I nodded, unsure what would happen in those days. Would he turn into some great beast and eat anyone who crossed his path?
“I’ll spend my days in a cave chained to the walls until it’s over. Najen will be continuing your training while I’m there.” His moment of vulnerability was ending, but we’d cross some line and I wasn’t going back. I’d seen another side to him . . . a better side. It was time I let him see a mirror part of himself in me.
Chapter Thirty-One
“I had been on my own for a while when Tor found me. The community I’d grown up in was destroyed by Dramens. I don’t know if you know about them or not, but they are the elite in the human realm now. Awful people who either want to kill you, eat you, sell you, or breed you.” I poured out things I’d never spoken aloud, not even to Tor. Tor would think he failed me if I’d told him this story, and that would devastate him.
Rune would not see me as weak. He had suffered by the hands of his family, and people feared him for being alive. I’d seen the sneers around him when people didn’t think he was watching. I know he saw it, too. He saw everything.
“They raped the woman who raised me and forced me to watch. They beat me in places that could not be seen, since they wanted to sell me for some iron. They ended up changing their minds about using me as soon as they were done with Mariam.”
Memories flashed through my mind like it was happening in front of me all over again. Mariam’s tear-stained cheeks and her mouth crusted with blood on the corners, telling me in a hoarse voice to fight, to run. I tried, as they grabbed my clothes and ripped them off me. I tried.
“My fingers managed to grip onto a broken shard of wood from a chair nearby and I stabbed the man who had his hands below my waist while he was touching himself. It was the first time I’d killed someone. I ran, naked, until I collapsed in some bushes for the night. I’d cried and cried silently so the Dramens wouldn’t find me.
“I eventually went back to the community to find Mariam. Her body had been left behind. I couldn’t do anything for her, so I packed a bag, dressed, and kept moving. I was in a neighboring town raiding a house for supplies when Tor found me. He took care of me, protected me, and lifted me when I wanted to give up. He told me stories of this place but made it seem like they weren’t real, like he was only human. I want to hold his lying against him, but he sacrificed himself so I could get here. Maybe Celestine told him I was going to save the princess and that’s why. I’m not really sure, anymore.”
I suffered from nightmares of the blond Dramen’s face above me every night until I came to Crysia. Telling this story to Rune made me question everything with Tor . . . every word he said, every kiss. Was any of it real or part of the charade as a human? Tears streamed down my face without permission. I didn’t want to cry and show weakness.
A warm hand touched mine on the tree’s limb. Rune looked at me in awe, not with pity or sadness. “You have a warrior’s core, human or not.” He said those words like they were fact, instead of his opinion.
“I don’t feel like a warrior.” I laughed honestly, my hand gripping his like it was the only tether to my sanity.
“We can sense it, from one warrior to another. I see the fighter in you.”
“Better watch your compliments, General, or I might get a big head and think I can take you down.” I laughed again, trying to lighten the heavy air settling between us.
He huffed in a teasing way and pulled me off the branch with our joined hands.
“Hey!” I protested and yelped in surprise as Rune tossed me over his shoulder and carried me out of the woods.
“Your dragon isn’t coming, so off to work on your skills we go.” I smacked his back trying to get free from his strong arms, but his grasp on the back of my legs didn’t budge. I knew why he was acting like this; he wanted to lighten my mood and take me out of that dark place I was heading. It was strange to see him so playful, but his plan worked.
“You’re acting like a caveman,” I groaned and pinched his backside, which in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have done, but I couldn’t take it back now.
“Shush, human.” He popped me with his large hand on my bottom, making me shriek and wiggle to get free.
“Who are you and what did you do with grumpy Rune?” My shrieking turned to giggling at what this must look like from an outsider’s view.
He didn’t answer me but took off with Fae speed toward the palace with me over his shoulder, then in what seemed like one minute, he dropped me to my feet at “our” waterfall.
“Najen said you had improved. Show me what you learned.” There were weapons set along the bank of the river, and while I thought about showing him how good I was getting with throwing axes, I decided it was time for a little payback. I shifted my feet for an offensive stance. Rune cracked his neck, smiling at the prospect of pummeling me into the ground.
“I’m gonna show you how it’s done, old man. Two hundred years probably makes them old joints ache.”
I was talking a big game, and I prayed to whatever powers that be I managed to take him down just once. Once! It was all I was begging for. He could knock me down twenty times but if I got him down one time, I would be victorious.
He didn’t smack talk back with me. Instead he analyzed me and my breathing for his advantage. I hopped from side to side toward him, hoping to catch him off guard when I threw my right fist out for a punch, but he was ready. I expected it and lifted my knee into his path, connecting with a hard abdomen. His head shifted to look at me, then smiled so bright I thought my heart stopped beating for a moment.
I’d got him, and he’d smiled!
The distraction was my undoing, and Rune grabbed my arm and rolled me over his back to the solid ground. With quick feet, I jumped up and came at him again. My body angled in a spear tackle to his waist, like Najen taught me. Rune lost his footing. My body was small but the momentum of my attack had us toppling over, fighting for who would come out on top.
He did, of course, but I wasn’t done. With skills of an acrobat, I lifted my hips, using my newly strong core to wrap my right leg around his neck and shifted my weight.
“Shit!”
His curse gave me all the motivation I needed to throw every ounce of my body weight into the move where I had him beneath me with my knee against his throat. I did it! I couldn’t believe it.
“That’s right, Grandpa!” I shouted in victory.
“You forgot an important lesson.” He wasn’t grinning, as his focus shifted to my heaving chest, then my face. His throat bobbing, and his breathing was as labored as mine.
“Oh yeah?” I pressed my knee into his throat a tiny bit more, showing dominance in this position.
“It’s never a win until your opponent is incapacitated.”
He moved his hands lightning fast, and I was beneath him in seconds, his broad body flush against mine. He didn’t gloat, and I couldn’t mutter a word or a breath. His face was close to mine, close enough I could feel his breaths heating my cheeks. A trembling gasp rushed from my lips at the contact of his hard body settling over mine, gravity pushing us closer than we’d been before.
His gaze moved from my eyes to my lips, and my chest seized. Wandering thoughts drifted toward his face, his perfectly hardened face. The three scars his father gave him didn’t hinder his beauty. In fact, they fit him . . . the warrior with the romantic’s heart. Every nerve was sensitive, and I wanted to feel those warrior’s lips pressed against mine.