The Gossamer Gate (17 page)

Chapter 17

After a few hours of riding, Khiara made it to the edge of the forest. The blue mist had thinned and, while she did not see the sun again, the area seemed just a little bit brighter than it had before.

It was there that she found Liam, just as Kieran had said he would be. He was sleeping and unharmed. His body lay on a soft bed of moss, with a blanket over him.

She looked down at him and sighed. “I’ve been relying on you far too much,” she murmured. “That’s pretty stupid of me, considering the fact that you’ve betrayed me at every turn. So get your rest. When you wake up, I’ll be far away.”

Blowing the sleeping faerie a kiss, Khiara turned toward the north to continue her journey.

****

The misty green and blue forest gave way to sepia-toned shades of earth and sky as Khiara rode. The leaves hanging from the black trees were black themselves, and she had a sense of being completely surrounded by Ronan’s dark faerie magick.

She relaxed into the palomino’s smooth canter along the slightly
worn path. In that moment as she let her guard down, the horse reared up, throwing her from the saddle.

“Oof,” Khiara groaned as she hit the ground. The palomino had already taken off down the road, far too quickly for her to give chase. “Shit!” Khiara pushed herself to her feet and brushed the dirt from
her bottom. Fortunately for her, the horse had also dropped her messenger bag and bedroll. Still, she would not be able to make good time without the horse.

“How unfortunate for you,” said a familiar voice to her right.
  “But these things do happen.”

Khiara looked up to see Ronan standing there, leaning against a gnarled tree. “You bastard,” she hissed straightening to glare at him.

“You do realize you have almost reached the end of your journey,” he said, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “However, I’m not sure how you will ever make it to my castle from here on foot.”

“I’ll run if I have to,” Khiara retorted, clenching her fists in anger.

“Why not give up this foolish game?” Ronan suggested, walking toward her. “Just accept the inevitable and admit defeat.” He extended his hand toward her.

Khiara shook her head. “There is no way in hell I would do that.”

Ronan chuckled and laid his hand over his heart. “I think that’s what I like so much about you. You think you can actually fight your fate.”

Khiara turned her back on him and continue
d along the path on foot. There was a hand on her shoulder, and then she was thrust back against one of the twisted trees. Ronan looked down at her, gripping her shoulders.

“Get away from me,” Khiara growled. “You haven’t won yet.”

“I look forward to my victory in only a few short hours, so I think I have a right to appreciate my prize.” He leaned toward her, but she shoved at him. “You can’t win,” he said as he moved closer. “I realize that I haven’t been showing you nearly enough attention, Khiara. The other fae have tried to claim you for their uses. Clearly I need to remind both my people and my consort who is in charge here. Everybody must know that you belong to me.”

His gaze slowly moved over her face with the leisure of a predator that knows it has trapped its prey. His hand
rose to her collarbone, gripping her just tightly and painfully enough to keep her from moving. With his other hand, he caressed her cheek. She could feel him trying to work his seductive magick on her, but she also realized that as long as she did not want it to affect her, it would not. However, hard as she tried to summon her fire magick, it would not answer her call.
Why not?

Ronan stepped closer to her and brought his lips alongside her ear. “I can feel your heart beating faster,” he whispered. “I wonder how it will respond when I touch you here.” The hand on her face drifted gently over her neck and then settled lightly on her breast. She turned her head away from his, unable to move away as long as he held her collared against the tree, and unwilling to look into his eyes.

He gave a throaty chuckle and slid the hand down along her side to rest on her hip. “You haven’t been touched like this in a while,” he said against her neck. “I think you underestimate the possibility that you might actually be happy with me, that we belong together. You would enjoy the feel of a chain around your neck, a subtle reminder that you belong to me. When I met you, I fashioned that chain with nothing but my hopes and dreams. And in those dreams, that is all you wore.”

The silent forest somehow made her feel even more trapped as Ronan pressed his body against hers, his lips at the base of her throat. She could feel her pulse there. She willed it to slow down; to betray neither her excitement nor her dread.

It was true that, other than her one night with Matt, sex had been a rare event over the past several years. Her body felt starved for it. But her mind certainly was cognizant enough to remind her that Ronan was not the one she would choose to satisfy those needs.

The hand at her throat, though, held her captive.

“I think…you need…to leave her… alone,” panted a voice behind them.

Ronan turned to look at the person who spoke. “You again,” he ground out, and his hands tightened on Khiara’s body.

“Sean?” Khiara gasped, uncertain that she was seeing clearly.

“Leave her… alone,” he said again, taking a step toward the faerie.

Ronan lifted an eyebrow as he looked at Sean, then back at Khiara. “You think you’re a match for me, human?” he asked, laughter in his voice. “Come then, and we shall see.”

“Yes, let’s see.” Sean drew a short dagger from his belt.

Ronan’s hands tightened reflexively once more, and Khiara wondered if he would choke her then and there.

“This time,” Ronan said, “I will let you go. When next I see you, I will not be so nice.” With that ominous warning, the faerie prince turned away from them and faded.

“You’re not really here,” Khiara whispered, still looking at Sean, her hands clutching the tree for support. “I’m hallucinating.” She closed her eyes and kept repeating, “I’m just seeing things. I’m just seeing things.” When she opened her eyes, Sean stood in front of her. She shook her head. “Are you really there?”

His lips were on hers in that moment, one hand tangled in her hair, the other gripping her waist
. Khiara felt him press her against the tree as he kissed her, her fingers splayed over the rough bark as she tried to process her thoughts. The kiss felt so strange – not unpleasant, but unexpected and oddly familiar.

She waited for him to step back, to give her a chance to breathe, but he did not.

As they fell to the ground, Khiara could feel her heart racing, her blood boiling, and her entire body begging her to give it the release it craved. She kissed him back, trying to sit up and roll him beneath her.

He forced her to the ground, his hands gripping her wrists, his mouth hard on hers. She wanted desperately to open her pants and get to it. Her whole body ach
ed with need. It was a sensation that Ronan had exploited, but now it took on a momentum of its own. His knee was between hers, and she began to rub against him like a cat in heat. She could not remember feeling so crazy with yearning in her life.

He seemed to feel the same. One of his hands moved purposefully down to unlace her pants and she kicked them half off, freeing one of her legs. In that moment, he unzipped his jeans and now she could feel his pulsing erection against her body. The mingled heat of his skin
next to hers was more than she could bear, and she unerringly moved her body to position herself for entry.

He thrust easily into her and she moaned against his mouth.

For too long she had waited for him to need her as much as she needed him.

As he pushed into her, she felt her body convulse with orgasm, her legs wrapped around him. He growled in response, thrusting harder than she had thought possible, much to her delight and relief.

This time his release immediately followed hers.

For a moment, they lay intertwined on the ground, breathing heavily. Without a word, he gathered her close to him and, before Khiara knew it, she had drifted off to sleep.

****

She sat up slowly, pushing her hair back from her face as she blinked the sleep from her eyes. Glancing down, she realized her pants were still completely out of place. She pulled them back over her legs and took a deep breath.

The air was cooler this morning, the ever-present mist an earthy shade of gray. Khiara stretched her back and chest, turned to the right and then to the left.

There she saw the person who had kept her warm through the night.

She gasped in horror and pushed herself to her feet.

“You bastard!” she cried.

Liam rolled over and eyed her balefully, then slowly stood to face her.

“You did not do that,” she choked. “Is this real?”

“What if I did and what if it is?” he asked.

“Oh
shit, it is real.” She stepped back away from him.

He shrugged. “So what? It was what you wanted.”

“So what? So what!” she screamed. “I left you far behind and you still managed to follow me and fuck up everything I’ve worked so hard to accomplish! I knew it was too good to be true!” She turned and clenched her hands into fists, trying to make sense of everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

“If you knew that, why did you do it?” he asked.

“Liam, I swear to the gods, I’m this close to kicking the shit out of you!” she shouted, turning back to him.

He spread his hands before him. “Go ahead and try.”

With a shriek of rage, Khiara swung a punch at him, pleased to hear a satisfying crunch as her fist connected with his nose.

“That was good,” he said, reaching up to
staunch the bleeding. Then he surprised Khiara by slapping her. She stumbled back from him, her hand against the pulsing red mark on her face.

“I can’t believe you did that!” she gasped. “You are such an asshole!” She stormed toward him and leveled another punch, this time at his stomach. As he doubled over in pain, she aimed another, but he rushed her, knocking her to the ground. They grappled with one another for a moment, before he finally stood and pulled her with him. Setting her on her feet, Liam backed away and reached into his pack to find a handkerchief to cover his nose.

“Now maybe you’ll listen to me,” he said. “Everything I have done, I have because I love you. Not to incur a debt from you or to give you over to Ronan, but to have you here with me. You have to forgive me.”

“Forgive you? How can I?” Khiara snapped. “Everything you’ve done, you have done
out of your own selfishness. Because of what you did to me, I violated your brother’s terms. I can’t leave here now, no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I want to leave. Is that what you wanted? Me trapped here forever?”

“Yes.”

Khiara’s eyes widened as she stared at him.

“I won’t lie to you. That is exactly what I wanted.” Liam did not look in the least contrite as he regarded her over the bloody cloth.
“You’re right. I did it out of selfishness.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but could think of nothing more to say. Now that Liam had told her the truth, she realized there was no way to respond to it.

“You might as well make your choice,” he said. “It’s Ronan, Kieran, or me.”

She shook her head, trying to ignore the nausea that threatened to choke her. “I am sick of you men giving me supposed ‘choic
es’. I will find a way home, and when I do, I never want to see any of you again.” Khiara turned on her heel to walk away from him.

“You can’t,” he called out behind her. “Even though Sean has come searching for you, you have bound yourself to the faerie realm by your actions.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. For a moment, she thought her heart had stopped beating when he spoke to her once more, but she lifted her chin. “No,” she finally said, strengthening her resolve. “You are the one who tried to bind me to the faerie realm. It was not my intention. Therefore, I shouldn’t be punished for what happened. I thought you were Sean. You deceived me. I do not choose you.”

“That is what faeries do,” Liam said. “They try to turn any situation to their advantage.”

“Then is it any wonder I would rather live in the mortal world?” Khiara answered turning her head away from him once more. “You told me that you had a heart. Maybe you do, but you certainly don’t know how to use it. In the mortal world, there might be plenty of people who would take advantage of me or try to harm me. But most of them wouldn’t force me into something I don’t want. The beauty of the mortal world is that we believe in free will. For good or for evil, that is how we live our lives. I will not stay in a place where choices are constantly imposed upon me by others, especially choices calculated to give someone else what they want and to leave me with nothing.”

“I wouldn’t leave you with nothing, Khiara. I want to give you everything.”

She took a deep breath and continued her journey northward, tears falling from her eyes. “Our definitions of nothing are very different, then. You didn’t disappoint me though, Liam. I knew I couldn’t trust you, and at least you finally proved me right.”