Kai wandered back to Ashlin’s house after Jay and Kayden disappeared. Slipping in, he remained quiet as to not disturb Braxton and Kyli’s conversation, knowing they were catching up. Instead he snuck upstairs, stopping at Ashlin’s open bedroom door as she sighed. From the length of journey her teleportation spell had traveled, Braxton had guessed she’d sleep well into the next day. Moving on to the guest room he’d taken over, Malakai retired for the night, bored and feeling left out.
Ashlin swam in her dreams, flitting from one to the next as her body slept. Her thoughts moved to six months ago, when she had met Malakai and he’d explained so much. Around her the void shimmered and swirled like smoke, then lifted as she stood in a ratty bedroom, recognizing it as the one in the inn she had taken Kai to that first day.
He’d explained who he was. A prince from a long bloodline of royalty. Royalty was a relative term though, as he explained that his royalty was within his species. He went on to explain shape shifters. Then it came to her turn, and she opted for honesty, explaining how she had acquired Tamara’s body, grimacing as she explained what had happened to Tamara’s soul.
The dream fast forwarded through most of this, as if she was watching a recording. It slowed then, the voices getting louder as Kai stole the conversation again, asking her if she wanted to know more about Tamara.
“Not sure,” Ash pursed her lips, “I already regret what happened. I’ll only feel worse if I knew I stole her away from a perfect life.”
“You didn’t,” he shook his head, “Shortly before you must have run into her, she was exiled.”
“From what?”
“My family owns a castle, a mansion of sorts out by the coastline. Royalty all lives there, and we’ve slowly been building and growing a small town beside it for shifters who want to live near us. She was exiled from all of it, banished into the forest.”
“Why?”
“What was she like in your head? Was she nice, or cruel?”
“Uh…cruel honestly. She tried to kill my lover. She…she attacked a village, well more than one.”
“Do I look surprised,” he leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, “It started around her sixteenth birthday. She was always spoiled and maybe it stemmed from that. Or maybe it was my doing. I did try to help her, but she pushed me away.”
He seemed lost in his thoughts, speaking them out loud but not focused on what he was saying.
“First it was little things, like wanting to execute her handmaiden for buying the wrong dress from the shop. She wanted blue, and her maid had come back with pink. She told her parents to execute her for disobeying direct orders. Of course they didn’t, it was only a dress and we don’t treat our people that way. It infuriated her. Then I found her in the dungeon months later, mocking the few we had locked up for good reasons. She shouldn’t have been down there. She was mocking them, pushing their nerves till they started yelling and she’d laugh. I dragged her upstairs, and we both got in trouble for being down there. She started pushing me away then, not telling me where she was going, or what she’d done for the day. Close to her eighteenth…we found her seven year old baby brother dead in the courtyard, having fallen from many floors. From what the guards could project, he had fallen from the tower, but I knew…he was terrified of heights. The towers scared him, so he’d never go up willingly, let alone lean out of the window. His parents agreed with me, and soon enough we found evidence pointing to Tamara. She…she said to the court that he got all the attention, that she wanted him gone. She was raving and ranting like a mad woman, scaring her parents. The court, they wanted to execute her, but I pleaded to simply exile her.”
“So you loved her,” Ash murmured, piping up, “Despite the horrors she had done, you protected her. You knew her for quite some time, making her either family or a lover, but that look in your eye tells me she wasn’t family.”
“It wasn’t that kind of love,” his head turned up, “When it comes to royalty, we only are allowed to marry other shifters. Non-royalty may marry and love who they please, but we cannot. We must carry on the pure bloodline. Her uncle married my aunt, so her family moved into the richer part of the village. She was born after her parents moved, her mother being very close with her brother. He kept them wealthy and supported, and due to both of her parents being shifters, she was eligible to marry into my family too, as long as it wasn’t her cousins of course. Before you think I was to marry her, I wasn’t. We met in school –we think highly on education- and became fast friends. We did everything together, often with my younger brother, Daniel. If I had any love for her, it was as a sister.”
“She didn’t feel the same though,” Ash crossed her arms, seeing this story more than once as Malakai nodded and grimaced.
“Which is why I partly blame myself for what became of her. Another girl in our schoolhouse, Elizabeth, she and I started seeing each other. It was around my fifteenth birthday, when my parent’s started reminding me that I was to marry at eighteen.”
“That early?”
“All royalty marries on their eighteenth birthday. It’s a custom we’ve had for generations. At least our parents don’t arrange our marriages too. They show us candidates that they approve of, but in the end let us choose. Elizabeth became my choice, after a year with her. It’s why I think I may have triggered Tamara’s aggression. She had seemed slightly distant when Eliza and me had started dating, but when I told her my plans to propose she lost it. Called me daft and rude, then stormed off. Daniel explained her affections for me, being my wise little brother. I tried to make amends, explain that I didn’t see her in that way, but she refused to speak to me.”
“So she kept pushing you away until she got exiled. And you? Did you marry Eliza?”
Kai looked at his hands, his brow furrowed, “No. I proposed and she said yes. And then…close to my seventeenth birthday and the truth came out that she was pregnant. My cousin was the one to state it, having had a child recently herself with her own husband and recognizing the signs. We brought a sorcerer in to test her, and sure enough. But…it wasn’t mine.”
“What?”
“My species are cousins to werewolves, did you know? Like them, we have that bonded connection. There are strict rules governing royals, that we may not
lie in bed with another till we are wed. Once we do, we have chosen our mate for life. Our bond does not work with outside species though, so if a shifter falls in love with a human or another supernatural that bond never exists. Which is fine for most of us. But you can see the issue with Eliza being pregnant. It couldn’t be mine, because we were not married yet, and if she did sleep with another shifter then she committed treason by not only cheating on me, but bonding with another. The third option, loving an outsider, was also considered but it would still be punishable for cheating and breaking her engagement.
It only got worse from there. It was Daniel she had slept with. The two had been secretly seeing each other for months, throwing caution to the wind. They were given a choice: marry each other young and give up the right to the throne entirely, or both be exiled. They, of course, chose the former and were moved into the town. Daniel was stripped from all his titles, but he didn’t care. I, of course felt betrayed.”
“As you should,” Ash’s eyes looked sadly upon the man, “What did all of this do to Tamara?”
He shuddered, “The night Eliza and Daniel left I was drowning in my own despair. I got drunk in my room, I was an absolute wreck. Tamara came to my side, to try and comfort me and I kissed her. It was a drunken mistake, but she tried to take it too far and I had to send her away. The next time I saw her was in court, do to her brother’s murder. I was able to save her life and that was the last time I saw her till today, when I saw you in the streets.”
“Ten years later,” Ash shrugged, “That’s a long time.”
The dream swirled and faded, Ash tossing and turning as a nightmare took its place, a foul beast chasing her through the forest. Ahead of her she could see Braxton and she cried out his name just as the world around her grew dark again, spiraling her into yet another new dream.
“So why aren’t you at home with your family?” Ashlin’s voice tinkled through the darkness, nothing around her but darkness as she heard Kai’s voice surround her, replying happily.
“I don’t need to be. I never married.”
“Why not?”
“Eliza was my proposed. After all of that, I couldn’t find myself to love again, or find someone within the span of a year. I didn’t want to. I appeased to the court and they eventually agreed, understanding the circumstances were less than ideal. I’m not in direct line for the throne anyways. Once my grandfather passes on, it goes to my father, and if he passes then to my aunt. After that, it goes to my cousin, Addison, and then me if she and her husband pass away.”
“So you just wander the countryside?”
“I travel. I like to see all life can offer. And it keeps me away from the constant reminder of betrayal living near my home. As long as I visit once in a while, no one comes after me.”
“So I’m stuck with you following me around?”
“Basically. You are very intriguing.”
“Don’t flirt with me! I’m engaged!”
Ash could hear the smile in his voice, even though she couldn’t see it in the pitch darkness she swam in, “It was a compliment. And I know your engaged, you’ve told me every time I compliment you.”
“Then stop complimenting me!”
“Cute girls deserve compliments,” his voice was airy and light, “Doesn’t mean I’m interested. Only means I’m nice.”
“Ha,” Ash laughed, her voice growing quieter as the fog swirled, switching dreams once more. On and on her dreams shifted and changed, some memories, others less so. At one point she could feel arms wrapping around her, even as the dream tugged her deeper into sleep, knowing Braxton held her. Sighing, she relented to her next dream, sinking into an endless stream of dreams.
