“Does our word mean nothing, then?” he asked softly.
“Don’t try that bit with me. I’ve money enough to pay the fee for breaking the contract five times over and I can send word out, likely finding a replacement within a week or two.” She gave him a narrow look. “All we’ve been asked to do is act the muscle at the inn there. It’s a simple job and anybody can do it. It doesn’t need to be us.”
“Not all of us have a fae prince for a father, Tyriel.” He wanted to kick himself when she flinched. “Fuck...I’m sorry. I...look, just tell me why. You know more than you are saying, elf. What waits in Ifteril?”
“I don’t know the answer to that.” Tyriel’s shoulders slumped. She shifted and rose, moving to her bedroll before speaking. As she settled on it, her back to him, she spoke. “Very well. We go to Ifteril.”
“Danger and darkness wait, and all for her.”
Aryn rose from his bedroll, unable to sleep. He was pacing far away from camp to avoid disturbing his partner, and of course, the blasted enchanter couldn’t leave him be.
Turning, he met the eyes of the long-dead enchanter as he wavered into view.
“Tyriel is in danger?” he asked doubtfully. “She can handle any blasted thing that comes her way.”
“Not this time. Turn back, before she is lost to you.”
“Why do you insist on talking like the woman belongs to me?” Aryn growled, advancing on Irian. “She is not mine. Not ours. You’re nothing but a ghost and I’m…” He sighed and stopped, still several feet away.
“You’re what? A fool? Yes, you’re a fool for not seeing what’s right in front of you. I might be dead and unable to take her for my own, but you are not!” Irian’s form blazed even brighter in his frustration. “You stupid fool. It’s no wonder you’re the one I finally forged a bond with after so many centuries. You, like me, will let honor and pride prevent you from being with the one you desire about all else, and you’ll let honor and pride block you from seeing reason. You’re a daft fool.”
“Irian, it’s late. I’m tired. I’m in no mood for your theatrics.”
“I speak of a deadly danger to her and you call it theatrics.” Irian’s face tightened in a thunderous scowl. “You’re not just a prideful fool. You’re a halfwit. Otherwise, you’d never risk that treasure. You’d take her, keep her for you own, love her for all time.”
“Love her? Take Her? Keep her?” Aryn sputtered, unaware that Tyriel had risen from her bedroll and stood in the distance, listening.
His words, solid and real, drifted to her easily on the night air. Irian’s voice, though she could see his spectral form, had less substance and she heard nothing he said.
“Aye. The girl loves you madly. The need is an ache in her belly to be with you, to love you and be loved…to stay at your side as more than just comrades in arms. You feel the same for her.”
“You’d tell me any damn thing you thought might get me to climb atop her and fuck her. You’re a damn perverted voyeur and damn me for not knowing how to block you out of my mind,” Aryn growled, his hands closing into fists as he fought the urge to do exactly what the enchanter suggested. “She is not for me. I am not for her. We are partners, nothing more. We will never be more.”
“You deny that she is in your heart. You will admit you want her, because wanting a woman is easy,” Irian said softly. His long curling hair shifted around his shoulders as he moved closer to Aryn, his golden skin gleaming in the black night. His widely spaced dark eyes narrowed. “You want to touch her, taste her, fuck her…love her, and yes, keep her, for always. You want her to be yours.”
“No. If I need a woman, want a woman, I’ll find a fucking whore in Ifteril,” Aryn snapped, glaring at Irian with furious eyes, his body rigid and aching with hunger. His cock throbbed and all he wanted, all, was lying in her bedroll, not far away.
Yes! All I want lies there. All. But he kept the words locked behind his teeth. “But I am not fucking Tyriel just to please a dead enchanter.”
“And what about to please her? Yourself?”
“I can please myself with my fist.”
Her eyes stinging with tears, Tyriel backed away in silence, her belly hot and tight with grief. She made sure to muffle her presence, physically, magically.
Aryn and Irian couldn’t know she had been there. She doubted her pride could handle it. She knew her crumbling heart couldn’t.
She just had to hold it together long enough to get some rest, then slip away from camp in the dawn hours.
She’d had enough, wished for enough, been rejected enough. She was done.
This…this impossible dream was over.
She was leaving.
She could avoid whatever danger lurked in Ifteril long enough to gather supplies. And then she’d go home.
To Averne.
* * * * *
Aryn awoke the next morning to a cold, silent camp.
That alone told him something was terribly wrong.
Tyriel never slept longer than he did. An elvish warrior needed so little sleep. She was always awake before him, always had the fire built back up, breakfast ready, the camp broken down as she walked around humming under her breath.
“The elf isn’t here.”
Aryn looked up to see Irian’s form striding into camp. “I can see that, you blasted hunk of tin.”
“She heard you last night, saw us talking.”
Aryn’s mouth dropped open.
“And you didn’t say anything?” he rasped, rising off his bedroll, chest bare, hands clenched. If, by some slim chance, the enchanter was right, and she had heard him… “What in the blasted hells were you thinking?”
“I did not know she was there. I knew only after I worked enchantment. Watch, see.” Aryn felt his hand lifted even though he wasn’t the one lifting it. He drew his blade without realizing it and pierced his flesh—and saw the ball of smoke rising from the ground. He knew it, easily, and could do it of his own free will now. Irian’s gift for enchantment had taken root in Aryn, just as Irian had predicted, several years earlier.
Now, that magic had settled in Aryn’s bones and blood. He could easily do small enchantments, with no help or guidance.
But Irian’s displeasure had him taking Aryn over, a sure and certain sign of just how fucking mad the enchanter was. Aryn saw why as the smoke cleared, revealing Tyriel as her sleepy eyes opened. She slid from her bedroll, stretching, the camisole riding up, her breeches low on her hips. Her slim, toned belly was revealed as she lifted her arms high and arched her back, her lithe form sleek and strong. Her hands slid unconsciously up her torso before she slid them through her tumbled curls and absently rubbed her eyes before looking around for something.
Someone.
Aryn knew when she spotted them. A soft, sad little smile appeared on her face.
The smile gutted him. Naked and unhidden now as she thought she was clearly unobserved, Tyriel’s face showed him what he’d spent years pretending not to see.
Now he couldn’t look away. The love that burned in her eyes was so naked and real, even in the ephemeral mist of the enchantment Irian had created.