The Cunning Man || ONC 2021

8: Changeling

One would have thought I'd sleep fitfully for a second night in a row, especially since I barely fit on the bed alongside Nora. But she wouldn't hear of me sleeping on the floor and it turned out that I slept a hell of a lot better than normal when I had her in my arms. She slept wrapped up in the blanket I'd bundled her into and I pulled a separate quilt over myself, so our skin didn't touch, except for where her hair tickled the bottom of my chin. There was an undeniable connection between us, pressed up as close together as we were, but it wasn't enough to make our pulses pound with lust. Our magics stayed dormant, too, which was a relief to me at least.

When my eyes finally drifted open in the morning, I was completely curled around her. Thank God we were still wrapped up in our individual blankets because her backside was flush with my groin and I had both a leg and an arm thrown around her. I moved as slowly and quietly as I could, so as not to wake her, but I'd barely lifted my arm off of her before she stirred.

"Cade?" she mumbled in a voice still husky with sleep.

She blinked over her shoulder at me, looking for all the world like a disheveled little owl. I pulled my leg off of her but continued to lay beside her for a few moments longer.

"Mornin'," I replied in as neutral a tone as I could.

We hadn't touched skin to skin, but I remembered our kiss in crystal clear detail, and even without the influence of magic, I could barely resist the feel of her curves pressed against my body. The memory of her sitting in bed and all but begging for me to take her still haunted me, too, and it took all of my willpower not to unwrap the blanket from around her and slide my hands up beneath her borrowed shirt.

Matters were not helped when she squirmed over onto her other side in order to face me. The blanket around her shoulders slipped and watery sunshine from the cabin's two front windows illuminated her flawless skin from neck to bicep on one side. I tried not to stare, or to think about how much I wanted to nibble the delicate line of her exposed collarbone.

"Are you angry with me?"

Her question caught me off guard. I gave the answer serious thought, though, once I managed to drag my thoughts out of the gutter.

"I'm certainly not happy with you," I emphasized my answer with a scowl, and Nora looked appropriately abashed. "You could have gotten yourself killed a hundred different ways before you found your way here."

As I spoke, though, I realized that I didn't want to start off the day on such a serious note. I was going to have to answer her questions about my purpose here, especially when I took the shovel propped up outside the front door and went a-digging. Matters would get heavy enough between us then. Until then, I felt perhaps a little subterfuge-by-way-of-banter was in order.

So, I leaned in toward her until our noses nearly touched and added, "I've known men to take their wives over their knee for less."

Her reaction was almost comical. She bolted upright and would have accidentally smacked me in the face on her way up if I hadn't jerked out of the way. She clutched the now opened blanket against her uncorseted bosom and sputtered in red-faced indignation.

"You wouldn't dare."

I grinned up at her, but the spark of anger in her eyes told me to reassure her before I teased her further. "No, I wouldn't. When it comes to conflict, you and I work it out as equals."

I pushed myself up off of my side and sat up next to her with one foot braced against the floor. My answer was earnest and I was pleased to see that she accepted the truth of it. I was surprised, however, when the anger in her eyes shifted into shy curiosity.

"You do like to be rough, though, don't you?"

"In agreed-upon circumstances, yes," I answered honestly. "And only if my partner has a full understanding of what she's getting into. I like my bedplay a certain way, but not at the expense of the woman joining me."

"Is that why you won't touch me?" Nora's tone turned plaintive. "Because you think I don't, or won't, understand what's going on?"

"How can you?" I countered with genuine concern. "I barely understand what's going on, and I'm the one who's been married before."

"Did you and Samantha have, uh," Nora fumbled over her words for a moment, but pressed gamely on in spite of the deepening blush across her cheeks. "Well, 'bedplay' in 'a certain way'?"

"We did," I admitted reluctantly.

"Well, then, how did the two of you come to agree on it?"

"For starters, we'd known each other longer before marriage." I stood up with a grimace. "For another, both of us didn't have magic."

"Do you have any idea why things happen the way they do when we touch?" Nora craned back her neck to keep eye contact with me.

I hesitated for half a second. "No."

A storm started to creep back into Nora's gaze. "You're lying, Cade."

She watched me struggle into my boots for a moment, then continued. "I thought about what you told me last night, about Cunning Ones and Familiars."

I froze. "Oh?" was all I could wrangle out of my throat.

"I might know why it's so difficult for us to touch one another." She shifted around on the bed, careful not to jostle her wound until she could face me fully in the face. "I think I might be your Familiar."

"Impossible," I croaked.

Then I cleared my throat, licked my lips, and tried again in a more normal voice. "That would only work if you're Fae, Nora. Now, I don't know much, but I know you're not Fae."

"I am," she insisted. "In part, anyway. My mother was a Fae, but my father was human. I'm a Changeling."

I could have dealt with her being a Fae. Her admitting to being a Changeling, though, made my fears that much worse. I did my best not to show the panic that now tried to claw up my throat.

"It still wouldn't work. A Pact can only be formed between a human and a Fae, or two Changelings. The potential for magical power has to be equal when the two come together. There's no balance if I'm fully Gifted and my potential partner only has magic in part."

"I don't know how else to explain the attraction," Nora struggled to find the right word. "The pull, you know? There's something about you and something about me that connects us, Cade."

She had a point. But to accept it, I would have to face a wound so deep that I didn't know how I could possibly stay the same if it was addressed. If I entertained the idea, even for one second, that Nora and I could form a Pact, then I'd never be able to run from the truth ever again. I didn't think I could live with myself if that were the case.

I stumbled out the cabin door as fast I could. Nora sat speechless and confused on the bed, and the last words that Locryn Marrick ever said to me before he lit the barn around me on fire, spun like tumbleweeds through my head:

"Burn in hell, witch. You're no son of mine."