It wasn’t the same text I’d seen in Lord Byron’s library; this one was far older. I flipped to the front page of the handwritten tome, skimming through the words in an effort to convince myself that this was simply the original version of what had become common knowledge.
When I delved into it, though, the tale this book painted of the witches who’d formed the Veil was vastly different from the one I’d learned as a child. I’d always been told the witches sacrificed their lives to form the Veil so they could protect humanity from the Fae, who slaughtered us in droves.
This told the story of the witches who were neutral to the war between the Fae and the humans, indifferent to either race in their quest to maintain the balance of the world. It told of the curse they’d placed upon the Fae centuries before the Veil, dooming them to having their souls split upon birth. The mirror of themselves would exist inside another person, most often a human, so the Fae would have a reason to stop the enslavement and torment of the humans of the Kingdom of Nothrek.
Children outside of that relationship were an impossibility, further limiting their opportunity to grow their numbers. Birth within the relationship was rare itself, a natural characteristic of their race.
But one line of witches was tied to the land of Faerie, their magic drawn from the soil itself and the elements of nature around them. Those were the witches who’d cast the curse upon the Fae in name of the Primordial of Nature. They had died out quickly after they erected the Veil, because their magic faded without the connection to the land of Alfheimr.
It left me with one single question, something that I couldn’t reconcile and just didn’t make sense.
Why would that line of witches have formed the Veil at all, knowing they would be trapped on the opposite side from their magic? The book recorded it as a great sacrifice they’d made to protect something they’d stolen from the Court of Shadows. But it made no mention of what it was they’d stolen, or why a neutral party would care so much for the object.
The story I’d always known was that the witches had sided with the humans in the war and sacrificed themselves to form the Veil so that we could have a chance to survive the Fae beasts who wanted to kill us. I’d seen horrific photos of them in the history books as a child, but none of the drawings in the Book of the Gods even remotely resembled the horrors in those books.
The Fae in the Book of the Gods were breathtakingly beautiful. They were ethereal and magnetic. They were everything the monsters were not.
A thought danced just out of my reach, a nagging image that I couldn’t capture tickling at my mind.
A memory from my childhood. A moment of teeth on my skin.
“What are you hoping to find in these dusty old books?” Caelum asked, making me spin to face him.
I pressed a hand to my chest as I startled. “You scared me.”
He tilted his head to the side, coming into the space and stopping beside my chair. Touching the backs of his fingers to my cheek, he searched my face for a moment before he smiled. “You scared me when you were gone from our bed.”
The knowledge that the bed that was ours, after our irrevocable claiming of it, washed over me and filled me with warmth despite the chill to my skin.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I admitted, shifting my legs. I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I felt there was something off about us and our relationship; something nagging at me that I couldn’t explain. “I may not be able to fight a cave beast like you, but knowledge is power. Maybe if I know more about what I’m up against, I’ll be able to protect myself better.”
“That’s why you have me,” he said, running a thumb over my bottom lip, then, “I was too rough with you.” He cast a pointed glance down to my lap where I couldn’t seem to stay still.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. He lifted a skeptical brow. “Maybe a little, but you did warn me.”
“I did, but fucking you two more times in the night was unkind to your poor pussy,” he said, using that thumb to drag my lip to the side. “I can’t seem to get enough of you. Sometimes I forget how new you are to taking my cock, my star.” I swallowed, my mouth opening to speak. The tip of his thumb sank inside, pressing down on my tongue pointedly. “I’ll have to make use of this part of you as well. Will you wrap your lips around my cock for me while I torment your pussy? Will you sit on my face and suck me off when you just can’t take me in your cunt anymore?”
“Gods, the things you say,” I said, pulling my head back from his thumb. He smirked down at me, enjoying the flush that stained my cheeks.
“I want to worship you like you’re my Goddess. I want to spend my days between your legs, making you come so many times you can’t stand up when I’m through with you,” he murmured, that smirk transforming into a full-blown smile as he stared down at me. “But I want to fuck your mouth and shove my cock down your throat, too.” He shrugged, as if the filthy talk was just a part of who he was and I needed to get used to it.
I’d thought he tormented me and teased me before he’d ever touched me, but I was quickly learning that his innuendos had been vague and nothing compared to the things he said while I writhed beneath him on our bed.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Melian said from the doorway, suppressing a smile as she stepped into the space.
Caelum hung his head, muttering as he dropped his hand to his side and his mouth twisted into a pout. “No, you’re not,” he grunted.
“I’m pleased to see you making good use of the books, Estrella. It’s very helpful for future generations,” she said, smiling at me briefly before she turned her attention to Caelum. “But I’m actually looking for you, for once.”
The two of them clearly still disliked each other. I rolled my eyes, turning my attention back to my book.
“What do you need?” Caelum asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Despite my presence in the library, it was the middle of the night. I doubted she would have hunted him down for anything that wasn’t important, and Caelum seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“We received word of a group of Fae Marked hiding in Calfalls. I’m leading a team to retrieve them at first light. We could use your skill with a sword in case we run into trouble,” Melian said, nodding her head at Caelum. The uneasy alliance between them was based entirely on his skill and the abilities he had that might make her team more likely to survive.
“I’ll go,” he said, turning to me. “You will stay here and stay out of trouble.”
“Like fuck I will,” I snapped, standing from the chair. “You promised that we would stay together. You can’t spew those words at me when it’s convenient and then keep me tucked away like a fragile princess when it suits you. We’re either together in all things, or we’re not, Caelum. Which one is it going to be?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“You’re safer here. What if the Mist Guard caught you in irons?” Caelum asked, staring down at me as if he could compel me to see reason. To just listen.
Fuck that.