Unchained by a Forbidden Love Read online

  Fuery.

  She swallowed her fear, for his sake. He needed her, and she needed him, but Hartt would keep turning her away unless she could give him an answer. As little as she wanted to see soldiers of the legion, as much as it would hurt her to look upon them, she needed to go there and see if she could find Bleu in that place.

  Shaia hesitated.

  Someone hollered an order, and another joined it, and she froze as an entire legion of soldiers marched through the archway towards the castle, past a beautiful fountain, and banked around the orchard and out of the gate that led into the countryside.

  Some of the males spoke of manoeuvres.

  If the soldiers were training, it stood to reason that Bleu would be leading them as their commander.

  Which meant he was busy.

  While she knew Bleu, she couldn’t say that she was close to him, definitely wasn’t close enough that he would find time for her in his schedule if he was in charge of the soldiers heading out to practice their drills.

  One of the guards turned her way and frowned at her.

  Instinct pushed her to leave, to find another way to discover more about bonds, before the guards decided she was a threat and threw her in the cells. She would be no use to Fuery there.

  She was too tired to teleport though, weary from her travels and unused to using that particular ability. It would be a while before she could teleport again, but she couldn’t stand here waiting for her strength to return. She ducked her head and took the path to her right, following the soldiers out into the countryside.

  They had all banked left, heading up the hill.

  Shaia hesitated, torn between still trying to find Bleu and finding another source of information about bonds.

  When the two legions of soldiers gathered on the hill broke apart and formed ranks facing each other, she dragged herself away and headed down the hill to her right instead.

  The sound of running water captured her focus and drew her towards it, making her lift her eyes in search of the source.

  Gods, this end of her small world was beautiful.

  Endless green stretched from the mountains on her right to the ones on her left, hills undulating between them, as far as her eyes could see. A brook followed the curves of some of the hills, snaking between them and catching the light from the portal. Along its bank, the grass was long, swaying in the breeze together with the rushes.

  Shaia drifted towards the water, her mind filling with a vision of a different stream, one that was shallow and broad, with a pebbled bottom. One where she had passed stolen hours with the male who had captured her heart, and still held it in his hands, despite their years apart.

  She would see Fuery again.

  She would learn where she had gone wrong.

  Somehow.

  She removed her cloak, draped it over the grass on the bank of the brook, and sat on it.

  The castle towered a short distance away, stunning in the warm light, seeming to sparkle. She had never seen it this close, so close she could pick out all the details and see the green vines that covered some of the balconies, their blue flowers filling her with an itch to see them closer. She had never seen such blooms before either.

  She had never set foot in this end of the kingdom.

  Had never left the kingdom.

  Never travelled to the free realm.

  She had done all those things now. It sank in fast and she needed a moment to take that in. She had broken with convention in so many ways. A smile touched her lips. Fuery always had had a way of making her go against society.

  Her thoughts flitted between memories of him as she stared at the castle, not really seeing it. She saw Fuery as he had been four thousand years ago, a young male full of hope and love. A strong male who had moved Hell to be close to her, to be good enough for her.

  Gods, he had always been good enough for her, even when he hadn’t seen it.

  She didn’t need a male of status to make her happy.

  She only needed Fuery.

  “Are you unwell?” The deep baritone rolled over her, sweeping her thoughts away, and she looked up at its owner, her eyes widening a little when she realised it was getting dark.

  How long had she been sitting here, daydreaming of Fuery?

  She looked off to her right, to the hill where the soldiers had been. They were gone.

  She had wasted hours, time in which she should have been seeking a way to see Fuery so she could help him.

  “Did you come to the palace for something?” The elegant male pulled her focus back to him.

  He had a kind face, with twinkling violet eyes that spoke of intelligence and maybe a keen wit, and held himself well with an almost regal bearing that made him look as if he had been born to wear such a fine tailored tunic. There were dragons and elves on the two long tabs at the front of it that reached down to his knees, stitched beautifully in hues of blue and green.

  She wasn’t normally in the habit of speaking to strangers, but something about the male soothed her and had words bubbling up before she could stop them.

  “I came to see someone, but changed my mind… and I meant to leave but it was so beautiful.” She looked around her at the green hills, the babbling stream, the castle and the mountains.

  “And you needed the connection to nature to soothe you. Why?” The male crouched before her, resting his elbows on his knees.

  He was astute too.

  She hadn’t even realised that was the reason she had come out to the meadow and the stream.

  But he was right.

  She had needed nature to soothe her.

  All elves had a connection to it, one that kept light burning in their souls and allowed them to temper the seed of darkness that lived within their hearts—darkness that elves tapped into whenever they needed a boost in strength. Fuery had told her once that the soldiers were trained in methods of harnessing the darkness, using it as a weapon to aid them in their battles. It had sounded dangerous to her.

  Now that she knew what had happened to him, she wanted to blame his training. It had taught him to awaken the darkness, but it was a volatile thing, easily able to overpower even the strongest male. He had been playing with fire, and in the end it had not only burned him, but had consumed him, pushing out the light.

  Gods, she wanted to help him find that light within himself again and pull him from the darkness.

  The male beside her preened his short blue-black hair back as he waited for her to find her voice to answer him, and she spotted the black and silver bands around his wrists. Armour. She had seen Fuery’s a few times, and he had even shown her how it looked when he called upon it and the black scales rippled over his body like magic, flowing from the bands.

  Was this male another commander?

  Bleu had worn such fine clothing when she had met him in the village. Maybe this male could help her find him.

  “The person I came to see… he told me that someone I believed I had lost was in fact alive.” She picked at the grass, her eyes on the blades, avoiding his keen gaze.

  “You seem upset by this, and not relieved,” he said and moved to sit beside her. He planted the soles of his polished black riding boots to the grass and rested his forearms on his bent knees, leaning forwards slightly so he could keep his eyes on her face.

  Shaia shrugged.

  “I tried to find him, and was turned away by another male, one who is bound to him. He told me not to return until I understand where I went wrong.” She squeezed her eyes shut and hung her head. “I cannot feel him.”

  “The male bound to him?” When those soft words left his lips, a note of confusion in them, she lifted her head and looked at him. His eyes were as soft as his voice, soothing and coaxing her into speaking and telling him more.

  What was it about this male that made it so easy for her to speak with him?

  She should have already made her excuses and left, or asked him to take her to see Bleu. Yet here she was, talking openly
with a male she didn’t know, one who didn’t seem shocked that she was flouting society’s rules and not behaving at all as a female should.

  Shaia shook her head.

  A flicker of understanding dawned in his eyes.

  “Ah.” He nodded, a smile teasing his lips, one that was somehow solemn. “The lost male is your mate.”

  A trickle of cold went through her and she wanted to deny it, afraid that this male was a noble and word would get back to her family, but then she remembered that Fuery was her everything. He was all that mattered.

  She would forsake her family just to be with him.

  Had intended to do just that when he returned from his assignment.

  Only he had never returned.

  She nodded, plucked another blade of grass and studied it. “I believed him dead in the battle four-thousand-two-hundred years ago.”

  The male beside her tensed, and her eyes leaped to his face in time to catch the way his expression shifted towards something akin to wariness for a heartbeat before it softened again.

  Or pain.

  Had she pained him?

  She studied him, the blade of grass forgotten as she tried to judge his age, worried that he might be one of the survivors of the war she had mentioned. He appeared around the same age as Bleu, as her, but could easily be older by centuries or more. Elves aged so slowly after maturing that it was difficult to tell, but it was certainly possible he had been involved in the war. She made a mental note not to mention it again.

  When he relaxed again, she did too, returning her gaze to the grass and then the stream. Her thoughts drifted back to Fuery.

  “How could I believe him dead if I am bound to him?” she whispered to herself, seeking the answer from her heart because it seemed no one else would give it to her.

  Her heart sounded decidedly masculine.

  “The answer to that is simple. The bond between you became weak when the male you had formed it with became tainted.”

  Tainted.

  Shaia wanted to squeeze her eyes shut on hearing that word, but she forced herself to look at the male to her right instead. “I fear Fuery would be lost if not for the male who has bound himself to him.”

  She swore the male tensed again, but he appeared as relaxed as ever, his expression gentle and soft still, and no trace of darkness in his eyes.

  “I know a little about bonds,” he said, “and the tainted.”

  She feared she had said too much. “Please don’t tell anyone at the castle. I’m afraid they will send soldiers after him. I know what the prince does to the tainted.”

  “I will not tell a soul.” There was that flicker in his eyes again, as if she had hurt him. “I share a bond with a female myself, and a bond with a male, and both are complex things. It is easy for a bond to feel broken when the person at the other end draws away from the light. Our bonds are forged by nature, and nature does not like the darkness. It thrives in the light. So when darkness invades the heart of a bonded elf, it drives out the nature that forged the connection between that elf and another, and it is easy for that person to believe the bond broken.”

  Was it really that simple?

  Was her bond with Fuery still there, only muted by his darkness because nature feared it as strongly as the elves?

  “There have been times when my bond with another became so weak I thought it broken.” He looked off into the distance, beyond the castle, his expression turning solemn, and then he looked at her, his gaze filled with a mixture of pain and hope. “If you focus on it, you should still be able to feel it is there, and it always has been.”

  Shaia slowly blocked out the world around her, her focus turning inwards, towards the bond she shared with Fuery and that slender ribbon that connected them.

  But no matter how hard she focused, she couldn’t feel Fuery.

  She couldn’t feel their bond.

  “Was Bleu lying?” she whispered to her knees and fought the tears that wanted to rise and burn her eyes, refusing to let them come. Refusing to lose hope even when it all seemed so impossible.

  Hartt had made it clear that Fuery was alive. She clung to that, using it to hold together the tattered shreds of her hope.

  The male beside her smiled. “Bleu is not in the habit of lying. He is often painfully truthful.”

  Her eyes widened. “You know Bleu?”

  It would stand to reason that he would if he were a commander of the legions, but it still surprised her, and had that hope growing stronger.

  “I do.” He didn’t look as if he would expand on that, and before she could ask how he knew Bleu, he spoke again. “Close your eyes and focus on your bond, both with your mate and with nature.”

  Shaia did as he had instructed, and tensed as his hand came down on the back of her neck, cool against her skin.

  He palmed it. “Relax. I am only trying to assist you.”

  Her connection with nature flooded open, stronger than she had ever felt it, sending a chill sweeping over her skin. Gods, it was magical. She felt one with it in a way she never had before, as if nature was the life that flowed through her veins, was each beat of her heart and breath of air in her lungs.

  “You are doing well,” he murmured. “Your connection is naturally strong. Very strong for a female. Focus on your bond now.”

  She tried.

  But nothing happened.

  “I am… I’m not sure how,” she whispered, ashamed to admit that and feeling like a fool as it hit her that she knew so little about bonds.

  There was a smile in his voice as he spoke. “You simply have to focus on the one at the other end of it. Call him into your mind, and invite him into your heart.”

  She could do that.

  She conjured an image of Fuery, which wasn’t difficult. He sprang quickly into her mind, dressed in only his black trousers, his chest bare and glistening with water as it had been the day they had met at the river. His violet eyes sparkled at her, bright with his smile as he spoke with her.

  Warmth flowed into her, light and life that had her feeling as if she was soaring, able to touch the sky. Her heartbeat slowed, falling into rhythm with his, and she reached for him.

  Opened herself to him.

  Darkness flooded her, oily and thick.

  Choking her.

  The male snatched his hand away from her neck on a muttered curse and the connection shattered.

  Shaia breathed hard, tears stinging her eyes and her body awash with crippling pain that tore at her, felt as if it was ripping her apart molecule by molecule.

  The male beside her panted too, struggling as fiercely as she was. She cracked her eyes open and looked at him as she clutched at the grass on either side of her hips, desperate to feel nature, cool and clean, surrounding her.

  Anything but that vile darkness.

  “I… I’m sorry,” she murmured, fighting for air to ease the pain still ricocheting around inside her. “I’m not sure what happened.”

  He sucked down a deep shuddering breath. “It was not your doing, not your fault. I am responsible. I should have considered the consequences of using my powers to forge a stronger connection between you and a male who is not only tainted.”

  Shaia swallowed as her heart plummeted.

  “He is lost.” He stood and she grabbed his left hand, held on tightly and refused to let him go.

  “Please… do not tell anyone. Please?” She clung to him, images of the legion tracking down Fuery and hurting him rushing through her mind, tormenting her.

  The male looked down at her, his eyes colder now. “You believe you are capable of taming such a beast?”

  She nodded. “I… I can. No… I am not sure, but I must try, because his sickness is my fault. If I had known how to feel the bond between us, he might not have fallen into the darkness.”

  The male took a step back, slipping from her grasp, and she shot to her feet, her heart thundering as fear flooded her veins.

  “Please, don’t tell the prince
.” She reached for him but he evaded her, shifting his arm behind him and beyond her reach. Desperation lanced her, drove her to seize him again and not let him go until he swore he wouldn’t tell anyone what she had told him. She shook as she reached for him, fear at the helm, filling her mind with horrific images. “The prince will kill him.”

  He stilled, his face going slack, all emotion draining from it. “You honestly believe that?”

  She bent her head, fought the shame that swept through her again, born of the terrible thing she had said about their prince, and then lifted her chin and nodded. “I know what the prince does to the tainted and the lost.”

  His eyes darkened again. “Do you honestly believe me capable of killing the tainted and the lost when my own flesh and blood is among them?”

  Shaia’s knees almost gave out.

  She stared at the male, growing painfully aware of who she was speaking to and increasingly horrified by the things she had said to him.

  Prince Loren.

  Gods.

  She bowed her head, clutched the front of her trousers and cursed herself. “I am sorry. I only know what I hear.”

  He huffed. “That is the crux of your problem, is it not? You know only what you are told, and do not seek the knowledge for yourself.”

  She wanted to say that the crux of her problem was society in that case, and it was responsible for her mistake. It was hard for a female to educate herself, to rise above the position tradition wanted for her and go against everything it believed she should be, and should do. She had fought against it and her parents for centuries, had grown up stealing books from her father’s library and hiding them until she had finished reading them, learning all she could about the world.

  Tradition wanted her restricted to knowledge suitable for a lady.

  No tales of wars and great battles, or stories about the other species who also called Hell their home, and legends about the Devil and the terrible things he had done.

  It wanted her to know about sewing and crafting, about tending to flowers and fruits and vegetables, and other ridiculous pastimes that she had grown to despise over the years because they represented everything that was wrong with elf society.