Page 45 of When Ashes Fall

I was a selfish prick, and I didn’t give a shit. There was no way I could live while knowing another man’s hands were on her, and I certainly wouldn’t allow another dick inside her. I’d tear it off and ram it up his ass before removing his testicles and jamming them down his throat first.

While I was in the harem, there was nothing I could do to stop her from being with another, but it turned out I didn’t have to. Briar was supposed to remain pure until her Needing; I took that from her, and her mother punished her for it, but she remained off-limits to the casters.

I was the only man she’d ever known, and it would stay that way.

However, I had to figure out what to do with her and how to handle my volatile emotions around her. Taking a deep breath, I retracted my claws. When I did, fresh blood pooled and ran free to streak my face.

I didn’t bother to wipe it away. I’d shed my blood many, many times over the years, and I’d shed it far more in the years to come.

Instead, I let it spill as I watched Briar with Zephyr and the rat. That rodent rarely left her side, and while it was on the ground, happily munching on a piece of fruit, I had no doubt it would go on the attack if something threatened her.

I despised the thing, but I was glad it offered her some protection. And Zephyr was absolutely enthralled as he watched her stopper the potion and slip it into her pocket.

She was so beautiful, and if everything she’d told me was true, she was as kind as I’d believed her to be all those years ago.

My eyes traced the delicate curve of her neck and the way strands of hair fell to frame the delicate contours of her profile. There was a time when I’d traced every inch of her, memorized all the details, and reveled in her warmth and beauty. There was a time when I felt free to do so, but that time had come and gone.

“I’d rather heal with you.”

Her words ran through my head again. With them came a longing so intense it stole my breath.

What would it be like to heal with her?

I’d never know the answer to that.

As if sensing my attention, Briar’s head turned toward me. Her mouth gaped when she spotted me in the shadows.

I could only imagine what I looked like, standing there bleeding from the holes I’d dug into my head. I should leave, but she should see the worst of me, see how fucked I was, and maybe she would understand.

When she stepped toward me, I turned and slid around the barn.

“Knox!” she called after me.

I didn’t look back, and by the time her footsteps came around the stable, I was already gone. I’d spent all that time scrubbing the blood from me, and now I’d return to the woods to bathe in it again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Briar

I still couldn’t shake the image of Knox, standing in the shadows with blood streaking his face. What happened to him? Where had he gone?

Once he disappeared around the corner of the stable, I didn’t see him again.

He’d vanished as soundlessly as he’d arrived.

For the first time in a couple of days, I didn’t go to the kitchen to eat with the sprites. Instead, I went to the dining hall with the hope he’d be there and I could reassure myself he was okay, but he wasn’t. Lyra, Pierce, and Dromon weren’t there either.

Bertie, the sprite queen, offered to bring me dinner, but I couldn’t sit in there by myself and have her serve me. Instead, I returned to the kitchen where I ate with her and the other sprites.

They were all abuzz about the tree of unity blooming today. They were the first blooms they’d seen since the curse… that wasn’t a rose.

I’d spent a fair amount of time examining the flowers today, inhaling their scent and grinning like a fool. The outer edges of the flowers were a deep purple hue that grew steadily lighter. The center was so pale a purple it was almost white.

“The bees will come back now,” Bertie said.

“Yum, honey for our tea again,” Zephyr said as he rubbed his belly.

I paused with a spoon halfway to my mouth. “I’ve never seen bees around the roses.”