Tempted by a Rogue Prince (34 page)

He had threatened to kill her.

He shoved himself away from the tree and paced to a safer distance, needing a moment to gather himself and suppress the darker urges threatening to seize control of him.

“Vail.” His name trembled on her lips.

He cursed under his breath in the elf tongue and shook his head. “Stay away.”

She didn’t heed him. He felt her approach, felt her magic sliding over his skin and seeping into his flesh. He clawed his scalp, focusing on the pain, desperately trying to hold himself together and stop the darkness from taking him. He shut out the whispered words that demanded he make the witch pay for what she had done. She meant to enslave and violate him too. She had no right to touch him or to use his name, and he had to teach her that in a lesson she would never forget.

She lightly stroked his back.

Vail turned on her with a snarl. “Do not touch me!”

Because the softest caress felt like the hardest strike and he couldn’t take it.

He raked his claws down his chest, slicing through his armour and backed away from her.

His stomach squirmed, her tenderness twisting it into painful knots that made the dark voice in his head demand she pay. He couldn’t take it. He pressed the points of his claws into his chest and growled through his clenched teeth. The softness of her caress sickened him. He hated her for it. He despised her gentleness.

He would rather she grabbed him roughly than touched him softly.

“Leave me,” he barked and she flinched away but quickly recovered, standing her ground and tipping her chin up in a defiant way that tore a warning growl from him.

Now was not the time for her to be stubborn and brave.

Now was the time for her to run.

“You can overcome it,” she said, her voice steady and calm, radiating foolish confidence.

She looked so innocent and trusting. He must have looked that way once, millennia ago, when he had first met Kordula.

“Fight it. Remember the good things.” She shifted her foot as if meaning to step towards him and he hissed at her through his fangs.

She backed off a step instead, her blue gaze wary and her magic growing stronger.

It crawled over his skin, sending him closer to the edge, skirting the fall into oblivion and the mindless rage that awaited him there.

“Remember the good things, Vail.”

He stared at her, breathing hard and trying to battle the dark hungers growing within him. They were too strong.

He was too weak.

“I cannot.” He took a step backwards, fear gripping his heart in icy claws. Fear for her safety. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want her to see the true face of the monster he had become. She wouldn’t understand it. She would leave him.

“You can, Vail. I know you can. Fight it. You’re stronger than this. I know you are.”

He spat a curse at her.

“I hate that you are so understanding.” He teleported, appeared right in front of her and grabbed her shoulders, dragging her against him. He bared his fangs and his pointed ears flared back through his black hair, flattening against the sides of his head. “Perhaps I do not want to remember the good things. Perhaps I do not wish to fight something insubstantial.”

A glimmer of fear broke through the hope in her eyes, obliterating it.

He stared down into them and snarled at her.

“Perhaps I just wish to fight.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head as the colour drained from her face.

“No, Vail. You do not want to fight.”

He growled and tightened his grip on her, pressing the very tips of his black claws into her flesh through the sleeves of her black dress.

“I do. I want to fight… Witch. You will pay for what your brethren have done to me. I will show you what I have done to your kin… and you will know the pain I have suffered.” He pressed his claws in harder, giving himself over to the darkness so she would feel it within him and her magic would react in order to protect her.

It rose as if on cue, coming to sweep around him, becoming a physical thing as it grew in strength. It whipped her blonde hair around, causing it to flutter across her face, but she didn’t take her eyes away from his.

“I will not fight you, Vail.”

He smirked. “Then you will die.”

“Maybe I will. Maybe I’m okay with that. But will you be? Fight it, Vail,” she whispered, her eyebrows furrowing. “Fight it because I will not fight you.”

He squeezed her arms so tightly that she gasped and her pain shot through him. He growled, turned with her and kicked off, slamming her back against a tree and pinning her there. His back echoed with her hurt. Pain he had caused in her.

She would fight him now.

She would do it to punish him for hurting her.

He deserved it.

“You can have your freedom if you fight me for it, Witch.”

She stilled, her eyes enormous and her shock flowing over him. Her magic instantly subsided.

“Why would you want such a thing?” She shook her head. “Why would you want me to strike you?”

“I need it.” Those words had left his lips before he had even thought them, escaping him and rocking him to his core. He instantly released her and staggered backwards, his knees threatening to give out as sickness swept through him, disgust that he desired such a thing.

Rosalind’s feelings mirrored his, her beautiful face twisted in lines of horror.

Now she had seen the true face of the monster he had become. A man who had had all softness and affection driven from him, replaced with something dark and sinister.

A man who took pleasure from killing.

A man who needed punishment, constantly hungered deep in his soul for the strike of a whip or the blow of a fist, so much so that he had attempted to force the most delicate and beautiful creature in the three realms to fight him.

Vail sank back against a tree trunk and stared at her, unable to tear his eyes away from her horrified expression or shut out the shock reeling through their bond.

He had no excuse, no reason to give her for his behaviour, and no way to make her believe she had misunderstood his intent, because he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her.

He looked her right in the eye and said the only thing ringing around his head.

“Gods, I need it.”

R
osalind wasn’t sure how to react to what Vail had said. She stood with her back against the tree opposite him, staring into his eyes, seeing in them and sensing in their link that he was telling the truth. He wanted her to strike him.

Glowing insects danced in the air between them and the light from the flowers of the trees cast a sickly blue hue across his pale skin.

He had shocked her, but he had shocked himself too.

“Why would you want such a thing?” she whispered.

He bowed his head and she had her answer.

Because it was what he was used to. He had grown accustomed to Kordula treating him poorly, punishing him both physically and emotionally, and he was struggling to cope in a world without what was now familiar to him.

He collapsed to his knees and she pushed away from the tree, but held herself back.

The sight of such a powerful, beautiful man looking so vulnerable and lost tore at her, and she hated it. She couldn’t let him suffer alone. She wouldn’t. She had to help him.

She crossed the trampled path to him and lifted her hand to touch his cheek.

He flinched away and hissed at her, baring long white daggers, and she had the terrible feeling that if she had struck him hard, he would have welcomed it, but he couldn’t bear a gentle touch meant to soothe him.

Rosalind withdrew her hand. “You’ve given me no reason to hurt you, and if you think to provoke me so I will punish you, it won’t work. I’m not going to raise a hand at you in retaliation. I’m not that sort of woman.”

She kneeled before him in the broken grass and wished he would lift his head and look at her.

“Vail?”

He didn’t move. He kept staring at his hands between his knees, his shoulders hunched forwards and trembling.

Rosalind drew in a deep breath and risked it.

She reached out, firmly took hold of both of his hands, and clutched them as tightly as she could. He kept still, his eyes moving over her hands where they held his, and she let out her breath as her tension faded.

“Whatever happened to you, it’s in your past now.” She brushed her thumbs over the backs of his hands, the caress steady and slow, but with enough pressure that his skin paled in the lines she stroked. She wanted to touch him softly, but she also wanted to keep her head on her shoulders and her heart in her chest, so she kept up with the pressure, giving him a hard caress. “I know you can’t simply overcome it and forget it, but I hope in time that you’ll learn to come to terms with it, and I hope you’ll learn to accept kindness again and learn to trust.”

“Why?” That word came out quiet and she hated that he sounded as if he was on the verge of saying he didn’t deserve kindness and reproaching her.

She sighed. “Because you deserve some good in your life to help wash away the bad. You deserve to be… loved.”

He pulled back and she risked it and held on, refusing to let him go and distance himself.

“I’ve seen the good in you… a glimmer of the man you once were and somehow managed to retain despite the terrible things that have happened to you. You’re a good man, Vail. A noble, loyal and deserving man.”

“A man who has done terrible things,” he snarled. “A man who has killed thousands and left a river of carnage in his wake.”

“Under the orders and control of another.” She wouldn’t let him bring up the barriers between them again and shut her out, and she wouldn’t let him force her away. No matter what he said or how sharp the barbs he threw at her were, she wouldn’t give up and relinquish the progress she had made with him.

“I have killed… males… females… innocents… entire families. I have set realms at war with each other and watched them burn.” His voice hitched and he tensed. His eyes gradually widened as his breathing accelerated. “I have… I have… pleasured that—”

Rosalind slapped a hand over his mouth to stop him. “I know. I know what that vile bitch did to you. You don’t need to say it. You don’t need to hurt yourself like this… you don’t have to punish yourself and push me away.”

He tore her hand from his mouth. “I am the vile one. I let her do those things to me. I did things with others while she watched… and I murdered innocents in front of her while she laughed in order to please her…”

Rosalind placed her hand over his mouth again. There was too much black in his beautiful purple irises and too much pain. When she felt certain he wouldn’t continue, she shifted her hand to his left cheek and brought her other one up to cup his right, risking his wrath. She tipped his head up and made him look her in the eye.

“Kordula made you do those things, Vail. You had no free will. What she did to you was deserving of death… and if I had the power, I would heal your mind, would steal away those dark moments, every single one of them. But I cannot… I don’t have that power. I wish that I did. The only power I have is in here.” She took his left hand and brought it to her chest, settling it palm down over her heart, and held it there as she looked deep into his eyes. “All I can do is show you kindness and compassion, and be here for you when the darkness comes and your memories haunt you. All I can do is try to ease your pain and replace the terrible memories with better ones.”

“How?” he croaked and his eyes searched hers, edged with desperation, as if his life depended on her telling him.

She stroked his cheek and squeezed the hand she held to her chest, the heart it hovered above melting as she saw the hope in his eyes and felt it flowing through him.

“I would show you that the things you have been forced to experience… they can be good. They can be different.” She hesitated when his eyes began to darken again and tamped her magic down as it tried to rise to the fore to protect her, knowing it would push him over the edge and have him snarling that she was out to trick him and use him as Kordula had. “Like when you held me… remember how good that felt?”

His gaze bore into her, intense and focused, his pupils expanding to devour the purple of his irises. A hot shiver coursed through every inch of her in response to his heated gaze. He did remember it and it had felt good to him. Now she just had to make him see that other things could feel just as good.

Rosalind dropped her gaze to his mouth, taking in the firm sensual curve of his lips. His hand against her tensed.

She didn’t want to push him too hard. She was aware of how close he was to her, and that his hand rested against her chest and he could easily call his armour to create his claws and hurt her, but she needed to show him that she meant what she had said and she would help him.

She would show him that it was possible to heal some of the pain in his past and learn to live again.

She leaned towards him, bringing her mouth close to his. His breath sawed from his lips, rough and hard, trembling as much as he was beneath her fingers.

Rosalind whispered, “Something shared between two people can be magical, Vail.”

He pushed her back, his eyes darkening again, and she cursed herself for using that word.
Magical
.

He glared at her, his eyes narrowing into nothing more than thin slits. His hand against her tensed, his fingertips digging into her flesh and the heel of his palm pressing into her cleavage.

She waited for him to shove her away or turn on her.

He growled and swooped on her mouth, ripping a soft gasp from her throat and sending a million volts blazing through her. His lips pressed hard against hers and opened, and she was powerless to resist doing the same. He kissed her fiercely, devouring her with rough sweeps of his lips and strokes of his tongue that tantalised and teased her, driving her into submission.

Rosalind went willingly, lost in the arousal raging through her, burning up every inch of her as Vail dominated her mouth and mastered her body with only a kiss.

She tried to keep up with him, her lips clashing desperately with his, the temptation to wrap her arms around his neck and pin him to her becoming increasingly difficult to deny. If they kept going like this, both of them a slave to their passion and need, she was bound to make a monumental mistake with him.