radicalducati 68. Deceive Him
68. Deceive Him
Jessamine
I gasp, my fingers clutching for my throat as if to retract the words. It burns. It hurts. I feel it, stronger than I ever had, shinning bright enough to see. The thread that tethers us together. Fragile, yet unbreakable. The edges begin to fray, as though it's been hedged at with a sword.
"No!" Kier howls. He makes to hold me, but he suddenly shudders, shutting his eyes in anguish and he stumbles, falling on his knees, gripping my calves. "Jess, please," he rasps.
I kick at his hands, eager to get the hell away from him and rid myself of the growing ache in my chest. Bile rises to my throat and I breathe, and breathe, and breathe to keep it down. Kier tugs too hard and I'm falling back, shuffling away from him with my hands on the ground.
He extends a hand to me, desperation and pain etched on his face, and then it's gone. His eyes suddenly burn cold and his knees and hands are spread out on the ground, a guttural roar rippling from his mouth covered in elongated canines. He bays, a painful sound as bones twitch and realign. Hair grows into fur. Red fur. My mental walls shudder as an inveritable force slams into it again and again. It's Kier. He's in my head.
Those eyes burn into mine as he roars out at me, knocking it down completely and I feel his reach for it, the snapping the tether, the touch intangible, yet, I feel it in me, warm and strong. The strength of his roar has my hair whipping back from my face and for the first time before Kier, I feel fear as he says in a layered voice, "Reject me?! Never!"
When he lets go, the hurt in my chest is gone and the tether is whole. And then, he lunges for me, claws and paws and snapping teeth. I can't move, not even if I wanted to. My limbs are frozen in fear as he seems to stretch taller and wider in the seconds before he reaches me.
Something heavy slams into him, half-throwing him across and someone else lifts me off the ground, running like hell. "Fuck!" Mikkel yells, gripping me like a child.
I look back to see Az, Barton and Julian trying and failing to keep Kier away from me. He's larger than three of them put together. Paws grip onto Az and toss his across, into a tree. The sickening crunch of bones breaking has my lunch roiling in my stomach and I force my gaze away. Camilla is running behind us and there's so much fear in her eyes, it mirrors mine.
"Fuck," Mikkel breathes again, picking up speed and I shut my eyes against the tears and dizziness. We run for a time and occasionally, Kier's roaring splits the air, shakes the forest. We don't stop until he is out of earshot, and when Mikkel set me down, I dive behind a tree and retch.
************
Kier
It is easy to judge me until you have to decide to execute the woman who raised you, loved you and taught you everything you've ever known, a woman whose pain and torture you watched at your father's hands, a woman you pleaded for and got whipped in turn for get involved in those fights, a woman who washed and tended your wounds, wept over your sick, frail body when you were in the throes of death.
A terrible, despicable woman she could be, but she has never been anything but a good mother.
I fucked up. Lately, all I've ever done is fuck everything up. I'm a walking disaster, confused, angry, frustrated and constantly in pain. I have sworn to put the people first, my duties first, and now I am breaking my path to the crown and throne, hiding my mother's secret. Perhaps, I should have damned it all in the beginning and made Jessamine Luna instead, since I'm already spiralling down the path my father took.
But I didn't hide it from Jessamine to protect mother. I did it for myself. Because I wanted to be selfish for once. Because if I had been in Jessamine's shoes and such need had been delivered to me, coupled with everything that has already transpired, I would not hesitate to kill any and everything connected to my mother's murderer.
I feared she would despise me even more. I feared she would want me dead. She loved her mother, and mine killed her, made her an orphan at a too young age. I feared what her retailation would be, and I made a decision. It would have been easy to hide it from her. I thought I'd never see her again. I was eager to hide from her, to keep the truth where it would remain hidden.
A coward's choice.
Even now, as I traispe down the path, heeding her call for me, I have no words to offer that could make it right again. I fear nothing will ever be right again. Doomed is all our connection will ever be, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if it will ever be fixed.
Jessamine stands on her toes, reaching for a pomengrate from a tree whose branch is a foot taller than she is. Much too engrossed, she doesn't notice me pulling closer, until I've plucked the fruit. She turns swiftly, red-rimmed eyes startled.
I swallow at the sight of her face, still red from crying. I expect her lips to curse at me. I expect her eyes to hold only hate. I expect her to condemn me and try to reject me again. I expect so many things.
She only stares at me with hollow eyes filled with mistrust. "King Kier," she murmurs with a tight nod toward the fallen log and turns slightly, settling on the farthest edge of it. Her legs stretch out in front of her and she crosses one over the other. "I have been thinking--"
My legs take me forward, my body dancing to tunes I do not play, until I am before her, head bowed, and for the second time in hours, I lower myself to her feet and drop on one knee. "Jessamine, I am--"
She laughs. "Don't apologize to me, King Kier. Even you must have realized that your words are worth nothing." A pause. "Raise your head and look at me."
I do, and I find cold, calculating eyes peering back at me. Her lips curl up with digust and a battle ram is sledged into my chest. "My father will have your head and that of your family when he learns the truth."
I nod.
Her eyes shimmer with temper, but it's gone in the next second, replaced by that vacant ice. "I can see that death doesn't scare you."
I find myself saying before I can stop myself, "It is you who frightens me. Only you."
The only sign of her surprise is a slow blink. Slender nails tap against her riding leathers in an unhurried rhythm. "I will keep your secret until the war is over, but you must do something for me, else I send letters to retract my army from your borders and you will be left defenseless. Again."
I wish to tell her there's no need to threaten me. I'll do whatever she wants me to, but as she says, my words have become as worthless as I am. "Yell at me if you must. Curse at me. Allow me a chance to explain. To..." I swallow. "To redeem myself. I didn't want to hide it. I had no choice. I was scared you would despise me for what my mother had done, and I accept that it wasn't the wisest thing--"
Her brows rise. "Do you remember what you said to me that night in your tent, when you discovered my mother's identity?" Of course, I remember. She'd said to me, “Do you now find me repulsive? I’m Jessamine. I’m..I’m me. Not Madeline.”
And I had been a fool, responding to her in a harsh tone I was sure would get her angry enough to stay the hell away from me. “An apple doesn’t fall far from its tree.”
"Jessamine, please," I whisper. "I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do."
Her face remains blank. Unfazed. "Upon reaching your lands, you will make me your advisor, include me in every meeting with your council, and you will not make any decisions concerning this war without consulting me first. And when the war is over, you will give Renae to me."
My chest tightens unbearably. "I cannot. My mother belongs in Neredia. Whatever punishments she might receive for her crimes will be dished out only by me."
She hops to her feet immediately. "Then I'm afraid we must part to meet again on the battlefield. I do hope you have enough men alive at the end of YOUR battle to fight against my father's battalion."
"You can't be serious. You can't expect that I give her up to die by your father's hand. She is my mother!"
A blank stare. "And my mother deserved it? Was her life not as important as Renae's because she was a whore?"
My hands ball into fists. "That is not what I meant. We don't know why it happened--"
"Are you even listening to yourself? You're a pathetic fool. Gods, had I seen all of this, I never would have looked your way. Who, in this fucked up world we live in deserves for their lives to be taken from them? Who deserves to be found on the cold, hard floor, drowning in their pool of blood by their child?" Silver shines briefly in her hate filled gaze and shame washes over me. She spits by the ground by my feet. "You disgust me."
She walks past and I cave, reaching for her gloved fingers. She flinches like my touch burns. "G-give me time to consider it--"
"You have five minutes."
"Five minutes to decide if I want my mother brutally executed? That's horseshit and you know it."
Her answering smile is crude, and the unholy light of vengeance sparkles in her eyes. "I will make it swift and bloodless."
I peer down. Her fingers are crossed. My blood chills. Thoughts swarm me, both nauseating and cruel. I think of my mate with a sword covered in my mother's blood. My fingers tremble with dread. This is another test from Jessamine, I realize. To choose between her and the woman who's sold out the kingdom, had my best friend captured, and killed my mate's mother. The choice should be easy. But it is not. I inhale, caving and caving to her demands. I need this. I need her. Mother...fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckety fuck.
But they'll all die if Jessamine returns with her forces. They'll all die because I'm too much of a coward to let my mother face the music of her actions.
I inhale. And exhale. "Fine."
Jessamine startles, staring at me like I've grown another head. "Fine?"
I grip the dagger hanging from her belt and slit the centre of my palm before I can change my mind. Before I can properly think. She hesitates, but her soft fingers brush against mine as she takes the dagger, jolting me with the barest of touches.
She slits her palm and closes it over mine. A blood oath, because I know there's no other way she'd ever trust my words again. Her lips pull back from her teeth in a fierce snarl. "Swear it."
I say the words carefully. Blood oaths are tricky. Words can be manipulated and will bring about undesired results. She speaks her words, but at the very last second, adds an additional clause to the oath. "For as long as I remain in Neredia, your attention and your ears will be mine alone. When I call for you, you will heed, regardless of what it might cost you. You will never refuse me."
Panic flared to life inside me and I start to pull my hand away from hers, but she's completed her oath and the Goddess's magic is settling down heavy on us like a blanket. I gasp, shuddering, and I am of enough mind to see that she's trembling too from the weight of it.
I peel her hands off, snarling. "What the FUCK was that?! That wasn't part of the agreement!" She might as well have asked me to be her fucking slave for the next Goddess knows how long this war might last.
She steps closer, eyes ablaze. "Just a touch of lessons you so cruelly taught me. Turns out, I quite like being a cunning little witch."
It hits me like a blow then. Much too occupied by my thoughts and guilt, I'd let her push me in this direction. She'd said my words meant nothing and she knew I'd give her the blood oath to prove otherwise. I stare down at her, reassessing. "What are you planning?"
Jessamine shrugs, her coat moving smoothly against her skin pale from the lack of sun. "You'll see."
"If you hurt the people I care about, I will--"
"Will what, Kier?" she croons, closing the distance in quick menacing strides. "Do you ever get tired of making promises you can't keep? Will you hurt me? Will you try to rip my head off like you did last night? Will you banish me again? Or will you kill me to save them from my wrath? Do tell. Surprise me with something new."
I say nothing and she nods, "Thought so. How did you stop the bond from breaking?"
Even I don't have the answer to that question. I didn't want it. Zephyr didn't want it. It just happened. It is unheard of. That a wolf's desperation and will alone to save the bond had been enough. And something else I couldn't come to admit to myself. It's been quiet ever since, the well of strength deep within me colder than ice. Zephyr gave me hell, shutting me out with just two words. "Fix. It."
Fix things with Jessamine. If only I knew how.
"I don't know," I admit to her.
She only nods. "You may have stopped the bond from breaking, but it doesn't change the fact that I now consider it nulled."