Bad Fae | romantasy | Bad Fae #1

Chapter Nineteen

As he'd promised, Dain was there when I woke up. His arm was under my neck and his face soft in sleep. I watched him for a few moments, relishing the opportunity to catch him in such a state of vulnerability.

He had stayed. Regardless of how often we were at each other's throats, despite the insults we hurled and the battles we waged. He had stayed. Simply because I'd asked. I tried to feel nothing about that. I went to put that feeling with the rest, but found the memory of the abyss too daunting to feed it anything more that morning. So I had to sit with it. Sit with the feelings of gratitude and...wonder over him.

There was pain in that, as it juxtaposed against all he had taken from me. I was both angry and awed. There was something festering in the depths of my soul that almost decided to just go and put itself in the abyss for me. I couldn't completely push it away. It intrigued me. I was curious about it. I was simultaneously horrified by what I thought it was, but also drawn to it. Drawn to the sensation I recognised it came with.

Because in my time in Dain's home, I finally felt settled. I had started as a veritable prisoner. I still wouldn't have been able to leave...but neither did I want to. I looked forward to my days. I looked forward to seeing the four sidhe – even as Dain aggravated me on an hourly basis – and to exploring the library, to spending time in the forest, even pushing my body in training every day, to this feeling of belonging that enveloped me and welcomed me to a place that felt it could be home.

Oh, I still hated Dain. I hadn't completely given up on the idea of killing him one day.

But right then, in that moment, that was a secondary concern to just thriving. Not just surviving anymore, but thriving. Enjoying life. In a way I had never enjoyed life before. A freedom to spend my time the way I wanted, to say the things I wanted, to think the things I wanted, to take pleasure from who I wanted with no reprimand or judgement.

There would always be that element of oppression because of the geas between Dain and I, but the frequency with which he used it had diminished significantly. It was used now to annoy, rather than simple control. The times he used it didn't seem important, they could be summed up as just another battle in our war. A battle that, if I lost, I would just have to retaliate against better the next time.

Dain shifted in his sleep next to me. His brows furrowed and I wondered what he was dreaming. I'd never thought about the fact that sidhe dreamed. In fact, before coming here, I'd never thought about the fact that they slept. They just seemed unending. Food wasn't nourishment so much as extravagance. Everything had seemed extravagance. But they needed to eat and sleep and shit the same as the rest of us. Perhaps less than mortals; their stamina and strength far outweighed even the healthiest of humanity. But without the basics of life, they still suffered.

And after my sleep in Dain's arms, I felt refreshed. I felt like I hadn't had anything remotely close to a brush with death the night before. There was a small part of me still lingering at the edge of the abyss that knew Dain wasn't quite right. I hadn't been nearly dead. I had been entirely dead. Maybe only for a split second, but it was enough. Enough to have shaken me a little. To have shaken me, but my survival, my victory, had given me a renewed sense of arrogance.

I felt like I could accomplish almost anything. I felt a singular appreciation for life and all that was in it. A drive to live life to the fullest, to meet each day with renewed sense of purpose. I was going to train harder, until I could put Dain's back on the floor and see how he liked it. I was going to master the damned shadows, regardless of what they had to say about it. I was going to learn every single thing in Dain's books that I could until my timely end.

"What is going on in that mortal brain?" I heard Dain's sleepy voice and looked into his eyes. A lazy, contented smile played at the corner of his lips, and, for a moment, I forgot this was the same fearsome creature who destroyed my friends. He was just Dain.