Eyes of Emerald

Chapter Thirty (2)

The next day, I insisted spending time with Wynn. Oberon protested; he wanted me to practice Shifting yet again so he could be sure that I could defend myself in multiple forms. In a fit of annoyance, I told him to screw himself and walked away to find Wynn.

                He was in the same room as I had been, in the Recovery Ward, when this all began. I remembered waking up in the strange room and not knowing where I was, what had happened or pretty much anything else. I knocked softly.

                He was sat in the same kind of wicker chair that old woman who called me Elysia had been sat in. I felt a pang of guilt - I should have asked about her. I made a mental note to remember to ask someone - maybe Wynn would know. He looked up when I knocked, and his battered face split into a wide smile.

                "Hi," he croaked, his voice reflecting the pain he was most probably in. I held back a wince and drew up a chair next to him and picked up his hand, which usually was rough and scarred from using a sword, but now was black and blue. Balthazar really hadn't held back when he'd tortured him. I wanted to punch something at his cruelty.

                "How you feeling?" I asked softly, looking out of the window. I could see Celie and Iris who was waving madly at us from the entrance of the Dining Tent. I blushed, as Iris began to make a heart shape with her hands.

                "Your sister isn't like you at all," Wynn observed, watching her antics with a smile. I bit my lip, wishing she'd stop. She was embarrassing me. "She's more...intense."

                "Different mums," I told him. "We're nothing like him." I spat out the word with contempt. "And don't tell me that I'm like him because we're both Shifters, 'cause that's where the similarities end." I said stubbornly. He laughed softly.

                "You're all brave and stubborn and loyal." he said quietly. "None of you like to back down from a fight and you'll do anything for the ones you love. That's not a bad thing, you know."

                I considered this for a while. I didn't think I was brave - but did running into battle to save my friends make me brave? Did giving myself up to the King, knowing I was likely to die make me brave? Did choosing to sacrifice myself  for hundreds of others make me brave?

                I was certainly stubborn. I had been told that, once I had hold of something when I was younger, I would never give it up unless I absolutely had to. Loyal was something I'd always tried to be; was I really like that? I hoped so. And wasn't doing anything to save your friends a bad thing? If I had to choose between saving a friend and doing what was right, which one would I do? I frowned.

                "You think?" I asked, my voice sounding much more child-like than I had meant it to be. He met my eyes and smiled, taking my chin in one of his hands and kissing me.

                "I know," he said, kissing the edge of my lips and sending a shiver down my spine. I'd never expected it to feel like this - not that I'd ever given it much thought other than the celebrity crushes on Johnny Depp and Jamie Campbell Bower.

                I was glad I was sitting down, because if I had been standing, my knees would have buckled. I smiled into the kiss, feeling warmth radiate down to the tips of my fingers, which had tangled themselves in his hair. The kiss was urgent, and I wondered why he was so passionate, we had only just got back together, we had more time than we needed. I was sure I was hurting him; any movement he made seemed to make him wince, but he didn't stop. It was me who pulled away in the end, gasping for breath.