Shattered (33 page)

The m
etal at his wrists stopped him and the shock of it snapped him back.  Whatever need drowned him before was gone, replaced by a haze that muddled his thoughts.  It left him alone with his breath, hot and humid as it poured back over his face, and weak spasms in his legs that replaced the stronger trembling from before.  He was drenched in sweat and he was exhausted.

Nathan
heard the clank of metal as Robin released one arm, then the other, but it didn’t sound real, and it wasn’t until both arms were down that he realized he was free.  He slumped against the wall and towards the floor without even realizing he was falling, and the first sensation that registered was how cold the stone was beneath his fingers.

Robin pulled
the shirt off from over his face and let it fall to the ground beside him.  Nathan blinked a few times and, when he was finally able to focus in on her face, he found she looked rather pleased.  Her cheeks were oddly flush and a smirk turned her lips upward.

“You probably want to wash those before you leave,”
Robin said and nodded down towards his lap.  The words made sense, individually, but it took a long second before Nathan could piece together the statement as a whole.  When he did he realized what had just happened.

She must have read his confusion and his surprise both, for she let out a short laugh and crouched down in front of him before he could say anything.

“Why do you look so
confused? It’s hardly the first time I’ve been able to get you off.  I just wanted to see if I could do it without hurting you.”

Nathan didn’t know
what to say but she wasn’t looking for a response, not yet.  She sat back on her heels.

“How much longer do you have before they come looking for you?”

“
I’ve no commitments until tonight,” Nathan replied, and the easy question helped bring him back.  His thoughts reorganized and his body felt his own again.  His hand wandered to his waist and he tugged his belt free.  She watched him and, for some reason, it made him uncomfortable.

“You know you don’t have to be gentle w
ith me, right?”  Nathan said, to fill some of that quiet as he climbed to his feet and slid his pants off.  He crouched near the water he’d brought up and set about cleaning them.  “You have permission to hurt me.”

“You have a lot to learn Nathan,” Robin said, and
she stood as well.  Nathan looked over, thinking she might say more, but she retreated to the edge of the bed in silence.  He let it be, for now, and put his attention back on cleaning his pants.  When he was done he tossed them into that sliver of sunlight to dry.

He joined her on the side of the bed, sat close enough that his weight dipped her spot a little, but not so near that they touched.

“Do they really believe you came up here to torture me? You haven’t got it in you.  There’s a reason you let Jeremy go.”

“
You wouldn’t have, would you? If you had to act in my place.”

Robin looked down, at her hands, and then back up to meet his gaze.  “No.  But I would have given him a quick death. 
I suppose you’ve had some effect on me after all.”

Nathan chuckled
and Robin joined in with a quiet laugh, mostly through her nose, though her mouth did crack upwards in a small smile.  They both used it hold silence at bay, to keep sadness from the room a little longer.  He wished he could see her smile more often.

“
You know… it’s not my intention that you should spend the rest of your life locked away up here.”

Robin shook her head and a few thick curls of hair fell across her shoulde
r.  She looked ready to leave it at that, but Nathan wanted more.  He wasn’t sure if it was longing or sorrow he saw hiding beneath the grey of her eyes, only that it drove an ache into the center of his chest.

“Robin…”

“Either I stay here, locked away, or you banish me,” she said, and her voice slipped lower.  “We both know I have no place in Surnat beyond that.”

In that moment something about her seemed vulnerable. 
Nathan leaned towards her and she watched without moving as he brought his hands up to cup her face.  She neither recoiled nor leaned in to him, but sat rigid, and her stillness was just enough that he felt he could kiss her.  He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth over hers.  Her breath roll around their lips as they hovered together.

When Nathan opened his eyes hers were closed.  She was so peaceful like that, so beautiful
; he felt like he could take more.  He leaned into her further, brought one hand down to the bed at her side, and Robin tilted back until balance dictated that she should unwind.  She bent her legs up to both sides of his body and leaned back on her arms.  Nathan kept his mouth pressed to hers, one hand against her cheek to hold her near.  He could feel her heartbeat on the side of his palm as it wrapped beneath her chin and pressed against her neck, or maybe he only felt his echoing back, but either way it raced.

He
crawled over her further, until her arms could no longer support the angle of her upper body and she went down on her elbows, then more, until she lay flat beneath him.  Her lips parted and he tasted the warmth of her tongue.  Her hands were between them, pressed against his chest, not quite hard enough that it should seem she wanted out from under him, just enough that he knew they were there.  But he was aware of all of her, the way her knees pressed against his thighs, how rigid and tense she lay there, how she kept her head up on her own to stay in contract with him.  He didn’t know whether he should proceed or not, she hadn’t given him permission in any of this, and yet he didn’t feel like he needed it now.

His hand on her cheek pushed her face away from his and she let him.  His lips trailed down the side of her face, to her neck,
and he felt her shiver beneath him.  Goose bumps covered her arms and he felt them beneath his lips as they traveled to her shoulder.  He placed tiny kisses there, ran his other hand down the side of her body, over the outer curve of her breast and around to her front.

Robin let out a quiet laugh, so soft that Nathan felt it as much through his hand on her stomach as he heard it.
  She stilled for a moment before that laughter revived with new strength and echoed through the room.  Her fingers came down on the back of his head, gently traced around the line of his jaw, lifted him up from beneath the chin.

“Permission to hurt you,” she
echoed, and chuckled again.

“I just thought…,” Nathan began, but she
struggled to rise and interrupted whatever justification he might have come up with.  He knelt to both sides of her legs now that she sat up before him.

Robin leaned in closer and ran her hand up the inside of his naked thigh. 
He felt her breath on his lips.  “Pain is the least I will ever ask of you, haven’t you learned that yet?”

Nathan didn’t know how to respond, but he didn’t have to.  She patted him once on the cheek and slid her legs out from beneath him, brought her knees to her chest, and in every way her
closed posture told him that they were done.

“I’m not unfair Nathan.  I’m not asking any more of you than what I’ve been willing to give.
”

Robin
stood and went for her clothes before he could respond, and for a long moment Nathan just knelt there, on the bed.

“What about what you’re unwilling to give?
”

She looked back over.
  “You mean forgiveness.”

“Yes.”

Silence took them both at that, but Robin didn’t let it hold her long.  Though she looked away and her shoulders sagged, her voice came out sure.  “No Prince Dorthorial,” she said, and this time Nathan didn’t correct her.  “Not yet.”

“Then when Robin?”

Her back was to him as she pulled her loose shirt over her head, freed the curtain of her hair from the collar and let it fall as cascade of black across her back.  “Get dressed Nathan.  You should be going.”

Nathan let out a quiet sigh and climbed off the bed, but none of that drew any attention at all from Robin.  There was something she still wasn’t saying and it left him feeling
unsatisfied.  She stood there, silent, and stared out the window. A sliver of sunlight painted the side of her face.

His clothes were mostly dried and he s
moothed out the wrinkles the floor had imprinted into the fabric, straightened his sleeves, adjusted and readjusted his belt, all in a bid to delay time.

But it was Robin that dictated his stay here, not him, and when she
settled back into her chair, beside his crown, he knew it was time to go.  He stopped in front of her and she lifted her ankle out for him to rebind

Nathan crouched down, refas
tened the heavy iron to her leg and completed the lie that she was a prisoner here.  And thus, whatever guard came up to bring her each meal wouldn’t know any better.  But in between there was no reason she should wear it, and Nathan extended the key out to her in offering.

Robin
just shook her head.  “No prince, not yet.”

She lifted his crown
slowly and placed it back upon his head, let her fingers linger just behind his ears, buried in his hair.  For just a moment longer she held him there, tender and in violation of every standard of their relationship.  By the time her hands fell back to her lap Nathan understood the depth of what was unspoken between them.

The day she forgave him
, and the day she asked for forgiveness in return, that was the day that all of this changed. He wasn’t ready for that, he wasn’t strong enough yet to bear the weight of everything he’d done and everything that had been done to him in turn.  But he didn’t need to, not yet.

And that was all he needed to stand, for n
o matter where he went or what he faced he could always return to that safe spot at her feet.  No matter how difficult the path ahead he’d never need to wonder what might have been – had he never asked for his freedom.