Chapter Twenty-Three
The next time I woke, I was enveloped in the warmth of a plush, luxurious duvet. We had apparently made it to Reaver's mansion. The décor of the bedroom was precisely his taste. The walls were covered in a deep, burgundy wallpaper, and the molding that bordered the room was gilt and elaborate. The curtains were open, and I could see that night had already fallen on the port of Bloodstone, but the town below burned bright because the thieves and pirates that occupied the place most likely felt more comfortable moving in the night time.
Reaver was nowhere to be found in the room, so I pushed the blankets off of my body. I was clean and I wore a dressing gown made of a filmy, nearly transparent material and edged with white floral lace. My hair had been twined into a tight braid. I removed the ribbon that secured it in place, and I ran my fingers through my soft hair letting it fall in thick waves down my back and, inhaling the rich scents of jasmine and vanilla. I was thankful to have been cleansed of all of the filth, but I was curious as to how such a feat was accomplished. Perhaps Reaver took the time to do the task himself, but it was more likely that a team of servants had tended to me.
I thought nothing more of it, and I stretched. I felt surprisingly well rested. I had expected to still be sick or weak upon waking, but I felt as if I were waking from any other slumber. I pushed off of the bed, and I glanced around the room once more.
The shelves lining the walls were empty, and I imagined that if this were Reaver's personal quarters, that might have been where he'd stored his numerous diaries. His writing desk was empty of everything except for something made of dull, old metal that had a long, tangled chain.
I hurried toward the desk, and I scooped the thing up, my eyes darting to the door, fearing I'd be caught invading my husband's privacy. I had no idea why I was so fearful. He'd left it there, so he obviously wasn't hiding anything. Perhaps I was reading too much into it...
I returned my attention to the object. It was a plain-looking locket, but it was very old. The hinges protested as I tried to open its latch, but they finally gave in, and I was able to see two portraits inside. They were painted and very small, but surprisingly detailed and easy to make out—even being so worn with age.
Reaver was unmistakeable in the portrait on the left. His hair was slightly different—lighter, shorter—but he still looked very much the same. The painter had been able to capture the smug look on his handsome face, so I took this as a hint that in his life before he'd become "Reaver" he'd been fundamentally similar—vain, smug, and sarcastic. Seeing the similarities made me wonder what the differences had been. What sort of man made that deal with The Shadow King and his court? Who had he been before he became Reaver?
The woman in the portrait on the right seemed very familiar to me. She had light hair, and thick smiling lips. The color of her eyes was difficult to make out, but her face was shaped almost like a heart. She was beautiful, and the very existence of the locket implied that she had once been special to Reaver.
"I had to dig that up to be sure," Reaver said, closing the bedroom door behind him.
I jumped. I hadn't even heard the door open. My face burned with embarrassment, and I set the locket back in its place across his desk.
He was cleanly shaven and dressed in a suit of deep, dark red. His mouth was set in a thin, tight line, and his eyes were fixated on the bauble on the desk.
I turned my eyes away, feeling shame creep across my features. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"
"I saw you groping around in my pocket earlier," He said, hesitation edging his voice. "I knew that this would be a subject that would need to be broached at one point or another." He came toward me, his eyes still unable to tear away from the locket.
He finally looked away from the thing, and he looked almost timid as he approached. His face was taut with apprehension, and his eyes avoided mine.
"You had to dig this up to be sure of what?" I asked, taking the thing into my hands once more. I was a little more delicate in opening it this time, and I held it out to him.
He took it hastily, his eyes fixated on it once more. "I had to be sure that it was her... I thought I had gone mad, but I was right. It was her."
I was confused, and I inched closer to him, looking at the small paintings in the locket once more. Who was 'her'? Who was that woman? What ties did she once have to Reaver? Was she his lover? His wife?
"It wasn't her face I recognized...not at first," He explained, closing his hand around the trinket. "It was her screams." His voice had grown shaky and changed to a more nervous pitch, not at all like his usual strong, unwavering tenor. "They pierced and paralyzed my very soul. I hear them in every nightmare I've had since my actions took her life."
My heart thudded nervously in my chest, and the realization flooded over me. "The banshee it was..." Instead of finishing my sentence, I once more gazed down to the picture. In my mind, I envisioned her as the hauntingly beautiful creature that had weakened me in Wraithmarsh, and it all made sense. This woman was someone he'd loved once—before The Shadow Court had gotten their hooks into Reaver...or whoever he was before that.
"The things she said to me..." He trailed off. "I couldn't be sure if it was any other banshee, using what it gleaned from my mind against me...but it was truly her." He turned and took a few steps toward the fireplace, and resting a hand against the mantle. His distress was clear in his tight, tense posture. "It seems that The Shadow Court gave her immortality as well."
I took a few steps forward, but I kept my distance. I wondered if continuing along this line of conversation would prove to be fruitful or disastrous. I took a deep breath, and I squashed my curiosity, "You don't have to talk about it right now if it is that painful..."
He glanced at me over his shoulder. "It was a long time ago, Keira. It is done. It has been done for centuries, now." He turned his attention to the flame that burned away in the fireplace.
A near-tangible silence hung in the air for a few moments, and I stood awkwardly with my arms crossed around myself, suddenly feeling as if I were worlds apart from the man that had declared his love to me mere hours ago. I hesitated to break the silence, but the a stifling uneasiness grew within me with every second.
"Did you mean what you said earlier, Reaver?" I finally asked. "When you told me you loved me, were you being honest or were you just desperate to keep me?" I knew there was a chance that this would not end ideally for me. As much as Reaver had opened up to me in our time together, it was always a possibility that he'd said what he had, hastily, and my heart twisted at the thought of it.
He said nothing, nor did he acknowledge my question. His hand merely tightened its grip on the edge of the mantle.
His disregard made a small bubble of anger form in my gut. My spine stiffened, and I sucked in a breath.
"Is this the part where you say you were stricken with grief, or that your words were spoken in the heat of the moment?" I sounded almost bitter, and I hoped he would say something to contradict my words.
Still, he was silent.
I closed the distance between us, and I seized him by the shoulder, spinning him to face me.
"Say something!" I demanded, my voice trembling as a knot of grief tightened in my throat.
He wouldn't meet his eyes with mine, at first. He fingered the locket in his hand for a moment before slipping it onto the mantle."You asked if I spoke hastily..."
"Yes," I said shortly, still gripping his shoulder.
He finally managed to bring his eyes to meet with mine, and within them, I saw a sort of finality that made my heart sink. His eyes closed, and his posture became decidedly more defeated. "I fear that is not the case."
Relief washed through me, but it was quickly replaced with confusion, then a bit of disapproval with his choice of words.
"You fear?" I asked. "What is so terrible about loving me, Reaver?"
He brought a hand to his temple, as if to soothe a building headache. "You always jump to conclusions, Keira." He dropped his hand, and his eyes snapped back up to mine.
"What am I to do?" I questioned, stepping back.. "You tell me you love me, and now you're acting as if that is something to mourn. What am I supposed to think?"
"You should despise me. It would be easier if you did." He grabbed me by the arm, his touch firm, but also gentle. "I have hurt you...I will always hurt you...and the very thought of it..." His eyes were suddenly fierce. "You should have sent me away long ago"
"I can't," I said, an ironic laugh pushing its way through me. I brought a hand to his face cupping it momentarily before letting my hand drift to his shoulder. "I need you. As much pain as you've put me through, sometimes when I am with you I don't feel the weight of an unending list of misdeeds and wrong decisions. You alone can make that seem irrelevant...if only for a little while, and that's all because I love you."
"That is a lot of pressure to put on one such as myself," He sighed, his eyes drifting away from mine. He stuffed his one hand in his pocket. "I am not a dependable man, and certainly not a lovable man. There are others out there that would be more...suited for you."
"Suited for me?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. It was both surprising and preposterous that he would be suggesting that I find someone else.
"There are things in my past that would send you running from me in terror...or anger...or both," He said.
"Your past is of no consequence to me," I said. "What's done is done. Please...stop pushing me away."
"I never anticipated that I might care about you. I thought I had built a better wall around my heart. But it seems that you were too alluring...and stubborn to abandon your efforts to make me love you."
"Reaver, I didn't make you love me."
"You would think that, wouldn't you?" he scoffed, his mouth pursing with disagreement. "But you made yourself so vital to my existence, and I do not know how. You slid past my defenses, and you planted a seed of discord in my stony heart. It somehow upsets me when you are upset. Your happiness is essential to my own when it is absolutely maddening that I even care about happiness in the first place!"
I was unsure of what to say. His every word both confirmed and insulted his love for me, and while that hurt, it was a relief. I, too, had felt conflicted in my feelings for him, at first, and perhaps something in him would change and accept it. I merely listened.
"I have spent centuries making myself numb to the world—allowing myself to become jaded and cold, but you have ruined all that in what seems like mere moments to an immortal," He said, the intensity of his dark eyes taking the breath from my lungs and causing my heart to shoot into my throat.
Still, I was speechless.
He released me from his grip, and he pulled his hand from his pocket. He opened it, and there was a tiny, well-worn square of folded parchment. "I have been carrying this in my pocket since that dreadful day you returned from Wraithmarsh." He held the paper out to me. "I was not sure if I would have reason to use it against you, to remind you of your commitment to me."
I took the paper from his hand, and I carefully unfolded it. The ink was smudged and worn now, but I immediately recognized it as the last page of our marital contract—the page with our signatures, the page that bound us together legally. "Why?"
"I could not just let you leave me again," He said, his tone implying that he thought it was obvious. "The very thought of it was unbearable. I could not let you subject me to that sort of rejection, for you are the only person I'd ever been foolish enough to give the power to do so. This scrap of parchment was a constant reminder of my foolishness in letting you put a crack in my heart, and of your naivety in accepting me as a husband."
His words were cold and hard to swallow, but their meaning felt different than their intent. Was he admitting that he'd come to terms with his feelings for longer than he'd let on? Had he loved me that day he found me in the crypt mourning my second loss of Logan?
"Is that when you knew you loved me? The day I returned?" I chanced asking.
"When I heard the roar of your Dragonstomper in the crypt, I thought you had taken your life," He said darkly, pausing as he let his arms fall to his sides. "And it gutted me completely." His jaw tensed once more. "A man of my reputation has no use for that type of weakness."
"Why are you saying all this?" I asked. "Why are you giving me this now?" I held up the parchment. Perhaps he wanted to remind me of our commitment to one another, as he'd said earlier, but gnawing feeling in my gut told me that it wasn't that simple.
"I am giving you a chance to destroy it," He said, his spine straightening, and his chin tilting upward. He looked composed and stoic—not even the intense glare of his eyes betrayed what he was truly feeling. "A chance to destroy your bond with me. You would simply tell the people what they already know—that I am a despicable man, and an even more despicable man to be married to. I have not given you a child. I have not fulfilled my part of the contract...and in my failure, the contract is void anyway."
I ran my fingers over the words, over each of our signatures, and I returned my eyes to him. Perhaps he wanted a way out—out of the marriage, out of love. Could I do that? Could I set him free, knowing it was what he wanted, that it was what would make him feel normal again, even if it killed me? Could I be as selfless as Murphy, and give myself up for the sake of the one I loved?
He still looked steady, but he watched me with those dark unreadable eyes of his. I stepped around him, and I faced the fire, watching the orange-red flames devour the blackened pieces of wood. I crouched before the fire, and I fed it the contract, watching the words disappear beneath the black char the flame caused.
I turned my eyes to Reaver to find that he, too, had been watching his legal obligation melt away beneath the flames. He flicked his eyes to me, and his face was blank. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead, his mouth pressed into a hard, flat line.
I wished he would say something to confirm or deny his endorsement of my actions, but he was silent. I didn't know what to do. I knew what I wanted to do, but what was it that he wanted now? We could part ways and never speak of our love again, and the world would still go on. I would be obligated to remarry, give the kingdom its heirs, but could I truly break my heart all over for the sake of the kingdom?
It was in that moment that I knew I needed to be selfish. I needed to put myself first. I needed him.
Turning to face Reaver, I grasped him by either side of the face, drawing his mouth against mine. I heard him inhale sharply through his nose in surprise, but he did not draw away His posture loosened, and his hands went immediately to my hips, pulling me in closer. His grip was firm and deliberate, and his kiss was just the same. Relief flooded through my veins, followed shortly by a heat that only his touch could inspire. I slipped an arm around his neck, and when I ran out of air, I drew away for breath.
"I want you because I love you," I breathed, clutching him tightly. "Not because a piece of paper says I need you to give me an heir."
He moved his mouth immediately to lay kisses across my shoulder, and his teeth scraped seductively against the sensitive flesh. His hands trailed further down to my backside, gripping me possessively. He trailed kisses up the side of my neck, toward my ear, and his voice was little more than a growl as he spoke. "I have given you your chance to leave me. You will not be given another."
My knees buckled. I sucked in a breath, and I shook my head. "Don't you dare."
"You are mine—always."
"Yes," I breathed.
Suddenly, my feet were no longer touching the ground, and with the same careful grace with which he'd carried me through Wraithmarsh, Reaver carried me toward the bed. He set me back on the softness of the mattress, and he pushed his jacket off of his shoulders. His vest and shirt joined it on the floor before he pressed his body down against mine. He savagely took my mouth once more, and his hands greedily skimmed the curves of my body.
I needed to feel his touch without the barrier of the silky nightgown. I bunched the fabric hastily, and I arched my body upward to pull it over my hips. I was forced to break the kiss to remove it completely, but his mouth moved to tease the flushed skin of my newly-bared breasts. I couldn't take my eyes away as his hand caressed its way further down my body until it paused above the very place where I most ached to be touched.
His eyes burned with lust as he dipped a finger into my molten need. His rhythm was slow, tortuous, and he let his thumb caress the sensitive pearl of my womanhood, sending a shockwave of pleasure coursing through me. He gaze held mine intensely, and it was staggering. It was as if he wanted to see the pleasure affect my very soul, and I think it did.
My eyes rolled as I sucked in a breath and let it out as a shaky moan. I slid my arms around him,curling my fingers into the softness of his hair, needing desperately to hold onto something. If he continued to be so unrelenting, I would burst within moments. "Gods, Reaver..."
A wave of intolerable pleasure flooded my entire body, and it reacted wildly. My thighs quaked, my back arched, my toes curled, and I gripped him with a passionate zeal. An erotic, husky noise pushed through my throat, and I gasped to catch my breath.
His fingers slowed and eventually stopped, but he never broke the eye contact. Those dark orbs were now full of mirth, and he let his hand drift up my stomach, across my breasts, then to my mouth, where his thumb stroked my lower lip affectionately, the sweet muskiness of my arousal still fresh on his skin. "I could listen to you make sounds like that all evening, mon amour."
I kissed the pad of his thumb, and I brushed my fingers against his knuckles. I let out a soft hum of amusement, and when he lowered his body to cover mine, I stretched backward into the comfort of the pillows.
I reached one hand to stroke the masculine curve of his jaw, while my other moved to grasp his thick, throbbing shaft through the fabric of his trousers. I had never needed to feel something so badly.
We worked together to push the barrier between us away, and when he was fully nude against me, I pushed him onto his back, moving quickly to straddle his hips. I held myself just above the throbbing hardness of his arousal, and I whispered, "I love you."
He drew in a breath, and he raised his hips to press himself against my entrance before replying, "And I love you." His eyes captured mine, his expression lit with pure heat.
Our bodies joined, and I wasn't quite prepared for the intensity of the sensation. I almost brought a hand to my mouth to stifle the cry of satisfaction that escaped me. I, instead, wrapped my thighs tightly around his hips. I could feel my inner-muscles moving, clenching, tightening the embrace of our lovemaking.
I rocked my hips gently, and a ripple of satisfaction spread through my heated skin.
Reaver grasped my thighs desperately, his eyes skimming my body appreciatively but he stopped so that he could lock my gaze to his once more. His lips parted, and his brows raised, giving his face a look of sheer rapture.
As I increased the pace of my hips, I let one of my hands glide down the warm muscles of his chest down to the tightness of his abdomen. I shivered as he raised a hand to trail across the taut peak of my nipple, cupping the soft flesh of my breast. I found that the more he touched me, the more frenzied my body moved against his until my it unraveled in hot rushes of pleasure. I leaned forward, my body trembling and my lungs working to find air.
My skin vibrated with satisfaction, and it wasn't until I felt the bed against my back that I realized Reaver had taken control of the situation. I gazed up to him, my body still a heap of quivering, joyously tingling flesh. I hadn't realized how badly my body needed his, though I should have. Every moment we touched, I felt everything else melt away. There was nothing but the two of us.
He combed a hand through his suddenly disheveled hair, and a smirk of male pride overtook his features as he observed the state I was in. He leaned down, his mouth leaving a hot trail from my collarbone to my jaw as he repeatedly pulsed quickly and exquisitely into me. "Oh, darling, if only you knew how much I enjoy watching you come undone."
He demonstrated his avid enjoyment by bringing me to my edge many more times before he eventually reached his. His brow glistened with perspiration, and his fingers clutched at my hips, bringing our bodies as close as they could be until he found his release. He groaned my name, and his hips slowed against mine before ceasing altogether. He pushed the stray strands of hair from my face, and he bent to brush a soft kiss against my mouth.
He moved away and went to stretch across the bed next to me. Our bodies were not separated long, for he dragged me to lay against the warm, moist skin of his chest. His mouth grazed my brow, and his hands skimmed my curves as if he would never have his fill.
He tilted my chin so that he could take my mouth as he kneaded my breast, the sensation breaking through the afterglow and reigniting my desire. He broke from the kiss to murmur, "I have never needed anyone so absolutely."
I merely smiled at him, and I reached to grip the evidence of his rapidly rekindling desire. "Then you shall have me."
"Oh, I shall," He purred pressing me onto my back and covering my body with his.
It was barely dawn when I woke again. I lay on my side, facing the windows that allowed the budding light to pour into the bedroom. I could feel Reaver's fingers idly combing through the thick length of my hair, and it felt divine. I might have fallen back asleep in the comfort his touch provided, but I decided that I would rather get an early start on the day.
"How long have you been awake?" I asked softly.
"A while now," He said tenderly in a hushed tone, untangling his fingers from my hair. He sounded troubled, and it built a knot of worry in my gut.
"Is something troubling you?" I asked, turning to face him. I saw that his face was set with anxiety, as it had been the night before. Was he having second thoughts, yet again? Would I have to reassure him daily that we had made the right choice?
"You trouble me," He said, his tone doubtful. "How do you rest so easily at my side not knowing who I truly am?"
"I know who you are," I said, reaching my hand to caress his the angles of jaw with the pad of my thumb. My eyes found his, but he looked away from me once more. "I may not know your—undoubtedly long—list of misdeed and wrongdoing, but I know who you are. You haven't tricked me into loving you."
"Are you sure of that?" He asked, snorting softly, pushing himself off of the bed, putting distance between us. "...But regardless, I cannot let you leave me now, even if I divulge what has been eating away at me since you opened that locket. You will simply have to accept it."
"It may have taken me a while, but I have accepted all of the other things I've learned about you," I assured him. What could be so terrible about this? I already knew he annually sacrificed the youth of others to extend his own. He had killed hundreds, if not thousands, and I still accepted him. What secret did he hold that assured him I would leave him?
"It is time I told you of Oakvale," He said, his eyes finding mine again.
A/N: Sorry for the HUGE delay in publishing, but as fellow Fable fans, I'm sure you can excuse my bit of time off to run through Anniversary multiple times. It also took me a while to get the feeling of the chapter just right, and I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you thought of this one, and I'll try to get the next one out as quickly as possible. It's going to be solely devoted to Reaver's story about Oakvale and how he came to make his deal with The Shadow Court.