Angel's Heart: Daughters of Elysium Book Four, page 10
I finally realized he hadn’t answered me. “Benedict?”
“You can’t force a Heartstone merge,” he said finally, his voice monotone. “Only a Heartstone’s bearer can split it. They can threaten us with whatever they want, but they can’t make us do it.”
“Fine. Let’s get this over with.” I took a step forward, then stopped, my cheeks reddening. “I need clothes.”
It took every ounce of the backbone that other me possessed, the one I was just barely starting to remember, to not duck my head in mortification. I was standing here half-naked, pining for a man who would never feel about me the way I felt about him. I felt so stupid for putting on nothing but his shirt, which left my ass bare to the entire world. I felt stupid for that note, even if it had been meant as a joke. I just, in general, felt stupid.
Jordan’s voice was in my head, telling me I was nothing, that I was worthless and boring and—
“Drift.” Benedict’s breath was on my lips as he spoke. He’d closed the distance between us, and I hadn’t even noticed. “Look down.”
I looked down. I was still wearing Benedict’s shirt, but I was also now wearing dark jeans and a pair ballet flats. “I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“You’re a Dreamer.” He brushed the backs of his fingers lightly against my cheek. “One powerful enough to make Dreams reality.”
I stepped away from his touch, because I wanted to step into it. Because I didn’t want to be pathetic enough to need his touch so badly. Not when I finally understood the connection I’d always had to him, the reason I’d dreamed him every night in the mortal realm when I couldn’t even remember my own name.
Because I’d Bonded to Benedict Draegamir, and it was a connection as unbreakable as a Heartstone merge. At least, it was for an Icarii. And the girl who’d made that Bond might have been certain that she would grow up and make him love her, but I wasn’t that girl anymore. I couldn’t even fully remember her. And the woman I now was knew there was nothing about me worth falling in love with.
I ignored the pricking at the backs of my eyes and brushed my hands down my new jeans. They felt as real as any I’d owned in the mortal world. I swallowed down everything I was feeling and started walking, determined not to lean on Benedict.
My resolve to maintain a physical distance between us lasted until we approached the castle and I saw the two guards posted outside its doors. They both had wings. The first’s were a dark, burnished brown, the second’s a brilliant crimson. And it was obvious they knew who I was, if the way their gazes turned horrified when they shot to my lack of wings was any indication.
I didn’t remember them. I didn’t know if I’d ever met them, or if they just knew who I was because I was Icarii’s princess. Regardless, I couldn’t stand the pity on their faces. The scars on my back ached fiercely, and I didn’t want to go forward. Wouldn’t have, if Benedict’s arm hadn’t come around my waist, holding me tight, and it was either walk with him or look like a child being dragged.
I was tired of being seen and treated like a child, so I walked. He held me so close that my arm was pinned between us, and the only place for it to comfortably go was around him. I tried not to notice the firm muscles of his back as my hand slid across it, the way he felt so solid. The way the Dragon fire that burned beneath his skin made me want to melt into him.
Why did he have to feel like the only real thing in my world? Why was it that when I touched him, I felt more like me than I ever did when I was alone?
We swept through the castle doors into a wide foyer. The floor was black-and-white checkered tiled, and empty save for a large fountain prominently displayed in the room’s center. Two women were carved from stone, one black, one white, standing with their backs to each other. Unlike most fountains, where water spilled from the statues in some pleasing manner, in this one, it only trickled from the women’s eyes. They were weeping, and I was overcome with the inexplicable certainty that each was looking for the other. But they were looking in the wrong direction.
I slipped out of Benedict’s arm and walked to the fountain’s wide base, resting my hands on the damp stone. Benedict followed, crouching beside me. He trailed lazy fingertips through the water and it warmed almost instantly, fine clouds of vapor puffing into the air as it heated.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Myths.”
“Would you tell me?” I was stalling, and I knew it. On the other side of the fountain were wide double doors, and everything inside of me was recoiling from going through them. Was remembering the pain as my wings were torn off, the confusion as my memories came free with my Heartstone.
“I think each territory has a different version. The core is similar—that they are the sisters Light and Darkness, who created our world. Some claim they grew jealous of each other, over time. But Dragon legends claim they shared a lover, and it was he who grew jealous, afraid that one day they would belong to another.
“To prevent it from happening, he tricked them, locking them beneath Elysium. It’s rumored that the hexagram you saw earlier is the gate to their prison.
“But you told me a version more different than any I’ve heard before.”
I looked at him. “I did?”
“You claimed they were never sisters at all. That the world was born from a Dream, and they are that Dream, but now they are a broken one.”
“How do they go back together?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps they need someone to Dream them anew.” He pulled his hand from the fountain, tracing it up my arm and leaving streams of water in its wake.
I shivered.
His fingertips skated higher, over my shoulder, up my neck, cupping my face and holding my gaze to his. “Let me handle this—the Elders. You don’t have to say anything. You don’t owe them any answers. As far as they need to know, you still don’t remember anything.”
26
Benedict
Drift hesitated, uncertainty in her eyes, but I needed her to give me this. Needed her to let me protect her, as I hadn’t been able to before. And what I needed, I had a tendency to take.
I claimed her mouth, taunting and teasing until the hesitation and fear in her melted. Until her arms were around my neck and her breaths were short and desperate.
She could be as skittish as she liked about the Heartstone merge. I well understood her need to not give up control in so permanent a manner. I had no want of forced submission.
The submission I wanted from her was what I had now—her lithe form pressing against mine, reminding me of when I’d had her naked against my bedroom wall, so close to making her mine completely. The submission of her body, hot with desire, of her fingers twisting into my hair and her legs wrapping around my waist.
If it weren’t for the creak of doors swinging open behind me, I might have taken her on the castle floor, right in front of the sisters’ fountain. But even I wasn’t arrogant enough to tempt the Elders to violence on their own grounds.
I fisted my hand in Drift’s hair and drew her head back. She had that dazed look I loved, her lips all swollen and pretty. “Give me this,” I ordered. “Let me handle it.”
She exhaled softly. “Okay.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Good girl.”
27
Drift
I was relatively certain the words good girl should not have calmed every nerve in my body. But they did. At least long enough for me to follow Benedict through the doors that had creaked open when he’d kissed me.
Maybe the idea of being tethered to me forever via our Heartstones was one he didn’t want, but there was no denying he wanted me. Maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe I’d regret this in a month, or two, or whenever he tired of me.
But I wanted him now. I wanted to be his, as completely as he’d let me. If only to see that pleased look on his face again when I did something he liked. If only to finally know what it felt like to have him.
The room on the other side of the doors was dark, save for a circle of light. Benedict pulled me toward it, and I saw as we approached that there were six chairs—more like thrones—placed around the circle facing inward. They were empty. At least until we stepped into the light, and then it was as if their occupants appeared out of nowhere.
I jumped, startled, and what had started as fear from their sudden appearance morphed into something deeper when I saw the eyes staring at me from the nearest throne.
Ilorna. I placed the name to her face, along with the remembered feel of fingers digging into my chest, of hands so like hers gripping the base of my wing and tearing.
Rage and fear slammed into me in equal measure. I wanted rage to win. But the part of me that remembered how to be angry was still so far removed from the part of me that remembered always being afraid. The part of me that was used to being told I was nothing, that I couldn’t do anything because I was weak, and useless, and unstable.
I didn’t fight Benedict when he tucked me into his side. But I didn’t hide my face in his chest, either.
Small victories, I supposed.
Ilorna leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, and surveyed me as if I were an art piece that had been brought to her for approval. A smile curved her lips, and there was nothing of joy in it.
"Tell me, Seraphina, how did the princess of the skies like the ground in the mortal realm?"
Benedict's hand tightened around my waist, but outwardly he was calm. Cool. Almost detached. I remembered that about him, suddenly. How he could be so calm and controlled and measured—until he wasn't.
I used to love watching him when he finally exploded. Because it was never at me. I could push and push and push, and he'd have infinite patience where I was concerned.
But when he finally chose that thing to go off on? Well, when that happened, I didn't think any force on this Earth could stop him.
"She doesn't remember you," Benedict answered for me. Ilorna's eyebrows arched.
"No? She was twelve when she was banished. Not two. And we are not precisely... forgettable."
"You took too much when you took her Heartstone." He reached up and pulled the collar of my shirt down, exposing my Heartstone and the roots still burrowing back into my skin. "She's forgotten everything about Elysium. You sent her to the mortal realm with no memory."
"For a girl who remembers nothing, she seems quite comfortable with you," Ilorna's twin, Endarian, said mildly.
I let them talk about me as if I wasn't there. Benedict had asked to handle this, and I'd agreed for now.
Benedict shrugged. "She's Bonded. She doesn't have to remember that to feel it."
“Is she now?" This from another of the Elders. Her name came to me suddenly—Heskala. The corner of her lip quirked up and she looked at me. "Nothing to say, little bird?”
My fingers clenched in Benedict's shirt. I had things to say. Words that were begging to claw their way out of my throat. Words another me would have spoken without hesitation. But I didn't remember enough of her to speak them.
And right now, what I did remember was the value of silence. The way, when I was quiet and didn't talk back, Shayla and Jordan mistook it for stupidity. They thought my silence meant I wasn't thinking anything at all, when the opposite was true.
But I could tell Heskala took it the same way they had. She watched my eyes widen, watched me shake my head, and laughed.
“Well, it's a sight improved from her former temperament," Ilorna said idly. "You were quite the little brat in your former life. Who would have thought a Dreamer, of all things, would have fought so hard?" She turned to Benedict. "You seem to have changed your mind about her. She did grow into a pretty little thing. So why haven't you merged Heartstones? She seems biddable enough, in this condition.”
“She isn't healed enough. It's why I didn't want to bring her to you yet. We need a few days.”
Ilorna flicked her hand dismissively. “You may have two.”
Benedict's hand tightened on my waist and he pulled me toward the edge of the circle. "I'm curious," the voice nearest my left said, stopping us with nothing more than his words. “How does Dragon fare?"
Benedict stiffened. “Perfectly well. Why do you ask?" Ansarus—that was his name—shrugged. “The White Woods were plagued with physical problems from the Darkness. Manifestations, creatures. Hunter had the same, to a lesser extent. And Faerie, well”—he laughed—“Faerie, I suspect, had problems of a different nature. So I am curious. What problems does Dragon have?"
“Dragon is fine," Benedict said tightly, in a way that told me Dragon wasn't fine. In a way that made me wonder what was wrong with his territory.
"If you say so." Ansarus leaned back, looking human in a way the other Elders never seemed to. "I suppose it won't matter soon, anyway. You'll sort this out”—he pointed between us—“and Haven and Leanna will return, and all of Elysium's problems will be solved." The words—the way he'd spoken them, coupled with the amused look in his eyes—told me he very much doubted that was how things were going to go. But none of the other elders seemed to pick up on his sarcasm. And none of them had anything more to say.
Benedict led me from the room without further comment, leaving me to wonder why they'd insisted we come here, when there hadn’t really seemed to be a purpose.
28
Benedict
I swept Drift out of the room, thinking that had gone better than I had expected. Ansarus had been weird, but he always was. His ability to come across as almost normal, when the others never managed to, made him seem more alien than they did.
It bothered me that he'd asked about Dragon. Bothered me more that I hadn't previously given much thought to the other territories' issues with Darkness- related difficulties. I knew they'd had their problems. White Woods had lost more than a few wolves to Darkness-born creatures, and more than a few of Hunter's citizens had fallen Darksick and never woken.
As for Faerie—well, Faerie had always been strange. And reclusive. And weird about their women and arrogant as fuck. But there was no denying it had become even more of all those things recently. And I hadn't really stopped until now to wonder if maybe that increase had something to do with the Darkness.
I'd been far too concerned with what was happening in my own territory to worry about anyone else's. Especially when Dragon's problems weren't Darkness-related. We just had a bitch of an empress. One who needed deposing, and I was dragging my heels on doing it.
First, because I'd been waiting to win it for my cousin, because I'd always thought it was her Hoard, only to have her return and find her Hoard wasn't our territory, but that little prick of a Fae prince, Mavrien Hevera. And after that, I'd continued dragging my heels because I'd always thought that if Dragon wasn't Beryl’s Hoard, it would be mine.
So after I’d known it wasn’t hers, I'd sat on a clifftop alone, waiting for that certainty to overcome me. Instead, the Oracle had sent me to retrieve Drift, and I'd discovered my Hoard was never going to be Dragon, because it was already wrapped up in the blue-eyed, black-haired angel tucked into my side.
And because of her, I didn't know how to do what I needed to. Not when taking Dragon meant betraying her…or risking losing her altogether. She'd been so quiet in the Elders' circle. I'd asked her to let me handle it, and she had, but I didn't know how she felt about it. I didn’t get a chance to ask, either.
We stepped into the castle foyer and I found Alexei waiting for us, that customary shit-eating grin on his face. My hand tightened protectively on Drift.
Alexei noticed and his grin widened. “Come on now, I wouldn't hurt her." He turned that damn grin on her—the one that always made females sigh and practically jump into his bed—and said, “Tell him, darling. I took good care of you."
“What the hell does that mean?" I knew better than to let Alexei rile me, but he knew better than to do it, too. His suggestive tone had me a second away from punching him.
Drift’s hand covered mine, which was curled into a fist. "My Dream slipped when your aunt was having him look for me," she said softly. "He saw me. He didn't say anything.”
“No?" I surveyed Alexei suspiciously. "I have to wonder what prompted that particular display of switched loyalty."
Alexei's hand went to his heart. "I'm hurt, cousin. Switched loyalties? I'm your general."
I snorted. "You're her general. Is there a reason you're here?"
"Yes, but we'll get to it in a minute." He looked at Drift and held his arms out wide, obnoxiously charming grin still firmly in place. "Where is my hug? It's been twelve years and you've forgotten all about me?"
What in Darkness' name was he talking about? He and Drift didn't know each other. I'd kept her carefully away from the rest of Dragon. For her own damn safety. She'd met Alexei once. "She's forgotten everyone," I growled. "And you were never—”
But then she broke away from me, a grin on her face like she did remember, and ran into his arms. He scooped her up and twirled her in a Darkness-damned circle while she giggled.
Giggled.
“I missed you, kid,” he said as he set her down.
Alright, that was about enough of that. I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t like it. And I didn’t have to deal with it. I strode forward, pulled Drift out of Alexei’s arms, and shoved her behind me. I kept a hand on her hip to make sure she stayed there.
“What is going on?”
Alexei looked amused. Damn prick always looked amused. He looked around me at Drift, who was also looking around me at him. “You want to tell him, or should I?”
“Tell me what?” If someone didn’t start speaking actual explanations in the next five seconds, I was going to burn the Elders’ castle to the ground.
Drift giggled again—she’d always found my temper funny—and said, “I don’t remember, exactly. I just have this feeling that I like him.”
