Hekate’s Bride

My tongue darts out, licking the tear off his cheek and I don’t realize what I have done until his fingers circle my wrist.

“Astrid,” Rune whispers and I pull back with wide eyes.

“Oh. I-That wasn’t-I wasn’t trying to-” I stutter for several seconds, trying to explain why I’d done that, but I can’t seem to find an answer.

I stop talking when our eyes lock. I glimpse something in them that I never have before. There is a softness there, a vulnerability that is a stark contrast to the strength and cruelty I am used to.

His walls have come down, if only for a moment, and I can see the fear and loathing in them. The fear, I can understand, but the hate, I do not. Seeing him like this, stripped of all of his defenses startles me. I have known the prince all my life and he’s been a constant pain in my neck and thorn in my flesh.

His cruel antics, insults, demeaning words, forceful aura, insensitive and utterly unacceptable behaviour, I can handle. I have learned to handle all of that.

But not this Rune. Not this man who looks at me like he is falling apart. Not this man who looks at me like he needs me to help him.

I don’t know how to. I don’t know what to do.

His lips part and I find my entire being waiting on the words that will leave his lips, but the tip of his ears suddenly twitch and he looks in the opposite direction, down the hallway from which I came.

I hear the sound of thudding boots and male conversation a heartbeat later and I cuss under my breath. The sentinels are here. I find it bloody convenient that they show up right after hell has nearly broken loose. Perhaps, it is the Hekate’s doing.

My gaze drifts to the closed doors. They still look huge and menacing, but the darkness around it is gone. There is no proof what happened in the past few minutes. Rune and I look like two students just hanging out in the hallway past curfew.

“Come on,” I say, grabbing Rune’s wrist. “They can’t see us here.”

He frowns but says nothing, letting me pull him up. Head whipping right and left, I veer us left, taking the stairs that lead to the Lycan King’s Hall. No one ever goes there except there is a briefing or assembly. There are no sentinels stationed there and it’ll probably be the last place they search. Best to wait them out there till the next shift that’s only three hours away.

*Great*, I mutter to Sloan. *You’re not hungry anymore?*

She only chuckles and goes quiet again. I’d throttle her if I could.

We settle on the stairwell that’s a few paces away from the Hall after I grab a bottle of water for one of those strange machines filled with liquids and an awkward silence passes between us as I hand him the bottle. His fingers graze mine and it takes all of my strength to keep my gaze neutral, even my insides have turned to mush.

“You could have walked away,” he says after a moment, dropping the empty bottle by his side.

“Yet, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I lie, not interested in sharing my thoughts with him. What I did, what I said, and the fact that if he had been taken, I would have followed to get him back… I am not ready to think about any of that. Why? Because thinking about it will give life to those thoughts and emotions and I don’t want any of that shit right now.

I am Astrid. He is Rune. We do not like each other and there will never be a blur in that invisible line that has been drawn between us.

Emotional lines at least, considering…

I swallow, shoving thoughts of that one kiss out of my head.

He says nothing else. Not even a ‘thank you’ for my efforts. Not like I’m expecting him to. He’s always been the entitled kind of guy.

I shuffle closer to the side of the railing and lean against it, closing my eyes. Three hours here with Rune. I don’t think I can ever fall asleep in his presence. There’s this heat around him that makes you aware of him, in every possible way.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get some sleep,” I say, but it comes out with a bite. I really am not used to this. Any of this. Why is he trying to converse with me? Why is his voice soft and not cold as usual? I wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of his plots to get under my skin and hurt me… or my feelings.

“I can take you back to your room. They won’t disobey if I order them to look away and not tell the Chancellor.”

“I’m not taking any favours from you.”

He goes quiet and then, “You’re not going to ask me anything?”

My eyes slant open and narrow. “What’s there to ask? It was obviously the Hekate and he was trying to take you too. To kill you. I saved you. End of story. If you feel indebted, a simple thank you would do. You do not need to engage me in conversations. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I will reward you for your efforts when-”

“I don’t want a fucking reward from you. I don’t want anything from you. Not everyone’s like you who’ll only do things if it brings you ‘rewards’.”

Ire flashes in his eyes, setting fire to whatever softness I had glimpsed in them. Good. “You know nothing about me, Astrid. Nothing.”

That stings more than I expect it to and I bare my teeth at him, needing to retaliate and cause him the same amount of hurt I feel inside. “Oh yeah? Maybe I don’t, but you do a damn fine job of being a selfish, stuck-up bastard who cares only about himself. Everything else, everyone else is beneath you. Their lives, their struggles, nothing else matters. Just you and your stupid ego.”

One moment, he is sitting there, watching me with growing anger, and the next, he is towering above me. He grabs my arm and yanks me up to my feet, green eyes smoldered with icy rage. The force of his grip is painful and I can feel his dark aura radiating off of him.

Dread consumes me as I meet his fiery glare. “What do you know of struggles? You are but a child who regards everything as a joke. Do not associate me with the likes of you. You call me selfish, stuck-up, when in fact, you describe yourself. A child!”

My eyes sting and I shimmer. “A child? I bet you didn’t think that when you stuck your fingers in me and came on my thighs.”

Rune recoils as if struck and all the colour drains from his face. “What did you say?”

I freeze. *Shit.*Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

I have kept it to myself for years, pretending that I had no recollection of what happened between us that night. It was the easy option. For me. For us. Days following that one, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror. Waking up the next day, knowing what we had done, I had vomitted my guts out and cried the entire day, refusing to eat because I hated myself. Felt disgusted.

I wondered what he felt for a while. I had a whole year to ponder on it. If it meant something to him. If I was just another one of his conquests. I pondered on the disdain and disgust I’d glimpsed in his eyes. I wondered if I disgusted him. I thought about it for a whole year.

And he had shown up the next year, cold and aloof as always. He hadn’t even looked in my direction and a few moments to the ceremony, he had slunk away with a maid in MY castle.

I followed and stood by the door, listening as he fucked her against the wall. I left there with an answer. I was nothing to him.

And it had hurt. Too much.

I didn’t have her thrown out of the castle, the maid. I made sure to see her everyday, to remind myself that Rune and I will never be anything. I didn’t stop until it stopped hurting.

“You… remember,” Rune breathes, grip tightening on me. “How long…” His voice trails off and his eyes widen slightly when he finds his answer in my shifty expression. “The compulsion didn’t work on you.”

“You’re hurting me,” I say instead, wrestling to get his hands off me.

“You pretended. Why?” His voice is surprisingly calm, but I know better than to think that he actually is.

“Why? Would it have changed anything?!”

His eyes harden. “No. It would not have.”

My heart squeezes painfully and I slam my fists into his chest. “Fuck you, Rune. I hate you.”

“You are upset,” he says casually, like he is talking about the weather, and it only makes me angrier. “Why?”

I laugh bitterly, hating the tears that start to roll down my cheek. I can’t seem to control myself around Rune. Everything hurts, even when it shouldn’t. We share nothing between each other but it hurts so bad. “Take your hands off me, Rune.”

His dark green eyes that almost look black in the dim lighting shifts, snagging on the tears that roll down my cheeks. He leans in suddenly, stealing my air, and he whispers against my cheek. “Consider this a ‘thank you’.”

I start to protest but I suddenly feel the warmth of his tongue against my cheek. A small sound escape me and my knees buckle.

I fist the front of his shirt, whimpering when I feel his tongue on the other cheek to. I start to tremble with need and Sloan purrs, her lust melding with mine.

Rune pulls back and his nostrils flare as the smell of my arousal fills the air. His eyes are guttered and he leans in again, burying his nose in my neck, nuzzling me fondly.

My eyes close and he groan, breathing me in deeply. He says something, but I am not entirely sure what it is. I can’t hear him. My head is spinning and my heart is expanding.

He pulls away again, cupping my cheek and staring down at me with emotions I do not understand.

“Why do you keep doing this to me?” I whisper weakly, leaning completely into him until our chests are touching, until his hands that are as string as I remember them to be curve around my waist. “What am I to you, Rune?”

His thumb drifts from my cheek and brushes lightly against my full bottom lip, causing a shiver to run down my spine. The gentle pressure of his touch is electric, sending a tingle of desire through me as he whispers, “An impossible distraction.”

His mouth claims mine with fervour and my heart pounds so hard, I think it will burst from my chest. I come undone. Every inch of my being is consumed by the taste, scent, and feel of him.

I cannot fight him. Or resist him.

I don’t want to.