad.”
He was still as stone and said nothing as I ran my fingers up the grooves of flesh where evil had long ago lacerated into him. I, too, was silent as I explored the imperfections, imagining the suffering he had endured, lamenting the pain stored in his scars, thinking about what bravery it must have taken to overcome them.
Grotesque. Offensive.
These were not the right words to use.
When first hearing Windley’s story, you may think to pity him. But you would be wrong. A truer reaction is respect.
That was what I felt as I bent forward and brushed my lips over his reinforced flesh.
“M-Merrin?”
“They aren’t offensive, Windley; they’re proof of your strength.” I kissed him again, this time his shoulder, and a third time, at the side of his neck. “You have looked into the face of evil and come through to the other side. That is something commendable.” I trailed my finger up his spine. “You will never get rid of these marks, so you should reclaim them instead. That’s what I think. You should take back their power from those who marked you, and never be ashamed to let me see them again. There is nothing about you that is grotesque.”
He didn’t move.
A new truth was settling in him, weighty and thick.
“I should have known that you, of all people, would be okay with it,” he said quietly.
“Don’t put me on a pedestal, Windley. What I said was the truth, and it has nothing to do with my character. This triumph is yours, not mine.”
When he finally showed me his face, it was charming. “Ugh. Stop being so regal.”
“You know how I get when I feel conviction.”
He rolled his eyes. “More than most.”
Now, all was right with the world. There wasn’t a mouse tail or whisker in sight. Just a lion and a devil, grinning at each other, glad to be alone. Windley put out the lantern and seized me in his arms.
But things were different now.
I no longer found the bed intimidating.
And Windley no longer had anything to hide.
We didn’t sleep, not right away. Instead, we faced each other in the darkness, Windley caressing the curve of my back beneath my shirt, and I with my hand to the side of his neck. Though my soul was at peace for the first time in days, it was hard to shut my eyes with a face like his lying opposite mine.
“It will be hard to sleep like this,” he murmured after a time.
“Like what?”
He pulled me closer. “With your eyes piercing into me. Close them.”
I obeyed but was happy for having caused him strife.
“Good queenie,” he said. “I’ll reward you.” He kissed the corner of my mouth and then the center of it, but when he pulled away, I could still feel the heat of him close, as though he was contemplating whether or not to go in for a third.
The grin I wore deepened.
“Quiet, you,” said his whisper.
“I said nothing.”
“Your smirk is enough. Maybe I should sleep somewhere else, after all. You’re too distracting.”
“No.” I pushed my nails softly into the meat of his shoulder. “I like the feel of you.”
“So do I,” he said, hand now fondling my side. “That’s the problem.”
It felt good to be desired, like I had a hold on a creature built to have a hold on others. I drew in a deep breath so as to shift my body beneath his hand.
“Mm.” He made a noise in his throat and moved his hand to the space between my shoulder blades and spread his fingers beneath my shirt. It was a good deal higher than he usually went.
…That wasn’t a complaint.
“You’re so soft,” he mused. “It almost feels wrong to touch you.”
No, it felt something other than wrong. To show him so, I used the base of his back to push him closer against my hips.
“Lion queen…”
I answered only with my stare.
“We have to stop. For all the reasons I mentioned before. Remember those?”
So he said, but he was pressing his thumb into the bumps of my spine as he slid his hand downward.
“You’re the one doing it,” I whispered.
“You know very well you are too. Temptress.”
“Incubus.”
“Wayward queen.”
“Devil.”
“Shhh.” This time when he kissed me, he took my bottom lip in his teeth. “You’re playing with fire.”
Because he was a predator at heart.
But he wasn’t the only one. Maybe instinctually, my hand found the back of his head and tugged at the ruff of his hair as I kissed him back.
“Ffffff—” He sighed. “Fine, but only kissing, and only for a few minutes. You need sleep, and I need control.”
With that, he rolled onto his back and pulled me over him, guiding my face to meet his and opening his mouth against mine. With knees straddled over his hips, I took his jaw in my hands and moved my mouth in unison with his—while his fingers found the sides of my ribs, dangerously close to exposing my chest in the way they slid up my shirt.
If only I could have captured that feeling in a bottle, the desire and tension, the liquid apprehension.
We were muscle and sinew, like anybody else.
It was all Windley could do to keep his word. Before things could spiral, he took my hands in his and cleared his throat. “I take it you aren’t nervous anymore?”
No, the events of the night—the honesty, the vulnerability—they had set my mind at ease, and now that they had gotten used to the feel of him, my hands wanted only to explore.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have scolded him for using his power. But that was just our monster, ramming into my chest until I was certain my heartbeat was pounding against his.
Holding my wrists in either hand, Windley kissed my forehead. But it wasn’t a soft kiss; instead, he kept his mouth pushed against me as he said: “Goddess damn, lion queen. All that talk about licking frosting earlier.”
“You started it.”
“You started it. By trailing your scent past me without regard for my instincts. Would you like to know what those instincts are telling me now?”
I gave him both a nod and a swallow.
“To beguile you, steal you away to a secret place and do whatever I want to you. You’ve no idea the thoughts I’ve had.” He brought my thumb to his mouth and dragged it down his bottom lip. Then he took it between his teeth, pushing his sharp eyetooth against my nail. “Oh, how I would devour you, my queen.”
It didn’t seem lik
e such a bad thing.
“Now go to bed.” He rolled away from me.
I punished him by taking to his back like the turtle I was. This time, he welcomed it, drawing my hand around him and pushing it to his chest.
Whatever sort of heart he had, I could feel it moving against me. It was gratifying to know he suffered the same rush as I.
Although there was still a great task ahead of us, waiting beyond the walls of the room, for now everything was perfect. More perfect than it had been in all the nights we had spent together. We were bonded closer than ever before, queen and guard, lion and devil, friends and lovers.
But as I closed my eyes to the edges of sleep, a snaky voice hissed into me from the beyond, threatening to disrupt all we had built.
“A word of caution, Merrin: that beastling contains a considerable amount of lust, and beastlings were made to feast on the vitality of humes. Are you sure you know what you are doing?”
Whatever Exitium was, it was clearly from a time before Spirites had evolved. I wouldn’t pay it any mind.
Though I couldn’t help noticing the way the distant echoes became flurried after, buzzing in my ear:
“One without merit? One without merit? The beastling is one without merit?”
“NO,” I pushed against the void.
I was glad that the darkness masked the cluster of shadow beginning to form around me.
Chapter 16
Dirty Little Secret
I hope you aren’t feeling cheated with that last bit, captive ones. Or perhaps a little misled?
Don’t worry. We’ll get there. And I’ve promised to overshare.
Windley and I slept through the morning’s sun and into the dead of day.
We awoke to the sound of birds flittering about outside the window, feasting on whatever seed Flora had laid for them.
Feasting.
‘Beastlings were made to feast on the vitality of humes.’
Not this beastling. He was too busy indulging on Flora’s pancakes. Along with the sun and the birds, the day had brought brighter spirits to Windley and me both.
He had told me his last secrets. I had accepted his scars.
I had told him my intimidations. He had put them to bed.
Literally.
And we had spent one peaceful night behind walls, wrapped in one another’s arms—a preview of future days. The thought turned us heady. He was particularly puckish as he teased me at the table, holding the syrup just out of reach—a reminder of simpler days.
As I watched him across the table, casting naughty glances and twitching his mouth, I wondered—how had I not realized my love for him sooner?
He had loved me for eight long years. Eight years of missed opportunities to spend time together as we had last night. Eight years to feel his flesh and hear the truths of his heart.
“You’re staring at me,” he said.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“Only because you’re hideous.”
Flora stiffened at the stove, for she didn’t know our flirtation techniques.
“At least I’m tidy,” Windley purred. “Unlike the queen of soil.”
“Better to be queen of the soil than king of the smut.”
Flora caught on to our game, shaking her head with a smile as she stacked another pancake onto the pile.
“We should have enough to make it to the coast,” Windley said, fishing about in his traveling pack, “with what you got from—what did you say that great brute’s name was? Edmond?”
“Edius,” I corrected.
“With what you got from Edius and what Flora’s donated to the cause, we shouldn’t need to stop for supplies the whole way.”
“Thank you, Flora. When this is all over, I intend to repay you tenfold.” Once I again had the resources of a queen.
“Consider it thanks for taking care of Windalloy. I’ve always thought of him as a little brother, and I’ve often worried over what might have happened to him. I am glad he found a reason to stay away.”
She was such a soft, warm person, you would never know it if she were lying.
But something told me she was lying.
It was in the way she took her knuckle to his chin as she said it, seeming somewhat more than sisterly in her gaze.
Then again, maybe that was just my own jealousy talking. Our monster was not the kind that wanted to share.
“Windalloy, after you face off with Lord Ascian, will you return here? I would like to see you once more before you go to the north.”
“I was counting on it,” he told her.
With him grinning up at her and her gazing down at him that way, I had to remind myself: it was my cake and my frosting he wanted. And the darkness riling in me was not my own.
“Why does this keep happening?” Windley had taken my wrist to inspect the trail of shadow seeping out of it.
“Anticipation at the thought of facing off against your former master, I suppose,” I said. A lie, but it would do.
Outside, around the back of Flora’s garden, the white spring stag from the previous night was penned next to another beast—one I had seen grazing in the northern plains but had never gotten near.
Prancelopes may be quickest of all four-legged creatures, but they were also the most cantankerous, bucking at any humans who tried to get close. This prancelope, however, trotted right up to the gate like a tamed dog when it saw Windley. Tan with dark spots, and built sleeker than even a wind stag, the beast took a carrot right out of Windley’s hand.
“You know, you always tease me about how ill-behaved Ruckus is, when all the while you were just charming your stags into obedience, weren’t you?”
“A queen’s guard never reveals his secrets.”
I knew it.
And it meant that Windley could have also tamed Ruckus into compliance when he escaped with me from the woodcutter’s hut, yet he had chosen to go to the Necropolis on foot. Ruck’s ‘unruliness’ was nothing more than an excuse.
“Mayhap I just wanted more time alone with you,” he said when asked about it. “Mayhap I liked the idea of us sneaking around in the woods, pulling your body behind trees and covering your mouth.”
A dastard to be sure.
With final regards given to kind, honey-voiced Meraflora, Windley and I rode away from her cottage hidden in the woods, past Windley’s adoptive hometown of Abardo, and through the hilly terrain. We were finally back on course.
Prancelopes were far swifter than stags—so swift that I had to cling to Windley just to keep from being left behind with the leaves and petals caught in the wind. The creature easily climbed hills and leapt obstacles; and it wasn’t the least bit distracted by the scents and sounds of other grassland critters.
“This is so much speedier than the wallop!” I cried.
“Unfortunately, it wouldn’t let you ride it unless I’m also mounted.”
“So then, you’re used to mounting whatever you please through your powers of titillation?”
“Mercy me, if the other guards could hear the defilement coming out of our virgin queen’s mouth.”
Truthfully, I felt more like myself now than ever before. I preferred the sound of hoof patter to the clinking of fine glassware. I had let down the braids from my hair so that my crimped mane rode freely behind us, trailing the wind like a cape. The southern air tasted of freedom and fall. The horizon seemed wide and hopeful.
“Windley, do you think Flora and I might be distantly related somehow? Like eons back in our bloodlines? Surely the north and south have intermingled before.”
“Couldn’t say. The two of you don’t really smell the same.”
Smell?
“It would be interesting to see the world through your eyes, Wind.”
“All you’d see is you.”
I clung to him even tighter as we rode toward night.
There’s a word I love, captive ones, called ‘gloaming.’ Have you heard it? It is a name to call t
wilight or dusk, and I enjoy the broody taste of it on my tongue.
As gloaming fell over the sky, I began to search for signs of Luna’s rising, thinking it might be best for her to show herself and give away Rafe’s position with her beamed light. But again, she refrained, hidden away somewhere in the cosmos. Instead, the clear sky became outfitted in winking stars—lavender, mostly, which was usually a sign of coming rain.
Windley slowed the prancelope’s pace to observe the sky. “I see chap’s lover’s still shunning her face.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? Until I saw Luna, I only ever thought of goddesses abstractly—like a chorus of power in the sky. But Rafe’s people seem to know them all by name. Do yours?”
“Kind of. We don’t have names for them, but we acknowledge that there are four prominent ones—the moon goddess, the sun goddess, the goddess to begin things, and the goddess to end things—as well as a multitude of lesser ones that reside in the heavens like a wave. Also, there are wraiths—monsters lurking between realms. And there are angels—though most of them fell during the dawn of man. That was around the time the goddesses moved into the celestial plane, too.”
“Leaving their bodies behind at the Necropolis?” I said.
“Apparently.”
“I should very much like to hear more about your people’s lore, Windley.”
“Oh should you?” he said, entertained. “What do you want to know?”
“You mentioned that goddesses don’t like your kind because your foremothers were something else. What other creature is capable of creating life?”
“Now that’s an ancient word you’ll hardly ever hear, even by my kin. They’re called the Drakaina.”
Another thing I had never heard of.
Windley continued: “They were some of the first beings to appear in the void. According to lore, they warred with the goddesses long ago over dominion of the mortal world. The Drakaina lost and were exiled into a place beyond the reaches of the living or dead, but their offspring were allowed to stay, adopted, you could say, by the goddesses. But while the goddesses might tolerate us, they’re said to see us as something of a burden. Not that I ever put much stock into any of that until I saw Luna with my own eyes.”
“But what were the Drakaina?”
