Tempted by a Rogue Prince (25 page)

He held the keys out to her.

Besides, even with her cuffs on, he could still sense her magic and it still caused him to lose control at times. He had come to doubt that the effect the presence of magic in her had on him could be any worse if he gave her the freedom she desired and deserved.

She held her wrists out to him.

Vail shifted to kneel before her, took hold of her left manacle, careful to avoid touching her skin, and focused on his task as he unlocked it, not on the magic he could sense emanating from her. Her first cuff fell away and swung from the chain, the weight tugging her other hand down, causing it to brush his bare arm.

Her magic grew stronger, flowing over his skin, but it felt different to Kordula’s.

Not an oily slick, like dark witches possessed.

He released her other wrist and she jumped to her feet, stretched and grinned, her happiness trickling through their bond.

She looked tempted to use her powers until she glanced his way and caught his scowl. She lowered her hands to her sides.

“Allies, remember… but I won’t use it around you. Promise.” She held her hand out to him and he refused to take it, rising to his feet without her aid.

He stooped, picked up her discarded manacles, and teleported them back to his rooms in the castle, together with the keys.

She frowned at him and muttered something about trust issues.

Evidently, she was upset he had chosen to keep the manacles. He refused to apologise for his behaviour. She would thank him for keeping them should her magic prove too much for him to handle and he ended up attempting to kill her. He was sure she would prefer to be shackled again over being dead.

“Where to now?” She approached the mouth of the cave.

Pale light washed over her as she scanned their surroundings and drew him to her. He was powerless to resist her, his feet carrying him to her side as his eyes remained locked on her face. Power hummed around her, not much stronger than it had felt before. She was keeping it in check for him and he appreciated her thoughtfulness.

“Are we closer to the Third Realm now?” She looked over her shoulder at him.

“In a way.”

Her fair eyebrows dipped above her blue eyes. “We are heading there, aren’t we?”

He looked off into the distance and focused there, feeling the tug inside him that had manifested shortly after he had arrived at the cave with Rosalind.

“In a roundabout fashion.” He started walking, the pebbly black ground crunching beneath his boots.

The witch hurried to catch up and fell into step beside him, but wisely maintained some distance between them. He found himself focusing on her power and the link between them as he walked, intrigued by it and the differences between Rosalind and Kordula.

“Roundabout?” She frowned at him again and rubbed her wrists, brushing the dirt and dried blood off them.

Vail nodded. “I used much of my power battling the demons and teleporting us through this kingdom. I must rest.”

Her frown hardened, causing her lips to purse. “Didn’t you rest at the cave?”

He kept his eyes fixed ahead, towards the distance, following the pull inside him and letting it guide him.

“No. I cannot rest here.” He nurtured the feeling within him, savouring it and how it made him feel. Relieved. Calmer. Home again at last. “We will head for the forest.”

“Forest?” The witch stopped in her tracks and looked around them. “I hate to tell you this… but there is no forest here. This is Hell… it’s black as far as the eye can see.”

She looked so certain of herself that he was almost loath to correct her.

He hesitated, a quiet voice stating that he didn’t have to explain himself or allow her to see that part of him. He didn’t have to let her in. He could tell her it was so and that was that, and she wouldn’t argue with him. Much. He could hold her away from him and not give her power over him.

He shifted his gaze back to the distance, feeling the pull coming stronger now, and sensed Rosalind close to him, her eyes on his face, the link between them filled with confusion and a deep need that he found he couldn’t ignore.

She wanted to know him.

Gods, he hoped she didn’t regret it or do anything that would leave him feeling exposed and make him turn on her.

“I can feel it in my bones,” he whispered, more to himself than to her, part of him hoping she might not hear him and the tiny piece of information about himself that he offered to her like a ridiculous olive branch, wanting to construct a sort of peace and understanding between them. He kept his eyes on the distance, trying to ignore how her gaze bore into him, focused and intense, giving him all of her attention. “It feels pure and clean, alive and thriving amidst all the darkness and death. We can rest there. It will do us both good.”

He kept walking before she could say anything, striding ahead of her as if he could run away from what he had just done and pretend it had never happened. He hadn’t let her in. He hadn’t just opened his chest and given her a clear shot at his heart and destroying him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken about himself to anyone, or the last time anyone had wanted to know about him. Everyone he met fled his presence or fought him. None wanted to spend a second with him, but Rosalind had spent hours in his company, and had only looked as if she had wanted to fight him for a few of those.

But never flee.

Little Wild Rose didn’t run from him.

She ran to him.

She pressed him, pushed him, coaxed and comforted him, and all because she wanted to know him.

He didn’t understand why.

There was so much about her that he didn’t understand and didn’t think he ever would. She held mysteries within her, locked deep in her heart—the heart that was still closed to him and fiercely protected.

If he confessed his foolish desire to know her too, would she open to him as he had to her?

“You have a connection.” She bounded up beside him and he flicked a glance at her. Her blue eyes shone with the curiosity he could sense in her. “You do, don’t you? You’re connected to nature and that’s why you can feel it miles away in the middle of this bloody horrible place.”

He couldn’t recall seeing her this happy before, not even when they had decided to head towards the Seventh Realm to find a portal that would take her back to the mortal world, or when he had announced he was taking her to the Third Realm. Was it because he had freed her or because she had discovered something about him?

He had his answer when she leaped in front of him, causing him to jerk to a halt to avoid colliding with her.

“I’m in touch with nature too, being that sort of—” She cut herself off.

Vail finished for her on a growl. “
Witch
.”

She backed off a step but stood her ground. Not fleeing. Never fleeing. Little Wild Rose was a brave one.

He focused on her power, feeling the threads of it around him, examining it to see if what she had just told him without actually voicing the words was true.

There was a reason she felt different to Kordula and the other witches, one he had suspected and now knew to be true.

She was of the light, not the dark.

Light witches were connected to nature and drew on her power.

“What I feel is nothing compared with what you must… would you… I mean, I don’t want to pry, but I read that elves have a varying level of a connection with nature but I never realised it was strong. I thought it was like what I felt.”

He nodded to let her know he would tell her more about the connection he possessed and continued walking, moving around her and leading the way across the featureless black terrain, following his instincts.

She came up beside him again and smoothed her hands over her hair, pushing it back from her face, revealing it to him. Her beauty struck him hard when she smiled up at him, her stunning blue eyes shining with it and a flicker of excitement.

His mate was beautiful.

Light and full of goodness.

A female far beyond what he deserved.

He looked away from her, unable to bear how brightly she shone when he was so dark inside and underserving. She sighed, the quiet sound drawing his attention back to her, and kept pace with him.

“My connection to nature is strong, far stronger than most other elves, but all elves would be able to sense the forest ahead of us if they focused hard enough.”

She glanced up at him again, her gaze lingering for a few heartbeats, before she stared off into the distance and squinted. He held back his smile. Little Wild Rose could try with all of her might and she wouldn’t be able to sense the forest as he could.

“Is it stronger because you’re old or because you’re a prince?”

Vail’s step faltered but he masked it so she didn’t notice how deeply her use of his status affected him. It had been a long time since someone had referred to him as a prince. Not a mad elf prince. Just a prince.

“I have not been a prince in a long time. Almost as long as I have been in this world.” He picked up the pace and she had to alternate between walking and jogging to keep up.

“I just meant you come from a powerful family,” she said and fell behind. Stopped.

He halted and looked back at her, unable to take another step without assuring himself that she was well.

She bent over, rubbing the sole of her bare right foot while holding her boot upside down in the other hand. She shook it, grumbling about pebbles.

“Are you injured?” he said and she shook her head.

“You going to answer my question now?” She shoved her foot back into her blue dragon hide boot and stomped towards him, a tiny female on a mission.

He huffed and kept walking, getting the distinct impression that refusing was pointless. She would only press him until he answered.

“I have a strong connection because of my lineage. I inherited it from my mother.”

Rosalind’s feelings shifted, becoming laced with warmth as they flowed around him. “What was she like?”

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I would not know. She was the first life I took upon entering this world.”

And he wished she had been the last, but part of him feared that position would belong to Rosalind.

And he would die shortly after her.

He didn’t think he could continue existing in a world without her in it and without her light to hold back the darkness inside him.

“Vail, I… I’m sorry,” she whispered and he shook his head, dismissing her apology. “What of your father?”

“He passed when I was very young. My brother raised me.”

She walked a few more steps and then quietly said, “I sort of met him… in the Third Realm. He seemed nice.”

Vail smiled at that. “Then you know who is the better brother, and that it is not me.”

“I think I will ignore that pity ditty… does he have a connection to nature like you do?” she said and he cast her a glare, catching her wicked smile, before looking ahead of him again.

Confusing female. He wasn’t sure whether she was teasing him. He wasn’t sure he had ever been teased to know it when it happened.

He nodded. “He does, but mine was always stronger.”

Another smile curved his lips as he thought about all the times he had made his brother jealous with the things he could do.

“Happy memories?” Her soft voice lured him back from them and he looked down into her eyes, and nodded again. “It’s nice seeing you smile.”

It fell away and he wondered just when he had found the ability to smile again.

He had a feeling that Rosalind had given it back to him, together with emotions he had thought were dead and gone, and he would never feel again.

“So what can you do?” She placed her arms behind her back, linking her hands across her bottom.

“I can sense her feelings. My brother can do such a thing too. We can feel her joy and her anger. However… I can heal nature too.”

Her eyes lit up and she stopped again, turning to face him. “Seriously?”

He wasn’t sure why she felt he would lie about such a thing. “Yes.”

“Can you heal people?” Her eyes searched his, darting between them, bright and luminous, and full of the curiosity he could feel in her.

Vail frowned, stifling the pain that pricked his heart.

“Perhaps once, but not now, and not for a long time if I were ever capable of it. I can only heal nature. I can reverse the damage done to it, but my powers… they are weak and corrupted.” Because he was weak and corrupted, filled with darkness that nature didn’t like, and so the connection between them was dying, fading more with each step closer he took to the black abyss and becoming one of the tainted. “I can only heal small things now.”

“I wish I had such a connection,” she said and walked with him, her soft voice edged with the envy in her words. “What I can feel must be the smallest fraction of what you can.”

“Come.” Vail held his hand out to her. “Let us reach the forest and rest.”

She shifted her gaze from his hand to meet his. “And would you show me your abilities? I think if you use them, I might be able to sense your connection through our one.”

She looked as if she would like that and he found himself nodding, willing to reveal another part of himself in order to please his female.

His ki’ara.

Her hand edged towards his and he braced himself, mentally preparing for the feel of her skin on his and resisting the urge to cover his hand with his armour, the small part of him that wanted to feel her flesh-to-flesh with him again overpowering the darkness that snarled at him to shove her away.

Her fingers brushed his palm, a little gasp escaping her at the same time as a hot bolt of lightning leaped through his bones, and she pressed her hand to his.

Vail stared at their joined hands, his heart pounding in his chest, and absorbed how warm and soft she was, how delicate she felt beneath his fingers as he closed them around hers. Her power grew in strength, their physical connection making it easier for him to feel it as it twined around his arm, and he battled the dark need to tear at his own skin to get it off him.

He drew in a deep breath. She would never use her power to harm him.