by H. D. Gordon
“There’s a shower out ‘round back,” she said, handing Surah two towels and a bottle of soap. “The water pressure ain’t so great, but it comes out nice and hot cuz it’s pumped up from the natural hot springs nearby.” She paused, smiling sweetly and casting her eyes down, something Surah was used to from commoners, but felt somehow shamed by in this setting.
“I don’t mean to imply nuthin’,” Candace continued, her gray eyes flicking between Surah and Charlie. “But you both look like you could use a good warshin’… Your clothes, too.”
Surah looked down at herself and cringed a little to see that she had various kinds of blood splattered on her attire. It was why she always wore all black, because no color could stain it. It was something that came in handy more often than she would like.
But even on all black, if someone got close enough, the spots of darker black were always evident.
Surah took the towels and smiled. “Thank you, Candy. Your hospitality is most generous.”
“My pleasure, my lady. Always had great respect for the Stormsong family. You kids make yourself at home now, and if ya need me I’ll just be in the room there at the end of the hall. You two can take the rooms on the right. I change the sheets once a week, so they should be nice and clean for ya. I gotta get me some sleep now if I’m s’posed to be up at dawn. Good night, you two.”
Surah watched her until she disappeared around the corner. Then she turned to Charlie and tossed him a towel. He caught it and raised his eyebrows. “You can shower first,” she said. “You need to get those wounds clean before they get infected.”
Charlie held her eyes for a long moment before nodding. “I’ll be quick, and come let you know when I’m done.”
Surah shook her head. “Take your time, make sure you clean the cuts well enough.”
One side of Charlie’s mouth pulled up. “Thank you, my lady,” he said, and turned to go.
“Charlie?”
He didn’t turn back, but he paused and looked over his shoulder.
Surah took a deep breath, and when she spoke, her voice came out just above a whisper. “Please don’t address me by my title.”
Now he swiveled around to face her, his eyes finding hers and locking there. Her breath caught as she looked at him. She swore she saw pain underlining the passion in his eyes, but it was gone before she could be certain.
After a moment, Charlie nodded. “Okay, love,” he said.
Surah watched him go, a small, genuine smile on her face. She stared down at the soap bottle Candace had given, her but didn’t really see it. Her mind was too occupied by the weight of the world that had fallen on her shoulders. That, and Charlie Redmine. She didn’t realize she was holding the soap Charlie would need until nearly three minutes later.
CHAPTER 20
CHARLIE
Charlie stepped out of the house and began heading around back, his mind filled with so many things it seemed to have overloaded and stalled. Mostly, he felt lost and guilty, two emotions he was longtime friends with. He knew he should have come out and told Surah the truth already, but it seemed like every time he tried, something happened that stopped him.
No, he thought. That was just an excuse. He was stalling and he knew it. It didn’t soothe him to admit that he was on borrowed time with the princess—though he thought it should have—because whether she hated him for what he’d done or not, they could never be together. He ran his hand down his jaw and began absent-mindedly unbuttoning his shirt as he rounded the corner of the house. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t see CJ until he was right beside the shower.
His eyes fell on her just long enough to see she was completely naked, and then he jerked them away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here.”
He heard the creak of a faucet turning and the sound of water falling to the earth trailed off right after. “Okay, I’m decent,” CJ giggled, and Charlie lifted his eyes to see she had wrapped a small towel around herself.
When she made no move to leave, Charlie said, “You done?”
CJ smiled and nodded.
Charlie sighed internally when still she made no move to leave. “Then you mind if I give it a go?”
CJ laughed again and adjusted the towel around her before coming to stand right in front of Charlie. She was so close she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Charlie took a step back, thinking that he was in no mood for this, but not wanting to be rude. CJ took a step forward to fill the gap.
She reached out and put her hands on his shoulders, and he stepped back again and was surprised when his back met the stone wall around the shower. CJ closed the space between them immediately, her blue eyes blinking up at him slowly. “No, Charlie,” she said. “I don’t mind if you ‘give it a go’.” Her head tilted to the side. “In fact, I think I’d really enjoy that.”
When she reached down and tried to remove her towel, Charlie reached up and caught her hands, stopping her. “Don’t do that,” he said. “I got nothin’ for you.”
CJ pushed herself closer to him. He resisted the urge to shove her away hard. Her brow was creased now, her lips pushed out in a pout. “Why?” she asked. “You married?”
Charlie shook his head and went to move around her, but she blocked him with her arms. “You gay?” she asked.
“Not a bit,” Charlie said. “Now, I don’t wanna be rude, so you might do well to just be on your way.”
Her face fell a little but she recovered quickly, pushing closer to him than before, the wetness at the ends of her hair soaking through his shirt. “Then tell me why,” she said, her hand moving slowly down his chest.
Charlie gripped her hand to stop her, squeezing harder than he intended, because over CJ’s shoulder he saw Surah standing there, the violet in her eyes nearly red with anger, a bottle of soap in her hand. He took a small moment to curse the heavens while CJ spun on her heel to see what had distracted him.
CJ saw Surah and rolled her eyes. She turned back to Charlie. “I guess you got business with the lady, so we can continue this later,” she said in a mock whisper.
Not for the first time in his life, Charlie cursed his appealing appearance. He took a deep breath and tried to maintain his patience.
CJ blew him a kiss and began heading back around the house, giving Surah a mockingly low bow. Charlie waited with bated breath to see how the princess would react, because CJ was totally unaware that Surah was not someone who should be taunted. Surah literally took body parts from people who she felt disrespected her, and he had to admit he was a touch worried. For CJ. The girl was too stupid to know she was poking a lion.
But Surah’s reaction was nothing but a small returned bow and a sweet smile, the fire he swore he’d glimpsed in her eyes earlier fully extinguished, and now he felt oddly disappointed. Did she not care enough to have a reaction to seeing CJ pressed up against him? Not that he wanted her to be angry or jealous, but… nothing? He supposed in the grand scheme of things, he deserved it.
Then CJ was gone, and it was just him and Surah. For a long moment neither said anything, and the only sounds around them were the calls of the night bugs, much louder here than anywhere near the city, filling the air with their song. She was lovely under the night sky, her smooth, fair skin nearly glittering in the starlight. The wind stirred her hair just slightly, lifting a few lavender wisps in its rhythm. Charlie thought if he could freeze this moment, just stop time and stare at this picture forever, he would. Every bit and piece of her was perfect.
And he loved her. Now more so than before, because he was beginning to get to know her. In fact, it seemed each moment he spent with her he loved her more and more.
Surah tossed him the soap, and Charlie snapped out of his thoughts and caught it. He opened his mouth to say something, probably along the lines of “it wasn’t what it looked like”, but he couldn’t be sure, because she beat him to the punch.
“Thought you might need that,” she said, and spun on her heel, di
sappearing around the corner before he had a chance to finish exhaling.
He stared at the spot she’d stood in a moment ago, and a small smile came over his lips. He could have sworn he’d heard just a bit of iciness in her voice when she spoke, a small crack in her mask that he had involuntarily created with the assistance of a ridiculous, hormone-charged younger girl. He knew he should feel guilty about not coming clean with Surah, and about the fact that she at least cared enough to get jealous over him when she didn’t know the truth. But so many shitty things had been happening lately, and a long life of shitty-happenings had taught him something that had probably helped keep him sane all these years.
And that was to take some moments of joy.
So he kicked off his boots and lined them up neatly. Then he stripped off his clothes and folded them over the top of the stone wall of the shower, turning the water as hot as it would go. The water pressure was weak, but Charlie was fine with that. It ran over his wounds and scoured the split skin on his face, burned the bruises over his ribs and stung the small cuts on his hands. He hung his head under the faucet and watched as blood that was not all his stained the water around his feet.
He let the worries wash off him as well, as if the hot water were cleansing him of his sins, if only for a small moment, a suspended space in time.
Then he closed his eyes and just let himself love her, minus all the mountains that stood between them. He let himself believe that just maybe she loved him, too.
Even if she was more than likely pissed at him right now.
CHAPTER 21
SURAH
Her initial reaction was anger. She just couldn’t believe the nerve of him. And CJ. That little bitch—a word she did not use on frequent occasion, but felt fit just fine here—had some nerve, too. Maybe she should have just knocked the girl’s teeth out earlier when she’d given her that exaggerated bow, brought her knee up and knocked a few incisors right out of—
She was over-reacting. She sat on the small front porch steps with her elbows resting on her knees and took a deep breath. In and out. She was not only over-reacting, she was being ridiculous. In reality, she had no claim over Charlie. She took another deep breath. He even had more in common with a girl like CJ. Why wouldn’t he want her? Surah took three more deep breaths, and when she realized her nails were digging into her palms deep enough to draw blood, she switched her train of thought.
No more thinking of Charlie. She had to concentrate on the bigger issues she was facing. Like the public meeting that Theo was holding tomorrow. Or the fact that she knew nothing about how her father was fairing. Or Samson. Or Charlie’s crazy brother.
And then she was back to thinking about Charlie again, because now he was walking toward her, having just turned the corner of the house. She looked at him long enough to see that he was shirtless, and then she yanked her gaze away. She would never admit it, but it was quite a task. In just that small glimpse she had seen sun-kissed skin and carved muscles, and she tucked her head now and gave him a wide berth, feeling slightly childish but unable to help it.
When she got to the shower she turned on the faucet, removed her clothes, and began methodically rinsing the blood from her skin and hair, wondering why she suddenly turned so sensitive when it came to Charlie. She had been with men before, not many, by anyone’s standards, but enough to know that she had never been like this before. She had never gotten jealous, or angry, or anything, really, over any other man. In fact, she was always the one to start the relationship, and end it. Being who she was, most men dared not even approach her, and so she supposed she had just taken her pick over the years, and then tossed them away when it suited her.
But Charlie wasn’t like other men. He was not afraid to touch her without permission. He didn’t hold his tongue with her, either. Nobody spoke to her the way he did other than her father and Samson. Today he’d stood by and watched her do some things that would—and had in the past—send most people running in the opposite direction. When Charlie looked at her, he saw what she was really was, and he didn’t flinch or turn away.
She tilted her head back and let the hot water fall over her, staring up at the stars and thinking again about how she had felt when she’d seen CJ with her hands all over Charlie. She smiled a little when she thought of how she had cut off other men’s hands for pissing her off less. This made her feel better, and by the end of the shower, her logical mind settled over her, and her anger at Charlie, and even CJ, was gone.
But she’d be lying to say a touch of hurt hadn’t taken its place.
She wrapped her cloak around her and went into the house, which was quiet and warm and dimly lit. She made her way to the room Candace had pointed out and flipped on the small lamp inside the door. It gave off a weak, orange glow. Suddenly, Surah felt really tired. She unclasped her cloak and tossed it over the twin bed that was pushed against the wall. She set her leggings and boots on the floor, deciding she would sleep in her undergarments and tank top and wrap her cloak around her, as she had never been fond of sleeping on strange sheets, and always liked to keep her weapons close.
She was about to collapse down on the bed when a familiar deep voice spoke from behind her. She spun around to see Charlie reclining in a wooden chair near a small desk in the corner of the room.
“I think I like you better without the cloak, love,” he said, and his mouth lifted in that half smile as his green-blue eyes travelled the length of her.
Her heart flipped, and what would follow felt like a decision made right then and there.
But, perhaps it had been written long ago, on the blackboard in the sky.
CHAPTER 22
SURAH
Suddenly she was wide awake, all thoughts of sleep forgotten. She stood immobile, feeling very exposed, but not necessarily uncomfortable, standing in front of him in only her tank top and underwear. She crossed her arms over her chest when she felt her cheeks going red as his eyes moved over her.
“I didn’t know you were takin’ this room,” Charlie said, but he made no move to stand.
She raised an eyebrow at this. “Really? Because I could swear you put your guitar in the other room.” She pointed to the pillow on the bed, where her sais were resting. “And I suppose you missed those as well?”
Charlie shrugged, his posture relaxed and indifferent, but his eyes burning her wherever they fell. “Okay. I did know you were takin’ this one.”
Surah waited, but he didn’t elaborate, just sat there leaning back, staring at her. She put a hand on her hip. “So what are you doing?” she asked.
Charlie looked down now, and she felt his eyes leave her the way a lover feels her mate slip free of their bed in the middle of the night. She watched the way the dim light in the room made his thick, dark eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks as he stared at his hands. He was also shirtless, but Surah avoided looking at his bare skin, and it took an almost comical amount of effort. With the way butterflies seemed to have filled her chest, one would think she was a girl of only a few summers, as if just his presence brought a youth and innocence back alive in her that had died a very long time ago.
His eyes slowly came up, and she thought he may as well be running his fingers over her skin, because she felt them graze up her ankles and thighs, her stomach and chest, and finally, settle on her face, leaving a trail of tingles behind them. “I wanted to explain what you saw out there,” he said.
Surah shook her head and looked down at her feet. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
Charlie sat forward, and his eyes went distant, as if he were looking at something from long ago. For a moment he was silent, battling with some demon Surah knew was a secret to everyone but him, just the way she battled so many things that were secrets of her own. She supposed that was one of the reasons they got along so well. Both of them had been pretending to be something for so long they didn’t know who they were anymore.
This thought seemed enormously revealing, and Surah tucked it a
way for later before she could dwell on it, relocating herself to the here and now. She didn’t want to think about things that upset her right now.
“No, I do, my lady,” Charlie said, his voice nearly a whisper. “I do have to explain—”
What Surah did next surprised even her, though in reality it shouldn’t have. She was tired of denying herself what she wanted, and was unaccustomed to doing so, being a princess. She didn’t want to think about the fact that her father’s kingdom was in peril, or about how her gut had wrenched with an awful feeling she’d never known before when she’d seen how CJ’s hands had been running down Charlie’s chest, or anything in between, for that matter. She had done many taxing things recently, things that had chipped away further at the tiny bit of humanity she had left in her. At the root of it, every Sorcerer and Sorceress was a human with Magic in their blood, so without the Magic and without the humanity, what was she?
No, she only wanted to focus on Charlie. On the way she felt when Charlie touched her. That’s why she pulled her tank top over her head and dropped it to the floor beside her. She stood before him in only a sheer black bra and a pair of black boy-shorts. Charlie’s mouth snapped shut with a click, whatever he’d been about to say forgotten. Surah smiled at seeing this.
Charlie sat back again and rubbed his hand down his jaw, which she could see was tightly clenched. “You sure don’t make this easy, princess,” he said.
She came forward and stood over him the same way she had back at the cabin. Then she placed her hands on his shoulders and took a seat on his lap. His hands went to her hips immediately and squeezed tightly. Surah felt like his fingers were burning all the way through to her stomach, which filled with an intense heat. She closed her eyes and basked in it for a moment. Then she opened them to see Charlie’s beautiful eyes staring back at her, his lips so close to hers she could swear she felt them touching.
“It doesn’t have to be hard,” she said, not caring that her voice came out in a raspy whisper. “And I already asked you twice not to refer to me by my title. You seem slow to take commands.”
