Tempted by a Rogue Prince (30 page)

“Do not want to.” Those words came out strained and hoarse, laced with anger and pain. “Did not mean to hurt my ki’ara.”

She huffed.

“That says it all really, doesn’t it? You don’t want to hurt your ki’ara. Not me… it’s not me you don’t want to hurt. It’s your mate. It’s genetically imprinted on you. Be honest with me, Vail.” She folded her arms across her chest and he raised his gaze back to her face, hurt shimmering in it. “If I wasn’t your mate, you would have killed me the day we met.”

He growled at her, the pain in his eyes flaring, darkening the rich purple of his irises. “No.”

Mother earth, she wanted to believe that, but she was done being a fool.

“Was any of this real?” she whispered, her throat thick and tight, making it hard to speak. Tears rose against her will, stinging her eyes, and she drew in a deep breath to hold them back so he wouldn’t see how much he had hurt her.

The pained look on his face said he didn’t need to see it. He could feel it.

“You want to comfort me now? Because your mate hurts. Not because Rosalind the witch hurts. None of this was real… and I was stupid to believe it might be, and now I will probably pay the ultimate price. Maybe that will be a good thing. Maybe leaving this world will end this hurt I have inside me that grows every day.” She laughed at how melancholy and melodramatic she sounded. She had never been one for theatrics or pitying herself, but she seemed stuck in a vicious cycle of it these days. “I just wish one moment had been real. One look or touch. Just something, anything, so I don’t leave this world feeling I threw it all away and died for nothing.”

The black slashes of his eyebrows met hard above steely purple eyes. “Die? No death for Little Wild Rose.”

She laughed at him now. “I don’t think you get a say in it. Even I don’t get a say in it. I don’t want to die… but I don’t get a choice. Meeting you took it from me.”

“Why?”

Rosalind shifted her shoulders. “I’m not saying. You have your secrets and I have mine, and they’re none of your business really.”

He growled and struggled again. The branches creaked as they tightened around him in response.

“Real,” he ground out and she waved her hand to stop the branches from squeezing the life out of him so he could speak.

“What was real?”

He looked away from her. “It.”

It?

“I need a little more than that,” she said.

He flashed fangs her way and then lowered his gaze again, slumping in his restraints at the same time. “Wanted you.”

Her cheeks flushed but she refused to let him win her over with pretty words designed to make her believe him capable of feeling anything for her.

“You wanted your mate. I was horny and you felt the need to take care of it. Don’t deny it.”

He shook his head. Not denying it? Or she was wrong?

His eyes met hers, clear purple and steady with intent.

“Wanted you before that.” Pain tightened the lines of his handsome face and he growled and tipped his head back, and banged it against the trunk of the tree. “Little Wild Rose thinks me a monster. Would never want a monster.”

“Mother earth, no!” She shot to her feet, raced around the fire to him and caught his cheeks again, stopping him from pounding a hole in the back of his skull. She dragged his head away from the trunk and tipped it down so he was facing her again. “I don’t think you’re a monster, Vail. You’re a bloody annoying bastard at times and you have issues, but you’re not a monster.”

“Made me a monster,” he whispered, his eyes unfocused and lined with tears. Pain rose within her again, agony so intense it left her breathless. If it consumed her like this, tore her apart inside, and she felt only a shadow of it through the bond, what was it doing to him? He shook his head, the wild strands of his black hair falling down to brush his forehead, and his eyebrows furrowed. “She made me a monster.”

Tears dotted his black lashes, threatening to fall, and she couldn’t take the pain that echoed within her, the fierce agony that burned her soul to ashes and ignited fury in her veins.

“Who, Vail?” she whispered, struggling to keep her voice steady so she didn’t rouse him from his current state, losing the chance to understand him at last.

“Kordula.” He ground his teeth and shook his head, and then laughed, the sound chilling and mirthless. “They said my mate was a witch… they said my mate was a witch… lies… tricked me…
enslaved me
.”

A chill went through her. “This witch… enslaved you.”

He threw his head back and laughed, tears cutting down the sides of his face. “Four thousand two hundred and twenty eight years… one hundred and fifty seven days and three hours under her spell… four thousand two—”

She placed her hand over his mouth, unable to bear hearing him repeat that.

Only one type of witch could live that long and do that sort of terrible sorcery. A dark witch.

A dark witch had enslaved Vail and held him captive for four millennia. She covered her own mouth with her other hand and stumbled away from him, her spell instantly shattering as tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t known.

She never would have bound him with her magic if she had known.

The tree released him and he collapsed into a heap on the ground. His armour peeled away from his hands and torso, and he tugged the grass into his fists, holding on to it as if it was his only lifeline and the only thing keeping him sane.

“Vail, I… I didn’t know. I never would have… you have to believe me.” She crouched beside him, fighting her desire to touch his bare back, knowing if she did so now when he was free, there was a risk he would turn on her. “Why did she do this to you?”

He looked up at her through the tousled strands of his blue-black hair, his purple eyes shining with hurt and anger.

“Wanted my kingdom. Had to protect my people… attacked them and made them hate me… only way to warn them. I had to do it, Little Wild Rose. I had to… I had to… she punished me for it. Always punished me when I was bad.”

Mother earth, she wanted to hunt down the bloody bitch who had done this to him and tear her to pieces.

Vail clawed at the earth, dirtying his fingers.

“Never want me back… made me try to kill Loren… made me kill others… innocents.” He shook his head and closed his eyes, his jaw clenching. “Punished me if I disobeyed.”

She didn’t want to ask how. She didn’t think she could bear it. No wonder he hadn’t cried out when the demons had tortured him. He had probably grown immune to such violence and pain. No wonder he lost his mind when fighting, becoming savage and cruel, an unstoppable force.

Four thousand years of being held against his will, forced to kill and forced to fight his brother, and punished whenever he found the strength and courage to go against his orders and attempt to save rather than slaughter.

“Vail,” she whispered and reached for his shoulder.

He teleported away from her and snarled, flashing his fangs. “Do not touch. No touching. Please. I was good. I did what you wanted. I was good. No punishment today.”

He clawed at his chest, leaving red lines across his pale skin, and growled through his teeth.

“Bad things. Always does bad things… no matter what I do. Says it’s a reward. Reward.” He laughed and it ended in another pained growl. He called his armour back and dug his claws into his scalp, squeezing his head with his palms, and dropped to his knees, breathing hard. “I do not want it. I do not want her touching me.”

He rocked back and forth and Rosalind stared blankly at him, struggling to take in what he was saying and the gravity of it.

He threw her a pained look. “No reward. No bad things. I did what you wanted. Please? Do not… hands… touching… not a reward. Fondling… hate her… want to kill her. Will kill the witch. Somehow. Will stop her… and she will not control me anymore… and I can die.”

“Vail, no.” Rosalind pushed to her feet and crossed the glade to him. She reached out to touch his face and he flinched away.

“Do not touch.”

She nodded and kneeled before him instead, aching with a need to comfort him, horrified by what he had said and what she placed in the blanks he had left for her to fill.

He had been told that a witch would be his mate, and this one called Kordula had used that to trick him into thinking he had found his fated one. She had enslaved him with a spell, seizing control of him so she could seize control of his kingdom.

He had done the only thing he could to spare his people from her reign of terror. He had turned on them, making an enemy of himself, severing the bond and trust that existed between them.

She couldn’t imagine how hard that had been on him. He had turned on those he loved, his people and his brother, in order to save them, and even that act of sacrifice hadn’t truly spared them. Kordula had turned Vail against them, forcing him to attack his own people and murder them, and attack others too, and forcing him to fight his own flesh and blood—the brother he clearly loved.

Her heart ached fiercely for him. He had done terrible things, and had been used terribly too.

Her mind went back to the cells at the castle and how he had acted, how maddened he had been by his captivity, and how he had reacted whenever the guards had left him nude, exposed and vulnerable. She ached to erase those memories for him, knew how much they pained him now she knew about his past. She had hated what they had done to him at the time, but now she really despised them for it.

She still couldn’t comprehend the full horror of what he had been through, how his life had been for the past four thousand years, a span of time that seemed like an eternity to her, or how deeply it had all affected him. She wanted to ask him things, but it would only hurt him and dredge up more bad memories that might bring out the darkness in him, and he had suffered enough. He needed to rest, to find a sense of peace and calm again, and she wanted to help him do that.

He looked up into her eyes and clawed at his scalp, drawing blood. His words rang in her ears and his demeanour told her everything. She could see it all in his eyes, how Kordula had abused him, fracturing his mind and shattering his heart and his soul.

She understood the reasons behind his behaviour too, and no longer resented him for anything he had done. She only wished that she had talked with him before their earlier moment.

Not to spare herself the pain, but to spare him the anguish and make the whole experience a better one for him, one that might have erased a fragment of his suffering and placed him on a path towards a better future, towards as normal a life as he could expect to have now.

She wanted to help him overcome his past and how it had coloured his perception of certain things, especially the ones that should have been beautiful experiences.

Ones he now viewed as a violation.

“Vail,” she whispered and he blinked but didn’t stop clawing his scalp.

She bravely moved her hands towards him. His gaze followed them as she brought them up his arms and held them poised over his.

“Let it go now.” She smiled at him and tried to feel good things, knowing he could sense them in her. “No one is going to punish you… or touch you if you don’t want to be touched. I’m sorry I used a spell on you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

His shoulders lowered and he looked down at his knees. “Never wanted to hurt you… Little Wild Rose.”

She smiled sadly, her heart hurting. “Because of the bond—”

“No.” He jerked his head up. “Not the bond. Because you… you’re… you smell like nature… like roses and rain… more pretty than the most beautiful bloom.”

He looked away again and she swore he blushed.

She definitely was.

“Little Wild Rose bloomed for me,” he husked in a thick, gravelly voice filled with hunger and her cheeks scalded.

She wanted to mention that she wasn’t the one who had experienced two climaxes but held her tongue, not wanting to provoke the darkness within him. Now she understood why they had shocked him though, and that he grew hard for her.

“It was the bond,” she muttered.

The tiniest tilt of the corners of his lips warmed her heart.

“Not the bond. Little Wild Rose wants me… as I want her.” His smile faded and he looked up at her, searching her eyes, his violet ones darting between them. “Not the bond.”

She shook her head, giving up her fight to be mad at him and make him pay for what he had done, because she could see in his eyes and feel in him that it had been real. He felt something for her, and she was crazy enough to feel something for him, something that ran deep in her blood and consumed her.

“Bad mate,” he growled beneath his breath. “Frightened Little Wild Rose. Thinks me a monster.”

She sighed. She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t deny the need to comfort him and make him see that she didn’t think he was a monster, and he wasn’t really a bad mate either. Just one who had a lot to overcome. Four thousand years of being abused by one of her kind.

“I hope she’s dead,” Rosalind bit out.

Vail looked confused.

And then startled when she placed her hands over his, drew them away from the sides of his head, and clutched them together by her heart.

He stared wide-eyed at his hands and swallowed hard, his pupils gobbling up his irises. Perhaps placing his hands right against her breasts hadn’t been her wisest move.

She lifted them and toyed with his black claws, her fingers coming away stained with his blood. He frowned and his claws disappeared, his armour receding into the twin bands around his wrists, leaving his chest bare and his lower half clad in black trousers.

“Rosalind shouldn’t have to touch my claws.”

She smiled at the use of her name and the sincerity in his gaze as he looked at her.

“Did you kill the bitch?” she said and his demeanour changed abruptly, darkening dangerously.

“No.”

She cursed. How the bloody hell had he broken the witch’s spell on him?

“My… brother… killed her.”

That explained a lot. “I’ll have to thank him if I ever meet him again. No one deserves to go through what you did, Vail. No one.”