Dark Love

B2:P18

Her breath hitched as it left her lungs.  Eyes red from crying were turned down so as not to draw attention. Saera sniffed as she made her way towards the library, deciding to skip lunch for some alone time. Not that she wasn't feeling terribly alone already. But she didn't want Cade to see her like this. She wasn't all sad and torn up about what happened with the princes. She was more upset by the rage tearing through her.

The princes turning their backs on her was a good thing. They shouldn't love her. Cade shouldn't either, but he at least already knew what he had gotten himself into. He knew as much about her past as she did. Or he should, having hung around her as much as he had. Surely he had overheard enough of what had been said? Could he still hear her thoughts even? That alone would have been enough to fuel him in on what was happening. Putting a pin in it for later, Saera marched into the silent library. The place was thankfully devoid of others. At least as far as her eye could see.

Sighing, she wondered over to the shelves searching more from instincts then anything else. She came to a stop on the third floor in a remote and dusty corner. The spines of the books here were worn more with age than actual handling. Saera reached out for a book on deamonolgy. It was time to set aside the dramas with her love life and bury her nose in something useful. Researching the other half of her gene pool.

It proved to be a futile venture with the first two books that landed spread open before her. The next two didn't even make it past the the first chapter before she was zonking out.  Boredom  and fatigue went hand in hand for a good night's sleep. But Saera was ready to head back to her room, not when it was still hours away from bedtime and her room held way too many hazards to her peace of mind.

The bell clanged her awake for her next lesson. Pilling the books haphazardly back onto the shelves, Saera made her way towards it. Only to find the way blocked by a brooding Cade. Brooding Nick stood right beside him. And while Saera would have more than enjoyed turning her nose up at Nick in favour for basking her eyes on her Alpha, she knew Cade would be turning up his nose on her once scented her princes on her skin.

She ignored the faint blush to her cheeks and fixed her gaze on the sardonic ones of Nick. His beautiful brown eyes stared back at her almost baleful. Did his Elven half give him better senses? Can he too scent her princes on her?

"You would love them all but me," he accused quietly. The sorrow in his silence more bruising than any rage he could have voiced against her. 

"Nick," she breathed out, in pain.

"Don't," he murmured darkly, shielding his own pain. Then he lifted a careless shoulder in a half-shrug and simply slunk away.

"I don't... not... love you."

Saera found herself saying despite herself. But she wasn't sure if her words had reached him.

"I think your problem is you seem to love everybody." But there was no tease to Cade's words, instead he glared down at her before sliding his large hands over her tiny waist and lifting her bodily up against him. She muffled her sequel of surprise and braced her hands against his rock hard shoulders. Cade burried his nose against the crook of her neck and sniffed hard. It was plain rude to be sniffed at like this and her annoyance had her lifting her knee at him. A move he evaded with ease, without once breaking the contact of his nose against her skin.

"I have classes," she admonished. He sighed then, easing his hold on her.

"You have me," he said instead, his words seem to hold a whole lot more meaning then the obvious.

Saera pushed back mightily and after a moment her reluctantly allowed her to circumvent a gap between them. Enough for her to stare into his depthless gaze.

"You know," she said quietly.

"I have for sometime." He agreed. His choice of words alerting her to more than what he was saying.

"The spell never really worked on you did it?" She asked on a hoarse whisper then. He shook his head silently.

"It can't." He said simply in response to the question in her gaze. "The mating bond is the deepest magic of all. Nothing can surpass it."

She frowned at him. He'd been pretending all this while? Why?

"Don't think like that," he reprimanded, shaking her roughly. "You needed the time," he said gently. "You needed to get used to me." He leaned in then to brush his soft lips over the furrows to her brow, then added huskily. "You needed... to love me back."