SWNOVELS The Dark Rising: Chapter 18
After sleeping Gods knows how long, I finally feel a little rested. With the food Darius gave me, and after he left to do whatever he was doing, I managed to get some sleep. I hate that he got me out of my somewhat den that I made, but his words rang true.
I’m an Alpha, I need to act like one.
“Am I in my new prison?” I keep my eyes closed as I ask him, my throat feeling scratchy from not speaking for some time.
I hear him shift, the air tense and filled with something I can’t place. “No,” he answers softly, too softly and so unlike him that I peel my eyes open in confusion. Why does he sound like that? Pity?
My hackles rise.
He sits in a chair next to the bed, elbow on the armrest with his chin resting on his closed fist. His eyes roam over me, brows pinched together, before once again his eyes take mine captive. Always taking them captive. They’re not as cold as he looks at me, more curious and thoughtful, and I have no idea what that means. Unsure, scared, and wary, I break contact first, feeling uncomfortable and look around the room we’re in, taking it in properly for the first time.
I’m in a bedroom somewhere in the keep, it’s minimal, a chest of drawers to the right near a door, a balcony of sorts to my left. The glass doors are shut, and dark curtains drape either side, left open to let light in. Another closed door leads off at the back of the room, and I take a second to wonder what’s in there. A fireplace rests across from the large, dark wood bed I’m in, full of wood and alight. A table with a couple of chairs are not far from it against the wall, where Darius sat and fed me. There are two smaller side tables on either side of the bed, with a lantern on one and a picture of a family on the other. I pause at the picture and study it, of the woman and two children in the frame. I know immediately who the woman must be, Darius’s mother.
His features come from her with the same chin, ears and hair, along with his nose and the shape of his face. Everything but the shape of his eyes. I look at the small child she holds in her arms, her smile so wide as she looks down at the little boy beside her, who could only be Darius. Younger Darius looks up at her with so much adoration, and love, it makes my heart clench. They look so happy.
“My mother and younger sister,” Darius murmurs, noticing where my attention is. I’m shocked for a moment that he so willingly told me.
“They’re beautiful,” I tell him honestly, not knowing what else to say. Staring at his family, pain lances my heart as I think of my own. I don’t have a picture of Mom and Dad. I have nothing left, even the knife my dad gave me is gone, all I have are memories that are clouded with pain.
“They were.”
“Were?” I ask, my eyes moving back to him.
He shifts in his seat. “Rogures took them too soon. Isabell was only two.” I swallow, feeling the sadness of those words and for the young girl who barely lived before she died. How he must have hated me when he thought I caused the rogures that took his family from him. Is that why he wouldn’t listen to me? I can understand to an extent why he wouldn’t after believing that.
The pain of losing your family is something you cannot put into words, something you never recover from. Especially if they were stolen from you, just like mine were.
It doesn’t mean I forgive him for what he did to me though.
Understanding does not equal forgiveness.
“The rogures destroy everything,” I say solemnly, instead of asking the question I really want answers to.
“They do, my father was next on their list,” he says, and silence wraps around us until Darius gets up, handing me a mug from a table next to the fireplace. I take the warm mug from his hands with caution, wondering if I should throw it at him again, and look at him questionably. “Anna said it will help with fatigue, and that you have been having this tea regularly to help with the exhaustion you have been feeling.”
So why isn’t Anna giving it to me then? And why has she been telling him these things? It’s a current weakness I do not want him, or anyone else to know. I hesitantly take a sip, feeling the warm liquid soothe me, and I groan at the taste of honey and gentle spices as it slides down my throat. I watch Darius’s eyes darken over the rim of the mug and I shift on the bed, very aware that we are alone in here.
“Where am I?”
“My bedroom.” I turn to stone.
“What?” I gasp, and look around like a death trap is about to come from the ceiling and stab me. No wonder his scent is everywhere in here.
He chuckles low as if he can read my thoughts, and sits back down in the chair next to the bed. “You’re safe in here.”
Has he gone mad? “I’m not safe anywhere,” I correct him.
He nods, reluctantly agreeing. “But with me you are.”
I laugh at the audacity of that statement.
I look him over, tilting my head as his eyes are full of something I can’t name, but there is no deception within his green orbs, like he believes what he’s saying. “Darius, you are more dangerous than most.”
“I am to those who deserve it.” I resist the flinch I felt coming.
“And to those that don’t, it seems,” I mutter.
“I have no mercy when it comes to those who hurt mine.”
“I have been up close and personal with your no mercy, Darius, you don’t need to remind me of that.”
He looks away. “Believe it or not, I gave you as much mercy as I could.”
“I don’t believe it.” Splitting my back wasn’t a mercy.
He sighs, and I shake my head, moving the conversation forward. “Why am I in your bedroom and not with the others?” I put the empty mug down on the end table and scoot back against the pillows, bringing the furs with me and placing them in my lap. Then a sudden thought hits me. “Where is my pack?” Has he done something to them, are they with the Highers?
“Calm down, little wolf, your pack is fine. They are probably about to rise from their own rooms that we allocated them.” Again, no signs of lies in his eyes, and I relax back against the pillows as best as I can.
“Why am I in your room?” I ask again.
He’s quiet for a second before his brows furrow. “Because I wanted you in here.” He leans back in his seat, full of confidence only an Alpha can have, but I can tell it pained him a little to admit that, though I don’t know why he even wants me here.
“I have to say, I’m really confused about what’s going on here.” I pick at my fingers, glancing around the room.
“So am I,” he mutters beneath his breath, before rubbing his hands down his face. “What you said, about being in the woods and seeing a wolf as a child.”
I blink at the sudden change in conversation. “Yeah. What about it?” Is he going to laugh at me?
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as his stare penetrates my soul. “Was it a normal wolf?
“Normal?” My heart rate kicks up a notch, why would he ask that?
“Yes, Rhea, normal,” he sighs like I’m a pain in the ass, but he’s going in so many different directions with this conversion I feel like I’m being flung back and forth.
I open my mouth before closing it, unsure what to say or why he’s even asking me something like this. Where is this coming from, am I dreaming?
“Why would I tell you something that you will probably use against me in some way. Mock or laugh at me and tell me I’ve gone mad?”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“And why would I believe you?”
He says nothing, because he’s got nothing that could counter that.
“Why is it so important?” I mutter.
“I want to know everything.”
“That is something you don’t deserve to know, nor have earned.”
“I still want it.” His fingers tense, his jaw ticking. I look over him curiously. Who is this male to ask such a thing of me, when he has already seen and been told more than he should have.
“Selfish,” I grumble.
“With you, always.”
“What will it take to sate your selfishness?”
“Probably nothing short of a lifetime.”
I blink and then huff at him, shaking my head. “What do I get in exchange for this information?”
“This is not an interrogation.”
“It’s not?” I tilt my head. “Then you don’t need to know.”
“Rhea,” he warns in a low tone that I feel in the pit of my stomach.
“Darius,” I mock, and his thighs tense, like he’s about to stand and come near me.
I don’t want that, so I sigh and slump further into the furs. “The wolf wasn’t normal, or at least one I hadn’t seen before. It had two tails.”
“Two tails?” he repeats like a question.
“Yes.” I wait for a roll of his eyes, even a shake of his head.
But I get a reaction that I don’t expect.
His eyes turn black, and goosebumps pepper my skin when silver flecks flow through his eyes. It’s been a long time since I had the chance to watch those flecks this close, counting them as I move to the next one, only to lose count and start all over again. I feel Runa stretch within me before shaking her fur out, then sits down, head tilting as we watch them together, I can feel her contentment through me. Traitor.
“No, I wouldn’t think you’re mad,” he whispers as he blinks, and his eyes turn light green again.
“You believe me?” I can’t keep the shock out of my tone, and he nods. “But why?” My heart rate speeds up at the way he’s looking at me. The softness of his eyes, just like that night in the Eridian forest with the wisps, and when he was playing with the pups.
Why is he looking at me like that now? I don’t want him to look at me like that, I can’t have him looking at me like that. Like he didn’t whip me, like I mean something to him, like I fucking matter when we both know I don’t.
The marks on my back prove that.
My mind is a chaotic mess of emotions and confusion as I just stare at him, wondering what he’s going to say, but also scared he’s just going to sweep the rug right under my feet again. I can’t trust him, or his words. I can’t be near him, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
Keep it fucking down, Rhea.
He sinks deeper into the chair, spreading his legs out, and my damn eyes can’t help but glance over his thick thighs before coming back to him. His smirk says he caught me, my returning scowl says I don’t have to like it though, even as his eyes roam over me, heating and piercing, like he wants to devour me. Like he has a right to my body, and I hate myself more when I squeeze my thighs together, hating, once again, my body’s reaction to him.
Because fuck him.
“While you have been gone for months, Charles has been acting strange,” he says, his voice low and my attention is fully on his words now, at the mention of Charles. “He’s obsessed with finding you, throwing every resource he has and demanding you be found by any means necessary. It was more than he has ever done with other traitors. Though with you being the cause of the rogures, I could understand it.” I bristle at him calling me a traitor. So he was bullshitting. Taunting me? He still thinks I caused the rogures? He blows out a breath, his voice with a hint of a growl in it as he speaks. “Then Charles has started hinting at me to create pups with another, to carry on my line.” I grip the furs tightly, my heart pounding. I say nothing as I try to ignore my own reaction to the thought of Darius creating a child with another. It shouldn’t bother me, but my insides revolt, aggressively and possessively and I blink, internally shaking my head as Runa bares her teeth. “I told him I’m not interested and me being an Heir won’t change that.” I let out a subtle breath of relief that I don’t understand. “But then he said when we capture you, I would create pups with you anyway. I told him no, and like fuck you would be willing, even if I decided to. He said it didn’t matter if you agreed or not, to fuck you anyway.” He stares at me, watching intently.
I grit my teeth and look away, swallowing hard, not wanting to look at him whilst I feel like crawling out of my skin. I hear Darius shift, and then the bed dips next to me as he sits, his hip to my knee. I don’t move, I don’t think I breathe as I feel the warmth of him seeping into me. A hand grips my chin, and I flinch.
He pauses, an uncomfortable sound leaving him before he sighs heavily, giving me a moment before he gently turns my head toward him, too gentle, as if I would break.
I can’t break anymore than I already have, doesn’t he see that?
Once my eyes meet his, he runs his thumb over my cheek softly, his jaw ticking with his thoughts and I resist the urge to run from his touch and lean into it all the same.
“Charles said either I rape you or he will.” I jolt, my stomach churning and threatening to empty itself. I do try to move out of his grasp then, but he holds firm, keeping his eyes on me as I breathe through my nose, my hands trembling. He shakes my chin a little, not hurting me, but to get me to focus. “I won’t rape you, little wolf. And neither will he. When you said Charles wanted to breed you when you were older, I knew then what you were telling us was the truth. Because how could you have known that Charles had said that to me? You couldn’t have, the only way you could have known is if he has said it to you. Which he did, didn’t he? Just as you told us in the other room.”
My eyes water a little but I blink it away. His thumb still rubs soothing circles over my skin, and that is something I just don’t expect from him. The asshole only believes me because of what I said to him matches what Charles told him? I should be happy he believes me, should be thanking the Gods that something is going right.
But why can’t he believe me just because it’s me?
“I remember very well all the things Charles would say to me. Now he wants you to do the same thing he does,” I grit out, trying to banish those words from my mind.
He grows low. “I won’t, little wolf.”
“You won’t?” I whisper, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.
“Never,” he says harshly, his eyes cold at the thought.
“Would you hurt me?”
He shakes his head, but his eyes peer over my shoulder, and I know he’s thinking about the lashes he gave me.
“I don’t trust you,” I say, and his eyes tighten around the edges. “How do I know the Highers aren’t on their way here? How do I know you are not preparing to take me back? How can I believe you?”
“You don’t know that by my word alone.” That’s the fucking truth. “But you will. I don’t trust you either, I don’t trust that you don’t have an ulterior motive for agreeing to come here so easily.” Easily? We didn’t have a choice. “But I cannot deny what I’ve seen with my own eyes, what I have heard. I need to look into some other things with what you told me, but the marks on your body don’t lie, your reactions to someone touching you sometimes don’t lie. The look in your eyes. Doesn’t. Lie.” He grits his teeth. “We are Heirs of the lands and the below, and it’s our duty to find a way to stop the rogures, we may be the only ones who can.” I hate to admit it, but he’s right in that. “So whether we like it or not, we have to work together to stop them, or the lands will cease to exist as we have known them. Whether we trust each other or not, know that I do believe you in the things you have told me, little wolf.” He says the words softly, like he’s trying to reassure me.
I would love to wrap those words around my heart and keep them safe, to know that he does truly believe me. However, I needed him to believe me long before now, and he didn’t, I can’t forget that. If he would have told me in Eridian after playing with the pups that the moon was falling, I wouldn’t have second guessed him. This connection I seem to have with him was at its strongest then, and even though I can still feel it thrumming between us, he damaged it. It’s frayed, but still holding on. Why can’t it just snap and let us be without it? We both don’t want it even as it draws us together.
“What about Sarah? My pack? Kade?” I ask instead of what I really want to ask. Why didn’t you believe me then? Why did you go back on your vow? Why did you make me hope I may have something I never thought I could have?
That’s the thing about hope, when you have it, it’s a little scary and exhilarating, you feel warmth and tingles all over your body at what could be. But when it’s taken away, you’re left worse than you were before. Instead of hitting rock bottom, you are constantly sinking in the darkest depths of the sea, crashing into a bottomless pit, clawing at your throat for air, even knowing there is none.
Darius’s fingers twitch against my cheekbone. “We will get them and bring them here, but I need a solid reason that they are in danger. I can’t just take them. Vokheim Keep is strong and has its own protections, but against the Highers, especially the Lord Higher? I’m not sure it will hold and stop him from entering, and he will when he finds out I am suspicious of him or not on his side. Which I am not,” he tells me. “Not anymore.”
“You would go against the Highers who you have been working with for years, just like that?“ I ask suspiciously.
“You think so little of the Elites after we know what we do now?” He drops his hand from my chin. “You think so little of me?” I say nothing. He shakes his head, but I feel it’s more to himself than me. “Elites are the protectors of the lands, that hasn’t changed, only now we have to protect it against someone else too.” We stare at each other at his words, and there it is, that fucking strand of hope clawing out of the darkness, as bright as spun gold. “If we can find evidence that your pack members’ safety is in jeopardy, I can have them here and no laws would be broken. A fight with the Highers is not what we need right now, we have to be logical about this and let them think we aren’t doing anything for as long as possible, to give us time to get your pack back, to find the others you mentioned they have taken.”
He means this, doesn’t he? I can tell with the look in his eyes. Could he and the rest of the Elites truly be on our side in this? “You really would go against the Highers?” I ask again, unable to let it sink in, looking around the room like they will jump out at me at any moment.
”I am going against the Highers,“ he corrects, and my heart kicks up a notch at the force of his words. “I am the Alpha of the Elites before anything else, the protector of the people. I will do what I can for Vrohkaria.”
I ingest his words and I look down, shaking my head. “They have to go, Darius, the Highers can’t continue ruling over Vrohkaria. They are stealing pups for their own gain, they can’t continue doing this.
“No they can’t,” he growls, and the deep, low sound makes my thighs clench. “Their time will come, but it’s not like we can walk in there and take their heads. Again, I need to see what they are planning, especially Charles. If he’s taking children, where are they? This is what I need to find out without letting them know what I’m doing, or those pups taken could be put in danger. Then I can plan to take him down where the people won’t question it when it’s revealed about what he has done. He’s already on shaky ground with them as it is, but that doesn’t mean his allies will rally against those opposing him.”
He’s right, we have to be careful about this. Cautious. Running in all paws blazing will do no one any good, no matter my need to do so to get Kade.
I can’t get him if I’m dead, I know this. It’s why I haven’t attempted to do so in the last few months. The wait is slowly rotting me from the inside through, building up slowly and it’s about to bubble out and I don’t know what I will become because of that.
“What he has done to you?” He looks away, like he can’t bear to see me and I feel shame hovering below the surface. I watch as that black mist floats around him, flowing in swirls around his hands and the call for me to reach out to it has my own hands clenching, holding it back. “That alone is enough to sentence him to death.”
I look up at him sharply at his words. “Why would you care what he’s done to me?” I ask, anger suddenly right there. “You whipped me.“ I ignore how my voice cracks at the words, how my hurt is noticeable for him to see. “It has nothing to do with you what was done to me. Nothing!”
Power explodes through the room suddenly as he stands, and mine swells, reacting to his. Our markings appear on our bodies simultaneously, pulsing to the same beat that only we know. “You are the Heir of Zahariss, I’m the Heir of Cazier. I am the only other person in the lands that is like you, matches you, yet is still so different.” He turns away from me, walks a few paces, and then turns back. His eyes are hard and alight with possessiveness as he looks at me “Whether you like it or not. You are mine,” he growls, and I shiver at the deep tone, even as I growl back at him. “Mine to deal with, mine to guide, and mine to protect. Mine in all the ways any other could be.”
My hands fist on my lap, and I bare my teeth at him. “You’re insane. Just because we are Heirs doesn’t mean I am yours, nor are you mine. It doesn’t work like that, it is not like that, it doesn’t mean that.”
“No, little wolf,” he says, a tendril of his power floating toward me, stroking my cheekbone. “It means so much more than that.”