by LJ Swallow
“You dance well,” he says.
“Scions are forced to take lessons. Too many lessons.” I grimace.
“Strange that a girl's ability to dance should be important in her courtships.”
I look back into his face. When Mattias speaks in such formal terms, he sounds strange. Courtship? “I think it's an appropriate way for the witches to get their hands on the goods.”
The amused twitch to Mattias's cheek I've seen before appears. “And that is why you only dance with your witch boy, I presume.”
“Witch boy?
“The boy you're with. Is he your lover?” he asks, hand remaining in place.
“Declan?”
“I saw you with him often when you visited the sector. He's the one you spent this evening with, and at the last Gathering.” I bite my lip, amused at Declan's reaction if he knew somebody had called him boy.
“How often did you visit the sector? Why?”
“I liked to visit too. Escape, while I still could.”
“But not anymore?”
“Are you trying to question me again? Answer mine.”
“He's not my lover.” I'm uncomfortable speaking the word to Mattias, the heavy atmosphere weird.
Mattias's grip tightens, and when I wince, he loosens. “But he's a witch, correct? Is he who your parents want you to marry? I don't see you talking to other suitors.”
I turn a wry smile to Mattias. “He's my best friend. And I don't talk to other suitors because I don't want one. You know that.”
Mattias regards me silently, as we weave around the people, trapped in a dance of our own, oblivious to anything but each other and our synchronicity. This man triggers arousal inside I never thought I'd have for a witch, and he's the antithesis of any man I'd imagine myself with. In recent months I've fantasised over running away to the sector, falling in love with somebody who didn't agree with the Othala bullshit, possibly even become part of a rebellion. Now I'm falling for a symbol of everything I hate.
“I do know that, but I wasn't sure if you'd accepted your fate.”
I laugh at his continued old-fashioned words. “I haven't.”
The music stops and a nearby couple bump us. We stand face to face as I break contact with him.
“Thank you for the dance,” I say unsure what the appropriate behaviour is here. Curtsey? Run?
Mattias places a hand on my arm. “Walk with me.”
“Where?”
“Wherever I want.” He strides past me. “Now, Cora.”
“You sound a lot like your brother.”
“We're both jumped-up assholes, of course I do.” He speaks in the direction he walks and I traipse after him. I don’t want to be involved in a scene with whispers how the Scion upset the Hyland.
“You said it,” I mutter.
10
The music from the party and chattering voices fade as I follow him across the lawn. A large lake, a short walk from the marquee, glistens black. Benches are positioned beneath the bordering trees, a place to sit and escape the sun in the summer days. Mattias doesn't sit, but stares across the lake hands in pockets.
“I am intrigued by you,” he says, not looking around. “Are there many kids in the Enclave with your ideas about the future?”
I rub my bare arms. “You mean leaving? Probably, but I don't spend time with many people.”
“Apart from Declan. Does he want to leave too?”
I hesitate. This is about my life. If Mattias is trying to gather information, I can’t implicate him. “I'm not sure.”
Mattias turns. “I don't think he would be very good at protecting you.”
“I don't expect anybody to protect me.”
The soft laugh he gives annoys me. “If only that were true. I hoped the witch boy was your future,” he says in a low voice. “But I would be disappointed if he was.”
“That makes no sense.” But his shining eyes tell me what he's hiding behind words.
“Because, curious Cora, even though marrying him is the right thing for you, I don't want you to be his.”
“I'm not.”
“Or somebody else's.”
I have no words. Literally, I stare at the man waiting for him to tell me he's joking. Or take hold of me. Worst, I don't know which I want him to do. “Are you propositioning me?” I ask, Declan's words echoing in my head. “How many girls have you said this to tonight?”
He approaches and looks down at me. “Nobody, Cora. I'm not interested in empty-headed girls.”
“Are you interested in me?”
“That's a bold question.”
“I don't want to be toyed with.”
Mattias chews the edge of his lip. “You're not an empty-headed girl.” This man and his crypticness... “My brother pissed me off tonight. He only asked you to dance to annoy me.”
“Oh, because he couldn't possibly be interested in me.”
Mattias scoffs. “You want him to be interested in you?”
“No way!”
Again the unspoken. Him. I want him, and there's no mistaking the reflection of this in his eyes. “I can't stand the thought of your spirit crushed by someone like Alaric, or anybody here. You shouldn't be chained to something that will eat away at the girl you could be.”
“I will leave,” I say in a low tone. “You know that.”
“So you are still planning that stupid move?”
“Well how the hell else do I stop being a Scion?” I snap.
“I thought you'd accepted your fate.”
I laugh at his old-fashioned words. “I haven't, and I never will accept what I was born to.”
Mattias steps away and pushes his hands into his pockets, then turns back to the lake. “Fuck.”
“What's wrong?”
He turns back. “When I talk to you, I see myself. You say things I feel in here.” He touches his chest. “Things at the heart of who I should be, because I don't want to be who I am.”
“You can do what you want, you're a Hyland.”
He gives his head a small shake. “And there she is, the girl who has a lot to learn about her world.”
I straighten. “Are you patronising me, again, Ty?”
“Don't call me that,” he growls.
“Why?”
“Because I'm not Ty.”
The rose sent surrounds us, the breeze sending a shiver across my bare arms and legs. In my formal black dress, I don't feel like Cora either. “I met him once.”
“Don't push this,” he warns. “I fight to forget that evening. Even that night I didn't want anybody else with their hands on you. I wanted you to be mine.”
“Please, just tell me what stopped you.”
He places his fingertips on my cheek. “I thought you were a sector girl looking for a hook-up. Then I discovered you were a Scion, and that would've been... awkward.”
“And you arrived looking for sex that evening?” I part my mouth as his rough fingertip traces my lips, his eyes following the movement.
He ignores my question. “When I watched you with that man, it triggered something. I was angry with you that you'd hand yourself over to someone who'd hurt you. I swore then that if anybody took you out of that bar and harmed you in the smallest way... I'd kill them.”
“Sam wouldn't hurt me.”
“You think I'm joking?” he asks with a low growl. “Are you listening to what I'm saying?”
“Why would you do that? You can't walk around killing random people!”
“Humans? Yes, I can, but I tend to avoid it.”
“Tend to avoid it?” I choke out.
“For fuck's sake, Cora. I'm a Hyland. I do what I want and nobody questions it. You just said as much yourself.”
“Then you're not the man I thought you were.”
Mattias inhales and sets his jaw tight. “You want to know what kind of man I am? When we walked into the hotel room, you have no idea how much I wanted you naked in that bed. I'd already spent half the evening fantasisin
g about how soft your skin would be, how you'd taste. I wanted you falling apart beneath my hands and never wanting another man to touch you.”
“Then why didn't you?”
“I'm Hyland and the risk people would discover what happened was as great to me as you. It was better if nobody knew either of us was there.”
“And now?”
He takes my arm, pulling me closer. “I'm still worried about you, and I'm still jealous. And I still want you. When I see others' hands on you, it fires something inside me and I can't handle it. It fucks with my head. I couldn't let Alaric touch you tonight, and that causes more fucking problems because right now, I don't need my head messed up by a girl.”
He may deny he's Ty, but this man's formal pretence slips into the night around us with each word. His eyes glitter as we stand, the way we did that evening aware when fate brought us together, then ran away and laughed, leaving us struggling to understand why this is happening.
I could reach out to Mattias and touch his face in return, push my mouth on his, and sink into what he's hinting at. I wait for him to step closer, fold me in his arms, and return the kiss I've obsessed about myself. His breath quickens, but Mattias doesn't move any closer.
“Alaric has no interest in me.”
“Don't downplay this. He's as obsessed with you as I am, but for a different reason. He's not used to girls who stand up to him, or worse, are disinterested. The first words you said to him at the Gathering put you in his sights. You're pushing against the status quo. Alaric knows the names of those who don't fold to tradition. You have no respect for the Regency, and he's stamping down on anybody who opposes him.”
“And you? Do you respect Alaric's Regency?”
“I will respect my family, but Alaric is paranoid, and I worry about his actions, he won't listen to me anymore. He's brewing chaos and instability and is prepared to eradicate anybody who interferes with his Regency.”
“And you'll stop him?”
“Do you believe the rumours too?” His mouth sets hard. “You know little about me.”
“I know Ty though.” I step forward. “I'll tell you about him. He cared. He helped me. I don't know who he is or why I do, but I dream about him. Not you, but Ty. I want him doing those things—what didn't happen fills my dreams. Ty took me away from this fucked-up nightmare I live. I lie in bed imagining how he would've touched me, how his body would've felt covering mine, how—”
“Don't,” he warns.
“How he wanted to take everything I offered,” I whisper. “How he wanted me.”
I gasp as Mattias seizes hold of me, closes his mouth around mine, and snatches my breath with a toe-curling kiss. I stumble and he grabs my hips and he pulls me tighter to him. My nipples harden against my dress, heat pooling low in my belly, a familiar ache intensifying now he's close.
I tremble beneath his hands on my body. I don't care which of the two he is because I want this man. He could use and abuse me, but how would that be any different to any other witch I'm pushed into marrying? I wind my arms around his neck and dig my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.
My back slams against the nearby tree, bark scratching my shoulders, and Mattias pushes his knee between my thighs, before pressing himself against me. The hard kisses bruise my mouth, and I allow his tongue to capture mine, to explore my mouth the way I want him to explore my body. Mattias presses himself harder against me, his arousal against my belly spiking mine. A sound escapes my throat as I relax into his touch.
My legs weaken, and if he didn’t have me pinned against the tree by his hips, I’d be a heap on the floor. Mattias moves to kiss my neck, resting his lips on my pulse point for a second as he scoops me up. I wrap my legs around his waist, my breasts pushed together by the dress at his eye level. Mattias traces his tongue along the swell, his breathing deepening as he brushes my hardened nipple with his finger.
My dress strap slips and he kisses from my shoulder to my breasts again, dragging the material away. The cool air against my nipple is immediately replaced with Mattias's mouth, his tongue flicking against and teasing me harder. I hold his head against me, lost to everything but this moment with him. Mattias's hand skims my leg, beneath my dress, fingers playing along the skin to the apex. I shift in frustration as his fingers stop close to the edge of my panties. Our breath matches a deep rhythm, and I'm blinded by the fact I may be about to have sex with a Hyland.
“What the fuck is it about you?” he growls against my ear.
I slide my mouth back to his, not wanting to talk, but to be. This isn't how I planned. Sex against a tree in a secluded part of the estate isn't how I imagined this.
He strokes a finger across my panties and sucks air between his teeth. I press myself against his palm as he rubs through the thin cotton. I grasp Mattias's shoulders, and close my eyes, engulfed by the welcome assault to my senses.
He stops abruptly as a girl’s laughter carries across the breeze, too close for comfort. “This isn't a good idea.”
His hot, heavy breaths against my face tell me a different story. He releases me and I slip to the floor, his hands still on my skin.
“Take me inside, then.”
“No, not because it's public.” Mattias’s warmth disappears as he lets me go and steps away, darting a look in the direction of the voices. “Although that’s part of the reason.”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“You don't know what you're doing.” He takes my head in both hands. “I'm Mattias, not Ty. I'll gladly hold you here and fuck you the way I do the sector girls. I can satisfy my need and walk away. You'd be out of my system, and I'd hurt you into never speaking to me again. You don't want that. I don't want that.”
“How do you know what I want?” I pull my dress back up, hiding the exposed skin.
“I don't want to be that man around you. I don't want any man treating you that way. Stop dreaming of Ty. He doesn't exist here.”
I reach to touch his face again. “He exists somewhere.”
“No. In this place, my role is Mattias. One thing meeting you has taught me is I need to leave.”
“Leave?” I interrupt. “Are you planning something? Can I be involved?” I cringe at how childish I sound. “I mean, I want to help.”
“Stop there. You can't be linked to me. I don't want any liabilities. I don't have time to protect you.”
“I don't need you to. Why do you keep saying that?”
“Did you not hear what I said about Alaric?”
I rub my face in confusion. “What are you saying?
“This. Us. It can't happen.”
“What the hell?”
“I had to step in tonight. It was a reaction that surprised me. I can't let him near you, and the more he sees us together, the more he'll want you for himself. Believe me, you don't want that.” He takes my face in his hands. “If things were different, maybe we—”
I slap his hand from my cheeks and straighten to full height. The heavy breathing from my desire switches to anger, my skin smarting from where his days growth scratched as he kissed me. “I don't know what stupid game you're playing with me. Doing that to me and then acting like you don’t care. You're right. You are a jumped-up asshole, Mattias Hyland.”
“This is so fucking hard, Cora!” he hisses. “Help me out here.”
“If you weren't who you are, I'd have so many things to say to you right now.” I glare at him, fighting back the tirade threatening to spill from my mouth. “Well, I know who you really are, and he is not Mattias Hyland.”
“And that's the biggest fucking problem!”
Without a word, Mattias turns away and strides across the grass towards the house. Who the hell does he think he is? I don't give a crap that’s he’s royalty. He has no right to stand and tell me every man needs to keep his hands off me, then kiss me in a way that blocks the stars from the sky and then tell me he doesn't want me.
I swipe at my face. This is an angry tear, not because
he hurt me. I grit my teeth. “And I'm going to figure out who the hell Ty is,” I mutter to myself.
11
Sunday equals no work, and I'm in the kitchen, buttering toast, when my father walks in. I tense, ready for his twenty questions about last night, or if he heard my latest lie about Declan and me.
“Good morning, Cora,” he says.
Suspicion rises. Why does he sounds cheerful? He champions Alaric as the new Regent and bores my mother with stories how he's in favour with the man, but the continued cheerfulness confuses me.
His round face is lit up as he hands me a folded letter. “What's this?”
“Delivered this morning. You've been chosen to visit the Hylands this afternoon.” Excitement lights my father's face in a way I haven't seen for months. I stare back dumbfounded. Didn't Mattias say he wanted to keep away from me?
“Seems like the Hylands are narrowing the field. It seems one of them wants to get to know you better. Which could only mean one thing.”
“What?” As if I need to ask the question: prospective Regent wife.
I don't hear any more of my father's words as I sink, paper in hand, onto the chair in the kitchen, fingers sticking to the thick vellum with my name on it. Alaric said he'd watch me, but I never thought this is what he meant. Could my future as a Regent wife be possible?
No. This is more game playing.
“When?” I say in a low voice.
“A couple of hours.”
“Wow, they don't waste much time, do they?”
“They don't have much time. The Senate is demanding both brothers take a wife and produce an heir as soon as possible. With all the doubt flying around, both need to prove his loyalty to the Othala, and in case of...”
“Assassination?”
“Cora!” he hisses. “Please, conduct yourself appropriately. The family needs this.”
“And you're putting the future of our lineage on my shoulders?” I shrug his hand away. “Any witch I marry will cement our future.”
“But this is your chance to marry a Hyland.”
There's no point arguing, he can't see past the prestige, and my father either misses or doesn't give a crap over the fact his daughter is likely to die if she marries one of these men. My darkest part believes he would be happy about this—the daughter's family is richly compensated for their loss.
