by Deanna Chase
“Thinking,” said Byron, and for a moment he reminded her of Benton, terse and keeping another secret he wanted to shelter her from.
Benton. Six weeks since he disappeared, and every day it seemed a little more certain Benton was not coming back. Earlier today she had gone to his cabin, but it was still locked tight.
Of all people, she never believed Benton would abandon her. She had begun to think maybe he was attacked, but when Joseph had looked around the cabin and the surrounding woods and said there were no signs of foul play, she was both relieved and in one tiny corner of her heart, disappointed. If he wasn’t taken from her by someone else, that meant he had left her of his own will.
Marie was at long last proved wrong. Benton didn’t love her. If he did, he couldn’t have left, not like he did. Because if he loved her, he would be walking around right now with a hole in his chest, an ache that nothing could calm.
She eyed Byron again. He stayed with her every night, refusing to let her be in the tavern alone. There was a strength of spirit to him she never would have expected him to possess those first moments she had seen him. He was a good man, strong and dependable, and a whisper of shame flitted over her heart when she recalled those first unkind thoughts.
The door opened, and four men walked in. They were unwashed and unshaven, but not in the way that told of decent people who had been traveling hard and wished for a night’s rest and refreshment. No, these were men who thought of bathing rarely, who were used to living with filth and rot, who reveled in it. As they glanced around the room, it was avarice and not curiosity that lit their gazes.
Nissa turned to Byron, but he was looking at Marco with fire in his eyes. And Marco met his gaze with a defiant twist of his lips, a ghost of a smug smile in his countenance.
Benton’s warnings came back to her, the many times he warned her to watch Marco. Her sweet Marco, such a good boy who always helped her with the other children.
That Marco was not present. Here was a young man who would take and use, and who had no concern if it was his by right or not.
The largest of the rowdy group looked over at her and called out, “Mead for all, and bring it now.”
“Yes sir,” she called, to buy time as much as anything.
Nissa turned to Byron. He was half out of his seat, an uncomfortable position that suggested he felt the same warning as she did. “You should leave-”
“I will not leave you.” His voice contained a harsh finality, a strength he’d never shown before. He sat down, but pushed his chair out so that his legs were clear of the table.
Arguing would be pointless and would only focus the men’s attention on them. Nissa didn’t spare a final glance toward Byron. She hurried behind the bar to fill their order and within moments was in front of the group.
As she began to place down their drinks, the leader looked up at her and gave a half-leer, showing blackened teeth. “Aren’t you an ugly one?” he asked, voice as even as someone speaking of the weather.
“That I am,” she agreed. The drinks distributed, Nissa turned to head back but was stopped by a hand that grabbed her wrist.
The leader stood, bigger than she had thought. Only Benton would have rivaled him for size. “Here now, I didn’t say that you couldn’t entertain us because of that.”
Tremors raced through her body. His smell was overpowering this close, her gag reflex controlled by sheer dint of will. Don’t show fear, don’t show fear, don’t show fear, don’t show fear, don’t show fear… “I need to stoke the fire if you wish to eat.”
He laughed, the cruel edges of the sound shredding her hope of escape. “We’ll eat well enough without the fire,” and his words were followed by a leer that scraped over the contours of her body. “No curves except for the fat, but we’ve done without for so long that hole between your legs is all we need.”
Nissa bolted in hope that the sudden movement would startle the man enough that she could escape his grasp, but his grip was firm. She turned back to face him and with the nails of her free hand clawed the back of the hand that held her. “Get off me! Get off me!” She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she’d rather die and she had to get away and Benton, why aren’t you here?
Byron ran into the man, his fists hitting the bandit’s torso. The surprise move didn’t lessen the grip on her wrist. The bandit laughed and grabbed Byron’s head in his hand, thrusting him aside with no more effort one would use to push away a child. Sprawled on the ground, Byron couldn’t get up fast enough to escape two of the other bandits from grabbing him, one on each arm, and pulling him up.
Their laughter was tinged with viciousness. “Look at the brave pretty boy. So nice to rescue the lady, isn’t he?” The third bandit walked up to Byron and punched him in his stomach.
Byron doubled over, a small ooff of distress escaping him. “No,” she screamed and reached for him, but her efforts were as ineffectual as a snake held fast under the heel of a boot.
“Are you sweet on him, love? Sorry to see his pretty face in trouble?” Still holding her wrist, the leader moved to Byron. His fist was a slab of meat, thick and unforgiving as he punched Byron in the nose. Blood gushed, the bone cracked, and Benton’s head snapped back with a sickening crunch.
Marco ran up to them. The sneer was gone now, his eyes and face all round in little “Os” of horrified realization. “You said you weren’t going to hurt her. You said, just the money.”
The leader didn’t look at the stricken teen. “Leave now, boy, or you’ll suffer right along with this one.” Another punch, this time against Byron’s forehead, and his eyes rolled upward.
This couldn’t be happening. Not to her. Not to them. “Byron, Byron, please, please.”
Another of those flesh-peeling laughs came from above her, and the leader said. “Don’t worry about him, girl. If he wants you after we’re done, we’ll give him his turn.”
The bastard was skimming his fingers down Nissa’s cheek, dirt caked throughout his fingernails and the lines of his hands.
Byron blinked away the blood in his eyes. Nissa’s head hung down. She was moaning, low moans of despair. “Not again. Please, not again. Not again, I can’t survive this time. Not again.”
Not again?
Tears streamed down her cheeks. The leader grinned at her distress, his hand clutching the fabric at her chest, the cloth starting to tear.
Not again?
Byron was useless. This piece-of-shit form of couldn’t protect her. It couldn’t withstand a few hits. It couldn’t rip these bastards apart for touching her, for making her cry. He was helpless, as helpless as Nissa.
But Benton could protect her.
Not again?
That meant…
She had been helpless like this before.
Benton could kill them all. Benton would ensure her safety. And after he killed these men, Benton would visit the monsters in her past and skin them alive for what they had done to her. “Nissa, look at me!”
She didn’t acknowledge Byron, her moans the only sign she was still conscious. He had seen this before, soldiers retreating within themselves to escape the hell they were going through. He had to break through before she was lost to him.
“Nissa, look at me, look at Byron. Nissa! Remember your kids at school, remember teaching Benton to read. Nissa, look at me! Come back to me, Nissa!”
She was fighting his words, but slowly she was being pulled back to awareness. The leader laughed. “Good, good, I like it better when they fight.”
Byron ignored him. Now he had to reach Nissa. “Think about school and your kids. Nissa, come back to me.”
Her eyes raised and locked with his. She was back in her right mind, but it wouldn’t be for long. Fear already shot through her beautiful eyes as her situation pressed upon her, and he spoke before fear took her away again. “Nissa, I’m Benton.”
Confusion stopped fear’s movement, halting its progress. “What? Byron-”
“I’m not Byron, I’m Bento
n. A fairy godmother granted my wish and made me this. I’m Benton, your Benton.”
Her eyes were clear as they locked on his, and he saw… acceptance. She believed him. She believed him. “Benton?”
“Enough of this,” the leader interrupted. “Shut him up, let’s get to our fun.”
The leader grabbed her chin and forced his mouth on hers. Nissa’s head twisted violently as she struggled to get away, and the other bandits watched with laughing interest.
None of them were paying attention to Benton, the two holding him so loosely their contempt of him obvious.
Pain ripped through his body, sharp and stabbing, ten times greater than what he had experienced to turn into Byron. His teeth nearly bit through his lower lip as he held back screams.
After long moments both the transformation and the pain were finished. In a swift movement he leapt to his feet, freeing himself from both of his captors. He grabbed the one on his right and broke his neck, grabbing the dagger from his belt and tossing the body aside before his jailer on the left bothered to look in his direction.
Benton stabbed him in the throat, pulling it out to throw it at the third bandit and hitting him square in the chest. The man fell to the ground, blood oozing from the wound.
It took seconds to kill them all. Only when the third man hit the ground did the leader realize something was wrong. He looked at Benton, his eyes widening to see a hulk of a man instead of the slender pretty boy he expected, but this man was used to battle, as evidenced by how quickly his features schooled themselves into near emotionlessness. He pushed a stunned Nissa away and pulled his sword.
Benton held back his own breath of relief that the bandit freed Nissa instead of using her as a shield. This would take no time at all.
“Nissa!” Joseph ran through the door, screaming his friend’s name. If she was hurt Marie would never forgive him. He had sworn he would protect her, to not let that fragility from when she first arrived in the village enter her eyes again.
The men he brought were following so closely that when Joseph stopped short they knocked him over.
Four dead bodies littered the floor of the tavern, splashes of blood covering two of them, but that didn’t surprise Joseph as much as seeing Benton holding a trembling Nissa in his arms. He kept her away from the bodies and stroked her hair, her face and back, the whispers as he spoke to her too quiet for Joseph to make out words. “Benton?”
Benton gathered Nissa in his arms and rose to his full height. No doubt it was him.
Nissa’s arms went to encircle his neck and she buried her face into his chest, but if anything the trembling increased and she still didn’t speak.
Benton nodded. “I took care of the situation. I’m going to take her away now.”
Joseph was many things, but he had never been a fool. He wanted to take Nissa to Marie for safekeeping. But Benton would tear his own arms off before he would ever think of harming Nissa in any way, and judging Benton’s expression, the only thing trying to stop Benton from leaving would accomplish was getting him and the men surrounding him killed. “Marie is going to want to see with her own eyes Nissa is okay,” was all Joseph said to the scarred man.
Benton nodded. “I’ll bring her later.” With that, he left with a shaking Nissa still in his arms.
“Benton’s back? What about Byron? Didn’t Marco say Byron was here?” said one of the men in the group.
Something strange was happening here. If Joseph pressed hard enough, he might discover why a niggle in the back of his head told him to look closer. But he wasn’t going to do that. He wanted to get back to Marie and his son and not worry about answering questions. He walked over to the bloodiest body. “Come on, boys, looks like we have some cleaning up to do.”
Chapter Seven
Nissa came to awareness in dribs and drabs. The first thing that impressed itself upon her was the smell. She was not surrounded by the floral scent of her roses but by a wonderful musky scent, rich and warm, at turns comforting and mouthwatering.
Her eyes opened to the sun on the wrong side of the room, and then she opened them wider to see the wrong room. Not her room.
In a flash, Nissa sat upright, the sheet clutched tight to her body. A quick glance showed she was still fully clothed, though wiggling her toes told her she had no shoes on her feet.
“Nissa, look at me!”
“I’m Benton, your Benton.”
“Benton,” she called without thought, before considering if she was ready to see him yet.
His face appeared in the doorway in moments, suggesting he had been close by, perhaps even waiting for her to call.
She took him in, her gaze slow and methodical as she studied him. There was no change from the last time she had seen him, not a single trace of Byron left in either the scarred face or large body.
Other memories were starting to crowd her mind now, rank breath and a filthy odor, and a tongue shoving itself into her mouth as a hand forced her jaw to open and allow it.
The sheet wrapped itself around her legs as she scrambled out of bed. She fell hard against the floor and jarred her wrist, but she didn’t let the pain stop her from reaching the open window. She pushed her head through as her stomach emptied itself into the bushes below.
It took several turns for her stomach to clench and release before she felt well enough to chance leaving the safety of the window. She pulled her head back to find Benton kneeling in front of her, a glass of water and some mint leaves in his hands.
She took both. As she chewed she took in his form – the broad shoulders, the deep scars, the thin lips. It was Benton, down to the almost invisible scar at his hairline.
“You believed me.” His once-again deep voice broke through her musings. “When I told you last night. You believed Byron was Benton.”
Nissa smiled, and the involuntary curling of her mouth settled her stomach. This felt normal and right. This felt like everything was okay again. “That’s the first thing you question?”
He shrugged. “Seems like a good place to start. Most would find it hard to believe.”
“Where I grew up, talk of magic and of fairy godmothers is very common. Several people I knew and loved swore they were helped by one or knew someone who was. I’ve always half-believed in them. That was what made me believe you. You used the words fairy godmother.” Byron was Benton but he wasn’t, and now there was no more Byron, was there? “Are you going to be Byron anymore?”
He shook his head, his pale-ice eyes direct and unflinching. “No, I can never be him again.”
She ran her thumb over the rough stone surface of the cup, her eyes following the movement in an excuse not to look at him. Her emotions were riding hard over her. Her Benton was back, but as grateful as she was for that, she mourned the loss of Byron. No, she didn’t love him, but he was becoming a good friend, a friend in a different way than either Marie or Benton could lay claim to in her life.
Byron was not Benton – at least, their attitudes were not the same. Neither were their strengths or how they reacted to the world. Was Byron what Benton would have become if he’d grown up handsome? Or was he entirely created by the fairy godmother? “How did you become Byron?”
He rose and went over to the bed, straightening the covers as he talked. “It was a wish that came true. I didn’t believe her when she said she was a fairy godmother and offered to grant my wish, not really. But there was something about her. I didn’t believe, but in one corner of my heart, I did. And I made a wish, and she granted it.”
“What exactly was your wish?” Her eyes fixed on Benton again in time to see him falter for a fraction of a beat before he finished with the bed.
“Does it matter?”
Her hands tightened on the cup. “It does to me. After all, you gave up your wish to protect me. That’s what… last night… was about, wasn’t it? Why you kept yelling at me to focus on you. By telling me, that’s what broke the wish and made you turn back.” The light hit the bottom of B
enton’s face, and she saw his bottom lip was swollen and chewed through. “What happened to your face?”
“Nothing,” he said, the response so quick that it could only mean it was something to do with her.
Nissa set the cup aside and stood, walking over to him. He kept his focus on the bed, but the tenseness in his body told her he was aware of every move she made.
She had missed him so much these last few weeks. Byron had been interesting and she had considered him a friend, but she could never fully relax around the beautiful man. She had thought it was because of the disparity in their looks, that she would always wonder when Byron would leave her and pursue a more worthy woman, but on closer reflection that wasn’t the truth.
The truth was Byron’s glibness never appealed to her the same way Benton’s quiet strength and strong presence did.
Nissa placed gentle hands on either side of his face and turned it towards her own. “Benton,” she said, voice low but firm. “Look at me. Don’t turn me away now.”
He didn’t take his head out of her hold, but his eyes would not meet hers. “I’m sorry.”
The wrongness of the words hit her hard. She blinked several times, trying to process them, but they still made no sense. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry I took him away from you, and now it’s just me.”
The words were a sucker punch, leaving her reeling, unable to breathe as his features took on a cast of shame and sorrow. “Do you hear what you are saying? You’re apologizing for giving up this gift in order to save me? Benton, you gave me my life last night. I owe you everything.”
He shook his head, the movement not hard or fast enough to dislodge her hands. “You owe nothing. I would give anything for you.”
“Why? Because I’m your friend?” He still wouldn’t look at her, but he did not move away from her either.
A friend? Yes, he was her friend, but this went beyond friendship. This went beyond anything she had ever dared hope. Nissa continued. “No, that’s not it. You courted me as Byron. You could have had any woman in the village, or better yet, you could have traveled and explored and met a new woman in every port. But you stayed by my side.”
