Page 42 of Temptation Unleashed (Talaenian Fae #3)

S taring up into the spell-projected nighttime sky across the bedroom ceiling, Thaddeus sank into his thoughts.

Stifling, despairing, regretful. Digging deep into his past, seeking the moment, the event, that caused him to choose the path he had without considering the future.

Alas, to him, his future had been with Daeanna.

His world, his life, his existence, it had all revolved around the Seelie princess.

The deceitful, selfish princess who he had recklessly followed, adored, worshiped while she had her sights set on another person from the start.

The person who had been his closest friend growing up.

Who, despite their drastic difference—he being pureblooded while Shaye had been a cast-out half-breed—held so much in common.

Their fathers had been bloodless brothers, both seeking justice and fairness.

Both possessing enviable powers and magical capabilities, which made them highly sought components of Dagda’s Council.

Thaddeus’s father declined the position, using his abilities to aid the Fae realms, including the Talaenian realm alongside Shaye’s father .

Until the eve of the ambush. A blitz attack at the far ends of the Talaenian settlements that drew Shaye’s parents out of their peaceful home and to the front line of a vicious assassination.

’Twas the plan, after all. A plan he came to learn decades into his entanglement with Daeanna that had been the seedling that opened her idea of creating a powerful realm of pureblooded Fae while casting out any dilution of the bloodlines.

’Twas also when he learned she had set her eyes on Shaye far before she attempted to lure him into her bed, only to be rejected.

Not once, but twice. She confided in Thaddeus long after their affair began that she had set Shaye up to take the fall that eve at the inn as a means of punishment for humiliating her, but he hadn’t known about her means of torture until a short time ago. How… intimate their meetings had been.

Still, Thaddeus swallowed that truth because he believed he had meant something to her.

Having always been in the shadow of the dark Talaenian Fae—a wee bit smaller, a wee bit softer, a wee bit weaker, a wee bit less —he clung to his position beside the beautiful princess.

A coveted woman whom everyone wanted and only a few had the pleasure of enjoying.

She treated him as her world when they were together, but he should’ve known ’twas naught but a bloody fucking show.

She’d crafted a monster out of him. A weapon at her disposal.

A beast who haunted men’s nightmares and sent them scurrying in fear because he had rightfully earned the reputation of being ruthless, callous, cold and emotionless.

He cut down enemies before they knew he was even there.

He understood torture like he knew the corridors of Dagda’s castle.

He had blood on his hands and sins stained into the fabric of his soul.

The good, soft-hearted young man from the days before Daeanna had been twisted and scarred, hardly resembling the man he once was.

’Twas his own fault. For following Daeanna out of sheer gratitude for being on her arm.

’Twas foolish of him, but he had been na?ve, and she took advantage of a prime situation.

A smart strategy, if he were honest. She saw his potential and used it to make her more powerful.

He didn’t regret her aid in enhancing and building his power and magical abilities.

He’d evolved into someone who feared naught because he knew his own capabilities and held full confidence in using his magic.

He regretted his inability to see through the smokescreen and baseless promises.

He regretted falling victim to her sensuality and beauty.

Beauty he could no longer bring to clarity in his mind.

Her memory was naught more than a golden haze with undefined features.

Her voice naught more than a muffled vibration of sound that hit so many different pitches, he couldn’t make sense of whether ’twas a memory of her or not.

Daeanna had all but faded from his memories, washed away by the woman who lay asleep beside him, fiery red hair splayed over his arm, the pillow, across the creamy expanse of her chest, the mounds of her breasts.

His heart sank further still.

He should have been stronger than to have fallen to his own selfish whims. He should have been the strength for them both, yet he crumbled beneath the desire to know her, to feel her, to learn every fine detail of her while he came as close to claiming her as he could.

His hands had never touched her so thoroughly, yet he anticipated each and every curve and dip as if he had created her from a vision of perfection centuries ago.

He recognized the finest cut, the supplest mound, the arch of her hip bones, the divot of her belly button.

Every bloody beautiful inch hummed with familiarity.

Sang with righteousness. The taste of her skin against his tongue, the tremors he sensed rippling beneath the surface erased every woman he’d ever lain with.

Never would he want another. She would be his one and only.

His last.

He stirred the air overhead with his finger, churning the magical universe until the stars rained from the ceiling and perished before hitting the bed.

Naught more left than the original white ceiling with shadows cast by the deep evening hour.

Somehow, Cael had kept Cassy away. Whether his brother suspected his intentions when he left abruptly or he simply deterred his woman’s mind from checking on her best friend, he was silently grateful for the time alone.

For ’twas a gift. Time. Of which he had little left, like the spelled stars snuffing out as the last few fizzled away.

Careful not to wake Rori, he turned to face her, sinking deeper in the bed to bring himself close.

Her soft lips were swollen and deep pink, an hour since his last kiss.

Goddess, how he wanted to wake her with another kiss.

An eternity of kisses, touches, delight.

He gently slipped a lock of hair that had caught on her bottom lip away, smoothing it to the back of her head.

The faint spray of freckles across her narrow nose stood out against the lightness of her skin, small marks he would have found disturbing on anyone else, but on his woman, he adored them.

She fit so perfectly beside him, as she had fit so perfectly around him.

Her small frame was lost in his embrace, imbuing a ferocious protectiveness in his soul.

She was so fragile, yet she was fierce.

She gave herself to him completely and without restraint.

“Matters not what little my future holds, never shall I curse you to suffer in yours,” he whispered, helpless to stop from tracing her delicate jaw.

Goddess, how his heart overflowed. A fullness he’d never believed possible until he crossed her path.

The emotions and sensations had overwhelmed him in those first couple of days, making it difficult for him to decipher while unable to comprehend the significance.

He’d been conditioned to feel naught aside for his obsession for Daeanna.

Until Rori. She had been a blinding beacon in the blackest of nights, shocking his system and leaving him reeling.

He sought comfort in what he knew: how to close himself off to all emotions and embrace coldness.

With each encounter, she melted him until he held no ice in his heart. She had conquered centuries of conditioning in a matter of days. A Goddess-given blessing.

And a vicious curse.

For ’twas Rori who made him open his eyes and realize just how lost he’d become. ’Twas Rori who made him realize how much of an object he had been for centuries. ’Twas Rori who made him realize what it meant to give one’s self to another because of sincere desire.

She had given herself, trusted him, enjoyed him, and did it all without motive. ’Twas a hard sensation to explain, but laying with Rori felt real , not like a transaction.

Daeanna’s time came at a price: his loyalty for pleasure in her bed.

How foolish a Fae.

“You’ve fallen far from your youth.”

Shaye’s disappointed words from that fateful battle rang in the back of his mind. The corners of his mouth fell, a sour essence creeping through his gut.

Shame. For Shaye had spoken unfiltered truth in that single statement, only Thaddeus had been too blinded, too stubborn to realize it.

Alas, now he understood Shaye’s devotion to Moira.

Why his old friend went to the extremes he did in order to protect his woman and right the wrongs done to him.

How easy ’twas to sacrifice himself for the sake of his anam cara .

Thaddeus would give his life without a second thought for Rori.

No changing the past, but embrace the short future before ’tis no more.

Willing his dagger close, he guided the tip of the blade to his palm and drew it in a steady line from heel to pinky.

Blood welled and began to trickle across his skin as he lowered his hand to rest over Rori’s.

Honey-thick golden light blazed to life within him, pouring through his veins, heating his body as the magic of an impending blood bond seeped from his bleeding wound into Rori’s skin.

His soul cocooned her with its magic. The stinging pain of no reciprocation stabbed a thorn deep in his heart, but he consumed the ache and buried it deep.

’Twould be a sacrifice he’d suffer in silence.