In the morning she was quietly watching him again. It was decently later then he got up. He started to sit up. She shifted over him.

  “You don’t have to panic. The boys are with Dru having a special trip for sweets that shouldn’t be a breakfast and then he’s taking them to pick out a beginners magic items. He volunteered last night when he found out how long you were working. And I set the Order in a ping-pong problem solving network. They could reasonably not realize they have spoken to you for a week.” She told him sounding proud of herself. Showl really didn’t know whether her should be concerned by how easily she could handle the Order with so clearly not touching it.

  He probably should be but he just found her amazing.

  Then the mentioned fact that everything was handled and in order settled and the feeling of her body on his.

  Nerezza raised her brows and he lifted catching her lips. She pulled him so he followed her so he was over her. He stared down at her and she traced his cheeks. She smirked.

  “You really are pretty.” She breathed causing the heat to grow where she touched. “The stories honestly didn’t do you justice.” She continued and he realized she was pointedly flustering him. She threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him. He’d have to dissect that later.

  When tangled with her he found himself thinking over everything about her and the more he thought about her the more he regretted telling her not to tell him about her past. He just didn’t want her to think he was so easily shaken.

  “I want to know about your past life.” He admitted nuzzling into her shoulder. “I want you to trust it won’t change me wanting you here.” He added to her. Nerezza was silent sucking in her breath shifted so she could hold his eyes. She hummed.

  “Where to start.” She breathed looking concerned, considering and thoughtful. “Magic…” She trailed. “I told you how magic was different in my previous world?” She asked him. Showl nodded looking at her shadows. She crinkled her nose. “Well specialties, or bases as this world calls them are chosen rather than passed down genetically.” She explained grimacing. “Which is why it’s considered taboo or in most places illegal to choose Dark magic of any kind.” She explained. Showl blinked that cover so many types of magic.

  “Why did you choose it?” He asked. Nerezza sent him a mixed emotion smile.

  “I didn’t, someone else has to awaken your magic and you can only awaken magic that you’ve been exposed it so it’s often passed down through a coven system. My mother didn’t belong to a coven. I heard rumors she burned her coven to the ground but there was so many rumors about my mother and I couldn’t tell you how many of them were true. But she was an infamous Dark Sorceress, she was considered a criminal in every providence I’d ever stepped in and because I was her daughter and because she decided that I would hold her magic I was considered equal in her crime.” Nerezza explained.

  Showl brushed her hair back frowning.

  “I’m sorry that happened.” He breathed. She looked at him tracing his cheek.

  “You really are pretty. I’ve thought before you have a face she would have tried to hoard in her harem.” She admitted softly looking far away. He ducked down and kissed her pulling her back to him.

  She pierced her lips.

  “What?” He asked. She seemed to be weighing something and she squirmed.

  “You were upset by how young I was when I was awakened.” She murmured in a thoughtful tone. Showl frowned sitting up.

  “How old were you when your mother’s awoke you?” He asked.

  “Most of it I don’t remember. And they were smaller awakenings.” Nerezza suddenly assured him but he remembered her admitting she’d experience nearly everything Reem had and then had the same magic awoken inside of her. He tried to hid his upset though. She looked away. She hesitated.

  “I can see negative emotions.” She admitted softly. He blinked. “I can’t always tell them apart but I can.” She whispered. He realized then why it would be even more important to state things out loud.

  “I hate that she did that. I hate the idea of you being subjected to pain to be given the ability to have the ability so young you can’t remember it.” He explained. “How old where you when you started seeing negative emotions.” Nerezza looked away and her swore. So a little child could see every time someone was upset, angry hated her but couldn’t necessarily separate them.

  “We lived on a mountain that was inhabitable it was brittle ice one side and molten lave on the other and there was the god’s fruit trees that grew as stubbornly as we lived there. People came all the time to try an slay my mother. They were always ill-prepared and were easily slaughtered but they kept coming and coming and I wondered why they bothered.” She told him and for a moment he saw a cool observers view of the world. Someone who’d never connected so they didn’t know how to relate to a motivation. “And what it came down to was faith.” Nerezza breathed. “And for so long I longed for it. Searched for it. To have the relief of something I could believe in with no doubt.” She scuffed. “But I always doubted.” She grumbled.

  “Because you would see something dark before you could trust.” He guess and she shot her gaze to him looking surprised. Cautiously she nodded. “Eventually I think I gave up on people and turned to books. My mother didn’t allow a lot of things but I could have any books I wanted and it was the one thing that she looked at.” Nerezza breathed. Showl frowned. “Sometimes is she noticed that I was reading books about something in particular she’d get me an instructor for it. Most of the time they didn’t last because they didn’t usually come willingly but it’s the one time I was acknowledged.” She murmured shifting. She shook her head. “What matters though is in one shipment she gave me a set of twelve books call the effect.” She told him sitting up.

  “Nerezza.” He breathed pulling her into his arms. She blinked at him and laid there for a moment.

  “They were horrible. Poorly written, thoughtless and cruel main characters that were slowly destroying peoples lives. I kept reading though because this family mention in a few lines called to me someone told they were evil just for a magic I never asked for. The first mention was the boy who was thought to never be able to take over his father’s position seeing as his siblings were much stronger then him but he without a doubt passed the trial.” She listed. Showl paused furrowing his brows. “He held the magic that mad my mother and I evil but he was fear by these terrible main characters and was respected by my beloved minor characters. I don’t know if I continued to read so that he would prove me wrong or show me that it was possible to do different then what I was told. I was positive that when it was mention that he took in a son that he was doing the same thing my mother did with me. Kept for a purpose. But the story continued and every time he was mentioned he loved the son’s he took in without faltering.” She murmured burying her face in his chest.

  “A book?” Showl asked sucking in a breath connecting what she was saying with the comments she’d made in the past. She’d read about his life. It was a strange thought. She nodded.

  “I hated the book. I wanted to burn them multiple time but I kept reading because I wanted to know more. I highlighted every time The Guardian and his sons were mentioned. She hesitated.

  “Nerezza?” He asked her.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “I need you to promise me that you understand that I have assured to the best of my ability that the terrible world in those books won’t come to life.” She insisted looking at him with eyes that left him breathless.

  “I promise.” Showl assured her.

  “Aloka Navan was supposed to be sold into a marriage at seventeen and die during the monster mutiny execution. Just like my Mama she was supposed to die innocent and in her fear it was supposed to be revealed that she could have used shadow magic. A regret Chief Ingus Polum held for not other reason then he thought it might have been useful.” She sneered. He understood more why she hated the Chief. He was angry for a seventeen year old girl to be sold into a marriage. Every word she spoke made him upset in some way and he understood why she buried her face as not to see. “I changed it. I changed it. And told my Mama what would happen and she said she believed me but she still went. She still died and left the seat I kept for her empty.” She hissed out.

  Then she almost seemed to be pulling her emotion back he lifted her face and kissed her. Then kissed along her face.

  “Do you want to stop for a bit?” He asked her.

  “I think if I stop now I won’t be able to get the words out.” She admitted.

  “The day we met at the training facility I was there to make sure and event didn’t happen. Obviously I wasn’t supposed to be there seeing as Aloka was supposed to be-” He kissed her not needing the connection that there could have been a time where he never met her.

  “The Guardian Showl from the book will never happen.” She voiced when he pulled back surprising him. “Guardian Showl would have met a woman I won’t name her name because hopefully she isn’t as dumb in this life. Was at the Order facility she was asked to show off magic I guess she impressed the Order. And they sent her a request to consider a union with you. She didn’t have interest in Guardian Showl, she had a lover and Guardian Showl didn’t seem to be interested in her. She had the power to refuse, she had the excuse that wouldn’t have her side eyes even but her father forbade the union and so she did it.” Nerezza rolled her eyes. Then she glanced at him. “I didn’t purposely try to get noticed by you.” She told him.

  “I believe you.” He promised.

  “The woman already had a lover. But she put that on pause for a bit.” She admitted. Showl nodded with his original mentality he probably would have been fine with that. He was surprised when her face flushed. “She went to your room every night and you met her in what ever she gave. You avoided me.” She grumbled. Showl flushed and opened and closed his mouth.

  “I don’t think I wanted her. I was just doing what she wanted.” He stumbled feeling strange for having to explain another possible him’s actions. “I need you.” He offered. Nerezza looked amazed but also hesitant and he knew she thought that her words would break them.

  “Well she was a conceited character so she was sure you were absolutely in love with her.” Then she frowned and looked affronted. “In all the stories every time Guardian Showl was mention his sons were soon after. In a story completely in her point of view there names were mention three times in total. How can their names only be mentioned three times when they’re your world.” She growled. Showl smiled at her irritation. She hesitated. “They had a child. A daughter named Ellery.” She offered. Showl took this in and doubted it.

  “Did the woman have dark magic?” He asked her. Nerezza blinked and shook her head.

  “Then if the child was really mine and not her lover’s they wouldn’t have survived long. It’s the reason our element is so rare and why the Order was so interested in you for my Union and I could draw the conclusion why the Chief regretted Aloka’s death after finding out her magic.” He explained. Nerezza looked baffled.

  “It was my Mama’s side that had the dark magic and it seemed it was suppressed so I only knew what Dru could find out the rest I used my previous life’s knowledge for.” She admitted. “That might be why she didn’t go through with her perfectly reasonable divorce agreement because her child wasn’t Guardian Showl’s but I don’t think you would have turned your back on a child that you chose to raise.” She grumbled. “Instead her lover gave her a plant called Dinase. You should have gotten a report through the Order unless they are even more incompetent then I gave them credit for.” She hissed.

  “Put the claws away I vaguely remember the report.” He chuckled. “I don’t remember though what it was about.” He admitted to her shifting her so she laid more in to him. Nerezza looked at him like she was seeing something crumbling away.

  “It’s a plant that causes paranoia, forgetfulness and loss of functions over a period of time. She wanted to claim these behaviors were her reason for the separation.” She stated almost like she was reading off a report.

  Slowly going mad, Showl mused. He didn’t know why but other then a bit of amazement he felt nothing really toward the aspects that involved him. As she said she’d done everything in her power to assure they wouldn’t happen. That woman in the story would never be his united and the one that he wanted to be had been the one to assure it could never happen. Her eyes though weren’t easing they were filling with more and more pain.

  “Nerezza.” He breathed her name brushing her hair behind her ear catching her lips. He liked her name. Nerezza and her liked the name she held before Aloka. He liked this woman.

  “If used too excessively the drug kills the persona but not the body.” She offered and he paused. She laughed but it held no humor. “And dark magic isn’t something that likes to die easily and it has nothing maintaining it or giving it reason or heart.” She listed and now she wouldn’t look at him. “The point of view I read of their deaths from the woman was cold and detached all she cared about was the baby in her arms wouldn’t be a protection for her. She and her baby were injured and the body of Guardian Showl was killed by her lover.” She explained. He didn’t need her to clarify who had been killed in the story he saw it in how much the knowledge affected her.

  From the moment she’d met Reem he’d felt an air of protectiveness toward his sons and it only grew the longer she was there but it seemed to have bloomed from nothing. But now he knew it bloomed from knowledge and fear of things coming to be.

  Then Nerezza laughed again.

  “And that was only the seventh book.” She admitted. “From then on the tone got darker and more hopeless. And the Guardian’s defenses slowly started crumbling away. In the last book the daughter of Guardian Showl and the Lady met Bee-bee and because she was what was left of the Guardian’s house hold and despite the fact that he hated her mother he guided her to meet the Guardian’s. She was accepted there and she wasn’t a bad character like the other main characters I read. More she was trying her best to help and they gave her the Guardian’s test and before she even fully pushed her magic through it the magic reacted and went wild and destroyed everything.” She finished her story then looked up at him.

  This had Showl baffled.

  “How?” He asked. Nerezza sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.

  “You remember how I said I’m hunting Roses?’ She asked her gaze flickering with a promise that was tinged in blood and reckoning. He nodded. She sat up.

  “Through out the stories I noticed a motif of blue roses but thought nothing of it. Until I was sent another book in the series. Guardian Showl’s wife’s story was never supposed to be apart of the original twelve. But it explained a lot.” She told him. “And it solidified the plans I’d been writing.” She continued emphatic.

  “Plans?” Showl asked. She blinked then flushed.

  “I hated the ending so I decided if it was so poorly done anyway I might as well rewrite it.” She whispered then waved a hand and a single journal appeared. She held it close to her chest. “The thing of it was… I couldn’t save my favorite characters because I didn’t know enough about them. Then I got that book.” Nerezza murmured. Then she looked down at the book. “You know I never actually got to write down my plans for saving you guys, my mother killed me before I had the chance.” She explained the words falling off her tongue like it was the most normal phrase so Showl’s mind took a minute catch up with the words.

  “She what?” Not able to hold back the snap to him tone. Nerezza blinked out of her focus and looked confused. “Your mother killed you?’ He clarified. He mouth opened in an oh. She smiled and shrugged looking away from him.

  “I always knew she might. I wasn’t kept as a daughter more as a secondary source of magic.” The words felt cold across his skin.

  “How old were you?” The words fell off his lips and she scuffed looking at him bemused.

  “Does that matter? Out of everything I said?” She asked. Everything else were words in a book that weren’t set in stone. This was something that happened. Had happened to her.

  “How old were you?” He asked her again. She sighed and thought it through.

  “I guess I was fifteen. Time was a little weird in the tower.” She admitted.

  A fifteen year old girl who always knew her mother might kill her who lived in world that vilified her for the things her mother did, read a series of books with horrible people the would destroy a world and decided to save them. And his family gave her hope. Showl though couldn’t figure out one thing.

  “How did you end up here?” He asked her. She blinked furrowing her brows and magic flittered around her as if activated by the question.

  “I saw a figure.” She explained.