Crown of Faeries

19 | Veneer

"I did what had to be done to get you. Caelia, everything I do is for you." In a flash, his hands slipped from holding my wrist and I straightened up slowly. I eyed him wearily as he stepped back away from me, rubbing his eyes with his hands. And that's when I saw it, the veneer that encased his dark heart that had me craving every part of him. He was a demon, a demon worse than even the Fae.

He told you not to trust him. My subconscious seemed to mock me solemnly. His words echoed deep in my body and I felt a shiver take grab of my spine.

"You can stop now." I whisper venomously. "I don't need you destroying yourself to make me yours."

Kieran's eyes fell on mine suddenly with a dark passion ripping at his soul. "I can't help it, Caelia. You're everything I think about and I can't stop myself from driving myself crazy because I'm in love with you."

"I don't want this!" I hissed quietly, not wanting Weston to rush in right now. "And I don't need some dark prince to be my shinning knight in armor."

Kieran snort out a laugh. "Really? You don't want a dark prince to love you?" His eyes turned a cold shade of deep blue. "I see the way Weston looks at you, don't try to paint me as a fool."

I almost choked on my own gulp. I didn't even know that Weston even remotely considered me something more than a peon, something far less than he is. I felt my mouth part but the words were hard to say, and when I did manage to get them out, I sounded far beyond hurt. "You left me, Kieran. And then you show up and don't even really act like you want to see me. And this--this thing that you're doing for your father--"

"I completed my mission." He cut me off with words of stone. "My father's forgiven me but I must prove myself to the Crown--as you are doing."

"Don't make it sound like this is the same thing!" I shouted out suddenly. My words splintered in the air as I cut my syllables short.

Kieran rushed to my side and before I could back away, he grabbed onto my shoulders with an iron vice. "This is the same thing Caelia! It's always been the same thing. This whole god damn place fucks with your brain and makes you become your worse! Don't let him trap you, be mine."

I jerked away from him and he let me slip past him. I walked quickly to the bed room door and turned around on my heels to face him. "I'll never love you Kieran. And so what if I ever love another man? No one would murder innocent people to prove to someone they love them. Monsters do that, monsters that are worse than demons." A single tear slipped from my eyes and I didn't even bother to brush it back. I felt it's warm sting as it coast down my cheeks to caress my jaw. "I'll never love you." I whisper with a throat tearing rasp as I watched his body quake in distress as he gestated my words.

He didn't even bother to say another word as he turned to face his back towards me. Pulling his shirt from his waist band, he unbuttoned his shirt and tore it off. In one sweeping movement, he tossed the shirt in the air and shifted. His wings, in a show of dark, rippling light, emerged from his back and grew to be twice the size he was. The dark and light blues of contrasting colors that made up his feathers, glowed like ocean fire as he stepped closer to the wide opened windows.

Kieran didn't once look back before charging out the window and leaping through. In a rush of sucking air and crackling lights as he momentarily blocked the sun with his arching wings, he left me. Again.

My knees caved and I fell to the floor as I couldn't help to not tear my eyes away from the window. His shadow and scent still lingered and I felt the whisper of his taste on my lips. It happened so long ago, her first kiss, with that man. And she almost wished she hadn't yelled at him and had just finished what they started. She could have loved him. She could have found what he'd done for her to be sweet. She could have made herself his and loved him till she died.