Possessed by a Dark Warrior (9 page)

Not the damned edge, but the black abyss itself.

Fuery was more than tainted.

He was lost.

They had squads who hunted his kind and dealt with them in the only way the kingdom condoned.

Killing them.

The tainted were viewed as black marks on the name of the elves, spoken about in fearful whispers among the population and used as a constant reminder to do good and hold back the seed of darkness that lived within the souls of all elves.

No one spoke of the lost.

No one was brave enough.

“This garden seems to work miracles,” Vail continued and lifted Fuery’s head, silently commanding the male to look at him. Fuery’s near-black eyes darted between his and he swallowed hard, a look on his face that was somewhere between imploring and astonished, as if Fuery craved Vail’s attention and affection but couldn’t believe he was being given it or deserved it. “It has given me back much of my light… it holds back the darkness for me. Perhaps it might do the same for you?”

Fuery looked as if he might pass out.

Bleu willed the poor bastard to breathe, to just open himself up and believe that Vail wanted to help him, accepting it as real.

Vail looked over his shoulder at Rosalind, seeking her permission.

Bleu wanted to bite out a warning to her.

Fuery was dangerous and Bleu didn’t think there was any way of bringing him back to the light. He was too far gone. Vail was tainted by darkness, but not to this degree. Bleu could see the hope in Vail’s eyes though, the need to believe that it was possible to completely erase the black stains from an elf’s soul. He needed to help Fuery, and not only because he probably felt responsible for what had happened to him. He needed it because it would help him too. It would strengthen his belief that he could be saved.

“We have room for a guest,” Rosalind said with a steady soft smile. “But we really must speak with Bleu first. Remember?”

Vail looked lost, as if he had forgotten all about Bleu, which went down about as well as a mug of hydra toxin. He schooled his expression when the elf male looked his way, hiding his irritation from him.

The male nodded and rose to his feet.

Fuery immediately grasped hold of his left leg, clinging to it.

Vail reached down and stroked his fingers through Fuery’s long hair, and Bleu couldn’t help but wonder how it was all going to end. Fuery was insane, madder than Vail had ever been. If Vail managed to redeem him, to bring him back from the darkness even only enough to bring just a touch more violet back to his eyes, it would be a miracle.

“Don’t linger too long, Vail.” Rosalind gestured towards the house after her mate acknowledged her with a brief glance in her direction and started towards it.

Bleu was swift to follow her and caught her before she reached the arched wooden door at the rear of the property.

“It is unwise to have a tainted elf in your home,” he said.

She smiled gently at him, warmth in her bright blue eyes as she pushed the door open. “I know that, but Vail needs him here. He needs company he trusts and he does get horribly bored when I have to work. It’ll be good for him.”

She made Fuery sound like a damned pet, not the violent assassin Bleu had seen hungering to kill both friend and foe.

“I do not think it will be good for you at all. Fuery is dangerous,” Bleu muttered, stooped and followed her into the small kitchen of her home, careful to avoid banging his head on the dark wooden beams that ran across the low pale ceiling.

Rosalind gazed out of the leaded window at her mate, her smile growing wider. “You don’t have to worry about me. I can handle the elf, if I have to… but I don’t think I will. Vail won’t let anyone hurt me.”

He had to concede that point. Vail would probably kill Fuery if he tried to harm Rosalind. It didn’t mean she was safe though. Fuery was as old as Vail, and just as powerful. Plus, he had spent the past gods knew how long as an assassin. There was a chance that Fuery might win if they fought.

Bleu rolled his right shoulder in a shrug that felt anything but casual and those damned feelings he tried to let run off his back refused to do just that.

He looked away from her. “Be careful anyway.”

He felt her gaze on him, piercing and powerful, as if she could look right down to his soul with just a glance, and ignored her as he tried to tamp down his unruly emotions. He wasn’t in the habit of showing anyone he cared, not anymore, but everything was piling up on his shoulders and it was getting more difficult to let it all just roll off him as he usually did, not letting it sink below the surface of his skin.

It all became too much, his feelings colliding within him, mingled with the knowing looks that both Loren and Rosalind had given him, ones that drew him close to admitting things that were best kept unspoken and unacknowledged.

He turned his thoughts to the female dragon and the turbulent flow of emotions quickly calmed, becoming as still as a millpond within him and restoring his focus.

On the only thing that mattered to him.

His mission.

The back door to Bleu’s left opened and Vail stalked in, swiftly placing himself between him and Rosalind. Was Vail always going to treat him with mistrust now? It wasn’t their chequered past that had the elf male wary around him, firmly on the edge, either. It was Rosalind’s fault. She had stamped an image of them together on Vail’s mind during their courtship, branding Bleu as a rival during a time when Vail had been ruled by his instincts as her fated male. Vail was never going to trust him again.

“Tea?” Rosalind said, her voice light and airy in the thick heavy silence.

He shook his head at the same time as Vail. She muttered something under her breath and stomped off, heading towards the centre of the cottage. Bleu waited for Vail to follow her before daring to move. He had been to the cottage before so he knew the way to her drawing room but decided it was best he followed close on Vail’s heels so the male knew where he was.

Vail ducked under the doorframe in the left wall of the narrow hallway that ended at the front door. Bleu followed him inside, his gaze immediately running over the familiar room. It was as messy as ever, with books stacked everywhere and on everything besides the green velvet armchairs that nestled around the inglenook fireplace to his left.

Rosalind arranged her black dress and sat on the one with its back to the leaded window. The colourful roses continued to sway in the breeze, the dazzling sunlight bathing them in life, and he itched to be outside again, immersed in nature. An unsettling sensation slithered over his skin beneath his armour and he looked across at Vail to find the male glaring at him again, his eyes narrowed and verging on black.

“Sit,” Vail snapped and Rosalind chastised him with a frown of her own.

He glanced at her and his face lost all darkness, and Bleu could only marvel at the extent of her effect on him. But then, that seemed to be a problem among mated males.

All the ones Bleu knew acted as if they’d had their balls cut off when their female was upset with them.

All the more reason to remain free of a bond.

He liked his balls the way they were.

“Take a seat,” Rosalind said without taking her eyes off her mate and Bleu guessed the offer was aimed at him, not Vail.

Vail remained standing and folded his arms across his chest as Bleu took the armchair opposite Rosalind and knocked a small bundle of books over with his boot, scattering them across the grey slate floor. Vail’s expression darkened again.

“Never mind.” Rosalind got off her chair, crouched and stacked the books. She looked back at Vail. “See. No harm done.”

Vail didn’t look convinced.

Why hadn’t she used her magic? When Bleu had been here before, she had moved furniture with it. It would have been easy for her to wave a hand and restack the books.

It dawned on him that Vail was the reason. He had a penchant for killing witches, and Bleu had seen magic send him off the deep end and into a black rage before, unleashing the darkness within him. He recalled what Rosalind had said about Vail getting bored when she had to work.

Bored because he stayed away from her when she was using magic, occupying himself elsewhere, beyond the sphere her power would taint.

Rosalind walked over to a worn leather chaise longue below the window and started dragging it towards the fireplace. Vail went to her, gently removed her hands from it, and pulled it for her, effortlessly moving it into place with the curved armrest closest to her chair. He sat down on it and glared at Bleu again.

Bleu took it as a cue to speak. “I need your help tracking the sword. I need to use your connection to it to locate it.”

Vail looked troubled and shifted his gaze to Rosalind. She sat beside him and placed her hand on his right knee, and the slender male dropped his focus to it, his expression turning lost again.

No, not lost.

Afraid.

He feared what Bleu was asking him to do.

Why?

Vail swallowed hard and closed his violet eyes, turning his noble profile to Bleu and reminding him just how alike he and Loren looked. “My bond with the sword is strong because of my blood, but it is weak in this realm.”

There was an edge to those words, a tremor that spoke of the fear Bleu had noticed.

“Perhaps it would be better to ask—” Vail cut himself off and turned his face completely towards Rosalind, and she squeezed his knee.

“Loren sent Bleu here, and that means he needs your help. No one is forcing you to do this, Vail. If you’re not comfortable, you can say so.” Rosalind smiled at her mate as he opened his eyes, leaned back against the couch with a weary sigh and looked into hers, a soft edge to his that spoke of love so deep that Bleu wanted to retch again. Mates. He suppressed a shudder. Gods forbid he ever found his.

The tiny voice in the pit of his soul whispered that he wanted to find her.

Hadn’t he been searching for her for millennia?

Waiting for her for centuries?

Hunting for her?

He frowned at that and shoved the thought aside, refocusing his attention on Vail and willing the male to agree to help him.

“I have tracked the one who stole the sword back to her realm of dragons but I need a location, somewhere to look. The realms are vast.” Bleu leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees, feeling the rippled surface of his armour pressing into them as it gave beneath the pressure. “If I could uncover her location, I am certain I will be able to retrieve the sword for your brother.”

Vail’s expression grew softer, warmer still, and Bleu felt like a bastard for playing on his love of Loren to convince him to agree to help him. Loren would throw him in the cells, or worse, if Vail hurt himself trying to sense the sword’s location, but Vail was their best shot, as Loren knew, and Bleu couldn’t head into the dragon realm without a clue about where to search for the sword.

Not only would it take him months to scour the land, but he would probably end up as roasted elf, together with the rest of his team. That much questioning of dragons was bound to stir some rage somewhere along the line. He wanted to keep the risk to a minimum, and that meant having a good starting point, or better still, Vail being able to tell him a location within a short distance of the blade.

“Will you help me?” Bleu searched Vail’s rich violet eyes as they swung his way and waited with bated breath.

The darkness in them pushed, a black tide that surged from the edges of his irises towards his pupils, driving the purple back. He was playing with fire, and the part of him that would always hate Vail enjoyed seeing the male suffering, having to battle the darkness his vicious acts had awoken in him.

Bleu eased back in his chair, disgust at himself swift to rush through him on the heels of that feeling, and tried to look at Vail in a better light, the same golden shiny one that Loren used to wash away the black shadows cast by Vail’s sins.

He wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work for him.

Vail slowly nodded, and, holy fuck, Bleu actually witnessed a little glow of shiny light fall on the male, enough that he actually thought good of him for the first time in what felt like forever.

“I’ll help.” Rosalind tucked into the corner of the chaise longue, the leather creaking under her slender weight as she positioned herself near the armrest and patted her knee.

Vail obediently swung his legs up and laid back, resting his head on her thighs and folding his arms across his stomach. His booted feet hung off the end of the seat, soles resting on the floor. At six-feet-six, an inch taller than Bleu, his feet probably would have fallen off the end even if he’d had his head resting on the arm of the chaise longue.

The male looked up at Rosalind, who gazed down at him, her blue eyes soft and filled with tenderness. She gently brushed the blue-black strands of her mate’s hair from his forehead, the action seeming to soothe him as if she had the touch of nature herself, and for a flicker of time, a split-second in which his guard fell, Bleu envied the bastard.

He quickly shut down that feeling and any associated with it, stopping them before they could surface and wreak havoc on him. He wasn’t interested in a mate. He had a mission, a purpose, and he was going to fulfil it.

Vail closed his eyes, exhaled slowly and sank against the seat, his entire body visibly relaxing into it.

“Just focus,” Rosalind whispered and continued to stroke his brow, his hair, and even teased the pointed tips of his ears.

Bleu wasn’t sure how that was going to help him relax and focus. Just the thought of a female teasing his ears was enough to have his blood pounding and all rushing south.

Vail didn’t seem to have that problem as his mate fussed over him, speaking in a low gentle voice, coaxing him into a sedated state.

Was it magic she was weaving with her voice and touch? A form of a spell that went undetected by her mate?

It seemed as if it was as emotions flickered across Vail’s face, turning it soft one moment and twisting it into darkness the next. Whenever it turned vicious, Rosalind soothed him and he relaxed again.