A Soul to Embrace (Duskwalker Brides #8)

Chapter 16

With his back towards Fayren’s home, Jabez sat on the top beam of the fence surrounding her garden. His eyes scanned over the different fruits and vegetables she had available, although only the winter varieties and hardier herbs were edible due to the colder season.

Night had fallen, so he kept his hood down, but used the rest of his cape as a blanket from the chill. Since this was Fayren’s territory, and it was unlikely anyone would come to visit, he didn’t feel the need to hide his identity.

She and Zylah had been speaking for hours, which Jabez took as a good sign. The longer they spoke, the more Zylah would learn.

He had no issue being stationary. He welcomed the quiet and solitude, using it to piece together his thoughts.

When he heard the door open, he briefly turned his head to look over his shoulder, only to bring his gaze forward. It wasn’t the female he’d been expecting, but part of him was relieved.

She was wise enough to give him a wide berth and to approach from his left, rather than from directly behind. Having spent years within his castle, she knew him well enough to be aware of his quirks.

“You owe me big-time,” Fayren muttered, opening the creaky gate to her garden, whereas he’d merely climbed over the beams.

“I owe you nothing,” he answered coldly. “This wasn’t for me, but for her.”

Seeing she wanted to sit beside him, he offered his hand out to her. She glared at it, then him, before taking it so he could assist her in climbing the fence. She settled her butt next to him, brushed off the skirt of her long green dress, and then laid her hands in her lap.

She stared at him for a long while, and he ignored her as he peered over the garden. She’d speak when she was ready.

A soft breeze rustled his cream tunic, cloak, and horribly sewn pants, and pushed the length of his long ponytail to the side. Her flowery smell was welcome, reminding him of simpler times sheltered within his castle, and her presence a familiar one since his early twenties.

“You shouldn’t sit like that,” she said, disapproval evident in her tone. “It’s unbecoming for someone who was once our king. ”

Just when he’d been enjoying her presence...

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jabez exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Can you not nag for five damn minutes?!” He tossed his face to the left. “You better not have nagged at Zylah.”

Fayren looked up towards the night sky, then away, while wobbling her head. Her smirk was telling, and it instantly soured him.

“Look, if you wish to sit like someone shoved a pole up your arse, go for it. Leave others alone. It’s unbecoming to be a nuisance.”

Fayren tossed her head back and let out a giggle. “But it’s just so much fun. It always gets people riled up.”

“It makes people want to toss you into a river. I don’t care how old you are, I’ll do something to retaliate.” A malicious grin filled his features as he eyed the green stalks of the leeks growing in the earth. “I’ll start pulling out all your plants. I’m sure that’ll teach you a lesson.”

He eyed an obvious tomato plant, and the urge was nigh overwhelming.

“Did you bother my chickens?” she asked, bringing her gaze down to his lap.

Pressing his lips together until both puckered forward with the corners turned downwards, Jabez brushed a stray feather off himself. “I merely stole a few eggs. I’m a growing boy. I need all the sustenance I can get.”

“You did all your growing up quite some time ago. How old are you now? Five hundred and seventy?”

“I’m not that old,” he said with a scoff, before he glanced at her from the side. “Five hundred and sixty-seven. I turn thirty-eight in a few years.”

“By the ever-night, I always forget just what age you truly are.” Her foxy ears darted back, and she shook her head. “It’s so hard imagining living for that long.”

“Try living it. Then again, you’ve almost lived a full lifetime for a human-eating Demon. Is this your two hundred and ninth year? I’m sure the passage of time feels longer for such a pest as yourself.”

“I feel ancient, if I’m being honest. I left your employment because of the arthritis in my knees. I just couldn’t walk up your stairs anymore.”

Jabez glanced over at her once more, this time noticing her features. If he was to gauge what age she looked like in comparison to a human, he’d say she was bordering on sixty-five, if not older.

She still had many years left in her, and her youth was undeniably present, even with age. It helped that she still had a rather spritely and playful personality, and her beauty was just as beguiling.

He was sure he’d added to her wrinkles and the sprinkles of grey in her predominately red hair by stressing her when she was under his employment. He was just as eccentric as her, and they’d often butted heads – especially when he’d been younger and much more immature.

“How’s your mother?” Jabez felt obliged to ask, even though he really didn’t care.

“She’s... good. She knows my life is coming to an end, whereas she’ll live another few hundred years longer.” Her nimble hands, peppered with spots that reflected her advancing years, tightened on each other, but she was skilful in hiding her emotions. “Then again, like you said, that’s a human-eating Demon for you.”

Jabez knew Fayren’s mother well, as she was one of the few remaining Demons who had survived coming to Earth with him. Lettie, her mother, was only a few years younger than him, and due to her consuming Elves as her first food source, she had a similar lifespan to him. Since their fathers were mostly human-eating Demons, all of Lettie’s children were ageing, with Fayren being the eldest. Although, thankfully, some of Lettie’s developed Elven blood had allowed her children to live much longer than their fathers.

He’d watched the woman beside him grow up from a demonling and then surpass him in physical age in less than half his life span. It made establishing any form of bond with anyone hard, as he knew he’d likely outlive their demise.

He didn’t wish to hold people close to him when they would never live long enough to grow old with him.

Silence descended upon them, heavy and filled with sorrow. He hid it as always, his features adopting a mask of indifference.

His ear twitched when she brushed the backs of her claws over the shaved part of his head. “Look at your beautiful hair. What did they do to you?”

“It matters little. What has happened, happened,” he answered with a shrug.

“But I know how much it means to you. My mother told me you shaved your head bald when you arrived here and have grown it as a form of rebirth. To know it’s been altered against your will...”

Jabez reached up and snatched her hand before gingerly lowering it. He gave her a look of warning, one that conveyed this wasn’t a discussion he would partake in. She wisely lowered her gaze and let it go.

He thought his hair may be as long as it was before he arrived here. He trimmed it to keep it from going past the middle of his back, but that’s all he did with it. He rarely styled it and having it in a ponytail was mildly foreign to him.

He just hadn’t removed the tie yet.

“Why did you come here, Jabez?” she asked in a small voice. “The others are all out of sorts. If you haven’t returned to take back your place, then why risk it?”

“I told you why I’m here. Zylah needed someone to explain this to her.”

“Why couldn’t you? You’re not unknowledgeable about females.” Then she coughed into her hand and muttered, “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

He stared at her for a long while, then shook his head and looked out over the garden. He considered not saying anything, but decided she deserved some kind of explanation.

“It felt... wrong. Being the one to explain all this to her, it didn’t sit well with me. It’s not a male’s place. You were the only person I could think of who I trusted enough to reveal I’m still alive.”

“Is it because she likes you?”

His face twitched in a subtle flinch, and he darted his gaze to her. “What makes you say that?”

Her lips thinned. “Don’t play coy with me, young man. She explained what she can remember from her heat cycle, how you held her. You knew then, didn’t you?”

Jabez rolled his eyes away from her. “Young man, old man. Pick one.”

She reached up and dared to grab one of his horns, yanking him to look at her. “Do you feel the same?”

His nose wrinkled as his features twisted into a cringe. “Absolutely not.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, the red of them much brighter than his own. “Then why did you bring her here? Had you truly been indifferent, you would have boasted your knowledge like a suave fool. You remember, I was there when you taught Merikh. You know Mavka better than anyone.”

He opened his mouth to refute her, but closed it. He couldn’t deny it. He also wouldn’t admit to anything possibly damning.

“I have my reasons.” At the fucking look she gave him through her lowered eyelids, he palmed his face. “What do you want me to say? That I’ve seen what happens when a Mavka isn’t taught? That withholding the information would only lead her to danger, and being unable to explain it would just be pure negligence on my part?”

“Well, that’s a start.” She looked down at her lap before lifting her gaze to her garden, then shifted it to the left to scan the trees.

It was obvious she wanted to ask him something but held back because it would upset him.

“Oh, just ask,” he sneered. “You have no problem being a nosy little pest, so why start now?”

“Does...” She paused to nibble at her bottom lip. “Does this have anything to do with Katerina ?” Fayren whispered her name, as if that would make it less impactful.

His mouth flattened into a hard line as he narrowed his eyes into a deep glare. But not at her, at the damn tomato plant.

Oh, screw it. It was better he talked about it, and if it had to be someone, at least it was her. She had been a sort of councillor for him, since she was one of the very few he’d shared some details with pertaining to his crazed thoughts.

Making sure his tone came across as deadened, he answered, “Yes, it has to do with her.”

“Because of what happened to her?”

That was one way to put it, but also entirely inaccurate. “It’s more what she did.”

“How so? From what I understand, she was rather outspoken about how that Mavka traumatised her.”

“What happened between Katerina and Orpheus is far more complicated than that.” With his hands between his spread thighs, he tossed his palms up. “There’s no denying how she was hurt. What happened was unfair to anyone. She was taken from her home, kept within the Veil, unable to escape, and was essentially stuck with someone she despised. I spent a hundred and eighty-seven years helping her through it, and she truly never healed. Nothing could save her mind from it.”

Jabez looked up at the night sky and let a sigh fall from him. He wished the stars held answers, but they’d always been silent and unchanging.

“But she wasn’t innocent. She was a victim, while also being a perpetrator who refused to accept her own wrongdoings.”

“I don’t understand,” Fayren said, her brows furrowing. “From what she told everyone–”

“It’s only half the truth, and her version of what happened,” he said to cut her off, refusing to look away from the stars. “Like you said, I know Mavka. Merikh taught me all I needed to know about the earlier stages of their life cycle. They’re essentially bumbling, uneducated morons who don’t know their tail from their damn horns. And it’s worse when they lack humanity.”

He finally turned away from the sky with a frown marring his features.

“Consenting to something when you have no idea what you’re doing is no consent at all. If Orpheus was anything like Merikh, he’d likely never seen his own dick before, let alone known where to fucking stick it. And I know... I watched them for a long time before I took her away from him, and he was only a little more intelligent than Merikh when I first met him.”

Orpheus had obtained far more humanity than when Jabez had met Zylah, enough to talk in somewhat broken and simple English. Someone had been teaching him, and he was sure Katerina had a small hand in that, but his knowledge had been limited.

Maybe Jabez was a little sensitive to this due to being a male himself, but he had his own thoughts regarding what happened – and because of the truth she’d shared with him.

“Whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not, or just simply couldn’t accept that she’d done it, Katerina essentially groomed Orpheus by denying him that knowledge, by refusing to educate him. If he was anything like Merikh’s earlier stages... then his mind was the equivalent comprehension level of a child, or at the very least, an intelligent dog.”

Jabez couldn’t help speaking quietly, as if that would make what he said less weighty.

“By thinking him a monster and treating him as one, she abused his na?vety and ignorance. How was that any better than what Orpheus had done to her? Nothing he did was out of malice, which is more than I can say for many other males.”

Jabez looked to Fayren, silently asking her if what he thought was wrong. She was a woman – perhaps she would have more insight into a situation he’d struggled to understand for the longest time. He’d completely sided with Katerina at first until she accidentally admitted to certain things that ended up skewing his perception of her.

It painted a very complicated picture of what had truly happened over the many years of him listening to Katerina complain.

“I never thought about that,” Fayren stated, then let out a low hum, cupping her chin as she considered his words. “I know Merikh lacked humanity when you first brought him to the castle, but I never even considered Orpheus’ mental age with regard to Katerina.”

“What’s worse, she still refused to communicate or explain anything. She even admitted that to me, stating she just didn’t see the point when he was too stupid to understand.” Jabez’s ears darted back as he shrugged with his hands. “But they truly aren’t that idiotic.”

He hadn’t liked hearing that, nor how she then further manipulated him because she knew sex would make him subservient to her.

Jabez was all for manipulating others, but had he abused a female in such a way, people would consider him truly, truly vile and unforgivable. If the roles had been reversed... Jabez shuddered at the thought. Why are females forgiven for actions they’d condemn a male for doing? How was that fair?

But he also understood that in the back of her mind, she thought she was doing it to protect herself. She claimed it ‘tamped down his aggression,’ but Jabez had always been left with one question: How had she lived, for years, with a creature who was walking death if that was true?

If he’d been truly aggressive, she would have ceased breathing long before Jabez had been able to grow infatuated with her from a distance.

Jabez brushed his hands over the top of his head in frustration, expecting to feel loose strands. He flinched, grunted, and finally yanked his ponytail free, annoyed he was having this conversation despite the unexpected relief from finally talking about it.

“I refused to let that be Zylah’s future. If no one explained this to her, she would be left open to abuse. Not only would she be like Orpheus, who didn’t know his own body, but she could end up like Katerina, who felt taken advantage of. Her pain would have been twofold, and foreseeing that... like I mentioned, leaving her uneducated would make me negligent. It would mean I had a hand in her pain.”

Of course things were different, as Zylah, despite her length of life, was physically, emotionally, and mentally more mature than any Mavka he’d come across, other than Merikh. The fact that Mavka didn’t age like a human or even an Elf, but more like a Demon, made things complicated. But that didn’t take away the fact that ignorance could be abused, and Jabez wasn’t the kind of person to do that, nor was he the kind of person to sit by and watch it happen.

“Sometimes I forget that even though you still look so young, you have many hundreds of years of experience. To even consider this... you’re right. Keeping her uninformed could have had disastrous results for her.”

“It doesn’t fucking help that Katerina tried to put me in Orpheus’ place,” he bit out, still rather spiteful over it, even though it had happened nearly two centuries ago.

Once more, Fayren’s brows narrowed, and she turned to him. “What do you mean?”

His nose wrinkled in disgust, while guilt, shame, and anger slipped down his spine like hot lava.

“It’s no secret that I offered Katerina a new life because I fancied her. She was beautiful, and something about her defiant gaze when she peered at Orpheus humoured me.”

“Well, yes. You were rather charming chasing her around your castle.” Fayren gave a small laugh, trying to alleviate the heaviness of the conversation. “I suddenly saw the youth on your face, when you always came across so cold and callous.”

“I was twenty-six. I was already starting to come into my prime by that point,” he admitted. “But I’d bedded enough Demons to have years of experience under my belt.”

He’d chosen his sexual companions diligently. Those who he’d been intimate with had all been knowledgeable and nearing completion. Some had more monstrous forms, but that hadn’t lessened their appeal to him – actually, sometimes it’d excited him.

“The first time I attempted intimacy with Katerina, she voiced her consent. She helped me remove her dress and even laid on my damn bed.”

His face and ears grew hot, both in embarrassment and shame. Knowing he couldn’t hide his expression through sheer will, he covered his face with a palm.

He spoke behind it.

“But the moment I touched her, tried to kiss her, she turned as stiff as stone. No matter how much I asked if she wanted me, and she said yes, it didn’t take me long to realise that, in her heart, she didn’t. I didn’t understand why. I tried to do everything right, but I had enough experience to know when a female was ready and wanting. The moment I realised what was happening, I grew so disgusted with myself, and at her, that I just tossed her dress at her and told her to get out.”

“Jabez,” Fayren cooed, likely due to how his voice dropped an octave in distress, but he pressed on.

“I’ll never forget the way she fucking screamed at me for it. It was like she couldn’t understand why I was suddenly rejecting her.” He dug his fingers into his closed eyes when a growl slipped from him in anger. “It took her some time before she got past her rage and finally admitted the truth. She was only doing it because she thought her body was the price for my protection. That, if she denied me, I’d feed her to the rest of the Demons in my home, even though I never said that.”

He pulled his hand from his face and turned to Fayren. Her mouth had fallen open in disbelief, yet he could see the anger reflected in her eyes.

She knew he’d never do such a thing. He may have been a cruel prick, but he’d never abuse a female like that.

“In that moment, I felt like Orpheus. I could... see how he would have been so confused. She made me a fucking monster in her head, before I’d even done something wrong. She didn’t see me as a man, but a beast, a Demon, a lesser being. In that moment, I knew she saw me as a monster, just one more tolerable and perhaps more handsome than the one she’d just spent years with. Orpheus was a virgin. At least I had the experience to know why she was so cold and could prevent crossing that line with her. But how was that fair on me? On him?”

For the longest time, Jabez had been furious with her.

He couldn’t believe someone had dared to manipulate their own mind so deeply. To convince themselves he was a villain when he’d never done anything wrong to begin with.

She came with him willingly when he offered, and he’d tried his best to be patient and woo her properly, only for her to think so poorly of him. Not once had she revealed that she’d felt that way, skilfully hiding it behind false pleasantries and alluring smiles.

Her beauty made it hard to see the truth in her.

And yet, once he realised how she perceived him simply because he was a Demon, he’d still never been cruel to her. He didn’t relinquish his vow of protecting her or revoke his help with her own personal vendetta. She remained pampered like a damn princess, just one he kept at arm’s length because he could no longer trust her.

While, at the same time, he became a source of healing for her. She spoke to him often, and Jabez had just listened quietly, as advice was never what she sought. She’d get angry at him if he attempted to offer any insight.

She just wanted someone to scream her frustrations at, and he’d willingly taken on that role for her. She had her reasons for everything, and none of this removed the pain she’d gone through. Pain he’d witnessed in her, which sometimes reflected what he felt inside.

Katerina had been hurting for a long time, and he’d felt it wasn’t his place to bear any grudges towards her – especially when very little of it had anything to do with him. People who were hurt didn’t think clearly. What he’d done in the centuries he’d been alive in comparison to her mere twenty-seven years overshadowed anything she could have done to anyone.

Jabez was a hypocrite in many ways, but not in this instance. He’d done many vile and unforgiveable things.

He shook his head in exasperation, his shoulders loosening as he broke the tension when it was obvious Fayren wouldn’t. He also didn’t want her to think the worst of Katerina.

“It took me a while to forgive her,” he admitted. “But I understood that she was just doing everything she could to protect herself, even if it was wrong. She valued her life more than her body, so long as no one wounded her. I admired her strength in that matter. Her resilience. It’s what first drew me to her. Katerina had always been strong.”

Jabez lifted his gaze to the sky when he noticed light brightening it into a muted purple. How long had he been sitting here for dawn to be approaching already?

How quickly time passes in this wretched realm.

“One thing she didn’t seem to understand was the truth made me aware of her thoughts, her behaviour. It’s why I rarely sided with her when it came to the accusations she had regarding Merikh. Most of it was lies, but I also knew it was just her version of the truth she’d twisted so tightly in her mind that she truly believed it.”

Merikh was a whole other battle he’d needed to face with her, and it hadn’t helped that he’d been there when Jabez first took Katerina from Orpheus.

“I remember,” Fayren stated, rolling her shoulders back. “You could hear them screaming at each other from across the castle. And Merikh had a mean roar to him.”

He let his head fall back and groaned loudly. By the cursed light, that had been such a hard few years.

Merikh was fucking huge in comparison to Katerina. And he fucking despised her, just as she hated him simply because he was a Mavka. Her prejudices against his kind meant anything he did, even if it was merely to shove her out of the way, had her judging him. If he accidentally touched her breast or her arse because his hand was so big it could hold her entire head like it was a ball, she thought he was assaulting her.

The fact that he got so sick of her drama he left for a few months revealed he didn’t want her – he wanted away from her.

“My own friend left because of my woman, and I was in the fucking middle of it. Both were angry at me for not intervening, for not shoving the other out of my home. I could see each of their perspectives, and I tried my best to calm them, to educate them on each other. Neither wanted to listen.”

There had been no winning.

Jabez eventually gave up and told them to sort it out themselves. Merikh wouldn’t hurt her, as he knew it would enrage Jabez, and Katerina had been too weak to harm him in return. They just shared unpleasant words with each other.

Funnily enough, she considered him a stupid brute, yet Merikh had been the one to just avoid her. He turned his anger into mockery in retaliation.

And she’d grown upset with Jabez when he couldn’t help scoffing out a laugh because Merikh’s insults were so random and weirdly funny.

Fuck. I miss my damn friend.

His humour had been as fucked up as Jabez’s. His arrogance was born from Jabez’s. His sarcasm was a mirror of his own. In some ways, Merikh had formed in Jabez’s image simply because he’d been the one to educate him. It’d felt like I’d... grown up with him.

Merikh was immortal and undying, which meant he wouldn’t age and fade away. There had been relief in that.

They’d been companions for almost eighty years, starting a little over two hundred and fifty years ago and ending barely ten years after he met Katerina. They’d been so close, watching each other’s backs, being each other’s most trusted confidant, that it was like Merikh was his... brother. For a while, he’d considered that bull-headed Mavka as his only family.

And that had been taken from him by his own stupidity. By Katerina, who kept whispering in his ear, wearing him down, occasionally making him angry at Merikh. Then she’d used Jabez learning of Merikh’s blood relation to Weldir – a moment in which his heart and mind had grown weak – and he turned on his only family.

I lost a lot of affection for Katerina after that.

He also believed their first sexual encounter was part of the reason he’d never truly loved her – if he’d even been capable of such an emotion. Every little thing she did, anything that was manipulative, or a twisted lie, meant she chopped down his affection bit by bit.

For a long time, Jabez had questioned why he was still keeping her around. It was simple: he’d promised her protection. He’d promised he would get revenge for her, and he was a man of his word. He was also petty and didn’t want her to be right that he’d kill her because he had a bad temper, even when she sometimes infuriated him to the point he wanted to bash his head against a wall.

Because I liked her and still cared about her, even until the end. He’d been young and infatuated when he first met her, which had made him emotionally immature when it came to her. But over time, and as he’d gotten older and wiser, he’d simply enjoyed her companionship, even if their relationship wasn’t fully affectionate.

They’d been... friends, kind of. She was the only person he’d been able to trust to some degree after Merikh’s disappearance.

He didn’t give two shits about Orpheus. If killing him made her happy, then why should he care? Orpheus would’ve just been added to the many others he’d ended.

But Jabez had only discovered the truth of how much that vow would ruin his plans.

He sighed as he palmed his face again, tiredness and frustration rolling into him like a drowning wave. He wished he could have explained all this to Fayren, to truly get it off his chest, but he just didn’t have the will to share more than what he was currently allowing himself.

His pain from Merikh’s absence... the regrets he had... they were just too heavy a burden for him to unload on her – and he was ashamed about them too.

But there was one shame he could share, despite how sour it tasted.

“She made me blind in my war, Fayren,” he muttered, filling in the silence they had both fallen into.

“I know...” she muttered. “You let her hatred fuel your own. I did try to tell you that, but you’re not really one to listen.”

He sneered at her ‘I told you so.’ Then he glared at her petulance, causing her to lift her eyes away coyly, and he let out an exhausted expire.

“After Merikh permanently left, I was angry at him for leaving me. I thought that if I helped Katerina and rid the world of Mavka, it’d destroy Lindiwe and Weldir’s bond enough that she’d break off whatever contract they have. With her gone, and his children fading, it’d weaken him. I just needed a moment, just a day of him being powerless so I could undo his ward. I already knew the code to it, but my magic just couldn’t combat his – he’s a fucking god , after all.” He lowered his face so he could turn to her, and softly said, “I wanted to keep my promise to the Demons I boasted to about returning home. I wanted to do right by them too.”

“You’ve always cared about us too much,” Fayren stated in a soft, almost motherly voice, as she reached out to squeeze his knee. “You tried to hide it, but many of us could see how much you wanted to help us.”

He allowed the intimate touch but was thankful she wisely kept it short and retracted her hand quickly.

Jabez wished he’d known the answer to success was never to be found on Earth.

Had he not been so tied to this realm, to ending Mavka, then he would have seen that going to Nyl’theria and rounding up an army on that side of the portal would have achieved much better results. They could have destroyed the Elven city years ago, and then Weldir would no longer need to keep up his ward.

He could have removed the barrier of their return from the other side. He would have been deemed a hero to his people.

“I only had a few years left to keep my promise to her,” he continued, before glancing away. “She was dying. She didn’t know it, of course, but the magic keeping her young and alive was beginning to diminish. The gilded ore I’d used to make her necklace powered that magic, and I could see it fading.”

“I thought you were the one keeping her alive.” Her furry ears twitched in interest, the conversation of magic and power items one that stirred passion in her. “Couldn’t you just replace it?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. From the tome I read, it could only be used one time. I could make another if I mined for more gilded ore, but they couldn’t be worn at the same time. Didn’t matter in the end anyway. Orpheus’ bride rammed a fucking sword through Katerina’s chest before then.”

He still couldn’t believe someone under his sworn protection and care was murdered right before his very eyes. Then again, we both had it coming. He should have foreseen the failure.

Just as he should have seen the fall of his home. How Lindiwe would eventually bring him so close to death that if it weren’t for Zylah, he’d have ceased breathing.

He’d been on a failing path from the beginning. Had I just gone to Nyl’theria sooner...

“I’m... tired, Fayren,” Jabez admitted with an exasperated huff. “I’m no closer to success than I was two years ago. Two hundred years ago. From the day your mother and I first came here.”

She offered him a sympathetic gaze and a head tilt. “Is there nothing you can do?”

“There is – there’s actually a few things, but...” He looked over his shoulder to make sure the area was empty before lowering his voice. “The best option would require Zylah venturing with me to Nyl’theria.”

She dipped her head forward and came a little closer. “Why are you whispering?” she muttered back.

“Because I considered being the cunning bastard that I am and manipulating her into her complying. However, I’m beginning to feel rather shitty about that.”

“Because you like her?” Fayren gave him a cheeky, toothy grin, and he cringed.

“No,” he lied. “Because she is so soft-hearted, I just don’t see it working. But I need someone strong, fast, and quick of healing to cross that ward with me, and no Demon can cross it. I doubt Weldir would block his children or their descendants from going through it. Why should he?”

He realised he should have tested it with Merikh, but he just hadn’t thought of it at the time.

“Have you considered asking her for help? With how highly she spoke of you, I think she might follow you anywhere.”

Jabez grimaced at what that could possibly mean.

“That would present me with two choices. I can reveal the truth to her and hope she doesn’t grow to hate me for what I have done. Or I can hide the truth and essentially manipulate a female’s feelings for me into leading her to bloodshed.” He dipped his head towards her and cocked a brow. “Which one makes me less of a villain?”

She opened her mouth and then promptly shut it. Her lips thinned in deep contemplation before pulling to one side.

“Well, when you put it that way... No, I don’t think you should do the second option. She’s very sweet, and just spending a few hours with her made me want to bring her into my arms for a hug.” Then, to break the tension once more, she gave a small laugh, causing the wrinkles around her eyes to crease deeper. “She’s quite the creature if she’s managed to make you think with a true conscience.”

“She is... spectacular. She’s so damn smart that she’s able to calculate and assess situations on her own. In comparison to the rest of her species, she’s pretty special in that way. All I did was feed her a small number of humans, and she has repeatedly exceeded my expectations.”

“Sounds like you admire her?” Her question was dripping in coyness.

“How can you not?” he returned, throwing his hands forward. “Had I known, it would have been easier to feed her fewer humans and use her lacking intelligence to convince her.”

He probably also wouldn’t be attracted to her femineity at all had he done that, which is what he really meant. Now she had all these interesting facets to her, while being intelligent and mature, and he found her company pleasant. He liked teaching her because she was interested in learning, and it made doing that with her... fun.

He’d even begun teaching her shit she didn’t really need to know, like what the different stars were and how she could use them to map her way around Austrális. Utterly pointless in aiding her life, but interesting to know – while allowing him to spend more time interacting with her without her realising it was because he wanted to, and not because he needed to.

“She’s now so mentally advanced that she’s developing her own personality outside of my control,” he continued. “She can already see right from wrong, and her morals are much more benevolent than mine. I doubt any persuading on my part will change them.”

“Will you just admit you obviously feel something for her? You’ve given it away multiple times from the first moment you brought her to my home.”

He folded his arms defiantly. “I won’t admit to something that doesn’t exist.”

He could admire someone without wanting them. Jabez actually hated a lot of people he admired.

“If that was true, you wouldn’t have brought her here,” she repeated from earlier in a sing-song voice. She kicked her legs back and forth like a cheeky, meddling woman. “I’ve seen many men deny their feelings, and it never bodes well.”

“Why the fuck are we having this damn conversation?” He waved her off while turning his head away. “I shouldn’t have started talking to you. You always manage to make me speak of things best left unsaid.”

He couldn’t believe he’d vented so freely to her! The back of his neck heated in embarrassment, and he suddenly regretted bringing up the matter.

“But–”

“Why does this matter to you? What does this achieve? Why are you trying to push this?”

“Because I want to see you happy,” Fayren said, her features crinkling into sorrow – on his damn behalf. “In all my years, I don’t think I’ve ever truly seen you enjoy life.” She shrugged a single shoulder. “Sure, I’ve seen you laugh, but it is only ever in the moment. You always look so pensive and stoic. How many more years will you suffer alone?”

Jabez rolled his eyes at that. “This is the life I was given, much of it deserved. I have no desire for a female of any kind. I have no desire to breed offspring. All I want is to live peacefully, but I must shed Elven blood in order to do so.”

“Why could you never be happy with this life then? If you just gave up your war...”

“Because I want to laugh in the pool of the blood of my enemies,” he said with an added dramatic, eccentric flare. “I want to sit on their corpses, knowing I ended them after what they did to me, to the others, to those who are stuck here. The Elves are vile, and their pretentiousness irks me. Their fanciful city is an eyesore upon the worlds.”

“But what if you’re missing out on an opportunity for happiness by continuing to feel this way? How is your blind hatred for the Elvish no better than Katerina’s for the Mavka?”

He didn’t like how closely that hit to the truth. “Because at least the Elvish would deserve it.”

Her ears darted back, and she bit her bottom lip. “You truly are a cold person. It’s like there isn’t any love left in your heart.”

“There isn’t.” With his icy confirmation, his eyes lowered in callous indifference. “That was taken from me at a mere eleven years old.”

She turned a beseeching face to him. “Even us Demons find love and happiness where we can, Jabez.”

“I don’t need either of those.”

“I think you should reconsider that,” she stated, lifting her nose to snub him and his lack of feelings. However, her eyes then gleamed with a cheeky, pestering light. “Say you were, hypothetically, to keep a female. What kind would she be?”

He pulled his lips back in an appalled grimace. “The fuck kind of question is that?”

“Oh, just humour me.”

“I don’t think I particularly want to,” he sneered.

She flapped her hand up and down dismissively. “What would you seek in a female?”

“One that doesn’t exist?” he answered, and her look of annoyance only made him grin with humour. “Oh, fine .”

He cupped his jaw as he pondered what would truly please him. The list was exceptionally empty, as he’d never thought about it before.

“I guess... someone smart enough to be self-assessing. Someone who wouldn’t be a threat or make me sleep with one eye open in worry they would try to tear my throat out. That has happened one too many times.”

His words began to die off when he noticed Fayren counting with her fingers each time he said something. He raised a brow, but she cast him a dull glance to continue.

“I don’t know. Someone sensual, beautiful, and cute?” He noted that she only extended two fingers, but he ignored it as his gaze narrowed at the garden. “I think... I’d like someone with a tail, oddly enough.”

She put another finger forward, and what she was doing became blatantly obvious. It also irked him, and he reached across to unbend the finger she’d refused to extend before.

“What are you...?”

“I don’t know which word it was you lack the eye to see, but she has all of those qualities.”

Her lips curled up in cunning humour. “Okay, what else?”

Jabez tried to think of what else would please him, but he truly had little idea. Yet one word kept ringing in his mind, loud, and yet so heavy he worried it just wouldn’t be possible.

“Someone loyal,” he muttered quietly. Not in body, but in mind.

Someone who would choose him over themselves. He was done with being used and having to watch his back around everyone he came into contact with. He was tired of those around him trying to manipulate him into getting their way, whether it be with tears, sex, guilt-tripping, or giving him offerings just to gain his favour.

What he wanted was to trust someone beyond himself. And not a single person had given him that – not Katerina, not Merikh, and not even Fayren. He was too wary of their possible ulterior motives.

People wanted and wanted, and he didn’t often give any more when he saw it just led to those around him abusing whatever remaining generosity he had. Being a king meant he constantly had people asking him for shit, but he had no one to ask for help, no one to lean on.

He’d been alone from the moment he stepped into this horrible realm.

Sure, he had an army, but only because their goal had been the same as his: going the fuck home. They feared him because he made sure everyone knew he was impenetrable, cold, cruel, and heartless just so they wouldn’t even consider turning on him. Yet so many had done it anyway.

He wanted someone to want his rotten heart. Not because it meant they had power over him, but because it gave him power over them, and they trusted he wouldn’t abuse that. Then again, everyone thinks I’m evil enough to do just that. So why should he offer his non-existent heart to anyone when they all thought so lowly of him?

Realising he’d gone quiet, and likely made his last statement weigh heavier than he wanted it to appear, he forced a chuckle.

“Someone tall?” he asked, feigning humour. “I must admit, I like the idea of being able to throw them around and I can’t do that with most humans or Demons. You’re all so fucking short that I’m looking at the tops of your heads.”

Her smile grew as she lifted another finger. “Zylah is tall. I even think she’s taller than you, Jabez.”

“I’m done with speaking to you,” Jabez grumbled as he hopped down from his seat. “Dawn is coming, and I’m going to go find a tree to sleep in.”

Had she just kept her fucking mouth shut and not said the Mavka’s name, Jabez would have continued to play her stupid game.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” she called out as he stalked off.

“I don’t know, perhaps go tend to Zylah? She may have questions,” he answered, waving his hand in the direction of the cottage.

“You know... it didn’t take me long to learn what purple means,” she sang at his retreating back.

He halted, his body stiffening, and looked over his shoulder. “Okay?”

She climbed down from her perch slowly and carefully, and her arms and legs trembled as if with strain. “I left her with some rather in-depth books that have quite a few diagrams, many of which show some rather raunchy positions. Of course, for educational purposes.”

“What?!” he croaked, his ears flaring with heat.

What kind of deviant did he put in charge of the innocent Zylah? He didn’t even think Fayren would have such books! Educational purposes, my ass.

“I’m almost certain she’s gone exploring, if her scent and orb colour before I left was any indication.”

Gone exploring? His damn cock jerked at just the mere suggestion of what that could mean. Exploring how ? Like... with her own hand beneath the skirt of her dress? Then again, that could mean she was entirely engrossed in the pages like the little bookworm he knew her to be, but that didn’t stop his mind from being desirous, nor sharing perverted images with him.

Was she sitting there shaking with need? Was her skin itching to be touched, her fur puffed with the longing to be dived into? Was she panting, her body hot, her thighs tense, and her pussy wet? Worse still, was she picturing him as she looked at those diagrams?

If she wanted a physical demonstration, Jabez was sure there wasn’t a single position he couldn’t show her.

Fuck. Did I make a mistake in bringing her here?

He’d only wanted her to learn of her gender and the basics about sex, and what her heat meant, so she could protect herself in the future.

Fayren... you are a tricky little fox Demon.

He did not need that Mavka suddenly gaining feminine wiles.