My words failed me. Beryl’s face still flashed through my mind. While I couldn’t feel her hands on me anymore, I could still see her smug grin while she crushed my bones. My breath turned ragged again. The hands on Rhoan’s back turned into clawed fists. He groaned ever so softly when my nails dragged along his skin.
That’s when I felt the growth of his desire along my thigh. My lips trembled. Words failed me, but for an entirely different reason. The urge to rock my hips hit me. If I did, then maybe we could both indulge in a night of lust before going back to normal. We could pretend that it never happened after both of our desires had been sated.
Then, I could protect my heart with an anti-love potion like nothing ever happened.
Or…Rhoan could open his mouth. “That’s not where my blood should be right now. You’d think it would be in my back where the healing is happening.”
I snorted. “Yeah, sure. Blame me.”
“I didn’t.” He braced himself and rose so he could look down at me with those shifting violet eyes. His hair hung in a veil around us. “You saw right through me, though. This is definitely because of you, Princess.”
I expected him to grind his hips into mine, but he carefully extracted himself from the bed and turned his back to me as he shoved the curtain of hanging flowers out of his way. I was left, alone and cold in bed.
Grasping the empty air, I wished I hadn’t said anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rhoan’s shape lingering just past the flowers. He turned his head towards me. The silhouette of his profile distracted me. I noticed the slight bump in the arch of his nose, as if it’d been broken in a few fights.
“I took a vow to your family. So long as I live, I cannot take wives or even lovers. I am allowed no distraction from my duty.” His voice remained monotone, like he was afraid to let emotion into it.
I flopped back, arms spread wide, and stared at the ceiling. While there were potential loopholes running through my mind, I didn’t dare speak them into existence. Rhoan would only turn them down. He was committed to one thing: his vow.
He would never love me the way I craved. If I asked him back into bed, it would be out of duty. His heart wasn’t mine. He saw me as a chance to get his old life back. That’s what every fae saw when I walked in—well, the ones that could remember me.
I let Rhoan disappear. There was too much on my mind now. How did Taliesin remember me if the others could not? How could Rhoan? What kept them free of Beryl’s carefully crafted curse? Would it even help me to find out.
While I was here, thirsting after Rhoan’s dick, Taliesin was strung up like a birthday banner. The other Cerri’s were dying in their attempt to overthrow Beryl. I’d felt their individual deaths.
I’d noticed Addie watching me earlier. The Reaper had confessed to tampering with Fate. As far as I knew, though her power had diminished after her fight with the world devouring wolf Fenrir, she could still access Fate. It was something a god had taught her, and she’d selfishly used the power to craft her own happy future.
Had her tampering affected my timeline? I felt oddly split, as if there wasn’t enough of me here. My path had been frayed. Now I wondered if all the other threads were getting cut short because they were only a fraction of the whole. I wouldn’t be able to do anything until I could pull my fate thread back together.
Running away felt like a pretty good option right about now. Yet, the pixies entered the forefront of my mind again. I thought of Rhoan’s warning that anyone with red knees had knelt in Taliesin’s blood to pledge their allegiance to Beryl.
What kind of person would I be if I just did…nothing? That didn’t seem right. I hated that this responsibility fell on my shoulders after all I’d been through, but maybe that made me all the more prepared to handle this.
I wasn’t alone. I had Rhoan. If I could save Taliesin, then we would have his help, too. We could do this.
A dangerous thought occurred to me. There was no precedent for this, so far as I knew. I didn’t dare bring it up to Rhoan. He would die inside. To him, honor meant everything. The man had been waiting for the day that he could return to his vow and protect his court once again. If he knew what I wanted to do, he would hate me forever.
That was fine. I would protect my heart with a potion, then we could pull my fate thread back together, save Taliesin, and overthrow Beryl’s court. I wouldn’t tell Rhoan what I really wanted to do until all was said and done.
I could live with his hatred.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Rhoan
I approached the bar cart.It was getting empty. Rolling my shoulders back, there was no pain. The wounds from Cerri’s piercing roots had been healed completely. There wasn’t any trace of the injuries left.
All I had left was the throbbing erection that refused to go away. Cerri had been warm beneath me. I could still feel her hands on my back as she healed me. Twice now, she’d cared for me when all others left me to lick my own wounds.
The beast inside me moved. A hunger gripped my core. It wasn’t for sustenance, but for the soft touch of a woman’s body—specifically Cerri’s. My lips parted as I thought about cupping the back of her head and pulling her close for a deep kiss.
I shook my head. The thoughts refused to leave. I could almost feel her pressed against my front. Cerridwen was the princess of the Seelie Court. These feelings were wrong. While she was beautiful and sweet and strong, that didn’t mean that I could think of her this way. I had no right to imagine bending her over and hearing her scream my name while I held her hair.
“Fuck,” I muttered reaching for the nearest bottle of alcohol.
I popped the top and took a swig. Immediately, I cringed from the peppery burn of tequila. That was all that was left, though. I’d told myself that I would stop drinking, but it seemed that I wasn’t going to run out of reasons any time soon. There were too many thoughts bouncing around this skull that needed to be drowned.
Though, when I sat down with the bottle and closed my eyes, I could see Taliesin in the dark. It wasn’t his wry smile and conniving eyes that I saw. In place of his normal expression, I saw a pained countenance, gray from lack of blood.