‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
The note from Elda was keeping my eyes glued open. I couldn't stop thinking of the vial of poison and the dagger I hid in the wardrobe, just feet away from where I was now lying in bed. Elda had asked me to kill the king. King Gabriel, the king of power himself. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified of him. I was. Most ardently. And the thought of killing him it...it excited me. I wanted to kill him, I really did. I hadn't signed up to be a part of the Killers of Kings for nothing. And killing the source of evil itself? It sounded like I had struck the goldmine as a spy. But I would never be able to. I'd never be able to get close enough. Not to mention he had guards stationed around him always. He probably slept with guards in his room. Also, he had that wretched power. He could break my bones with half a thought. I'd never be strong enough to face him. My ice would be like blowing against a boulder and expecting it to start rolling.
I hadn't let myself think about what Elda asked me to do these past few days. The past few days had been nothing short of perfect. Sable and I...well Sable and I were making up for the time we hadn't spent together in all our lives. He was taking time out of his day for me. Not going to meetings, skipping briefings. He said he had been a diligent assassin for over two hundred years now, they should allow him a little leeway. Thinking of Sable now...it brought an excitement over me. Sable treated me like an equal, but also like I was too good to touch. The way he kissed me felt like he was savoring every touch. He held me like it was the last time everytime. And I loved it, but it also worried me because everytime could be our last time.
We were going under direct orders of the king. None of the cadre were supposed to be together, it caused our partnership complex to change. The king's rules were why Caspian and Nazira never got together. They had been "sneaking around" according to Sable, since about a hundred years ago. A hundred years of foreplay...I couldn't imagine.
Sable sighed next to me, rolling over onto his back. I glanced over at him, watching as the moonlight skittered over his face. He had fallen asleep hours ago after we had both sent each other into a coma of bliss. But regardless of what happened, it hadn't exhausted me enough. My thoughts were too loud, blaring even, for me to sleep. The wardrobe seemed to be calling out to me, begging me to just throw those murder weapons away. But...but what if I'd never see them again? It wasn't like I was exactly permitted to have weapons on me. The king didn't trust me enough. And poison was rare and I was never alone, so it wasn't like I could've gone out and just bought some. Could one even buy poison?
Sable sighed again, except this time it sounded more like a groan. Something strange embedded itself in my chest. My heart started to pound, my blood started to rush in my ears. It felt like fear. I didn't have time to contemplate it. I turned over to see his eyes were flicking under his eyelids, his brows furrowed. His hands were digging into the sheets, his muscles twitching. I barely had time to gasp before shadows exploded.
Darkness erupted over the room, absorbing every bit of light. They felt as cold as a blade's edge as they streaked over me and I gasped as one scraped against my cheek, drawing blood. I rolled over onto the floor, dropping in a heap. I kept my hands raised over my head as wind whipped around me. I felt like I was in the middle of a hurricane. I ripped my eyes open to see Sable still in bed, he looked like he was in pain. The shadows were all emanating from him, and I watched in horror as they darkened and moved.
It all suddenly made sense. "He's having a nightmare," I muttered. I bounded over to the bed, practically flinging myself onto it. I positioned myself over Sable, practically straddling him as I stared down at his sleeping face. He was twitching now, muttering something.
"Sable, wake up," I said, touching his face. His skin felt feverish. "Sable, you're having a nightmare." I shook him gently but he didn't stir. I shook him with a little more force but yet he still stayed sleeping. I yelled a bit but still nothing. The shadows were increasing now, I could barely stay upright with how strong they were whipping around me.
"I have no other options," I muttered sighing. "Gods's above." I reached down and slapped my hand against Sable's face as hard as I could. I leaned back on my heels, holding my stinging palm to my chest. Thank god for fae healing or else I would've just left a nasty bruise on his glorious face.
Suddenly, the shadows stopped. The light came flooding back and everything went quiet. Save for my labored breathing. Sable stopped writhing under me and his eyes flung open. He burst onto his elbows, still looking a little disoriented, he reached out to his left, where I had been before. When he found that it was empty he whirled forward...only to be met with me.
I placed a hand on his chest, feeling the solid thump of his heart. "You were having a nightmare," I said, sounding breathless. "You were making shadows dance around the room."
"Dance?" he muttered, reaching out for my face. He frowned at the blue blood that coated his fingers. Oh damn, I had forgotten one of his shadows had cut me. "Fuck, Eira." He wrapped a tendril of shadow around my waist and practically hauled me off of him before getting out of bed. He walked over to the bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants, riding low on his hips.
I stumbled out of bed, running over to where I heard the faucet running. He was holding a towel under the stream of water, his face like stone. I placed a hand on his arm and he flinched under me. I ripped my hand away, feeling as if I had been slapped in the face.
He faced me, grabbing my hip and pulling me towards him. Gently, he lifted me onto the counter, spreading my legs and positioning himself between them. He then got to work cleaning my cheek.
"You want to tell me what's going on?" I asked.
"It's nothing," he said. Anger, cold and livid, bubbled in my chest. I reached up and pulled the cloth from his hand.
"If it's nothing you should go back to bed," I said. "I can clean my own gods-damned face."
"Eira," he said, placing a hand on my arm. "I didn't mean to offend you." He sighed, placing his hands besides my legs on the counter and leaning forward. "It's just...I hurt you."
"Yes, and?" I asked, confused.
"I promised myself I wasn't going to hurt you again. You're...you're bleeding because of me." I sighed, grabbing his jaw I bent his head down and kissed the top of his head.
"You were having a nightmare, you weren't lucid, I'd hardly count my injury as a result of a conscious decision. I can't blame you, Sable," I said, running my hands through his hair. "What...what were you dreaming about?" His muscles went rigid and I cursed inwardly. I just ruined a tender moment, didn't I?
"You," he said. "Or I think it was." He stood straight, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. He reached up and continued to clean my cheek. "I dreamt you were screaming, but I couldn't get to you. Darkness, not my own, was swirling around me, creating a border between you and I. I kept trying to get to you but I couldn't, and that was a type of agony I never want to feel again." I placed my hand over his, the one that was at my cheek.
"Well I'm right here, Sable. And I'm not leaving anytime soon, we've established this," I laughed softly but his face didn't budge. His gray eyes were swirling with thoughts and I knew he was lost in his mind. I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips. That broke him out of his reverie. Worked like a charm. "It was just a dream. It wasn't real."
"But that's the thing," he said, sighing sharply. "It didn't feel like just a dream. I...I got these weird dreams, for the longest time. Really vivid dreams. It'd be with a little girl, I'd be looking through her eyes. I actually followed her journey for years. I watched her grow up."
"Do you...do you still get them?" I asked. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't weirded out. But my father always said dreams were good, he said they were always put into your head for a reason. He was one of those people that believed if you dreamt of someone continuously that they were important to you. Linked. He dreamt of my mother a lot, obviously.
"No," he said, running the cloth down my neck. "They stopped a couple months ago. But before that, they got spotty. Only brief moments I saw. And then...the last one was her running in a forest. She was hurt, desperate. After that, I got nothing, it was as if she closed herself off from me, I don't know. Of course they're just dreams but...but they don't feel like dreams."
"I dream of my sister sometimes," I said. "I think we dream up the people we need most." I brushed a hand against his chest, letting it traill down to the V of his hips. I traced those indents. "Not that I think you need another woman in your life," I joked, bumping his shoulder with mine.
Sable looked down at me, the cloth now at my collarbones. "Eira, what's your story? You've never...you've never told me anything about yourself." I sucked in a sharp breath, feeling the temperature in the room drop.
"It's not a good one," I whispered, my voice shaking. I desperately wanted to tell Sable my story. I wanted to tell him the truth. But the truth involved secrets I just could not give up. He could never know my story. I could never tell it to him, and I was certainly not going to tell him lies, that'd only make me feel worse. For now, silence was the only answer.
"I don't care," he said simply, leaning down to press a kiss to my collarbone. "I want to hear it." He nipped at my skin and I sighed, wanting to lose myself in his touch, and I almost did, but his words were still ringing around in my head.
"I'll tell you one day but...but not tonight," I said. Sable stopped kissing me, placing a hand on my leg.
"Whenever you're ready, my love," he said. And then we went back to bed. And I struggled to wonder how I deserved him. The answer...I didn't.
"No fucking way. Why haven't you shown these to me?" I muttered in awe, running my hands over his skin in awe.
"I don't show them to just anyone," Sable muttered, staring up at me, an amused grin on his face. I hardly cared that I was openly gaping at him, not when there was such a big reason to gape. I stared at the black ink that looked like the swirling shadows he was known to control. The tattoos started at the tips of his fingers and climbed up his arms, stopping at his pectorals. It looked a lot like the design on my back.
"Well no shit you don't just show them to anyone," I said, hitting his chest. I was currently sitting on him, straddling him in bed. He'd been reading before, but I had woken up to see that he had a new look about him. Apparently, he had them glamoured before, hidden by fae magic, so that anyone who he didn't want seeing them, didn't see them. "Not even your girlfriend." I mumbled. Sable froze and I felt my eyes widen.
"Fuck," I breathed. I began to shift off of him when he suddenly placed his hands on my hips.
"Eira, did you just call yourself my girlfriend?" he asked, his thumbs stroking my hips. I wasn't wearing much, just one of his old t-shirts, meanwhile he was very much shirtless.
"Uh...no," I said, shaking my head. "I meant your best friend that happens to be a girl. Really, I've been lots of guy's girlfriend. Girls girlfriends. Really, I'm like the worlds girlfriend-"
Sable suddenly placed a hand over my mouth. "Eira?" he asked.
"Yes?" I mumbled against his palm.
"Shut up." He moved his hand only long enough to sit up and press a kiss to my lips. I moaned, leaning into him. He broke the kiss, running a hand down my back. "I like hearing you call yourself my girlfriend, I've never had one of those before."
"Damn straight," I said. Sable chuckled, before grabbing me and pushing me onto my back. This time he was straddling me.
"Why did you keep your tattoos a secret?" I asked. I literally couldn't stop touching them. My hands kept gravitating to the beautiful ink running down the length of his arms and hands. Also his skin was velvet soft, which wasn't helping at all.
"The tattoos have an...important meaning to me," he said. "I got them after I formed my cadre. They were the ones to show me that my darkness wasn't the evil thing I thought it to be. That it could be beautiful, a thing of good. So I got the tattoos as a representation of that. To show that my darkness is beautiful.
"I'm supposed to be this great creature of evil. A killer. And I am. But I don't want that to be all I am. I don't want to be defined by the job I was forced to take when I was eight years old. I don't want to be the king's killer, I just want to be Sable Deidre."
"I see you. All of you. And you're nothing but Sable Deidre to me," I whispered, reaching up and kissing him gently. "Thank you for showing me." Sable laid down next to me, reaching over and pulling me against him. We were spooning.
"I didn't know the assassin of the crown was one for cuddles," I said, reaching over to poke his arm.
"Not a word," Sable said, kissing the top of my head. "But now that I've shared a secret with you, you have to share a secret with me."
"Oh I do?" I asked, grinning.
"Yes, it's how the rules go."
"Oh right, right, how could I forget?" I said. "Okay, well, this isn't much of a secret, definitely not something i'm hiding, but I don't think I've ever told you that I'm bi."
"Well it's not much of a secret if I already knew that," Sable said. I twisted around so that I could face him. "What! How did you know?"
"I saw the way you looked at Nazira when she first walked in. Two words: heart-eyes."
I slapped his chest. "Yeah well I'm not blind, anyone with vision would look at Nazira like that."
"True," Sable agreed, shrugging.
"Tell me something about you," I said, entwining my legs with his. I found I was perfectly content right where I was. If I never had to move again I'd be happy. There, in bed with Sable, wrapped up in his arms was my happy place. I never wanted to leave.
"Alright," he said, looking skyward as if he was thinking of something. "My mother used to call me her little prince." I laughed. "What? I was a child!"
"No, no, I'm not making fun of you, it's just...cute," I said. "And I never thought you'd be cute."
"I'm not cute," he said, frowning down at me.
"You're so cute," I said, pressing a kiss to his nose. He growled and I squeaked, rolling away from him. He grabbed my waist and pulled me back towards him. He then pinned me underneath him, straddling me.
"So you were your mothers prince of shadows?" I asked, placing my hands on his chest. The tattoos were such a turn on.
"Yeah, something like that," Sable said, bending down to kiss me. I got lost in the heat of the kiss, running my hands down his chest. He found the hem of my shirt and pulled it up, freeing my legs which I promptly wrapped around his waist. Sable reached down and began to unbutton my shirt, practically ripping it off of me. I tugged my hands through his hair and both of us moaned as he pressed his lips to my chest. His hand was just drifting down to my thighs when suddenly the door banged open.
Sable immediately threw shadows over me, covering my entire body from the neck down. Meanwhile he kept a protective arm over me, peering up at the door. "Ayaz, you better have a good fucking reason," he growled. He tossed the covers over me and stood, letting his shadows drain back to him.
I looked up to see Ayaz in the doorway, a content smile on his face. He was wearing a sweater and tan pants, looking awfully cozy. "Well good morning to you too," he said, his brows furrowing. "See, I tried knocking, but no one answered, and there were these crazy moans coming from your side of the door, so I figured if I just knocked it open-"
"Get to the point," Sable said.
"Gods above, you impatient oaf, I haven't said good morning to my pride and joy yet," Ayaz muttered. He spun towards me. "Good morning Eira, you look lovely today. Is that an after-sex glow you're wearing?" I threw a pillow at him.
"Cranky today, are we?" Ayaz said after getting smacked right in the face with my cushion weapon. "Anyways, I just wanted to say that we've been invited to a ball."
"A what?" I asked, sitting up, keeping a blanket pinned to me.
"The king has decided to host a ball," Ayaz said, throwing two invitations down onto the bed. "It's actually in your honor, Eira."
I gaped at him. "My honor?" I asked. "That's impossible. I'm pretty sure Gabriel loathes me."
"Oh he totally does," Ayaz said, plopping down onto the small couch that was at the foot of the bed. "But people are asking about you. It's been a bit since your little ice display in the square and people want to see you again. Not to mention he's also going to give you your wings."
"Wings!" I asked, my brows shooting up to my hairline. "It's too early for that, isn't it?" I asked, panic lodging itself deep in my throat.
"No," Sable said. "He's deemed you ready it appears. He asked for an update on your training the other day. I told him the truth, that you were exceeding well and your powers were unmatched."
"You made me sound like I was ready to be winged!" I said, wishing I had another pillow to throw at Sable now.
"Because you are. I don't want to give you the life of my cadre, Eira. At least not the life of a killer. But you were eventually going to have to move up in rank."
"But this..." I pressed a hand to my forehead. "I'm not ready for this." Sable sighed, reaching a shadow out to caress my shoulder.
"Well, I'll take that as my cue to leave," Ayaz said, saluting us awkwardly and walking out of the room. Though not before grabbing a scone off the breakfast tray that Sable had brought in before I woke up.
"Sable this is crazy," I said, grabbing my shirt and pulling it on. Sable visibly frowned as I did. "I can't...I can't become a member yet. That's official. There's no backing out. Not that I could before but-"
"Eira," Sable said gently. His eyes were dark, somber, and his face was pinched. "You know the king wouldn't give you a chance either way. If you refuse him you'll get hurt and I'm not going to have him hurt you through me. I won't let him."
"But-"
"Whipping you before was different. I didn't want to but I was able to. But now...now I know I could never force myself to. He couldn't make me. And then what would happen? He'd ask why I'd formed an attachment when I haven't shown anyone affection for anyone in a long time. He'd grow suspicious and then it'd be revealed that we've been going against his orders all along. And then we'd both get hurt which is pretty much the entire point of what I don't want happening." He took a breath, slumping back against the column after his rant. "Don't let him win."
"Either way he wins," I said, frowning down at my hands. Sable walked over to me, sitting down on the bed behind me. He pulled me into his lap, pressing my back against his front. He pressed a kiss to my head, rubbing my arm gently.
"I'm so sick of playing by his rules," I said, my voice cracking.
"I know, love. I know," Sable said. "I am too." We stayed that way for a while, simply holding each other, until I nearly fell asleep in his arms. My head had bobbed for the second time when I realized Sable had moved. I picked my head up to see he was rummaging with something on the desk.
"What are you doing?" I asked groggily, rubbing at my eyes. So maybe I hadn't been half-asleep but actually asleep. I blamed his very comfortable arms.
"I wanted to give you this," he said, turning around. In his hands was what looked like a shining silver necklace. As he walked closer I saw that it was nearly identical to the one around his own neck. A silver chain with a feather charm.
"All of my cadre wears these. They're representative of the family we are, the union we've formed. The love we have. I should've given you this a while ago, but I haven't given someone one of these in a long time." He sat down behind me, pushing my hair over my shoulder. "I see the way you act with the others. It's like you've always belonged here and they feel the same. You are a part of our cadre, Eira." Sable clasped the necklace and I felt his fingers brush against my nape. His lips pressed themselves to that space between my shoulders.
"Please tell me you want to be a part of us." His voice was just a whisper, vulnerable. He wasn't sure I wanted to be a part of the cadre.
I turned around, placing both of my hands on either side of his face. "Of course I want to be a part of the cadre," I said. "I want to be with you, and Nazira, and Caspian, and even Ayaz...most of the time," he chuckled. "I know how much they mean to you."
Sable pressed a sweet, slow kiss to my lips. "Thank you," he said. I kept my eyes closed, ignoring the way the guilt was shredding me apart. One strip at a time.