Page 17

Chapter 17

Greatest Fear

R aewyn

It was only another day before Pharis was fully lucid again.

He sat on his spread cloak now in the sunshine as my sisters skipped around him, offering bites of food and sips of yarrow tea and clearly thrilled to have their oversized playmate back.

“I saved your life,” Tindra informed him.

“No I did,” Turi argued.

“I found the yarrow,” Tindra said, full of pride.

Turi pouted. “But I smooshed the leaves on his face.”

“I smooshed them, too.”

“You both saved my life,” Pharis said, settling the argument. “And you are both my heroes.”

The girls blushed and grinned ear to ear, looking completely smitten. I could hardly blame them. I had to confess to being somewhat smited myself.

Somewhat? Who did I think I was kidding?

After the crying-comfort incident followed by the self-defense lesson—and then seeing him in that vulnerable state and almost losing him… I was nervous the way I’d never been around a man before.

That wasn’t true. I’d been nervous around Pharis since the moment I’d met him at the ball and he’d overwhelmed me with all his royal charm and his devastating smile.

He was wearing it now as I approached with what would have to pass for supper tonight.

Sitting beside him, I offered what was left of our raff supply.

“It’s a good thing the fearless hunter is feeling better, or we’d soon be going hungry,” I said.

“You don’t need me to hunt for you anymore,” Pharis said. “Not after what I saw of your knife skills. You’ll have the human men in your new village quivering in their tiny boots and feeling completely redundant.”

“I’m not interested in any human men,” I said.

And it wasn’t because their boots were indeed small compared to Pharis’.

One of his dark brows raised along with a corner of his mouth. “Oh?”

“I shall be far too busy looking after the girls to even think of courting. Besides, after all my adventures and all I’ve seen…”

My eyes fell involuntarily to his bare chest before I realized it and snapped them back into place “...regular men would bore me.”

I hadn’t meant it as flirtation—or maybe I had? Based on Pharis’ expression, he was taking it that way.

“No, a ‘regular’ man would never do for you, Wildcat,” he said in a voice too low for the girls to hear. “You’re far too—”

“Raewyn, look at your face,” Tindra cried. “You’re all red.”

“And your skin is all covered in duck balls,” Turi said with a giggle.

Pharis turned to her wearing a quizzical look. “Duck balls?”

“Goosebumps,” Tindra corrected her little sister, and we all laughed.

“Girls, go to the tent and see if Papa needs anything,” I said.

Over the course of our stay here, we’d all reverted to a normal wake/sleep schedule. Papa was sleeping nearly round the clock though, and while I missed interacting with him, I was grateful.

The pain seemed far worse when he was awake.

When my sisters were out of earshot, I attempted to get Pharis to complete his thought.

“You were saying…”

“I can’t remember.” He looked at the sky and scratched his chin. “My mind’s a complete blank.”

Then he laughed, and reached out to lift a tendril of my hair, curling it around his finger.

“I was saying you’re far too kind and generous for the likes of regular men.”

And why did that answer disappoint me? I could have sworn that was not where Pharis had been going with his earlier statement before Tindra had interrupted.

“Truly, I can’t thank you enough, little Wyn, for what you did.”

I waved a hand in front of me.

“Of course I helped you. Despite what you say, I’m not ready to hunt my own game yet. I need you around a little longer.”

Pharis laughed. “I don’t just mean saving my life. I mean the way you took care of me afterward. I was insensible half the time, but the other half I was aware. Every time I woke, you were there, day and night. I wonder if you even slept.”

He dropped the lock of hair and raised his hand to cup my face, sweeping his thumb gently under my eye, probably tracing a lovely dark circle.

“I did,” I said, fighting to recover the breath he’d stolen. “A little.”

I’d sent the girls to sleep in the tent with Papa, staying up most of the night, keeping watch with Pharis’ dagger in hand, then passing out next to him during the day whenever he slept.

“Tired girl,” he said softly.

His hand moved from my cheek to brush my hair back then delved beneath it to find the tight muscles at the back of my neck.

Very slowly, he massaged them, and I thought I might melt right there from the sheer bliss of it.

My eyelids must have closed because they flew open when he spoke again.

“Feel good?” he asked.

“Hmmmmm,” was all the response I could muster, and Pharis chuckled.

“You’re strung as tight as my bow,” he said. “Lie down.”

“What? I’m fine. I’m not sleepy.”

“I’m not asking you to sleep,” he said with overdone patience in his voice. “Just lie down next to me here. On your belly.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked in a shrill tone that made him laugh.

“Relax, Wildcat, your virtue is safe. If I’ve managed to resist you this far…”

He didn’t finish the tantalizing sentence, leaving me to fill in the rest.

Wait—resist me?

Before I could restart my brain to think properly again, Pharis pulled my supporting arm away and eased me down to the cloak, rolling me onto my front until I was lying face-down.

And then his big hands were on my back, kneading the tense muscles and sending waves of pleasure radiating all over my body. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from releasing a moan and embarrassing myself or piquing the girls’ curiosity.

I hoped they stayed in the tent with Papa a long, long time.

My head was turned to one side, and Pharis must have been amused by my expression. There was a laugh in his voice when he said, “You’d think you never had a massage before.”

“Is that what this is?” I said in a husky voice I’d never in my life heard come from my own mouth.

“It is,” his voice rumbled. “And you’ve never had one apparently. You’ve been living a life of terrible deprivation, little Wyn.”

All I could do was mumble the word “yes,” as his strong hands continued their work, moving to the left arm and hand, which were nearest him.

My right arm was fairly screaming in envy, eager for its turn, and my legs were starting to get restless.

Would he touch them too?

No doubt that would be highly inappropriate, but with pleasure signals racing from one end of my body to the other, I could not make myself care about propriety right now.

After satisfying the demands of my right upper limb, Pharis did slide down on the cloak and begin to rub my leg through my skirt.

Oh yes.

There was only one problem. My skin felt literally thirsty for his touch, demanding I remove the offending fabric between us so I could feel his hands with no impediment.

I did not of course, but I couldn’t stop myself from imagining it gone, imagining all of my clothing gone—and his as well.

“ What is going on in that mind of yours?” Pharis asked with a low laugh.

I stiffened. Was he able to read my thoughts?

That would be bad. I had felt like I was hearing his at times—hopefully mine were not projecting loudly enough for that perceptive Elven mind of his to pick up.

“Relax, Wildcat, you’re fine. You’re just smiling in a way I’ve never seen you smile.”

“You’ve never massaged me before,” I said as I obeyed his command to relax and again focused on the powerful hands that had moved to my right calf.

“As I said… terribly deprived. We’re going to fix that.”

Pharis removed my boot and rubbed my foot, working out years of tension and fatigue. Now I did groan, and he laughed.

“I had no idea feet were capable of ecstasy,” I said.

“You think that feels good?” he said, “Wait till—”

He cut himself off abruptly, moving to the other foot and beginning again.

“You deserve to feel good,” he said. “You do so much for everyone else. I really, really appreciate you taking care of me when I was ill. Now I see why Stellon was convinced you were an angel.”

My mind zipped right past the mention of Stellon to the other things Pharis had said.

Was that what the massage was about? A gesture of gratitude?

It wasn’t necessary, though I literally didn’t have the strength to turn it down. It occurred to me that his overly grateful response to my very routine nurturing acts meant something.

Was it possible that, like me, Pharis had not experienced much nurture and loving care in his life?

When I thought about it, it made sense. His mother was gone. His father was definitely not the warm and caring type. Though he received no end of female interest, perhaps no one had treated Pharis with actual tenderness and love since his mother had died.

As his thumb stroked my left arch, I thought of the tiny tattoo I’d seen in the corresponding location on his foot while he was unconscious.

“Pharis?”

“Yes, Wildcat?”

“Why do you have two of the same tattoo? Is it common for Elven people to display a glamour symbol in two places?”

He stopped the heavenly foot massage. Which made me regret having asked.

“No,” he finally said and resumed the rubbing, moving up to my left calf.

“It’s not common. The small one was put there by my father. I chose to have it reproduced at a larger scale when I was a teenager.”

“Why?”

Pharis was quiet for so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, but then he did.

“Most Elven parents have their children’s glamour symbols placed on their bodies in prominent places when the abilities develop enough to become apparent. Glamour gifts are generally a source of pride. But you saw where my father chose to tattoo mine.”

“Yes. On the bottom of your foot.”

“Exactly. He’s ashamed of my glamour and did his best to hide it.”

Now it made more sense why Pharis would have chosen to avoid using his shadow powers very often.

He went on. “As a kid, I never wanted anyone to see it. If we were swimming together, I’d make sure to cover my foot as soon as we came out of the water. But then later, after—”

He stopped short then picked up the story again. “Later I decided, you know what? Screw him. I told the tattoo artisan to make it as large as possible.”

Nodding, I acted as if I understood, which I did not. The King was hard to understand.

His second son was only slightly more transparent.

“But why would your father be ashamed of your shadow glamour?” I asked. “It seems rather magical to me. And useful.”

Once again, Pharis went quiet.

As he moved his hands to the back of my thigh, he said, “The tattoos you saw are not the symbol for shadow wielders. I have more than one glamour.”

“Ohhhhh. Stellon said that’s rare.”

“It is.”

“What’s your other one then? What does the hooked whirlwind represent?” I was dying to know by this point.

After a moment, Pharis removed his hands and moved away a few inches. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I’m sure your second glamour is not as bad as you think it is,” I said. “Stellon was ashamed of his for no reason.”

“I don’t want to talk about Stellon either,” he said grumpily.

I turned onto my side, pushing up to one elbow. “Let’s talk about your father, then. It’s my opinion he shamed you both for no reason and that both your glamours are perfectly benign.”

“No glamours are benign,” he muttered. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know your father is afraid of you.”

“What?” Pharis finally made eye contact after minutes of looking at the ground, the sky, anywhere but my face.

“I think the King is afraid of you both,” I said. “I sensed it that night in the stable when he found Stellon and me attempting to escape. I think your father shames you in order to keep you small because he’s afraid of you.”

“How would you know?” Pharis asked.

I shrugged. “Intuition? I don’t know for sure, but I’ve always had a knack for sensing things like that. I always suspected the reason Dardick Creegan acted the way he did was because of his own sort of… smallness—though I couldn’t be sure of it until we ran into him on the road outside the village that night and you swayed him to disrobe.”

Pharis smirked, remembering.

“I think Stellon’s greatest fear is letting people down, particularly your father,” I mused.

“My father’s greatest fear is dying and leaving the girls behind,” I said. “And in turn, their greatest fear is losing him.”

“They love you just as much,” Pharis said.

“Oh, I know that. But they don’t fear losing me the same way. I guess because they sort of expected I’d get married someday and move away from our home. It’s the natural order of things, so to speak, though not my fate in particular.”

“Your… sense… really tells you that the King fears me and Stellon?” Pharis asked, sounding interested.

I was surprised he was taking me seriously, actually.

“It’s what I’ve felt when I’ve been around him,” I confirmed. “Though, admittedly that has been a rare occurrence. I’d need to spend more time with him to be sure.”

“Let us pray that never happens,” Pharis said.

“Agreed.”

I got up, intending to go check on my family, but he grabbed my skirt and stopped me.

“Raewyn?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you sense my greatest fear?”

For a long moment, I studied his guarded expression, though I didn’t really need to. I’d read Pharis’ greatest fear as soon as he’d dropped his glib facade during our ride to Waterdale.

I remembered thinking how odd it was, since everyone wanted Pharis and even wondered if I’d somehow gotten it wrong. But being with him on this long ride had only reinforced my certainty.

For whatever reason, Pharis feared that no one would ever truly love him, that he’d always feel alone.

Deliberately raising my shoulders and letting them fall, I told him a little white lie. There was no need to hurt his dignity, not when he’d already suffered so much.

“It doesn’t always work,” I said. “It might be all in my own head anyway. Rest easy, Your Highness. Your secret is safe.”