38

For a week now, when she wasn't sleeping, she'd stood by the lake and let stones jump over it. Her hair swept around her shoulders, which hung limp around her. With every day that passed, she became more absent.

I had to remind her to eat something and to come in the house in the evening. Whenever I put her to bed, she fell asleep immediately. She had assigned me a bedroom, but somehow I found it inappropriate and slept in front of the house. She didn't need to know.

This was Grayson's home and I wasn't sure if he would mind if I slept in one of his beds. I wouldn't like it so why do it. I could sleep well and comfortably in my lycan in front of the house. In the end, I was still his competitor, but we had a common goal, protect Tara.

I walked up to her, a cup of coffee and a sandwich in hand. Without a word, she reached for the coffee and took a sip. In her other hand she cradled a small rock before letting it bounce across the surface of the water.

It was winter and she was standing barefoot in the water with her jeans rolled up. Her feet were red, which made me wonder. It should actually be a lot warmer. As I bent her down and got a new stone out of the water, I grabbed her hand and put mine on her fist in which she was holding the stone.

Her gaze slowly went from her hand to mine. I could feel how upset she was not only when I touched her, but I also knew what it did to her when I did. I had avoided it all week, but I couldn't take it anymore.

"Let me calm you, Tara." I rubbed her hand gently before opening it, taking the stone and placing the sandwich in her hand.

"He calls me Pebble," she murmured.

"I know. Come over here, let's sit down and eat this, please!" I went back out onto the porch and sat on the steps. I rubbed my hands and waited for her. I did it every day and when I was sure the coffee was already cold, for the first time this week she came and sat next to me.

"Would you like me to warm the cup?" I gripped the cup in her hands. It wasn't going to be boiling hot, but drinkable. Her eyes were on my hands and I wished so badly that she would look at me with them. She hadn't even done it since I was here.

"Why can't you just free him?" Her voice sounded trembling and helpless. Now I looked from herself to my hands gripping her cup. Her index finger carefully pulled away from the handle and tapped the back of my hand.

"They're actually amazingly warm," she murmured, pulling the mug from my hand and sipping at it. "Very warm actually," she whispered as she took a sip.

"He'd be dead before I got near him. I'm fast, but with a lycan sitting next to him all the time I don't think I'm fast enough after all." It wasn't a lie. If it were a werewolf guarding him I would dare, but Elisane's brother.

"Why do you even want to save him? Isn't it better for you if he's dead?" she asked cautiously and continued to nibble on the coffee cup.

"What makes you think that? Seeing you unhappy makes me unhappy little Erasthai." It actually made me even more unhappy than giving them up. Well, it was a little self-protection too. If she died of grief, I wasn't sure if I could endure it. There was still a kingdom that depended on me.

I had so much to put back on track, to provide the little packs with money, that my brother had stolen from them, the security of my kingdom came first. In the end, nobody was interested in what I wanted.

"I feel weird around you," she blurted out, dropping the cup in shock. I wasn't as surprised as she was by her words.

"Because you're attracted to me?" I picked up the broken pieces and went inside to dispose of them, filled a new mug with coffee and stopped when I felt them behind me.

"How can that be?" she asked me nervously. I turned and walked up to her and handed her the cup.

"You are my Erasthai. Our bond is stronger than that between you and Grayson." In theory maybe, like I knew it from all the others. "Even if he tagged you, you had kids, you would still be attracted to me. It will never stop unless I die."

I walked around her and closed the patio door. There were some things she needed to know and since she had started talking and asking questions herself, maybe it was the right time to tell her a little more.

"Sit down," I pointed to the bar stools by the kitchen island she was standing next to and watched as she slid onto one.

"My world is difficult. Often it's abysmal ugly. It's not something I would force on anyone. When you rejected me, I felt a little relieved." I thought I had all the time in the world and it dawned on me that what the oracle told me wasn't related to my realm.

"There's a lot going wrong in my realm right now, and now I've dragged you into it," I apologized. "I thought making Elisane my queen would calm things down." In truth, avoiding trouble was a spur of the moment reaction.

My god, I didn't know how to explain to her that I had acted like an idiot. But it couldn't be changed. Had I stayed with her instead of rushing about my duties, things might have turned out differently. Maybe not, because Elisane wouldn't have given up so easily. I sat down on one of the bar stools, making sure one was between us.

"You are a danger to her as long as you live. I didn't expect to meet you in St. Vincent of Ice. I didn't even know you would be there. It was not my intention for her to find out about you , you have to believe me." I looked at Tara, who nodded silently.

I rested my hand on the kitchen island and rubbed my chin with the other. I thought about everything that had happened there, how I had hurt her and more than once. In the end I didn't deserve it. Unlike me, Grayson was there for her the whole time, even though she rejected him for me as well.

"Is that why you were so cold to me?"

"Look, Tara. My world is about politics, there is no place for feelings." That was a complete lie. There was more than enough room in my heart for the feelings I had for her. Others didn't care. Others saw it as a disadvantage if I didn't do anything for them for a day because I was there for my Erasthai.

"If that's true, then why are you here?" Tara reached out and put her hand on mine. She began to trace small patterns across my skin with her fingertips. On closer inspection, they were even small hearts. She couldn't be aware of it. I quickly pulled my hand away and placed it on yours just as quickly.

"To protect myself," I lied. "If you die, I die." It was so easy to say the words. In the end it would probably be like that.

"What does Elisane get out of it?"

"Power. No matter how the tide turns, she gains her power and gains more. If I make her my queen, she will gain ultimate power. If I die, my brother will succeed to the throne and bestow more power on her. He has an Erasthai, then she will not become queen." Tara tilted her head slightly, but her eyes didn't reach me.

"If you die and I survive, you're no longer a threat to them. I think that's her goal." I didn't know what that would do for Elisane. I certainly wouldn't make her my queen then, especially since I'd already partially informed the council that she wouldn't be queen anymore.

"To break you? Make you a puppet in your grief?" I looked at her in surprise. My surprise was so great that she looked at me a bit startled. Her eyes reached me for the first time in a week and besides pain there were so many questions in them.

"I haven't seen it that way, but you're probably right," I murmured.

"What did Cyril mean, time doesn't matter?" She asked me how one of the council would do it.

"That I'll always wait for you, even if you're old and grey." Old and gray for a werewolf, if I turned her into a lycan with my bite, the age of her body would reflect his and a hundred years was that of a teenager on the outside.

"You would leave me to Grayson? I will have children with him and be happy." Tara nervously looked down at her hand, which I was holding. She twitched under mine and felt me ​​unconsciously begin to manipulate. I did the only rational thing and pulled my hand from hers.

"I know." It was hard to hear her words, even more so to force an invisible bond on her to do something she didn't want now. If that's what made her happy, that's what would give her.

"If it makes you feel any better. I've been happy before. Her name was Merle and she was my first love. I was only twenty when I met her. She grew old and gray and died in my arms. We had no children, but we were happy. Why should I keep that from you?"

"She wasn't a Lycan?" Tara looked at me in surprise.

"No, she was human, my father's maid." A pure soul with a big heart. Only Luna knew how much I missed her.

"Why didn't you make her a lycan?" Tara looked at me innocently and curiously. I only knew this look from Merle.

"Tagged you?" I laughed bitterly. "It doesn't work that way, Tara. I can turn you into a lycan because you are my Erasthai and give you many hundred more years in this world. I can't just randomly bite people and make them live a thousand years."

"Have you tried it?" Her curiosity was definitely aroused, which made me smile a little. She certainly wanted to distract herself with it. My answer would probably negate it.

"No. I've never felt the need to tag anyone, not even with Merle. I only have the desire with you. You're the only one I'd bang my teeth on the back of the neck." Eventually, I added in my mind. Someday I will. Tara responded to my words with amazing composure. She just nodded and looked around the room.

"It also works long after Grayson has marked you with his teeth," I tried to cheer her up and she just shook her head.

"How can you say that so lightly?" She smiled sheepishly at me. She was definitely under Luna's spell. We could honestly talk about it. In the end her heart decided, she decided who gets to tag her. It wasn't something that could be prevented. Even I couldn't. Her heart dictated what it wanted, even if it didn't match my desires either. One day it might be like that.

"Because you are important to me. If I have to, I will wait for you for a hundred years. It will always be your decision." I stood up and took her left hand from the coffee mug and put it in mine. I opened her hand and stroked her lifelines as I would have at her coronation. Something was strange.

The tingling under my fingertips increased and I had trouble staying upright. My hand started vibrating and my body started to shake.

"Tara?" I grabbed her hand and felt like I would collapse at any moment. However, only a small hmm buzzed from her lips.

"Tara?" I held her hand and found myself slipping off the chair, pulling her with me as I landed hard on my back on the floor. Tara hadn't even screamed and she didn't say anything now either. She lay calmly on top of me and seemed to have fallen in a twilight state.

"Tara! Say something!" I was getting more and more dizzy, but there was something else that was making me restless. Her fingers intertwined in my hand holding hers. I lifted my head with the last of my strength and watched the ring on my finger as it took off on its own. It parted and snaked over her hand and a head curled around her ring finger.

I tried to pull my hand away from her, but I couldn't, it was a force that made me hold her hand that I couldn't resist. Everything around me became increasingly blurred and I slumped down.

I heard the door open and two delicate feet stepped beside us. I was almost too weak to roll onto Tara to protect her. A skirt fell over the feet that stepped beside us. All I thought about was protecting Tara and hiding her body under mine.

"Asra gave the ring to your majesty," whispered a soft voice I knew all too well, giggling. "The ring always finds its rightful owner even without a coronation ceremony. The prophecy will be fulfilled, King Caspian, just as I foretold to you."

"Fallon," I croaked, unable to even raise a hand.

"Don't worry, my king. I'll take care of you. Nothing will happen to you. Cyril keeps Elisane away. Get some sleep. It's also the first time for the ring to find its counterpart in the way. "