AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After a particularly graphic story about how Dane and I had been caught sneaking out of school early and had hidden in a pile of horse manure had made him laugh so loud he had to wipe tears from his eyes, I finally stopped talking. My throat ached and I felt slightly out of breath, the stories I just told him being the most I had talked in one go in the months since I had arrived here.
“Now,” I let myself lean back against the back of the sofa, my head resting on his hand that lay there. “Your turn… Tell me about your father.”
Cyrus rolled his head back against his shoulders and blew out a breath from his cheeks, his eyes focusing on only the ceiling for a minute as his fingers soothed small circles into the side of my head, curling loose hairs around them again and again.
“My father…” He started, his voice almost as far away as his eyes, “My father was a great man. A cruel man, but a great one. He was my best friend, and we did everything together, right up until the day of the accident that killed him. I was lucky and survived, but father… his injuries were too severe.”
“What happened?” I asked, my eyes on Cyrus’s face as he spoke, the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed, how his eyes crinkled as he smiled. There was no denying he was handsome. Not in the same clean-cut and put together way Maeteo was, but handsome, nonetheless. His hair was, for once, not pushed back in its usual style and sat unkempt atop his head, and his shirt had been untucked from his trousers at one side, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
“We were on the way back from a day of hunting,” He turned his head to look at me then, his eyes full of emotion, “We had been out since before the sun had risen and were heading back long after it had set. It was a long, long day, even for a seventeen-year-old. The carriage we had taken was loaded full of game in the back trunk, and it outweighed the front even with the horses. We were on the forest paths about an hour or so North of Zalas city, just outside a town called Deepdrift, and the path took us up the sides of a ravine. We had travelled their dozens of times, but the extra weight in the carriage caused the back wheels to slip, and the carriage fell.
“We tumbled right into the ravine and into a tree, and it snapped the carriage in half. The front of the carriage and the horses landed in the water, and they managed to escape, but father and I were thrown onto the rocks. I broke six ribs, my collar bone and both legs. Father… his neck snapped on impact, but he was still alive. We were found the next day by a woman from Deepdrift, and she called for a healer and sent word to the castle about where we were. The healer made father comfortable until we got him home.”
Cyrus cleared his throat, his eyes staring past me now, as though he was reliving the traumatic event right in front of him. I reached forward, putting my hand on his thigh and squeezing lightly.
“He died a week later. He never woke up again, something about the impact of his head injury, but they said he was lucky to live that extra week. It took me nearly two months to heal fully, and another six months to be able to walk without aids again. I have scars all up my thighs and back from where I was thrown through the brush.”
I swallowed harshly, blinking away the tears that wanted to push over onto my cheeks. Cyrus looked at me again, a small smile on his face as he swiped a thumb across my cheek to catch one that had managed to escape.
“Good things came from it, Sweetheart.” He said softly, and I frowned, wondering how something good could come from such a horrendous situation.
“Good? Good how?”
“Well, my father had never been faithful to my mother.” He started, and my eyebrows leapt up to meet my hairline. “No King ever is, love. Anyway, when he passed, a few of his mistresses announced themselves. Two of them brought with them children he hadfathered… and since I was the only heir, I was faced with the question of what to do with them.”
I gasped, sitting forward, and realising exactly who he was talking about.
“Caliara!” I smiled, and Cyrus’s returning grin was blinding.
“Yes, Caliara. She was only three when her mother left her here. And my other sister, Calliope. She was nine and is now nearing sixteen.” Cyrus’s eyes softened as he spoke of his sisters. “They were the only family I had left, regardless of if they were only my half-siblings, so I made the decision that they would live here in the castle, and their mothers would be taken care of also.”
My heart warmed at his confession. Caliara had dotted on her brother when I had spoken to her only a few nights before, and the fact that he loved her, and their other sister just as deeply was enough to make me feel fuzzy inside.
“Why did you keep them away from me, if they mean that much to you?” I asked, my voice loud in the quiet of the library.
Cyrus stared into the crackling fire, his hand finding mine and his fingers lacing through my own. His thumb moved in circles along my knuckle.
“I am very protective of them,” He said, his eyes never leaving the fire, “If anything happened before ourwedding and the marriage could not go ahead, I did not want them to end up hurt also.”
“Are you expecting anything to happen?” I laughed as I asked the question, scooting closer to Cyrus again and grinning at him.
Cyrus let his head roll to the side and laughed lightly.
“No, Sweetheart. I’m expecting no sudden tragedies.” He grinned.
I noticed how close we were. I could feel his breath on my face, and the smell of him was everywhere. Charcoal and vanilla filled my senses as I stared into the pools of icy blue, the fireplace reflecting in them and making them dance. His eyes scanned my face, and his free hand moved from the back of the sofa to cup my cheek. I leaned my head into his warm palm, a small smile on my face.
If I thought about it too long, I would wonder where this sudden onslaught of feelings towards Cyrus came from. If it was the stories he told of his past that made my heart ache for him to feel loved, or if it was the caring way he spoke of his sisters that made me want him to care for me too.
Cyrus’s thumb stroked along my cheek, catching at the edge of my mouth as it did. I let my eyes flutter closed and breathed in through my nose, my whole body tingling suddenly in the proximity of him.
“I don’t want to say goodnight to you,” He whispered, his breath washing over me as I felt him move even closer, his lips only a hairsbreadth away from my own.
“Then don’t,” I replied, my voice shaking slightly. He chuckled darkly, another swipe of his thumb the only warning I had before his lips crashed onto my own, and the night fell away into a whisper of lips and a crackling of fire.
10
Kira
