Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Enchantment

I was only half-awake, but there was a part of me that was aware of the heat and hardness pressed against my back and how heavy Casamir’s arms were around me. The longer I lay there, the more I became aware of my body and the places where I ached. Despite how exhausted I felt, a fire still raged beneath my skin, desperate to take this elven prince inside me once again.

I had to be enchanted, I told myself, but even I knew that was not true. If either of us were still under the fairy’s spell, we would not have fallen asleep. We would have continued to come together beneath this cursed sky.

What was wrong with me?

Casamir was my jailor. He was a beast.

He was fae and he lived within a place that had taken so much from me.

I could not do this. I could not let this happen again no matter how much I wanted him.

Desperately.

Casamir stirred, and as he moved, I sat up, my back to him. It seemed wrong to face him, especially in the aftermath of what we had done, though I wanted to. We were not lovers, and I had no tender feelings toward him.

I couldn’t, though that thought made my chest ache.

I felt his eyes on me, and after a moment, he spoke.

“Are you well?”

The question straightened my spine.

It was the last thing I expected him to say. I thought he would taunt me, remind me of how he had known I wanted him.

I swallowed and turned my head to the side to answer. I still could not look at him.

“I…don’t know.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I answered quickly. “No, you didn’t.”

We were silent after that, and I remained where I was, even as Casamir stood. I was not certain what he was doing, but after a moment, he walked into view, half-dressed, his tunic in hand. My eyes trailed up his front, and I met his dark gaze.

“Will you come with me?” he asked.

Perhaps it was because he had asked and not commanded, but I placed my hand in his without question, and when his fingers closed around mine, warmth blossomed throughout my body at the thought of everything these hands had done to me.

He helped me to my feet and trailed a finger across my cheek and then over a spot on my shoulder, frowning.

“You lied,” he said.

I lowered my brows. “What do you mean?”

But when I looked at the place he traced on my skin, I saw what he meant. I was scratched and bruised.

But so was he.

I met his gaze.

“It’s…not as if you could help it,” I said.

Still he frowned, but his fingers tightened, and he tugged me along through a curtain of trees and down a sloping hill. At the bottom was a small body of water that was fed by a trickling waterfall. Here, I could see nothing beyond the thick wood.

Casamir dropped his tunic to the mossy ground, and the rest of his clothes followed.

“I thought you might want to bathe,” he said.

I stared at him for a few seconds before my gaze shifted to the shimmering pool. It was beautiful and felt isolated, though I did not trust it was private.

“It’s safe,” Casamir said, and when I met his gaze, he added, “I promise.”

From a fae, those words bore the weight of a blood oath. Despite what he had promised, I could not help thinking about how the selkie had attacked me, and though he was dead, the memories had me hesitating at the edge of the water.

I felt Casamir approach, and he touched my side with the tips of his nails.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, his mouth close to my ear.

I took a breath, turning toward him slightly.

“This second, yes, but I can promise nothing beyond this moment.”

He pressed a kiss to my shoulder, and his hand flattened against the small of my back as he guided me into the lake. I stood for a few moments in the water, thigh-deep, and when nothing happened, I dove beneath the water to put distance between us. When I broke the surface, I faced him.

He had not moved, and I could not place the expression on his face. It was dark and sensual. It made me feel desired and it also scared me.

“Why did you leave the palace?” he asked.

“I heard a bell,” I said, and even now as I thought about the sound, the beauty of it brought tears to my eyes. “And I could not help but follow.”

“Where did it lead?”

“To my dead family,” I said.

His jaw tightened and I expected him to ask about them, but he didn’t.

“The bell was the mountains’ hold over you,” he said. “Your family…that was the fairies.”

I did not ask why because I knew. Casamir had warned me about the mountains, and the selkie had warned me about the fairies and their retribution.

“Naeve tells me you are cursed,” I said.

Casamir did not react.

“What did you do?”

He waded farther into the lake, and I tracked him as he moved, but he did not speak until he dipped below the water and resurfaced, his dark hair plastered to his face.

“I slept with a daughter of the Mountains,” he said. “And she fell hopelessly in love with me, and because I did not return her love, the Mountains cursed me to forget my true name.”

“Unless it’s spoken with love,” I said. “Isn’t that right?”

He only stared at me.

“Is that what you hoped for from me?”

The hollows of his cheeks deepened as he ground his teeth.

“I do not hope for anything,” he said.

We circled one another.

“I cannot believe that no one has fallen in love with you.”

“Many have,” he said. “But none are clever enough to guess my name.”

“And if I do not guess, you will cease to exist?”

“Eventually,” he said, and then he smiled, reaching to draw a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Something for you to look forward to.”

I wanted to argue, to tell him I would never feel that way, but the words were stuck in my throat, and I swallowed hard.

We did not speak after that, and once we had finished swimming in the lake, we came to shore.

“Put this on,” Casamir said, offering his tunic. It was a reminder of how I had come here and how I was leaving, my nightdress torn in two, a mark of the desperation we had felt to be inside each other.

A rush of warmth burned my skin.

I took his tunic and slipped it over my head. There was an element of regret as his smell surrounded me, and it pulled at memories from long ago when I would climb to the roof of my parent’s cottage with my sister and watch as the sun rose, the morning light catching on the dewdrops, making our little hollow glimmer.

I used to think it was magic, but now I knew otherwise.

Magic was the darkness that existed between the trees, the place where light did not shine, and it had taken everything.

“Are you so regretful?”

I opened my eyes and looked up at Casamir, whose features were harsh but not angry. I could not tell exactly how he felt, but there was a tightness to his mouth and eyes that made me think that he was struggling, but with what, I did not know.

“It is not as if we can help what happened,” I said and looked away before I could see his reaction. I was too afraid to know what he was thinking or how he really felt. What if he regretted me?

“Will you not look at me?” he asked.

So I did. We glared at one another, a tension building between us that I could not exactly place, but it was hurt and angry and strange, and even with all those emotions, I still felt a keen desire for him.

“How much do you hate me now?” he asked.

I ground my teeth and lowered my brows. All I could manage to say was, “I don’t hate you…not for this.”

I did not think that would make him angrier, and yet his eyes darkened and his jaw ticked, and this time, he looked away.

“Come.”

We left and I remained a step behind him as he led me from the clearing in the woods where our madness had come to a head. He was shirtless and the muscles in his shoulders rippled with each tiny movement. His back was scored with red lines from my fingernails. I liked that I had marked him in some way, but the fact that others would see it and know embarrassed me, though I wasn’t sure why I cared.

Perhaps it was because I was supposed to hate him.

I was supposed to hate him and…I didn’t.

Why don’t I hate him?

It was not as if he’d done anything to deserve my favor, but there had been a few strange and tender moments last night that had made me feel something beyond the cold anger that had seethed inside me for years. For once, I had not been invisible or forgotten or alone.

Casamir paused and held out his hand to halt me. The sudden stop made my heart race, and I looked at him as he spoke.

“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll only be gone a moment.”

Anything could happen in a moment within his woods, but I stayed where I’d stopped and did not move a single muscle as he vanished into the surrounding trees, returning a moment later as he had said with a red apple in hand.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to me. “It’s safe to eat. I promise.”

Promise.

I liked that word coming from his lips, and I wanted to hear it more. I should have said so, but the strain between us had only grown since we had begun our journey back, so I held on to those words.

I took the apple but only stared at him.

“What’s this for?”

He shrugged and looked a little uncomfortable. “I thought…you might be hungry.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. His actions were so contrary to what I had expected. But he remained very serious, so I pressed my lips together to keep quiet and then cleared my throat.

“Thank you,” I said, and I took a bite from the apple, which was crisp and sweet, noting that Casamir watched my mouth as I ate.

He seemed to realize he was staring and then turned away.

“We should get back.”

We did not speak for the rest of the walk, and when the castle came into view, I felt a sense of dread. I did not know where it came from or what spurred it until Casamir paused and faced me. Suddenly, I realized I did not know how to move beyond this point. There was no going back to whatever had existed between us before, and while that had not been easy, it was better than this strange longing inside me now.

“I,” he began but did not continue.

“What?” I prompted.

He took a moment to speak, but as he did, his tone became more biting.

“Another letter from my true name.” I could not help feeling disgusted by his words, and still he continued. “Did you not set the rules for our encounters? A letter for each time I come by your hand?”

I was so shocked by his words, I couldn’t think, could do nothing but strike him. My hand stung, and his cheek was red.

“How dare you.”

He did not flinch, did not even press his hand to the mark on his face to soothe the pain.

“I only thought I should give you something you wouldn’t regret.”

“When it comes to you, Casamir, I regret everything.”

I turned from him and fled.

The sooner I learned his true name, the better.

I had to get out of here.