Wild Magic Two: The Dark of the Sun- a M/M shifter fantasy romance

11- Wild Magic

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CAIN—

Something I said struck a nerve, and for the rest of his time in Teren, the Emperor avoided me with just as much vehemence as I avoided him.

I had wanted to keep him from hurting, to take that pained look out of his eyes. And I had succeeded. In a way. Instead of hurt, his entire face closed off, completely expressionless. He politely, with a gentle, almost doll-like smile excused himself, and then I only saw him in glimpses and in passing. He greeted me politely if we met when others were near, ignored me if no one was around, and I was grateful.

And absurdly furious at the same time.

After dropping the Emperor and his men off at Sywer Palace, I begged off from Dasan and spent the next week in the forest between Teren and Sywer Palace in my cougar form. I hunted, avoided humans, and kept my mind as blank as I could. My cat refused to go outside of a few meters of the palace, but I forced the issue when I knew it was time to go home.

For the next few weeks, I was content to burrow deeper into myself to keep my beast at bay and the people in my life ignorant to the storm in my breast.

Then he was back, and the storm was a hurricane. And no amount of hurt in his eyes, pain in his countenance, could keep back my biting words and bitter withdrawal and rejections. I could tell I hurt him each time, but I just couldn't... He had to give up. And if hurting him was the only way?

Then gods help me, I would stomp on his heart as much as I needed in order to protect my own.

When he left again after only a few days visiting Lhiam, although the entire castle was abuzz with the gossip that he wasn't really here to see Lhiam, the relief was palpable. He had managed to corner me only thrice, and each time I was quick to push him away, deny him. And yet each time, he came back again, more determined than ever.

The man was stubborn as a mule and didn't know the meaning of the word no.

Then he was back again a few months later, then a few weeks after that, and before long it was simply a regular occurrence for the Emperor to stay a few days and leave with me even more on edge each time.

Each time, the efforts to get the two of us together bordered on ridiculous. They stopped telling me when the Emperor was expected, because I tried to leave the keep when I learned he was returning for his third trip. And it wasn't uncommon for me to find myself suddenly alone with the Emperor in a room where only moments before there had been a dozen or more others.

Even his guards were in on his schemes, especially the one called River. He was young, far too young to be the guard to an Emperor, and he was sweet in a way that irritated me. No one who blushed and retreated when I entered a room should have the charge of a man like Riece's safety. I knew that Riece likely kept him around because it was easy to slip past the boy's notice, and that was all he seemed to look for when he hired his personal guards— men who cared so little and were so incompetent that he could be free to go as he would, without any thought to his own safety.

Both Lhiam and Dasan tried to have a talk with me about the Emperor's affections, which I evaded quite expertly. And Edon never spoke to me anymore except with a heavy, hesitant blush. Each moment he looked as if he wanted to say something, but lost his nerve at the last minute.

Even Lady Sera tried to insert herself into my sex life— asking me if I had past sexual trauma that kept me from being intimate with the Emperor even though I "so obviously desire him."

In short, the Emperor was upending my entire life for his amusement and lust. The life I had built for myself after a lifetime of struggle and pain and homelessness. Each time he visited, he took a bit more of my normality, my safety, my comfort.