The Source (Creasan #1)

Merek waved Isolde’s comment away while the rest of the group laughed. “That’s not how it happened.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then how did it happen?”

“I gracefully arose from my slumber,” he began dramatically, and Thea immediately started laughing. Isolde couldn’t recall ever seeing her laugh as much as she had that night. She credited the enormous amount of alcohol she’d consumed. “The sun was nigh and I stretched like a panther as I came to consciousness.”

“Oh Aestus,” Fendrel groaned, taking another swig of his bottle. “Just get on with it!”

They laughed.

“Then,” Merek continued, “as my lids parted like the leaves of a tree swaying in the breeze—“

Peronell snored loudly, making the group giggle again.

“—what did my eyes light upon but the most ferocious beast known to man?”

“A spider,” Isolde deadpanned. “It was a spider.”

Ale burst from Thea’s nose from snorting so hard. The rest of the group collapsed into hysterics as it dripped down her face.

“Not just any spider!” Merek insisted. “The largest spider Creasan has ever seen.”

“It was a normal spider,” Brom said, gripping his stomach as he laughed. “And you screamed like you’d been dropped from the top of the palace.”

“Maybe I’m not explaining this correctly,” Merek said. “It was in my nose! Do you understand that? Its leg curled inside my nose.”

“Stop, stop,” Carac begged as he bent over, his face red. “Oh Aestus, my face hurts.”

Merek chuckled and finished the last of the bottle.

They breathed a deep sigh as they tried to collect themselves. Isolde rubbed tears of laughter from her eyes and stood. “I think I’m going to head to bed now,” she said. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Thea moaned like a child. “Not yet, Izzy! We’re just getting started.”

Merek got to his feet. “I think I’m done, too. It was a pleasure drinking with you, Thea.”

She waved her hand at him but forgot she was holding on to the bottle. Its contents sloshed out. “Fine. Be downers.”

“Actually…” Peronell said as him and Carac stood.

Thea’s mouth dropped. “Nooooo!”

“Sorry, Thea,” Carac said. “You ought to get to sleep now too. Good night, everyone.” Then they all disappeared into the tunnel.

Thea looked at Brom. “If you get up, I’ll break your kneecaps.”

He chuckled. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not sleeping either. Just resting my eyes.” He leaned back against a tree, crossing his arms and closing his eyes.

Thea shook her head. “Unbelievable. Weak, the lot of you.”

“I’m still here,” Fendrel offered.

“Oh, good.” She shouted into the trees, “If there are any Guards nearby, please kill me! Please! I’m begging you!”

Fendrel laughed. “Shh!”

“Yeah, that’s not going to work for me.” Brom stood and headed to the tunnel.

Thea leaned off her log as she called to him in a hissed whisper. “Wait, Brom, come back. I’m sorry! I’ll be quiet now.”

He just gave her an amused grin and then ducked into the tunnel.

“Guess that means you’re stuck with me.” Fendrel smirked at her.
 Thea couldn’t tell if she was the one moving or if the world was spinning. She stood and pointed at him. “I hate you.”

He stood too. “Do you?”

She nodded slowly and moved around the fire, emphasizing her words with a jab of her finger. “With your…your perfect hair,” jab, “and…and perfect clothes,” jab, “and perf…perfect face.” Jab. She hiccuped. “You think you’re so…”

“Perfect?”

She nodded again, her eyes blinking in slow motion.

“Well guess what?” He took several steps toward her now.

“What?”

“I hate you too.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. With your know-it-all attitude and your arrogant swordsmanship and your domineering presence.”

“I’m arrogant because I’m the best.” They were chest to chest now, and Thea had to crane her neck to maintain eye contact.

“You’re not the best.” Fendrel was steady on his feet, but his face glistened in the firelight. “You’re the worst.”

She laughed and swayed into him. “You’re just jealous,” she whispered. “Because I’m everything you can’t be.”

The intensity in his eyes heightened and he didn’t respond.

“I’m everything you wish you could be.” She hiccuped again.

“No,” was his only answer.

She shoved him and he tripped backward. “Come on, Highness. Just be honest with yourself for once. It’s okay to admit that you’re jeal—“ Another hiccup. “Jealous of power. That’s why you’re envious of me and your brother.”

“I’m not.”

She shoved him again. “You are.” She clucked her tongue. “So much jealousy inside of you. It’s healthy to let it out.”

“I’m going to bed,” he said and headed for the tunnel.

But Thea ran around him, blocking his path. “Oh, come on now, Highness, this was your idea.”

“What are you trying to do?” he asked.

She laughed. “Just having some fun.”

“Well, I don’t like it and I’m going to bed. And you should, too. Sleep it off.”

“Aw, did the wittle princy get his wittle feelings hurt?” She puffed out her lip in a mocking pout. Then she put her hands on her hips. “It wouldn’t hurt so much if you just let it out.”

Suddenly, he grabbed her arms and yelled into her face, “How would you like me to let out? Like this?” He shook her. “Do you want me to fight you?”

A smile spread across her face and she nodded excitedly. “Yes.”

His eyes roved her face. He shook his head and released her. “You can barely stand and I’ve just healed.”

She snorted. “More excuses so you can hide. Wittle princy always hiding. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

He threw a punch and Thea dodged it easily, but her jaw dropped in utter surprise. “I didn’t think you were going to—“

Another fist came flying at her and she bent backwards in half to avoid it. When she popped back up, her fists were raised and she bounced on the toes of her feet. “I thought you only used your words, Highness.”

“What do you want me to say? That I wish my life had been happier?”

This time, she swung her fist at him and he leaned to the side, deftly avoiding the hit.

“Everyone wishes for a happier life,” he said. “Even you.”

“Just admit it to yourself.” she urged. Her skin vibrated with anticipation and excitement. She couldn’t explain why she was so thrilled, but she felt as if she was on the cusp of something wonderful and couldn’t wait to see it.

On her next swing, her fist connected with his face.

A cut split along his cheek, trickling a little bit of blood. He grinned. “You think I’m lying about wanting to help my people. You think I’m as bad as my brother.”

“Don’t avoid it, Highness.”

He kicked out his leg and it connected with her stomach, forcing the air out of her lungs. While she coughed, he said, “You avoid it, every second of every day.”

“I don’t—“

“Tell me about Lief.”

The name on his lips surprised her so much that it was as if he’d socked her in the stomach again. Instead, she growled and charged him. He threw her to the side easily. She rolled and popped back up to her feet. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she taunted.

“Bit immature, don’t you think?”

“You did the same to me. Got me drunk. Seemed to work just fine.” She shot out three punches. Two missed but one hit him in the side. “Just say what we both know you want.”

“I want to help my people.”

“Try again.”

Two punches and a kick from him. Thea’s lip split where his fist connected, and a metal taste filled her mouth. She spit the blood out.

“I want to help my brother do better for the country.”

“Still lying,” she singsonged. Each statement of theirs was accompanied by an attack.

Punch, punch, hit. “I want to make my family proud.”

“Nope.” Kick.

“I want to prove my family wrong.” Slap, kick, punch.

“Come on, Highness.”

Dodge, elbow, punch. “I want to prove myself wrong.”

“This is becoming sad.” Thea charged him. In a move impressively fast for someone as inebriated as her, she climbed up his body, hooked her legs beneath his chin, and sent them both flipping backward. He landed on his stomach on the ground, and Thea landed on her feet beside him. He rolled to his back, coughing, and she crawled on top of him, straddling him. She slapped him once across the cheek. “Do better.”

He hooked his arm around her and threw her so forcefully to the ground that her teeth clacked against each other on impact. He was on top of her now, his dirty blond hair—which looked black in the night—having come loose from his ponytail and swinging forward around his face. He slammed his hands into the soil beside her head. “You want me to say I resent Favian? You want me to say that it disgusts me how he’s just given respect when he’s done nothing to earn it? You want me to say that I think I could do a better job than him? That I know I’m better equipped than he is. I’m smarter, stronger. I care more about our people than he ever will. I have fought for my spot at court every second of every day of my blasted life. I deserve to be on that throne. That crown should be on my head.” He roared, “I want to be king!”

Silence followed. A tense, electrical silence. They stared at each other, breathing very, very hard. With his hair wild and tranquil eyes now stormy, he didn’t look like a prince. He looked vicious, dangerous.

Slowly, a smile stretched across Thea’s face as she gazed up at him. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Fendrel Lance.”

She saw him take in the words he’d said, the words he’d never allowed himself to accept. She watched his eyes widen at the realization. But he was still breathing hard, still the animal she had made him, and she felt as if there journey had finally started.

Ana’s stomach had begun to cramp and she tried to sit as straight as she possibly could, doing her best to avoid her corset. Her back was pressed hard against the wall behind her and her feet were crossed at the ankles so hard that she felt her pulse thumping there. She didn’t know how much longer she was going to be able to take it. “Favian,” she whispered, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

He didn’t even acknowledge her words. His eyes were open but unseeing, staring straight through her.

Her legs trembled with the effort it took to hold on. “Please, Favian. I really have to—“

“Do you think that’s what happened?” he asked suddenly.

Ana blinked several times. Sweat had started to bead around her face and she hardly heard what Favian had said. “What?”

“Do you really think we just…grew apart?”

She blew out a hard breath. This again? “We can be close again, Favian. We can be a family, if that’s what you want. I just really need—“

“If you have to go,” he said, “then go.”

Ana’s mouth drew open slowly as she waited for…something from him. A chamber pot. An open door leading to a restroom. Something. But he just gazed at her, that dangerous gleam in his green eyes. She shook her head and spoke with incredulity. “You want me to…urinate on myself?”

He shrugged. “If you must.”

It had begun to hurt so badly that she almost didn’t care anymore. Her face felt filthy, her hair felt greasy, her dress was wrinkled. She might as well urinate on herself. With shaky legs, she pushed herself up to her feet. She started to draw up the skirts of her dress but stopped abruptly and looked up.

Favian watched her from his seat across the room.

“Will you not at least turn around?” she asked.

He did not even answer.

“Turn around, Favian.” A command this time.

His brows drew higher, but he didn’t move.

Ana felt her body was about ready to let go whether or not she was prepared, so she hurried to a corner of the dark room and turned her back to her husband. Then she lifted her skirts and squatted.

Favian said, “If only the people of Creasan could see their queen now.” He laughed. “What was it? ‘One who meets the king and begs must first go through Queen Ana’s legs’? Doubt anyone would want to go through those legs now.”

Ana squeezed her eyes tightly shut as a tear trailed down her face and her cheeks flamed. She had never been so humiliated in her entire life. None of Favian’s past episodes had ever made her feel quite like this. “Stop,” she breathed, finished with her business but still facing the corner.

“It’s interesting you think time is what drew us apart,” he said. Ana didn’t need to turn around to know he was smiling cruelly; she could hear it in his words. “Because I always thought it was the fact you screwed another man.”

She wasn’t sure if it worked the same for other people, but Ana actually felt the moment she snapped. She felt the burst of fury and indifference. Felt the quaking in her limbs quiet. She rose to her full height and turned to her husband with a blank face. “What do you want from me, Favian?” She took slow steps toward him, approaching him with a courage she had never felt in his presence. “Would you like me to promise for the umpteenth time that it isn’t true? Would you like me to behave like the wife you expected to have bought? Would you like me to never speak again and only show myself when you feel a certain itch in your crotch? Perhaps I ought to just live in your bedroom.” Ana stopped her approach when she was right in front of him. “I can just lay on your bed. When you want to see me, we can spend those two minutes together—“ Her words were abruptly cut off by Favian’s hand.

He grabbed hold of her throat, squeezing painfully, and rose to his feet.

Under normal circumstances, Ana would feel fear rush through her. She’d beg for her life. But now she felt…nothing.

“I am your king,” he growled. “You will not speak to me that way.”

She did her best to croak past his grip. “Is it any wonder there are rumors I’ve been with other men? You are no one’s king.”

He jerked as if she’d struck him, but he didn’t release his grip.

Before he could answer her, she said, “You are no king, and you are a hypocrite. You would kill me, take me away from our son, for the same sins you yourself have committed.”

“What sins?”

“Am I to believe you have been celibate since our marriage feel apart? Am I to believe I am the only woman to have shared your bed?”

“Yes.”

She bared her teeth at him. “Who is the liar now?”

Favian let go of her throat abruptly, and Ana didn’t even bother to reach up and rub the sore spot. He said, “I gave you everything I thought you needed. Space, the freedom to be with any man you wanted. I thought you would eventually come back to me.”

She nearly laughed. “After the way you would hurt me—“

“You hurt me!” he burst. “That first man, the one that haunts me even now. That discovery cut through me like a sword.”

Ana stared at him, face impassive. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, how she was processing this information. Her face was a void.

He cupped her face. “I loved you, Anastas. I still do.”

“You’ve hurt me,” she responded. “You’ve hit me. Beaten me. Said awful things. Forced—“

“Because I was angry.” He smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks and smiled gently. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to. I just wanted us to be the way we had been in the beginning.”

Again, Ana said nothing, gave nothing away. She just gazed up at her husband.

“I’m sick, Ana,” he whispered, resting his forehead against hers. “I need you. Please, Ana. Forgive me.”

There was a beat where both their hearts could be heard thundering in their chests, a moment where they simply stood there with their breaths mingling.

Then Ana made a decision.

She tilted her head up and pressed her lips to Favian’s.

Ana felt him shiver against her, and then he clasped her tightly to him, pressing his hands hard against her back. He crushed his mouth so roughly against hers, one would have thought she was his only source of oxygen. He reached up to undo her hair and buried his fingers in her long locks. She could feel his hands trembling as he held her.

Softly, she pushed against his shoulders, guiding him back into the chair. His green eyes opened and met hers questioningly, but he obeyed and sat.

She hiked up her skirts and straddled him, bringing their bodies closer and crashing their lips together again. A moan bubbled out of him as his mouth moved down her throat to her shoulder, to her collarbone, to her chest. Ana could feel how badly he wanted her, needed her.

“I forgive you,” she breathed into his ear.

He pulled away and gazed up at her with parted lips and stunned eyes.

She curved her body impossibly closer to him. “Perhaps we ought to celebrate this reconciliation the way we used to?” She kissed his cheek.

His hands on her back moved lower. “What did you have mind?”

“Our finest wines.” Another kiss, on his throat. “My finest dress.” She nibbled at his earlobe. “Candles flickering romantically.”

His green eyes shone brighter than she’d ever seen them before, and a smile spread over his face. “That sounds…”

Then Ana made a terrible mistake.

Her eyes darted to the door.

Favian’s smile faded.

He gripped her hair and yanked her head back hard enough to hurt, exposing her neck. With his other hand, he ran his palm freely over her and laughed softly. “I should’ve known,” he said. “Once a whore, always a whore.”

Ana’s eyes widened. “Favian—“

He stood so quickly that she fell to the ground. “I think it’s time to pay your lover a visit.”

The fear returned to her fast enough to make her head swim. “Wait, no, darling, we can stay—“

He pointed accusingly at her. “This will be your fault. I tried to fix it. I tried to put us back together. It was you who refused. Just remember that.”

Her eyes welled up again and she crawled after him. “Favian, please—“

The king knocked against the door and it opened. Then he was gone.

“Favian!” Ana screeched. But even she knew it was useless. She’d just condemned Ulric, and lost her own dignity in the process.