Ella
We don’t linger long at the falls. The sunset fades to a rich, velvety purple by the time I pull the car I borrowed into the massive garage behind the castle. Ryatt didn’t say a word the entire drive back. I glanced at him a few times, noticing the absent look in his eyes as he hung his arm out the window, his fingers splayed in the wind.
Now we’re seated at a long table made of glass. Platters of food cover the surface. It’s an informal setting in the informal dining room in Poppy’s massive castle.
“Here,” Poppy says, standing to lean over the table and place two huge steaks on Ryatt’s plate. “Eat up.”
Ryatt meets her eyes with a soft nod of thanks. She’s already laden his plate twice now, and he’s eaten every morsel of food she’s offered. Still, watching Poppy’s motherly attentiveness to his unspoken needs curls in my heart and threatens to shatter it. She doesn’t really know him, and what she does know about him can’t be good. Yet, she exudes nothing but kindness and love.
“It’s delicious, Poppy,” I tell her as she sits back down. “You could have ordered pizza, and not gone to so much trouble.”
She gives me a smart look, rolling her eyes to Ryatt, to whom she bestows a beaming smile. “Oh, please. With Antony on KiloKilo for the rest of the week and the twins out doing Goddess-knows-what on the mainland, I’ve had no one to cook for.”
Ryatt arches a brow. “Do you not have a cook?”
“Of course, I do,” she laughs. “But I enjoy it. Plus, when it’s only me and my mate, or the two of us and our children, sometimes it’s just easier to cook for ourselves. Hosting parties and the like is a different story.”
I look back down at my plate and smile. Mom used to cook for us, mostly breakfast. She’d make pancakes shaped like animals topped with whipped cream and berries, and if we’d been especially well behaved that morning, she’d dump copious amounts of chocolate chips into the batter.
I cut into my steak, my eyes lifting to Ryatt’s face, which is drawn and closed off, the expression behind his eyes unreadable.
Poppy talks throughout dinner, telling Ryatt about our family, little memories of Winter Solstice celebrations when the entire family would gather. Memories of my parents, of my childhood, of moments, I realized, he couldn’t fathom.
It’s not Poppy’s fault. She knows as little about him as the rest of my family does. Ryatt never gathered with his family–with parents and siblings and cousins–for holidays. He never opened presents. He never walked down to the kitchen to find his mother making pancakes shaped like birds or dinosaurs.
From birth, he lived like a slave, beaten and tormented and forced to watch his mother go through the same thing, day after day. Then, as an older child, he’d lived in a witch coven where his childhood consisted of learning how to fight, how to use those powers roiling in his blood. He was turned into a weapon, then a king.
I watch him from across the table and wonder if he’d ever been allowed to play. Did he have a beloved toy, a blanket, or someone he could run to when childish nightmares woke him from sleep?
As a teenager, did he test boundaries and sneak out into the night? Did he have crushes, and fall in love, and get his heart broken only to move on swiftly and passionately like most young men do?
No, he didn’t.
He never had that kind of freedom.
My eyes gloss over as I look down at my now empty plate. He’d only known battle, death, sacrifice, and oppression. Not love, not safety, nor comfort. And never fun.
No wonder he’s so… so lost right now.
“Is Maury’s still open?” I ask.
Poppy raises her brows at the mention of the rickety old dive bar on the far western edge of Maatua. “Of course. That place will likely never shut down, silly! It’s a Maatua staple.”
“How pissed do you think my parents would be if we went out tonight?”
Ryatt looks at me, but my attention is on Poppy as she considers my question. “Out on the town? I don’t see why they’d have a reason to be upset. You’re young, and technically, on vacation.”
Vacation, sure. If that’s what we were calling it now, I definitely planned to act like it.
“You realize,” I begin, leaning back in my chair, “that my brother considers Ryatt a prisoner of the crown?”
Poppy shrugs. “Last I checked, you’re on Maatua, not in Isaac’s territory.” A cat-like smile brushes over her lips. She turns to Ryatt. “Ryatt, my dear, you’re too handsome to stay in tonight. Ella’s right; the two of you should go out and make a night of it. I think you both deserve a respite from everythings that’s going on.”
Ryatt opens his mouth to protest, but I cut in. “Does Antony have any clothes that’ll fit him? Jeans?”
She rises, and Ryatt follows. He towers over her as he gives her an apologetic bob of the head and says, “No, we can’t. We'll stay the night like planned, Luna. I am grateful for your hospitality–”
“Antony’s not that tall, but I’m sure one of our warriors has something his size.” She cuts him off entirely, waving a hand. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up.”
Ryatt says nothing further but turns pleading eyes to me.
I ignore him. He doesn’t know how badly he needs this. How badly I need it. To have one night–a single night–where it’s just us. Just Ella and Ryatt, and we’re normale people enjoying a normal night out. A night when we can put aside everything that happened, and everything that’s coming, and just be together.
A night of fun.
An hour later, dressed in a fiery red dress that hugs every curve and falls a few inches above my knees, I walk down to the formal foyer to find Ryatt leaning against the front door talking to a trio of warriors. He’s wearing jeans and a white button down shirt, the first three buttons undone and the cuffs rolled to the middle of his forearms. He’s brushed his hair back from his face and shaved. His jaw is sharp enough to cut glass as he slowly turns to me, his silver eyes igniting at the sight of me in the slip of red fabric I’m wearing.
“No,” he says.
The warriors disperse immediately at his tone.
I reach the bottom step, my heels clicking on the smooth marble tile. “Yes.”
He licks his lips with heat flaring behind his eyes. Even in Veiled Valley, where showing skin is as common as their nightly thunderstorms, my dress would be considered suggestive, maybe even immodest.
But this isn’t Veiled Valley–or Eastonia.
I give him a cat-like grin as I walk toward him, running my fingers over his chest. “You’re mine tonight. You’re going to do everything I say.”
“I don’t like this,” he says, his voice full of suspicion.
“You will,” I urge, smiling up at him. “Come on.” I take his hand and lead him out to the car.
***
I rev the engine of the sporty little convertible I chose from Poppy and Antony’s arsenal of cars. We drive around a winding curve, the city lights dropping below us like falling stars.
Ryatt winces but keeps his eyes wide open as I tear up the hill and come to a stop at the peak. It’s an overlook with sweeping views of the island below and the sea beyond, everything painted in silver moonlight.
“I used to come up here and…” I grit my teeth. “Listen to music.” It’s a half lie, but I doubt he really cares to hear about my years of teenage debauchery. I’ll tell him at another time, I suppose. One day, we’ll have a teenager of our own, and who knows what she’ll get into in Eastonia of all places. I shove the thought aside as Ryatt takes in the view.
“Do you want to drive?” I ask.
He looks right at me. “Really?”
“I take it you’ve never driven a car before.”
“I haven’t. I’ve never seen a car before.”
He looks over the dash.
“It’s not hard,” I continue, putting the car in park. “It’s a metal death machine, though, and Antony will have your head if you scratch his paint job.”
“We’ll be gone by the time he figures it out, I’m sure.”
I hope so. I love being here with my family, but as the days pass, I miss Eastonia. I miss Amanda, and Granger, and Westfall–
My throat closes as his memory drifts through my mind. No. No. I won’t think about him tonight. I won’t think of anything, just Ryatt. Only Ryatt.
“Sure,” he says. “I’ll try it.”
We exit the car, and he watches me as I pass him and climb into the passenger seat. He sits down in the driver’s seat and adjusts it to fit him, following my instructions.
“That’s the gas. That's how you go. That’s the brake, okay? You have to use your right foot to press on the gas and the brake, never your left.” I dig deep to remember my first driving lessons with my dad. “And this is how you steer.”
Ryatt clutches the steering wheel. A feral look flashes behind his silver eyes that has every fine hair on my body standing on end.
This is a horrible idea.
“Ryatt,” I say slowly, carefully. “You could kill all three of us if you crash.”
“I won’t crash,” he grins, and it’s a smile I’ve never seen him use before. Before I can say another word, the car lurches forward, the engine roaring, and my seatbelt snaps into place, pinning me to the seat.
“Ryatt!”
It’s too late. Ryatt whoops with boyish glee as he speeds down the mountain, testing the limits of the car to its max.
He’s a natural. He handles every sharp turn with predatory precision, and the stars blur above us as he speeds off into the night.
I’m obviously terrified. My eyes have been pinched closed for most of the drive, but when we reach the end of the long, winding mountain road, his driving calms, and he slows to a crawl.
I open one eye, squinting at him, then find myself opening my eyes wide at the look on his face.
Pure, unadulterated joy.
My heart squeezes as his eyes crease with pleasure.
“I’m getting one of these.”
“How?” I ask with a laugh.
“We’ll bring it through the veil.” The teasing tone of his voice is something I haven’t heard in a very long time.
“You’re crazy,” I whisper, but he playfully revs the engine, and then we’re speeding off again.
But when it comes time to merge onto a busy thoroughfare, both of our confidence wanes to the point that he pulls over and reluctantly relinquishes the wheel.
I pull out onto the road. “You know, Isaac really likes to drive. He has a few sports cars like this back in Crescent Falls.”
“It must be nice having this kind of technology available.” Ryatt’s tone shifts back to something cold and dark.
A lump forms in my throat. “I think that if circumstances had been different, the two of you could’ve been friends.”
Ryatt eyes me wearily before turning toward the window. This side of the island is much quieter, more a local presence than the touristy east side where the castle sits. “I’ve never had a reason to make friends.”
Because of war. Because of battles and skirmishes. Because he spent his entire life training to overthrow a tyrannical nightmare who’d killed his mother and threatened to enslave his people. Because people get taken from him, and some of those people get killed.
I don’t want him to be thinking about any of this right now. I want to see that joy shining behind his eyes again. I want him back.
“What exactly do you have planned for us tonight?” he asks.
I huff a breath, turning my slightly anxious expression into a devious smile, and turn up the music in the car until it drowns out the voice in the back of my head telling me to turn the car around and give up on filling in the gaps in Ryatt’s heart.
Not too long ago, I found myself floundering. I was a walking, talking ghost. A shell of myself. I’d given up. I had no hope of ever being happy again. I tried not to care.
I didn’t let anyone in. Not Isaac, not Maddy. Not my parents.
I wasn’t giving Ryatt that choice.
“We’re going dancing.”