Page 53 of The Chains You Defy

“The memories?”

“No. Those I’ll carry with me forever. What I mean is…being scared of intimacy. Of being close to someone. Afraid of—”

“Sex.”

Naya nodded, and I observed blood rushing into her cheeks as so often when sexuality was a topic.

More than once, I’d wondered if she’d always been this prude and if her shyness had resulted from her upbringing or if her trauma had turned her bashful.

“Yes. See, I never gathered as much experience as Rewi, for example. Not that I couldn’t have slept with men—the offers were there—but I was never interested in dalliances. The few times I shared intimacies with someone, the liaisons didn’t feel as special as my friend always claimed.”

Her reddish cheeks darkened to a deep crimson, and I swallowed a growl as I imagined her tumbling around with one of those backwater males from her village, who all, unsurprisingly, wore the face of the boy.

Murder fantasies dominated my thoughts for a moment, but with an immense effort, I buried them.Instead, I weighed my words. “It’s not the same for everyone. What you’re describing reminds me of what my mother explained to me when she educated me about sex. She emphasized how everyone was different and mentioned that she’d considered herself broken for many winters. She hated participating in random trysts because she felt nothing. Only after meeting my father had she been able to enjoy sex, and she guessed this had to do with the fact that he was the only male she caught feelings for.”

“Your mother spoke with you about her intimate encounters? When you were a youngling?”

“Yes. Fae are sensual creatures and a lot more open about their sexuality. Relationships are rare, and orgies are a common occurrence. There are some parts of Galanta where certain groups go so far as to decline any emotional bonds. But most of us love to fuck and do so often.” I trailed my thumb over Nayana’s cheek, which resembled a ripe tomato.

“So, uhm—”

“Yes?”

“So, do you think I could be like your mother?”

“Maybe. Have you ever been physically attracted to someone with no feelings involved?”

“Rarely. But it happened.” She couldn’t look me in the eye, and I smirked, having an inkling where her thoughts went. That we were like two powerful magnets fighting to stay away from each other was hardly a secret. The two times I’d kissed her, she hadn’t been unaffected at all.

“And your body reacts to the pleasure you give yourself.” I couldn’t stop grinning, and Nayana swatted her tiny hand against my forearm in embarrassment.

Interesting.

So she hadn’t forgotten how I caught her when she’d touched herself in Amalach. The entire bedroom had smelled like pure sin when I’d returned from my brief excursion. And her eyes as I’d tasted her essence on her fingers—delicious. Both her flavor and her expression. I still wondered what she’d been fantasizing about back then—anything else but me was simply inadmissible.

“Anyway,” she mumbled. “Do you think I’ll be able to heal so I won’t see Jelric whenever I’m near someone?”

“Yes, I’m sure everything will improve as soon as you start to replace the awful memories with better ones.” I softly kissed the crown of her head before a horrible, nagging dread intruded my mind. “Nayana, please be honest. Do you have flashes of that insult to the male population when I’m close to you?”

The tension working itself into her muscles told me the answer before she did, and I gritted my teeth, fighting not to succumb to the anger flaring hot in my blood.

“Not always. Only when you startle me. The vision usually vanishes when I remind myself that you aren’t him.”

Unacceptable. This was unacceptable.

How could I ensure she would never be reminded of the shitpile of her dead fiancé when she was around me?

“I see,” I said, carefully neutral, and Nayana must have sensed my agitation, because she hastily spoke on.

“You mentioned collecting better memories to replace the one of Jelric.”

“Mh. No idea if healing works like that, but I imagine if there’s only one bad memory amongst thousands of good ones, the bad one might lose its strength. Maybe even with a lot less. You see, when I was a faeling andlearned how to ride a horse, my very first time on horseback, I fell off and broke my wrist. As soon as I had halfway recovered, my father insisted on me continuing my lesson, although I bristled and resisted him as well as I could. But of course, he was right, and nowadays, I feel quite at home on top of a mount.”

Naya scrunched her nose in contemplation, and I dwelled on my words as well. Instead of relaxing, my muscles turned rigid. The picture of Nayana out there, searching for someone to collect better memories with, stung and was also unacceptable.

“As if you’d let me out of sight long enough to do so, princeling,” Naya huffed, a bit mockingly. Then her tone turned teasing, but with a weird, testy undertone. “You’d have to stop being so damn controlling. Or, if you can’t change your territorial behavior, you’ll have to replace the memories yourself.”

Stunned at her words, no matter how much humor she’d spoken them with, I went still. Her face returned to the blushing state from before.