Tempted by a Rogue Prince (26 page)

Little Wild Rose had said they were allies.

But she had looked at him with eyes that had asked if they could be more than that.

Those same eyes held his now, dark with desire, with need that he could feel in her because it lived within him too.

He pulled his hand towards him, luring her with it, holding her gaze the whole time.

He wanted her.

He closed his eyes.

But he could never trust himself not to hurt her.

He tightened his grip on her hand and teleported.

T
he darkness around Rosalind evaporated and her eyes widened as she took in the sight before her. Vail had been right. There was a forest in the middle of Hell, a leafy oasis that sprawled over a range of hills, stretching as far as the eye could see in front of her and to her left and right, a stark contrast to the forbidding black lands at her back. She couldn’t quite believe it.

Vail’s hand slipped from her wrist and he collapsed to his knees. He leaned over, clutching at the ground, and breathed hard, the tousled strands of his blue-black hair hanging across his brow, revealing the pointed tips of his ears.

“Vail?” She crouched beside him and resisted the desire to touch his shoulder.

He had explained to her that teleporting her drained his powers. Apparently, an elf could easily transport two people with him, if they were mortals or other weak species, but because she was powerful, he found it taxing to teleport with just her in tow.

He shook his head, silently warning her away, and she backed off, giving him a moment and not wanting to provoke his darker side, the one that constantly lurked beneath the surface, waiting for his strength of will to give out so it could seize control.

She rose to her feet and looked down at him, again wondering what a witch had done to him to drive him towards madness.

He lifted his head, his firm lips parting to reveal the tips of his short fangs, and stared at the thick forest with a glimmer in his violet eyes that spoke of the relief she could sense in him through their link.

Vail pushed himself up onto his feet, wobbled as he rose to his full impressive height, and took an unsteady step towards the trees. Rosalind remained close to him, on hand to help him if he collapsed again. His gaze narrowed, lips pressing together to form a hard determined line, and he took another step. He wanted to reach the forest, and mother earth, she wished she could help him achieve that desire. He looked like a man whose life depended on reaching it, or perhaps his sanity depended on it.

His hands twitched at his sides, claws flexing, as if he wanted to reach out to the oasis of nature and draw it to him.

She had tried to stop him from constantly teleporting them across the black lands of the Fifth Realm in order to reach this slice of paradise, worried that he would end up like this or would pass out from the exertion. That had earned her a few rounds of snarling and flashing of fangs whenever she dared to suggest they walked, and at least one instance of him saying he needed to get her to the forest so they could rest and he could hunt for her.

That touched her, but she didn’t want to rest.

The nightmare still haunted her, a colourful and hideous twisted replay of the battle. She tried not to think about it but it was constantly there at the back of her mind, ready to leap to the fore and play out again whenever her guard slipped. She couldn’t take it. Every replay tore at her soul and left her bleeding inside, close to collapse.

Every replay left her feeling she was stepping closer to the darkness, treading a path that would inevitably lead to her embracing the evil side of magic, drawing on powers from beyond the grave and dealing in death.

She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her bare arms, trying to keep the sudden chill off them.

Vail paused and looked back at her, a flicker of what she wanted to believe was concern in his purple eyes. She shifted her gaze to the trees only metres from them now, trying to focus on better things, ones that might give her a moment’s peace amidst the black maelstrom threatening to tear her apart and destroy everything that she was, reconstructing her in the image of her sister.

Tall rich green grasses fringed the forest and brushed her legs as they entered its boundary. Her eyes delighted in taking everything in as they walked deeper into the trees. Vail’s step gained strength and steadiness with each metre farther they moved towards the centre of the forest and away from the black demon lands.

Colourful flowers spotted the green blanket sweeping around her and she had a strong desire to pick some and gather them to her, to cherish the beauty of nature. Towering trees provided shelter and light too, their branches dotted with glowing white flowers.

“Incredible,” she whispered and reached up to brush her fingers over the flowers on a low-hanging branch. The petals closed in response, the light dying, and she withdrew her hand, afraid she had killed it with her careless touch. Before her eyes, the flower bloomed again, reopening and sparkling like starlight.

“We have them in the elf realm.” Vail’s deep voice sent a shiver tumbling down her spine, the gravelly edge to it and the feel of his gaze on her combining to thrill her.

He sounded better, and different.

She looked across at him and found he looked different too. He stood a little taller, his eyes a little brighter and clearer as he took in the forest, and a smile played on his firm kissable lips.

He looked like a man who had just stepped into a glorious dream and was loving every moment of it.

Or perhaps one who had just stepped into a moment in his past, one from long ago and long before a witch had done something to change him and leave him scarred.

She touched another flower, smiling as it closed and waited for her to withdraw her hand before opening again and shining brighter, illuminating her fingers.

Vail looked around them, his chest expanding beneath his skin-tight dragon-scale black armour as he drew in a deep breath and exhaled it in a long sigh.

Rosalind couldn’t help smiling at him. She had never believed him capable of appearing so happy.

Filled with joy.

He brushed his fingers over a patch of long grass mottled with what looked like blue cornflowers, a flicker of a smile on his lips.

“I read that the elf realm is like a paradise.” She moved a step closer to him and he frowned, all of the light leaving his eyes and his expression turning solemn.

He swallowed hard, curled his fingers into fists and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “It is.”

The husky edge to his deep voice and the feelings she could sense in him said that he didn’t want to talk about his homeland and she had hurt him by mentioning it, ruining his momentary happiness. Her stomach twisted, a heavy weight settled on her chest, and an apology rose to the tip of her tongue.

He turned away from her before she could put voice to it and continued walking, his shoulders a little lower than they had been before she had brought up the elf kingdom.

She hadn’t meant to upset him, or take away the joy this place brought to him, and she felt wretched as she trailed behind him, searching for a way to bring back his smile.

The distance between them grew as she slowed, her eyes drawn to a small clearing off to her left. Mushrooms. There were herbs in the bushes too. She hurried to them and began gathering the ones she recognised, using the skirt of her black dress as a basket. She was short a few ingredients, but what she had would be effective.

She waited until Vail was further ahead and then used her magic to enhance what she had and transform it into a sort of round cake. It came out looking more like an unappetising brown blob, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Rosalind nibbled one edge of it as she caught up with Vail. The effect was instant, a buzz tripping along her nerve endings like an intense sugar rush that left her a little high, filled with energy, and also a little numb, as if she had just done shots with a whole bottle of tequila.

She welcomed that numbness and the respite it granted her, leaving her mercifully free of her guilt and all the things she had been dwelling on. She didn’t care about them anymore. She didn’t really care about anything other than somehow finding a place she could bathe, getting some tasty food in her stomach, having fun and leaving the past few horrible months behind her.

And staring at Vail’s fine backside as he walked.

Mother earth, the man had the bottom of a god.

It dimpled beneath his black armour as he strode ahead of her, delicious and tempting. Not wanting to make the rest of him feel jealous because she was paying more attention to his bottom, she took in the rest of him, inch by hot inch.

He had beautiful shoulders. She liked the way they moved as he walked, and how the powerful muscles of the top of his shoulders bunched as he stretched an arm above him to brush his fingers across the leaves of the trees, as if he needed that brief contact with nature to heal him.

He had strong hands too. How had she failed to notice that? They were big, powerful, and looked very wicked whenever he lowered them and his black armour covered them again, transforming them into claws.

Rosalind nibbled on the brown cake.

Her eyes drifted down the shifting symphony of his back to his bottom again.

He looked over his shoulder at her, a slight frown pinching his eyebrows, and she quickly looked away, hoping he hadn’t caught her. He turned away again.

She snuck a glance at him.

Mother earth, she wanted to climb his tall frame and lick his ears from lobe to pointed tip.

She looked down at the brown cake. Perhaps she needed to lay off it.

She shrugged and took another small bite.

She was supposed to be living before she died.

Vail disappeared through a thicket and she raced to catch up with him. The branches clawed at her, snagging her hair and scratching her arms. She fought them back and broke through.

Into a stunning glade.

Trees formed a circle around it, their thick trunks holding back the shrubs and the long grass, leaving a lush green blanket spotted with little white flowers in the centre. Tiny insects floated around in the air, shining like glow worms, so that when she looked up through the opening in the trees, they looked like stars glittering in the night sky.

She turned on the spot in the middle of the glade, amazed by it. She wanted to feel it.

She pocketed her brown cake and kicked off her blue boots. The short grass was blissfully cool on the soles of her aching feet. She scrunched it between her toes and laughed.

Vail arched an eyebrow at her and strode past, heading away from the glade.

“Can’t we rest here?” She didn’t want to leave this place. Ever. She wanted to live here, surrounded by magical nature.

With Vail.

He nodded and pointed in the direction he was heading. “There is water this way. I can smell it.”

“Mother earth!” She raced forwards, drawing a growl from him when she bumped him on the way past, and darted through the trees.

She ran for what seemed like forever without finding the water.

Liar. Liar. Pants on fire. There wasn’t any water.

She broke through the trees and stumbled to a halt. “Bloody hell.”

A massive lake stretched before her. Trees surrounded most of it but on one side, off to her right, rose a black cliff. A waterfall thundered down it and more of the twinkling insects danced just above the mist at its base where it plunged into the lake. Above it, loomed a great mountain. Green swathed the base of it but the top third was bare black rock.

“Do not run off like that again,” Vail said as he strode out of the forest behind her and she looked over her shoulder at him.

And cursed.

He wore a pair of black trousers held closed by lacing over his groin, his twin black and silver bands containing his armour around his wrists, and nothing else.

Rosalind snapped her jaw up and her mouth shut.

He stopped at the edge of the water, stooped and scooped up some in his hands, and drank it just as she lunged at him to stop him.

He looked back at her and frowned, clearly catching her horrified expression. “It is safe. Everything here is. I know it.”

Because of his connection to nature, a bond that she was growing more envious of by the second.

“I will hunt and you may bathe. We shall meet back at the glade.” He walked away before she could say anything and she wanted to be angry with him for ordering her around, but found herself admiring his bare back instead.

His colourful markings flashed over his arms and down his back, and mother earth, they curled over his hips too and beneath his trousers.

He flicked a glare at her. “I can feel you staring,
Witch
.”

“Rosalind,” she said and he paused, an incredulous look on his handsome face. “My name is Rosalind. Stop calling me witch. It’s rude.”

He stared at her a few seconds longer, during which her heart thundered, adrenaline making it race. She really had to lay off the brown cake. Her darling mate was obviously affected by all the nature, but the calming effect it had on him wouldn’t stop him from lashing out at her if she kept pressing his buttons.

“
Witch
.” Vail snorted and walked away.

Rosalind huffed and followed the shoreline in the opposite direction to him. She dipped her toe in the water and shivered. It was chilly. She didn’t fancy bathing in the open either, where Vail might see her.

Or maybe she did.

She glanced back in the direction he had gone and grinned as she imagined him sneaking a peek at her. Her smile fell. He would probably feel compelled to kill her for it shortly afterwards, blaming her for his own wickedness because she was a witch.

She really needed to know what the deal was with him and witches.

There was no way she could help him move past what one had done to him until she knew exactly what that one had done.

She doubted he would ever tell her though. He would probably kill her just to shut her up.