Broken Fairy Tales

8

Rhys. Ash tasted his name on her tongue, liking how it sounded from her lips. Her heart had fluttered when he started to speak like he knew she was there, thanking her for the food. Finally telling her his name.

Ash had woken up, face down on her bed, the covers damp under her face. She had drooled while asleep. Unattractive, but no one was able to reach her hidden bedchamber to see. If they could reach her in her hidden home, a bit of drool on the blankets would be far from the worst thing they saw.

Ash had looked at the clock on her wall, seeing how late it was, wondering where the wolf was. She searched the castle with her mind and found him in the library, building a fire with his hands. Shit, she hoped he wasn’t worried at being left alone the entire day, or if he had noticed her absence at all. She wondered what he had done all day, without her watching him almost constantly.

He was smiling as he worked, she spied over his shoulder, he was making notes, and charting a map. He was planning on leaving. Something deep inside her chest twisted thinking of him leaving. She had enjoyed having him in her home, watching him, listening to his heart beat in the still castle. Stealing cuddles from his warm body while he slept and she froze time just to enjoy it without risking him knowing. But really, this was for the best. He should run away from here as soon as possible before her magic hurt him. She wasn’t safe to be around.

She would do everything she could to help speed him on his journey. Back to his Gloria. Once she had heard him say her name in his dream, it was clear Gloria was his mate, her name written on his heart and in his soul. He wasn’t marked, so he had to get back to her, to finish their love story. One fated by the gods. Ash had been foolish to even fantasize what it might be like to have more with him than their current arrangement. She knew better, and now she was going to help him flee her, and break her own heart in the process.

She was almost glad that she was broken. That her dragon had withered and died before her birth according to her family. Being born without a dragon meant she couldn’t stake a claim on anyone, but it also meant she wouldn’t have to deal with the rejection of the mate bond. If her heart hurt this much now after just watching the first man she had seen that wasn’t a relative, then the pain of a mate rejecting the monster that she was would have been unbearable.

Her hand and wrist slipped from the oversized robe she wore to guard against the chill of the castle, exposing her silvered scarred skin. She hastily pulled the sleeve back down to hide the ugly marks. No it was definitely better this way, no beast meant no mate, and never having to feel the wrenching pain of her soul being torn apart during the rejection. Because certainly, no one would ever look at her monstrous form and feel anything but hate or disgust.

She watched him eat, and while he was distracted by the food used her magic to clean up his map, improve the scale, and subtly hint at a path she knew to be safe. She let herself slip into his memories as he ate, seeing the lively pack house he had grown up in, wishing she knew more, wanting to put names to the faces she saw. The food made him homesick, it was a feeling she knew well. Not homesick for a place, but for a time when the world was big, and family kept you safe. Before learning how dark the world could be.

She wished she could talk to him in person. She longed to get to know him better, to have him share his heart with her instead of her creeping in his head to catch his thoughts and memories as they crossed his mind. There was so much he kept carefully hidden, tucked away far back in his mind where she couldn’t reach. She wanted to know his secrets, maybe even share some of hers with him. She’d never felt like he was making her feel.

Maybe if she was able to glamour herself like she did the castle, maybe then she would have considered going out into the open, wearing a face that wasn’t hers to talk with him. But her brothers made sure that when they cursed her and bound her to this castle that she wouldn’t be able to hide herself behind magic. All she could do was cover herself in layers of clothes, to hide the scars from herself; all the mirrors had broken the day she was cursed, so at least she never saw herself in a reflection either. Hidden was best, she was just tempted because she was lonely. He would leave, taking temptation with him, and then she could resume her quiet life, studying her magic and trying to learn to control it.