All for a Rose (10 page)

“Don’t ignore his generosity, Father. Please, take the treasure and use it to hire help. Corrine will need someone to take care of her.”

Corrine.
The name sent a shiver down Daman’s spine, caressing his temper and urging it to rekindle. He averted his eyes, not wanting to frighten the woman with the scowl he could feel tightening the lines of his face. Gods knew he’d already scared her enough, especially if he expected her to stay with him. If he didn’t want her to run away screaming, he had to get a tighter grip on his emotions—no matter what topic arose.

“Load the trunks,” he said, his voice only slightly hoarse and mercifully free of sibilance. “I will bring it down to the carriage after you’re done.”

Without another word, Daman left the room, moving as fast as his scales would carry him. He kept going until he was safe in the sanctity of his own chambers. Light poured in through his large, arched windows, casting a golden glow on his bed, revealing the nest of torn blankets and shredded sheets—a telltale sign that this was another room the brownies did not dare to enter. Their absence was felt keenly in the shattered statues, shredded paintings, and broken glass that desecrated every surface, every wall. A shrine to the madness threatening the lord of the manor.

Thoughts and memories swirled faster and faster inside Daman’s head and he slammed the heavy door behind him. The sound of the solid wood crashing against the doorframe thundered through the room, a satisfying, but empty sound.

Corrine
.

The name echoed in his head like ripples in a pond, growing larger and more powerful as they spread.
Corrine. Corrine. Corrine.
More ceramic shattered against the wall as Daman heaved a statue of a dragon across the room. The heavy sculpture shattered into large chunks, filling the air with fine white dust. It coated Daman’s nostrils as he sucked in ragged breaths, flailing around for something else to throw. His hand closed around a brass bookend carved to resemble twined serpents and he cast it outward. It hit the window, shattering the glass and then sailing out into empty air.

What have I done? What was I thinking, demanding she stay?
His gaze flew wildly around the room, his breathing ragged.
The witch’s sister—her
sister
!

Every scale on his body grew heavier, reminders of what he was, what he would be as long as the curse held him trapped in this form. Neither man nor beast. Unfit for human company. The meditations were already pathetically ineffective at managing his temper. With that woman here—
reminding
him…

“You’re upssset.”

Daman whirled to find the
cuelebre
peering up at him from the floor, tiny from Daman’s vantage point. It flicked its tail from side to side, like a dog greeting its master.

“What are you doing here?” Daman snarled.

The
cuelebre
snaked its tongue out and blinked. “I told you. I’m here to help you with your visssitorsss.”

“You are in my private chamberss.” Daman slashed at the
cuelebre
with the heavy coil of his lower body, cracking it against his diminutive intruder. The
cuelebre
sputtered as it was sent skittering over the floor.

“It iss the
wrong daughter
.” Daman shoved a hand through his hair, not caring that his claws drew ragged, bloody furrows across his scalp. The pain was lost in a flood of adrenaline, a mere drop in the ocean raging with gale force inside of him. “He wass ssuppossed to bring me the witch.”

“Did you tell him to bring the witch?” the
cuelebre
asked. It stared intently at him from a cave created by a large and mostly undamaged section of down comforter. Only its pink tongue slithering out as it spoke gave away its position.

Daman flexed his fingers as he imagined squeezing the miserable pest in his fist. “No. But sshe iss the one who had reasson to want the rosse. It sshould have been her.”

“Well, sssend thisss one back and sssee if you can exchange her for her sssissster.”

“Do not mock me!” Daman thrust against the stone floor, sending his body hurtling to the bed faster than mere mortal eyes could track. There was a startled burst of flame and the comforter caught fire as the
cuelebre
shot into the air, wings beating furiously.

“Don’t be mad at me.” The
cuelebre
sailed across the room and wrapped itself around a wall sconce, clinging stubbornly as if daring Daman to try and remove it. “It’sss not my fault that your heart ssspoke for you.”

Daman trembled with the urge to strike out again, to give free rein to the fury burning him alive. He tried to clear the haze from his eyes so he could focus on the
cuelebre
. “What iss that ssupossed to mean?”

The
cuelebre
snorted. “I heard you. You sssaid you were going to sssend her away, but when it came time to do it, you forccced her to ssstay. You want her to ssstay.” The serpent stabbed the tip of its tail in Daman’s direction. “It wasss not your head that made that decisssion.”

“It wass a mistake.” Daman rolled his shoulders, tilting his head from side to side to ease the muscles in his neck. “A sslip of the tongue.”

“Ssso you intend to go back to her father and tell him he can take hisss daughter home?”

Daman looked away, focusing on the dark, empty fireplace. His gaze slid across the room to the shattered statue, the gleaming shards of the broken window. For a moment, the temper receded, leaving him unspeakably tired. His shoulders sagged. “I am better than this.”

Scales sliding against metal signaled movement on the
cuelebre
’s part, but the serpent said nothing.

“The girl is a changeling.”

“Ah. Ssshe remindsss you of your passst purpossse.”

Daman slid his gaze to the
cuelebre,
the skin around his eyes twitching. “Not passt. It iss sstill my purposse, however incapable I may be of fulfilling it at the moment. And what do you know of it?”

The
cuelebre
scrunched up his body, pressing a coil to the side of his head in a serpent’s version of a shrug. “I know what a naga isss. Your people are protectorsss, guardiansss. If I remember correctly, upon maturity, a naga choosesss a protectorate, a people he will dedicate hisss life to. You were well known in thisss land for being a sssavior of changelingsss. I have heard of them praying to you to deliver them from cruel parentsss.” The
cuelebre
paused. “You’re ssstill well known, of courssse. Only now, people fear you asss a monssster.” It tapped its chin with the tip of its tail. “Though I think there are ssstill prayersss—”

“Sstop.” Daman clenched his hands into fists, sucking in deep breaths as he battled his temper back down. An image of the girl waiting in the treasure room filled his mind. He could see her face pale as she peered at him from the questionable safety of her father’s arms. Even as terrified as she was, she’d spoken with calm confidence to ease her father’s worries, to assure him that she would be all right. The knowledge that he’d frightened her, that a creature that beautiful and kind-hearted had seen him not as a savior, but as a threat…

“Do they only know me as a monster now?” He had to wrench the words from his vocal cords, dreading the answer.

The
cuelebre
inched closer, tiny scales glittering with the movement. “No. They know who you truly are. They remember.” He tapped his tail against the floor. “They wait.”

The blood drying on his scalp itched and Daman examined his claws. Brittle flakes of blood drifted down from the sharp points as he flexed his fingers, falling to the ground like macabre snowflakes. He silently moved to the dresser beside his bed and the wash basin with its chipped pitcher sitting next to it.

The
cuelebre
’s gaze was a tickle between his shoulder blades, a tangible weight. He moved mechanically through washing his hands, pouring the water from the pitcher, trailing his claws through the water. The liquid turned pink as the blood released its grip on his skin and scales, flowing through the bowl like eerie fog. When his hands were clean, he dried them on a scrap of linen that had once been part of a bedsheet.

“I can be that man again. I can be the knight instead of the dragon in the eyes of those who need my protection.”

The words lacked conviction, but hope flickered inside of Daman, meager though the flame was. If he stared hard enough at his hands, he could see the human limbs they had once been. He could remember.

“Isss it your intention to sssave the changeling girl?” the
cuelebre
asked curiously.

Daman pressed his lips together in a fine line. He slowly slid his hand down his armor, feeling the supple chainmail and strips of heavy, worn leather. It had been part of the armor he’d worn in human form, one of the few pieces that he could wear even in this stage of his transformation. It settled him, reminded him of honor, his discipline. “The day the witch came to me a year ago, she pretended to be a changeling, pretended to be the victim of an abusive host family. She had blood on her arm—the blood of a changeling.”

Daman replayed the memory in his head. The beautiful girl crying in his foyer, holding out her bloody arm as she pled for sanctuary. He could still remember the passionate urge to protect that had swarmed over him, the rush of tenderness he’d experienced as he’d comforted her. There had been no attraction, only the passion of his cause, the satisfaction of knowing he was doing exactly as he was meant to do. The zealousness of the righteous.

“She fooled me until I sent her to get cleaned up. She didn’t realize that I would visit her home, that I would go to see for myself what circumstances she was escaping from. It didn’t take long to learn that she’d lied. Her bedroom was the nicest room in the house, full of beautiful dresses and thick, comfortable blankets. Her father and sister did not have the look about them that comes with cruelty to others.”

“What doesss thisss have to do with the sssissster?”

Daman picked up scraps of bedsheets from the floor, gathering them in his arms. “Corrine had bandaged her arms by the time I arrived back at the manor, but I already knew the wounds were fake. The scent of changeling no longer hovered about her.” He straightened with his arms full of ruined fabric, his gaze sliding to the door as he pictured the changeling who was in his home now. “She must have gotten that blood from her sister. I heard the woman tell her father to take the treasure I offered him and use it to hire people to care for Corrine.”

“Ssso?”

“So, there is nothing wrong with the witch.” Daman’s grip tightened for a moment, crushing the fabric to his chest until he could feel the pounding of his heart through the thick material. He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly, imagining his meditation candle, picturing the gentle flame. His posture relaxed and he dropped the load of cloth into a pile near the wall. “She’s obviously taking advantage of her sister’s good nature, probably working her like a slave.”

“You can’t know that,” the
cuelebre
pointed out.

“You didn’t meet Corrine.” Daman gathered the largest pieces of shattered ceramic and splintered wood. Every bit of debris he removed from the floor calmed him, order returning to his mind as it returned to his environment. “When she first came to me and the taste of the blood on her arm led me to believe she was a true changeling, I told her I would relocate her, find her a loving family. She insisted that she wanted to stay here, with me.” He snorted. “Tried to seduce me. She didn’t want safety, she wanted wealth. One look at her hands and it was clear she’d never worked a day in her life.”

“That doesssn’t mean ssshe isss cruel to her sssissster.”

“Her sister is
sidhe
.”

The
cuelebre
stilled, its beady eyes growing wider. “
Sidhe
?”

“The
sidhe
exchange children with humans to keep their bloodlines strong, to bring in new blood. But they don’t abandon their true children. I’ve never known a
sidhe
family that didn’t check up on their child after leaving them, to make sure they weren’t being mistreated. This changeling tastes of
sidhe
, but she does not have the same aura. It is muted, weakened. Someone is trying to hide her from her true family. What reason could they have to do that if they aren’t afraid of what her family would do if they found her, discovered her circumstances?”

“Perhapsss the humansss are trying to hide her from her family becaussse they believe her family will hurt her?”

“Perhaps.” Daman dumped what he’d gathered in the same pile as the shredded bedsheets. “But until I am sure, I will keep her here.”

“Isssn’t that dangerousss?” The
cuelebre
curled around the wall sconce. “You sssent away your ssservantsss, your warriorsss, all becaussse you believed they would be in peril if they remained here with you. Do you not think that you are a threat to the girl asss well?”

Daman focused hard on the stone floor. “It is my purpose to protect changelings. I stopped helping them because I can no longer take my human form and when I tried to continue on in this body, I frightened them too much. But this girl is already here.” He squared his shoulders, though he still didn’t look at the
cuelebre
. “Perhaps this is a sign, a chance to remember how I once was.”

Daman nodded at the improvement in his room. It was still a disaster, a few moments of clearing debris wouldn’t change that, but the act of cleaning had been symbolic. If the gods were giving him another chance, then he needed to show he could change. It was time to stop living like a demented hermit, a monster too destructive to be trusted in human company. He was a man. He needed to act like it.

Before the
cuelebre
could say anything to change his mind, Daman swept out of the room to join his visitors, nervous energy singing against his skin. He entered the room slowly, head held high and posture as formal as though he had strode in on two legs. He ignored the way his visitors cowered as he approached, offering them a slight bow of greeting.