Page 43 of To Tame An Angel

Her cheeks were drenched in tears, and I felt this overwhelming softness towards her. She was so upset over me being hurt, over not being able to help me that my stomach turned to mush. She was so much more than I’d given her credit for. I kissed her cheeks and nuzzled her face.

“But I’m fine. More than fine.”

I tried to smile, tried to assure her it was nothing more than the brain’s conjuring of a worst-case scenario. However, it was entirely too close to what my own fears were.

She sniffed and caressed my face, studying me. I was the sole focus of her attention, and I felt myself flushing from the look in her eyes.

“I won’t let them hurt you. I won’t.”

A sudden overprotectiveness swept over me. “Listen to me,” I said with a stronger tone than I’d used on her. “If anything happens, you let them. You don’t risk yourself. You hear me? I can handle it.”

I meant it. I’d withstand what I had to just to ensure they didn’t harm her. I would place my body over her, just to keep her safe. Just to protect her. Something had changed, shifted, and it felt like all that was me was molding into all that was her. I had no fear for myself. Let them skewer me alive, let them torture me for weeks and months. Nalla would be saved and that would be my salvation.

She shook her head, her curls calling over her face. “No. You don’t know, you don’t understand. It’s cruelty for the sake of cruelty. You don’t matter to them, you’re just another man. Their intention is not to hurt you, it’s to hurt me. So I learn my place, so I harden like my mother.”

I recalled seeing the General. She was a human forged like a stone, like a pillar. No mercy, no humility, just a stoic venomous master. That Nalla would be made to be like her turned my stomach into lead. My fingers curled into her shoulders.

“We can fool them,” I said with sudden resolve. “I can fool them. You tell me how I should behave, and I’ll do it.”

She gazed at me once more as if I was her center and she was mine. I’d never matter so much to one person. That my suffering should cause her pain was incredible. That she would cry tears for me. I gently touched a track of salty water on her soft cheek. She sniffed and leaned into me. With a smile of reassurance, anything to appease her, I placed it on my tongue.

Her brows softened, and she took my finger and pressed a kissed to it, almost watching me shyly. My stomach erupted into a thousand dancing fairies and the needle pain on my back intensified. I didn’t wish her to know, especially not now.

“You could… run away,” she whispered, her throat constricting.

I felt the air leave my lungs. Days ago, I would’ve dashed to the balcony and jumped down, ran until my feet were raw once more. But now differed from days ago. Now she’d taught me things, about myself, about her, given me a taste of something. Something like the life nectar that ruled the beating of our hearts. Despite that, the intense pain in my back served as a reminder that I would have to part ways with her. That she would wake to find me gone. She would search for me in the rooms, the manor, the gardens, and realized I had left her. To protect her, I would have to leave. But it wouldn’t soothe her heart. It would be broken. Years might haunt her with questions and in those questions she might embitter.

“Not today,” I finally said and ran my finger over the pert curve of her nose. “Anyway, you’d soon forget about me.”

The words rang true, but they hurt me. I’d thought about this. The reaction to reality didn’t help my mood. It soured it.

She stared at me aghast, her brows furrowed, and her mouth set in a displeased line. “Why would you say that?”

I leaned back, attempting the most amount of nonchalance I could muster despite the hurt I felt in my heart.

“Because it’s the truth. You said it yourself. They will realize our intimacy and hurt us both.”

She flinched. “But you just said you could pretend!”

The fury over the reality of the situation incinerated me.

“I would have to pretend either way!”

The words exploded out of my mouth, and I jumped from the bed, pacing the floors as she stared at me open-mouthed from the rumpled sheets.

“I leave you, then I must pretend you didn’t exist as if you didn’t completely change my life. If I stay and I must pretend you broke me to convince your mother. And what happens when that occurs? What will you do, huh? How long before you’ll be made to take another lover?” I lost my voice, and I realized how much that thought hurt me, burned me, filleted me raw, right under my ribs until I have a hard time breathing.

She realized this and slowly stood, walking to me, wide eyed and concerned. She took my hands, and I looked away, ashamed of myself for revealing so much in such little time. I didn’t know how she unraveled my walls, but I felt like I was nothing but the ruin of a castle I once carefully constructed with tears and suffering.

“Look at me,” the command was a soft intonation, and when I met her eyes, I found they were filled with concern and sadness. Infinite sadness. “My mother and father. He was her first, just like you are my first. She took other lovers, as she had to, but her heart… her heart was his. My older sisters and I are his children.”

The mere imagining of such a thing disrupted the reality I understood. Women didn’t love their men, didn’t allow them the place of fatherhood. Men didn’t know their children, and parenthood was something foreign.

“And what am I to do, Nalla? When the time comes?” My voice was low, speckled with such hurt that I scarcely comprehended it. I didn’t know its origin. “Will you take others after me?”

Despite being naked before her, I’d never felt more vulnerable. Like I was nothing more than that young child ripped from my mother’s cold skirts.

Nalla’s mouth opened and her eyes saddened, but she bravely nodded. “I would have to. To keep us safe, I would have no choice.”

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