Never Let You Fall (The Prophecy of Tyalbrook) (32 page)

“I don’t really know. Cillian is the leader here, but Rioden is the only Guardian left who was present at the castle when your parents disappeared.”

“Xander, are they dead?”

I let the word ‘dead’ slide through my lips as if I were talking about my next meal. So far, I’d been able to keep my emotions in check when it came to my “real” parents.

“I mean, you’ve never said they died…does anyone know what happened to them?”

Xander sighed loudly and then sat up and pulled me up with him; turning me towards him. Cradling my face in his soft palms, he moved his face inches from my own. The room still held a soft glow from the fire in the other room, but I could barely see him. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough so that I could make out the whites of his eyes.

“Look at me, Skye,” he lightly demanded, his grip on my face holding my head in place. “It’s been fifteen years since they were last seen. I would love to hold out hope that they’re still alive, but where would they be?”

I grasped his wrists with my hands and spoke just as urgently, “Maybe they went through another portal to safety!” Even as I said the words, I realized it could actually be true. “Xander, Selene’s mom could have sent them somewhere.”

“No way. Why wouldn’t they have just left with you?”

“Well maybe they tried to get to me, but they got sent went to the wrong place. Maybe they…”

“Skye…”

“Maybe they’ve been searching for me all this time somewhere back home!”

“Skye?”

“You never know! What if they were waiting for me to come back, for my eighteenth birthday…?” I trailed off lamely.

“Skye,” Xander pleaded with me, his voice achingly sweet as he kissed the tip of my nose. “They would have found you if they’d had Selene’s mom with them, and Rioden said they did when he last saw them.”

My shoulders shrank in defeat. “I know.”

“Their plan was to stay here and fight for your Kingdom. Someone had knowledge from the inside, Skye. They should have been safe. There was no way they would have run, or would’ve disappeared as quickly as they had, unless it was an inside job.”

My fingers tightened around his wrists even more as I absorbed what he had just told me.

“You need to know what we - Rioden and I - think. We don’t know who to trust here, because the truth is, someone turned on the King and Queen. Someone betrayed your family’s trust.”

“Trust no men,” I mumbled, recalling the warning Griffin had given me in my dream.

“What?”

What to do, what to do? My brain began to think in double time. Should I tell him about Griffin? Did I trust Xander? Yes, I did.

Should I tell him about Griffin? No, not yet.

“Okay, Xander. We trust nobody. It’s just you and me, until Rioden gets here. Deal?” I played off my comment and pulled his hands from my face. Shoving him back down to the bed, I wiggled into place next to him and let him wrap his arms around me from behind.

“I can live with that, Princess,” he teased, before poking my side and causing me to giggle.

I shrieked when he poked me again, and then arched back as I tried to wriggle free from his grip. My ribs were madly ticklish, and apparently he had just figured that out.

“Hmmm, something biting you there,” he joked, swinging his leg over my waist and straddling me.

“No!!! Get OFF!” I gasped, as he started to attack me in earnest, causing fits of laughter. I tried to thrash him off but he was too strong. And centered. He might have been a cowboy on a bucking bronco, because he was going nowhere.

I reared up and bucked him forward, which caused him to crash down fully atop me. I punched at him in an effort to counter his attack, but his face plant onto the pillow next to my face caused us both to collapse in laughter.

I found myself laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Xander grumbled and righted himself back on top of me, but instead of sitting up he leaned down; his arms trapping mine on either side of my head on the pillow.

“Truce?” he asked as he leaned closer into me and placed his lips on my forehead. The laughter faded from my lips as he tenderly kissed my forehead; then as he ran his mouth across to my temple, he lightly kissed there.

He released my arms and I brought them up, skimming along his rib cage and delighting in the feel of the muscles leaping in reflex to my touch. I ran my hands up his sides and over his wide shoulders as he lightly trailed kisses down my cheek and across my jaw line.

Xander nudged my chin up with his nose and his lips caressed my neck. His soft tongue drew light circles there and down onto my collar bone.

I heard a low moan come from my throat and felt Xander’s lips smile on my skin, as they traveled back the way they came and found my mouth. I opened my lips, expecting him to deepen his kisses, but instead he ran his tongue over my bottom lip and nibbled at it.

“Xander…” I blurted out, my desire-thickened voice sounding strange even to my own ears.

“Hmmm?” he murmured, tracing my top lip with his tongue and chuckling low in his throat when my hands tightened their grip on his biceps.

“What are we going to do?”

He pulled himself up and released a large breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to stop,” I stammered, immediately realizing what a mood killer I’d just been. I could feel his desire for me pressing into my stomach. I could feel my own desire for him making my toes curl. Now wasn’t the best time for heavy conversations. Except that it was.

I squeaked out, “Are you mad?” as he pulled up and off of me and sat on the edge of the bed.

“What? Nooo. Skye, of course not. I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have let myself get so carried away. It’s just that I can’t…”

He abruptly stopped, and I pulled myself behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist; propping my chin onto his shoulder. “Go on,” I prompted.

“Hang on.” He popped up and I saw him move into the other room. Sitting cross legged on the bed, I sat in bewilderment for a moment, wondering what he was doing. After a moment he came back with a lit candle in a holder.

The candle lit up a small radius of the room and I tried to contain a smile at being able to really see Xander’s muscular chest and abs. He was gorgeous! I could make out the tattoo I had seen once before, although barely. It was a faded shape of swirls and lines that had a strange transparency to them. I could see it, but yet it almost seemed strangely – not there. The golden lines sort of shimmered and the whole thing almost reminded me of when I first saw the Semvon, how they had shimmered between human and demon form.

How strange! Just when I thought to ask him about it he coughed and pulled my gaze away from his body.

Placing the candle on a small table by the bed, he sat back down across from me and sighed as he took my hands. I watched in fascination as he lightly rubbed and played with my fingers. His face, which had become so dear to me, was filled with something I couldn’t make out. Nervousness? Guilt?

“I need to tell you something,” he offered after a moment, looking up at me finally. I nodded and waited.

“First, I want you to know what it was I was about to say. Skye…” He said my name in such a way that I could never have imagined it would ever be said. He said it as if it was a precious china dish that could break if he wasn’t careful enough with it. I felt my skin break out into goose bumps.

“I can’t stop myself when I’m with you because I want you so badly. I want to fulfill your desires and make you cry out my name. I want to make you mine for…for the rest of our lives.”

At that moment, I felt like the world must have stopped spinning. Knowing that if I’d had a mirror, I would most likely see my jaw unhinged and hanging to the ground, I tried to straighten myself up and maintain a calm face. Xander squeezed my hands and kept speaking.

“I love you, Skye. You know this; I’ve said it a million times already. I know you can’t really understand the depth of it, since in your mind we just met, but…but I’d marry you if you would let me. I’d marry you right now.”

“Holy ssshh…”

“Well
that’s
not what I was expecting,” he confessed, laughing at my outburst.

“I…I just don’t even know what to say. Xander, I don’t want to lose you. I just found you!”

“I’m not asking you to say anything, Skye. I wanted you to know my intentions…if I were actually allowed to convey them to you, that is.”

“Okay, so your intentions are what, then?” I asked, trying to understand what was happening between us.

“Clearly, I’m telling you that I want to marry you someday. If there is any way, and I do mean any, that we can fulfill the prophecy and still allow me to have you forever, then I will find that way.”

He dipped his head and took a large breath before he went on, “I’m also telling you that I will not sleep with you until you are my wife. As the Princess your virtue is prized in this land, and I will have no part in taking that from you. If we can’t be together, then I wouldn’t want to expose you to that pain.”

I felt my cheeks flush at his comments about my virtue. He was so serious, his eyes holding mine, as he professed his intentions to be with me forever.

I was a few months away from my eighteenth birthday, and I’d basically just received an offer of marriage. If only the fate of an entire Kingdom didn’t hang in the balance.

TWENTY SIX - WHITE

Skye

“Don’t think me a saint though, Skye,” he said; pulling my fingers to his mouth and kissing the tips.  “I can’t lay here and kiss you and still be expected to keep my head.”  His smile told me his meaning.

“So you’re saying no fooling around, huh?”

“Regrettably, yes.  I want to respect you and your title.”

Taking in his serious face, I made a rash decision.  I unfolded my legs and scooted forward, then climbed onto his lap and wrapped my legs behind his back.  His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but his hands grasped my hips to hold me in place.

My long gown rode up, which allowed my legs to graze his bare skin.  I rose up and pressed myself to his chest, and then ran one hand down his back before pulling his head to my face with the other.  Sucking up my courage, I suggestively whispered into his ear, “What if
I
don’t want to respect my title?”

His fingers dug into my hips and he pulled me closer.  His voice was harsh as he all but growled back into my ear, “Are you trying to kill me?  Trust me, I want nothing more than to lay you down and strip this dress off of you.”

His breath tickled my neck as he moved his lips closer to my ear.  I felt the tip of his tongue lick the sensitive part of my neck under the ear lobe before he pulled back.

“Please let me hold to my promise, Skye.  Don’t tempt me more than I can handle.”

“What promise?”

To my embarrassment, he actually lifted me off of him and sat me back on the bed.  My legs stayed splayed in front of me; one on the bed and one still half wrapped around his waist.

“The promise I made to my father and to you.  I’ve always told you that I’d never let you fall, and I promised my father that I would always have your best interests at heart.”

“But, Xander!  What about what I want?”

“HA!  Spoken like a true Princess,” he teased, tapping my nose with his finger.  “What you
want
might not always be what’s best.  I’m here to make sure you don’t screw that up.”

Exasperated with him, I slid back and pulled the covers back over me and then lay my head on the pillow.  I knew he was right.  Once my hormones had cooled off, I could think more clearly.

I wanted him…that was for sure.  And I didn’t think I would regret it if we had sex.  Not right away, anyway, but…maybe eventually I would.  If I couldn’t be with him forever, then why torment myself with the perfection I sensed he could offer me right then?

“There’s something else I need to mention to you,” he confessed, as he stretched out beside me and propped his head in his hand.

“I’m afraid that maybe something was done to you back when my parents died.”

“
Done
to me?”