We made our way down past the stone faces and steps in silence. We ignored the tension thrumming between us and the way
Caelum’s rage simmered in the air. The snow around us fell more steadily as we traveled, leaving a dusting at my feet as I trudged through the wet underbrush to keep up with him. Darkness fell, leaving me stumbling behind him as he led the way through the woods.
The mountains we hugged grew larger as we walked, behemoths that disappeared into the sky overhead. I couldn’t see the peaks, couldn’t see anything but the bases of them as they changed from tree-lined and welcoming to rocky and jagged before my eyes.
“We’re almost to the caves,” Caelum called ahead of me as I shielded my face from the wind that seemed to tear through me. I shivered beneath my cloak, wondering how he could even be functioning in this cold. “We need to get you warmer clothes.”
I didn’t bother to argue that it seemed unlikely to happen, with us leaving the villages behind us in favor of staying in the mountains. It was far safer this way, assuming I didn’t freeze to death.
“It’s too early for snow,” I protested, glancing up at him and defying the gust of wind that threatened to knock me on my ass.
“The Fae are here, Little One. Everything you thought you knew has changed,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and tugging me into his side. He used his body to shield mine, guiding me forward through the darkness.
Like so many nights when I’d snuck out of my bedroom to walk through the woods, something in the darkness around us gave me comfort again, reassuring me that it returned in its own time. It wasn’t the unnatural darkness of the eclipse where I couldn’t function; not with the moon and stars shining above us to light the way through the gaps in the canopy.
Even though the darkness was our ally, the cold sank into my clothes, and there was no promise of a night on the living room floor next to the fireplace after I snuck back in to warm me up. There was no Loris to show me other ways to keep warm as the snow fell around us.
There was Caelum, the man who I had a feeling would give me all of that and more, if I let him, but I knew instinctively that I would never be the same if he touched me. He’d ruin the memories I had of fumbling hands and urgent touches, the memory of a friend who gave me something sweet in a harsh world determined to strike me down. I’d already killed him, reduced him to snow before he could drive a blade through my heart and end my life.
I gritted my teeth, the memory of the guards’ shock as they studied the Mark on my neck. I’d only seen two others, and given that Caelum’s matched my own, it didn’t seem like they were overly unique, so the reaction made little sense.
Caelum veered toward the rocky cliff face we’d been paralleling and looked for something through the darkness. “Here,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me to follow him. The narrow cave entrance we approached was almost too small for him to fit through, as well as opening at my eye level.
He grasped me around the waist, lifting me up to it while I fought back the urge to squeal. I grasped the ledge, pulling myself in and hugging one side of the entrance so that he could hoist himself up and in smoothly. He pulled his short dagger from the sheath on his thigh, rising to his feet as he hunched forward to fit through the tunnel and pass by me. I stood up behind him, letting my body unfold to full height in the enclosed space. Following close behind, I tried to remember to give him enough room to maneuver in the event that something attacked us.
It didn’t seem likely in such a small passage, but who knew what it connected to within the mountains. Cave beasts were a very real concern in the Hollow Mountains, and not something I ever wanted to encounter. I’d
rather the Mist Guard ran me through than face the ordeal of being eaten alive while foot-long claws shredded me into ribbons.
We made our way down the small tunnel until it widened and the cave got tall enough for Caelum to stand to his full height in front of me. With the increase in size, my worry over beasts increased. Oblivious to my misgivings, he stepped out of the tunnel, dropping down a few steps into a cavern that resembled a room. Across from the tunnel where I lingered, another, wider tunnel threatened, as if an ominous being in itself. It was big enough for the cave beasts to come charging through, I thought. I’d never seen one, but one would have to be enormous not to fit.
“Wait here,” Caelum said, hauling himself back up into the tunnel alongside me.
“Wait, no!” I protested, spinning to follow him.
“Stay right here, and you’ll be safe. I’m just gathering a few pieces of wood for a fire to keep you warm,” he said, touching his lips to my forehead briefly before he darted off, leaving me gaping after him until I spun to stare down into the cave opening.
Without the light of the moon and stars above my head, the only hint of light came through the tunnel at my back and from the glowing rocks down the tunnel on the opposite side of me. I couldn’t see anything aside from those two spaces, feeling the vast size of the mouth of the cave more than I saw it.
Anything could be lurking down there, waiting for us to walk right into a trap. I counted the seconds as they passed, waiting with bated breath for Caelum to return.
What if he left me?
I couldn’t stand the thought of being on my own, completely alone as I tried to evade the Wild Hunt. I didn’t stand a chance without him, and we both knew it.
“Caelum?” I hissed, my voice echoing down the silence in the tunnel.
“Miss me, my star?” he asked, the shadow of his broad form finally reappearing at the entrance of the cave. He hurried through it, wood piled in his arms as he passed me and dropped down into the large space without hesitation.
“What if it isn’t safe?” I asked, staying in my little enclosed tunnel. “Nothing has been here for a long while,” he said, striding toward the
wall between the two tunnels. He dropped the wood on the ground, the
clatter of pieces striking against the stone beneath his feet echoing through the space.
Nothing moved in the moments that followed the noise, nothing struck him or ate him while I waited.
I dropped down, bending my knees to absorb the impact as my boots slapped against the rock. I stumbled toward him, squinting to see through the darkness, until I felt him at my side. The sound of metal scraping against metal erupted through the room, the sparks from his flint glowing against the wood as he tried to get a fire going.
“Where did you manage to find dry wood?” I asked, thinking of the snow outside. The thought of an entire cold season without a store of fire wood made me shiver, knowing that even though we’d been lucky tonight, the nights in our future probably wouldn’t be so fortunate.
“The snow hasn’t had time to soak into the ground or the fallen trees just yet. We’ll be warm tonight, at least,” he answered as the sparks caught on the wood. Light filled the space, giving me my first glance at the cave we would call our home for the night.
Whatever Caelum had felt about this cave, he was right. There were no signs of life or any indication that anything had so much as twitched within it recently. He nurtured the fire until it was crackling happily in front of us, the tunnels providing an escape for the smoke.
As soon as that was finished, he leaned back against the cave wall and sighed as the warmth sank into his chilled frame. I moved to sit near him, letting the flames chase away the worst of the chill. Hunger made my stomach pang, but it was far too dark and the weather too cold for us to do anything about it until the morning.
Caelum heard my stomach growl, chuckling as he let his eyes drift closed. “I’ll set some traps first thing in the morning and see if we can catch some breakfast before we get moving for the day.”
“Okay,” I murmured, watching as he readjusted his frame to try to get more comfortable.
“Get some sleep, Estrella,” Caelum murmured, laying on his back on the cave floor. He tossed his arms over his head, forming a pillow with his forearms. I lay on my side and huddled in on myself, facing the cave opening with the fire between me and whatever might come for me.
There wasn’t much that had frightened me in my life—I knew that was a lie as soon as I thought it. There wasn’t much that frightened me enough
that I didn’t do exactly what I wanted anyway. There were perks to being stubborn, advantages to digging my boots into the ground at my feet and risking everything for a single moment of freedom.
But survival was different. The image of death at the jowls of a beast three times my size would torment me to the point that I couldn’t sleep.
“I can hear your thoughts from here, Little One,” Caelum murmured, his lips tipping up into a smile as I rolled over to look at him. He opened his eyes slowly, peering at me as I sighed.
“Do tell,” I said, using the distraction as I snuggled deeper into his cloak. “I would absolutely love to hear how you think my mind is filled with thoughts of you yet again.” The sarcasm dripped from my words with mocking condescension.
“Come here, and I can distract you from such wasteful thoughts. Why think of things that you could have if you only reached out a hand?” he asked, the playful smirk at his lips drawing my attention down to the vivid white of his teeth.
“We’re supposed to be sleeping,” I argued, turning my head way from the striking features of his face to look at the cave ceiling. He was so disarming, so unrealistically handsome. None of the men in Mistfell had such perfect features. His eyes were darker than I’d ever seen, like shadows painted into his lightly tanned, even golden, skin. His nose was straight and the perfect size over his generous lips. His jaw was square, and his brow strong and stern, despite the playful expression he so often wore.
“So why aren’t we?” he asked, drawing my attention back to him. He leaned forward, grasping one of my hands in his. His thumbs ran over my palm, caressing it lightly. “Talk to me.”
I sighed, letting my head thump against the stone as shame heated my face. He seemed so fearless, so unconcerned with any of the dangers around us. “I’m afraid,” I mumbled, keeping my eyes off of his purposefully.
“What could a star be afraid of?” he asked, the teasing lilt to his voice reassuring me slightly. He squeezed my hand tighter in his, encouraging me to continue.
“It seems like I’m afraid of many things lately,” I said, shaking my head as I thought of the way I feared him more than Lord Byron. It made no sense, but Byron had been able to touch my body. He hadn’t been able to reach inside me and toy with my soul the way Caelum could.
“And yet you continue on anyway, my brave little star. You burn so bright I sometimes fear the Wild Hunt will sense you from miles away,” he said, making the breath hitch in my lungs.
“Then why stay with me? Surely you want to be as far away from me as possible if you genuinely fear that?” I asked, my mind trying to work around the possible reasons he would endanger himself for me.
He ignored the question, smiling gently as he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “What are you afraid of?” he asked again.
I sighed, brushing off the moment between us and knowing it was for the best. “The cave beasts,” I answered, nodding my head down to the fork in the tunnel where it veered into the network within the mountains.
He followed my gaze, his head nodding as if he understood. “Do you truly believe that I would ever allow anything to harm you? Cave beast, Fae, or human, they’ll have to go through me to get to you.”
“I don’t understand why you would risk so much for me. You hardly know me,” I whispered, the words hovering between us.
His face shifted, a heavy sigh escaping between his parted lips. His hand cupped my cheek, and he sank his teeth into his bottom lip. “I don’t feel so alone when I’m with you,” he murmured, tipping forward to touch his forehead to mine. He dropped his hand to the Mark on my neck, the swirling and writhing ink of his skin brushing against mine and causing a shock to roll through me. “I’ve spent my entire life feeling alone, even when I’m surrounded by others. I’d do just about anything not to feel that again. You and I are the same.” He squeezed his hand at my neck, tightening around the Fae Mark. “This ties us together in ways none of us understand. So you can be scared all you want, Little One, but do it knowing that you’ll have my swords at your side until the end.”
He retreated suddenly, severing the stifling moment between us as my eyes burned. Settling himself back down to sleep, he stretched his legs with a groan. “What are you doing?” I asked, watching as he patted his stomach with a hand.
“Come here,” he said, a chuckle transforming his face and all traces of his seriousness from only a moment before faded away. I didn’t linger, letting his good mood wash away the intensity. I suspected men like Caelum didn’t want to be vulnerable, and those moments where I saw beneath the arrogance and posturing were something rare, to be treasured.
I quirked my brow at him, glancing down to his trousers pointedly. I’d made my thoughts on his cock known already.
“It’s not going to jump out and bite you, Estrella,” he laughed. “Rest your head on me, and I’ll tell you a story until you fall asleep.”
That gave me pause. The only part of Lord Byron’s manor I would miss was the library full of books and the stories they contained. The adventures people had lived. “What kind of story?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Is this a sex thing? Because I’m not above punching you in the dick.”
“Estrella, I promise; you will know when it’s a sex thing,” he said, patting his stomach again. “This is the oldest story I know.” I shifted forward, turning to put my back to him as I lowered myself down. The side of my face pressed against his shirt, drawing in a deep breath of the distinct scent I’d come to associate with Caelum.
He always smelled like wintergreen, like fresh snow falling in the meadow at night. Like drawing an essence sharp and cold into your lungs and letting it burn you from the inside.
He draped his cloak around me, enveloping me in warmth. I didn’t have it in me to protest that he’d be cold, knowing from experience that it was as futile as trying not to breathe him in.
He raised a hand, running it through the waves of my hair gently as he hummed softly. “In the beginning, there was nothing.” He paused as the strands of my hair fell through his fingers. His voice dropped lower, murmuring the words of his story as he continued on with a lyrical cadence. There was no doubt in my mind the story he wove was one he knew well, one that he’d been told repeatedly throughout his life, perhaps by the father who’d taught him all about things we weren’t meant to know.
“The world was an empty void, a place without light or substance or shadows. The world was nothing but Khaos, but he eventually grew tired of being alone and he used the darkness surrounding him to create Ilta. He fell in love with the Primordial of Night, and with the way she shimmered in the shadows she created. They came together and eventually created a son, Edrus, the Primordial of Darkness. Ilta and Edrus grew close, closer than she felt with Khaos, and she jilted her previous lover in favor of her son,” he said.
“She what?” I asked, outrage rising in my gut. This was a sex thing.
“There were only three beings in all of the world, Estrella. Is it so surprising that familial boundaries as we know them today didn’t exist
when they were creating, well, everything?” he asked, tapping his finger against my nose pointedly. “Together, Ilta and Edrus had two children, and on and on creation went until there were seven generations of Primordials and the world as we know it came to be. They created the dirt beneath our feet and the mountains that rise into the sky, the sea at the edges of the Kingdom and everything around us. From those Primordials came the last generation of Gods, the ones humans once worshiped, until they learned the truth.”
“The primordials birthed the Fae race?” I asked, yawning as I tried to force my eyes to stay open. “Is that what the Fae believe?”
“It is. They believe in The Father and The Mother in their own way, but they do not worship them the same as the human race. The Fae believe The Father and The Mother are waiting to take you to the afterlife after your thirteenth life cycle comes to a close, but they’re not ruled by the weight of their choices during their time in this world.”
“What happened to the original Primordials? Why would they allow their children to be worshiped as Gods if they were the ones who actually created the world?” I asked, shifting my head on his lap. I lay on my back, staring up at him as he curled himself over me and trailed gentle fingertips down my cheek.
“Curious thing,” he said. “You’re supposed to be falling asleep.”
“When you said you’d tell me a story, I didn’t think you meant something from the forbidden texts! I thought you meant a bedtime story. How am I supposed to sleep when you’re talking about the creation of the world?”
“I’ll keep that in mind for the future. I could tell you a sex story instead? Perhaps one of the ones I’ve read about the union of Peri and Marat and the celebrations of their son? We already have the visual aid from earlier, and I’m certain we could—”
He grunted when I lifted and dropped my head into his stomach, turning away from him to face the fire. I couldn’t bring myself to take my head off him, not with the warmth of his body heating my near-frozen ear.
“I take it back. You’re more cruel than curious. A curious thing would want to reenact those moments and discover just why they were so pleasurable.”
“Would you shut up or just tell me where the Primordials went already?” I asked, groaning past my annoyance with his antics.
“They disappeared, Little One. Nobody knows where they went or what happened to them. Only that they abandoned this world and those in it. The children of the Primordials, what we know of as the Old Gods, took over. They put themselves at the top of the hierarchy and lived a life of decadence and sin,” he said, continuing on as I snuggled into him against my better judgment.
He spoke of gilded cities, of the lands they’d had fashioned in their own honor, and the temples where they were worshiped. I fell asleep to the image of temples of stone in my head, my eyes drifting closed as slumber finally claimed me.
