Page 28 of The Ballad of a Bard

S he was going to be the death of him.

Crimson fucking Bard, Heartache’s daughter, was going to kill him. With the way she kept scrunching up her scarlet gown, he knew she was seconds away from tearing it off her flesh. He couldn’t let that happen. Not in front of all of these people, who would no doubt pause whatever they were doing to stop and stare. To watch the show that Altivar had no doubt planned in its entirety.

Crimson may have been about to kill him, but he was about to kill the damned Prince.

He had no right to meddle in this affair, none at all. Altivar probably thought it was nothing more than a harmless prank, but within the true nature of their pretend relationship, it was more than just harmful.

West was going to give him a handful of bruises during their next sparring match, if the asshole decided to step foot in the ring. It would be daring, confident. More than he thought the heir could ever muster up after pulling a stunt like this .

“Crimson, we have to get upstairs now.” He pulled her close to him, fully aware that it would only add to her lustful nature. But it didn’t matter. If he didn’t get them both out of there, then things were going to get interesting. Far more than he wanted them to be.

“Alright.” She breathed, a shaking following her wavering tone. “Let’s go.”

West carefully, hesitantly placed a hand on her lower back as he guided her through the bustling crowd. She tucked her lips together, her fingers trembling.

“Lean on me.” He whispered in her ear and Crimson sucked in air.

“West, I-” She blurted out, her cheeks turning cerise as they reached the stairs. “Everything, it feels alive. It’s too much to bear.”

“I know. Trust me, here.” He silently cursed, glancing around before shoving his arms under her legs and hoisted her up. She shrieked softly as he took her into his arms and strode up the steps.

With her heightened sense of the heart and its inner workings, he had no doubt that she could make out his. It was a song of steel, one that was slowly faltering with each touch of her against him. With the way she was pressed into his chest, he could also feel hers. It was rapid, far faster than any mortal, or even Saint’s for that matter, heart’s should be.

He ducked into the hallway after finishing the last step of the staircase, following the long hallway until he reached the second floor and turned down it.

“Almost there.” West informed her as they came across his apartment doors. There was no key that locked it, so he didn’t have reason to set her down to pull something out of his pocket. Instead he kicked it open, slamming it shut with another swift kick behind him as they entered .

He lowered her to the ground, until her feet touched it and she could stand on her own two legs. She needed to cool down, to be calmed from the magical high of Heartache’s blood that coursed through her, that pounded through every cell in her system.

The shower, perhaps.

West contemplated the best way to tell her, the best way that wouldn’t send her into another spiral of heat if worded incorrectly. Maybe he should have just carried her in there, dressed in all her finery instead of asking her this.

He started with, “Heartstrings. I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

“Go on.” Crimson unlatched the belt at her waist, tossing it onto the bed. The golden thing clattered as she began to unpin her hair, dropping each of the star pins that Muse had put there. Carefully woven into her majestic locks of garnet and ruby. The Saint was far more clever than she liked to let on but nothing of what she’d done tonight had been mere coincidence. It was her way of pushing them together.

West swallowed, readying himself for another wave as he said, “I need you to take your clothes off. You’re going to go into the shower and let the cold water run over you. I don’t know if it will undo anything, but it’s the best option we’ve got at the moment. I’m not sure how long this spell is going to last either.”

Her green and gold eyes widened as she stopped messing with her shoes, half undone. “I- I can’t undo the laces by myself. Muse laced it up.”

He ignored the roar that ran through him as he edged closer to her. “Turn around.”

Her throat bobbed, her cheeks heated and she slowly rose from removing her other shoe, leaving her barefoot. She rotated her hips until her back was facing him .

“I’m going to touch you now.” West murmured, and it came out far more husky than he intended. He couldn’t help it. Had Altivar fed him Heartache’s blood too? It certainly seemed so as he pushed her hair off of her neck, setting it over her shoulder. It wasn’t like it would have affected him but he didn’t like the other option.

Her breath sharpened, her spine locked and he tried to concentrate as he found the top of the ribbon that criss-crossed through the plunging back of the dress. He tried as hard as he could to not accidentally brush against her tepid skin.

West tugged the bow free, pulling until the one knot became two strings. She was as stoic as a statue, unmoving. He threaded the first one through the loop, the pressure slackening as he continued. On and on he went, until the ribbon fluttered to the floor. His hands came up to her shoulders, latching onto the sleeves and he pushed them down. The fabric slid off her body with ease, revealing a cream corset below and similar undergarments that covered her enough that he let out a breath of relief.

But there was still enough on display that it triggered that side of him. That primal, hungry part of him hadn’t had a sample of what the skin had to offer in at least a decade.

Crimson shivered as he unintentionally dragged his knuckles against her shoulder blades. “West-”

“Let’s get you into the shower.” He abruptly turned on his heel before he could make a mistake, finding the bathing chamber. He removed the absurdly shiny jacket and tossed it aside, not caring where it landed. She may have been the one who handled a raging fire, but he was the one who felt hot at the moment.

West rolled his blue sleeves up as he reached for the metal handle and turned it all the way down, to the very end of the blue line. The shower creaked and the pipes strained, but it started to pour water from the nozzle at last. He tested it, finding it cold enough to cool her down but not biting enough to freeze her solid.

“Alright, Heartstrings. It’s ready.” He didn’t turn around as he called to her, pushing off the wall and leaving the glass door open for her as he heard her enter.

Crimson walked past him, gasping as the water hit her. It began to coat her in a cold, dripping waterfall that soaked her to the bone. Her cream corset became practically invisible and he had to look anywhere but at her.

West took calm breaths, trying to steady his heart as it reached for her, lunged for her, cried out to her.

“I can’t do this.” Her teeth chattered. “It’s too cold!”

He anticipated her next move and spun around before she could dart out of the shower and trail a wet path into his rooms. She bit her lip again, hard, as he pressed her firmly against the wall. The water poured over both of them now, drenching them. His shirt clung to him, his pants became soaking wet as he locked gazes with her.

Her hazel eyes were dark, pooling pits of desire as he held her there.

Saints above , they drew him in.

She smelled of rose and musk and blood, an intoxicating blend that drove him wild.

West’s mouth became insanely dry as she wiggled against him, trying to break free. “Crimson, you have to cool down.”

“Not like this.” She whined, struggling against his strong grasp. His forearm was braced across her chest, his knee locking her between him and the stone chamber. She had nowhere to go, but kept acting like she did.

“Yes, like this. ” He argued, gritting his teeth as he controlled the sensation that rippled through him like an unforgiving hurricane of lust, need, want. “There’s no other way.”

“It’s too cold.” She angrily glared at him, and it made him smirk.

“And you’re too hot.” West retorted. “If I don’t keep you here, then you’ll burn up from the inside out.”

“I want to burn.” Crimson seethed against him. “I want you to make me burn. I want your mouth on mine. I want your fingers inside me. I want you inside me.”

He let out a shaky puff of air. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Why not?” She asked him again, practically demanding an answer after he didn’t give her one when she last asked that.

“Because I might just give in.” West growled at her, leaning in close. “To hear you say such, delicious things, it ruins me completely. I’ve lasted decades without so much as a touch from a female, and yet there you are and it drives me wild to hear you say things like that.”

Crimson let out a soft whimper.

“Do you know how absurdly tempting you were tonight?” He dropped his gaze to her lips, where the damning sound came from. He liked the way it sounded, wanted to make her whimper even more and that was the problem. “In that gown, of all things? With my motif in your hair?”

“Tell me.” She uttered lustfully, writhing against him. Against the hardness that stabbed his front. The proof that he wanted her too, especially in this state. “Tell me everything.”

He wanted to. Saints be damned, he wanted to tell her and then do other things with her. She dragged against him, the hardest part of him and she sucked in a chilled air as she understood.

“ Oh ,” She breathed.

West drew the confidence from himself, sighing deeply as his head dropped slightly. “If I do, then you have to agree that that’s it. Nothing else will happen between us. I won’t cross that line with you. Not while you’re living in my room, sleeping in my bed.”

“It’s just sex, West. Please.”

To hear her beg like that, her tone so full of desperation, he almost gave in. Almost. But that righteous side of him that made him the Northern Star in the first place spoke up, whispering that it wasn’t a good idea. He listened to it.

The blood was slowly returning to his head.

“No, Crimson.” He stroked her face, cupping her cheek. “It could never be just sex with you.”

Her mouth parted, fell open as she understood what he meant. “You said that you never wanted to love.”

“I stand by that.” He confirmed with a dip of his chin. “I don’t. I can’t. Which is why I won’t venture into any sort of relationship with you. Physical, mental, emotional.”

Her next question pierced his heart, his soul, his very existence. “Because you love me?”

West didn’t know how to respond without breaking her heart into oblivion. A place that there was no coming back from, a place that nothing could climb out of and survive. The very last thing he wanted to do was break her. Not after all she’d been through.

He chose his next words very carefully.

“I think I would fall in love with you if we started something there. I don’t care if it would have begun with an intimate, physical aspect, or not. It will never just be purely sex between us.”

“Is that so terrible? Would falling in love be that wrong?” Crimson pleaded with him. “Is it such a terrifying idea that you don’t even want to try?”

“You will never understand it, not in the slightest.” He shot at her, baring his teeth. “So yes, that’s the closest I can come to explaining it to you.”

“I see.” She snapped, and he saw the old Crimson returning to her expression, even if only by a little. Her chest rose and fell, her breathing became normal once again, as if the spell had finally worn off.

But things had been irreversibly damaged between them. He saw that now. Fine. It was better that way.

“Tomorrow,” West let go of her, “I’ll be staying in my apartments at the Spinning Compass. Consider this room yours. I won’t stop paying for Cobalt’s treatments, either. We’ll continue our search for Heartache, and I won’t stop helping until we find him, you have my word on that. But it’s clear to me, to both of us, that we can’t remain in the same space after tonight.”

She looked pitiful, as if he’d taken her between his hands and snapped her in half. He longed to comfort her, to bring back a semblance of the female that laughed and smiled at him, the one that was his friend. But she wasn’t there anymore.

“Heartstri-”

“Don’t call me that.” Crimson shoved him aside, striding out of the shower and grabbing a cotton cloth off a hanging rack nearby. She wrapped it around her shivering shoulders and sent a wrathful look in his direction. He almost shrank back from it, from her.

But he deserved it.

Deserved it all.

“Muse was right about you. You don’t want to let anyone in, regardless of the cost to those who try. I would have made it worth it, to suffer in the end.”

West hardened himself into steel. “I know.”