“Anwen, I’ve never had sex. With anyone.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She looked at me for a long while, her face portraying surprise and wonder. It took her a beat to assimilate the information and even longer to process it enough to reply to me. Even then, she looked lost for words, the news supposedly the last thing she expected me to say, especially after she took me in her hand and offered herself freely to me. I wanted to convince her, to explain my choices, the traditions she had no knowledge of that supported part of my decision.
“Fae children are very rare and they must always come as the fruit of a marriage, which is why we have so many laws concerning the fact. A male can only marry after he completes his first keeper assignment, during which he is given three years to court and find a mate, or at least the closest, next best thing. Those who do not find their mate sometimes choose to marry their friends or lovers from their youth.”
Anwen settled back on the blanket of petals, listening to my explanation while covering with the garment she had chosen for the day. She sipped every one of my words, so I continued. “My older brother, Damaris, wed when I was only a boy, but he and his wife have not been blessed with any children, whereas my other brother, Vikram chose to become commander of the force that roams the earth to keep the peace. It makes them incapacitated from having children, out of fear that they might copulate with humans and our species would be revealed. So when they take the oath to form part of the guard, they have to drink a large enough quantity of sterilising potion, it changes their anatomy and makes them incapable of siring offspring.”
“And you are the youngest of the three, and two of them cannot have children,” she voiced her realisation.
“Ever since Vikram took his oath, Mother became adamant to insure the continuation of our family, so much so that she started sending different servants or ladies of the higher classes into my chambers at the most awkward and annoying of times, in hope that I might plant seed in any of them,” I admitted. She frowned in disapproval, struggling to understand Mother’s motives. I admit, so did I, many times.
“So you’ve never been with anyone, because you are afraid of having children?”
“Not at all,” I hurried back and took a seat next to her, taking her hand, which she blissfully allowed to rest in mine. “I want to have a family and I am eager to find my mate.” For a moment I thought whether this was a good moment to tell her more, but judging by her look, seeing how she struggled to understand, I decided not to overflow the information. I had to tell her, show her the darkest part of me. Prove to her my inability to let go. Show her how I remained captive in the pain, unable to forget, scarred by what the other males witnessed so often it had made them immune. Demonstrate my weakness to the woman I loved.
“There is something else.” I barely expelled the words and unshed tears climbed towards my eyelids, deciding to hang there for this part of the conversation. Anwen spotted them, of course she did, but thankfully her hand remained in mine and squeezed it with reassurance. Telling me to trust her.
“During my first war, in the Wind Kingdom, the firelings managed to put together an army. They had a battalion, more or less.” She nodded, ushering me to continue. “Whenever they escape in a large number, we have to join forces. An individual territory can handle a few, but they are powerful and they destroy at touch, so we were summoned to help. It took about a week.” Images flooded my mind, memories I had kept hidden, controlled, fearing the reactions they awoke. But I forced myself to continue, holding onto Anwen, a pillar keeping me grounded into the present.
“The battlefield is a difficult image to take in. There are bodies everywhere, smells of rotting intestines and blood, everywhere, on everything. There is no fresh air, just the choking metal on metal, the clinking of lives falling away. I expected that. I was not prepared for the nearby village to be set ablaze, by some of the escaped firelings. It was never an agreement, but more of an unspoken decision. That soldiers would meet soldiers and fight for territory.
That woman and children had to be spared. The tradition had been followed since the beginnings. That day, they decided to stop.” I took a breath, forcing my gaze to focus onto a nearby tree, then continued.
“There were so many injured, so many screaming in agony. My warriors and I were the first to arrive and aid, we grabbed as many as we could and summoned whatever water force we could find nearby to trample the flames. They engulfed everything, trees, faeries, animals. We saved as many as we could, though some more died from their injuries. Along with a pregnant woman. I found her nestled into the barn, she thought that hiding with the pigs might spare her life. It did not. Her skin, once set ablaze, was falling off her bones. She took her final breaths by my side. I wanted to hold her but I did not want to cause more pain.” I could not stop the tears from falling as I muffled a cry.
“She had positioned herself on her knees, bending over her belly, head and arms nestling it, trying to protect it from the blow. She could have run, could have tried to save herself, but by the size of her belly she was due within days and doing so might have risked the baby. She willingly scorched her body, trying to save it. Hoping that I would save it. She died with a smile on her lips. But I couldn’t. There was no way, even if I was a prince. I still did not have enough power. I stood there, holding the remaining pieces of her as I counted the baby’s heartbeats, followed as they slowed and barely echoed. Until they stopped completely. Because I was not good enough, strong enough to do something about it,” I finished, breathless. I forced myself to continue, even when I wanted to stop and cry, I needed to expulse this memory and make her part of it.
“How old were you?” she asked.
“Nineteen,” I replied between cries.
“You were so young,” she tried to defend me.
“Had I been a year older I could have saved her,” I exclaimed, wiping the last of the tears away. “We connect with the Cloutie trees on our twentieth birthday. If I’d stayed on the battlefield, if I hadn't chased those escaped firelings, I could have…”
“Even more would have died. The entire village and who knows how many. It was not your fault, Ansgar,” she replied, caressing my arm and dropping a small kiss on my clavicle.
“I couldn't be with anyone after what I saw. Part of it because I saved myself for my mate, yes, but mostly because I was unable to bear a child destined for the same fate. Not with a defenceless female, and put her in danger. Not until I would be ready to protect them.”
When I looked back at Anwen, she shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable, her hand pulling at a strand of hair that waved its way across her neck and fell over her shoulder, caressing the breast that not so long ago stood nibbled in my mouth.
“Anwen, I never meant for this to happen, just, I find it impossible to control my senses when I am around you.” A shiver went through my body, fearing the worst, terrified that she might decide to end this, without even giving me a chance to properly court her, without her getting to know me better and even allow me more days to try to make her feel what my heart shouted since I had first laid eyes on her.
“No, Ansgar, not at all,” she rose from the ground and to my surprise, laid herself in my lap again. This time in a soothing movement rather than one filled with desire.
“I should be the one apologising, we both decided to wait and I should have thought that you may also have your motives,” she said, shifting onto my legs, both of us fighting the growing sensation our bodies sent to each other.
“Anwen, there is nothing moreI—”
“Ansgar, I am really—”
We both stopped, grins popping up on our faces. I caught her in my palms and squeezed her tight, placing my head onto her chest and allowing myself to breathe after a long beat. Her hands kneaded into my hair. She placed her lips onto my head, dropping soft calming kisses on my brow. I wanted to shout my heart to her. Tell her that what I felt, in her arms, that her skin onto mine was unequivocally the best I had ever been and nothing in the world could compare with the cadence only her presence could carve into my soul. I had finally found my mate.
“Ansgar, I need to tell you something too,” she whispered to me as I rested onto her, refusing to part myself from her beating heart.
“Anything, fahrenor,” I whispered. That is what she was,my starlight, my guide into the darkness of a life without love.
