Starlands - Mated To My Bully

Four

I gasp in shock as I turn around. My hand rises to my mouth before going on top of my head in distress. I step back, back again and again until my back is against the door.

I sink to the floor as I rest against the door, tucking my knees into me as I wrap my arms around them. I try to speak but no words come out.

Rune is in my room. He’s silent but staring at me in shock. He’s staring at the binding around my breasts. ‘Remove the bandages.’ He says and I shake my head to decline. He strides towards me and stands tall from where I’m sitting.

‘I said. Remove the f*****g bandages. Now.’ He says so sternly. The floorboards beneath me begin to ripple and shake a little and I see the storms swirling in his blue eyes. I reach up my hand and slowly begin to remove the bandages. Unwrapping them from around my body so slowly as my hands shake.

When I see the mounds of my breasts begin to appear I tuck my knees up further and my body down lower but Rune shakes his head. Still silent as he stares at me. I let the bandages drop to the floor as I lean over my knees, hiding my breasts.

‘Put your legs down, Clover.’ He demands. My eyes plead with him but a wind wraps around me, forcing weight onto my legs. ‘I can move them for you or you can obey me.’ The pressure heightens and I know he could push them down so easily, but he’s holding back to see if I will listen. Will the consequences be lesser if I do as he asked?

I drop my legs to the floor and sit up straight, trying to be confident, even as I want to wrap my arms around myself. ‘They know don’t they?’ He says but it’s less of a question and more of a comment. Although, I don’t know what he means.

‘Who?’ I whisper through a crack in my voice. My body is shaking, but not from the cold. I’m nervous and panicked and I feel like I’m going to throw up. My shaking becomes worse and Rune grabs a blanket from my reading chair and tosses it towards me.

I wrap the blanket around myself as I look at him. My eyes pleading, telling him I’ll do anything to stay quiet. Anything. ‘Of course they do. Aether follows you. Is that what you’ve been doing? Him? And Emrys. He hates you. Was there something between you two and you chose Aether?’ He says and I’m so confused.

‘Don’t give me that look. No more acts. I want the truth. I hold the cards here, Clover. That’s your name, isn’t it? Clover? It’s why your eyes brightened the day I called you it. It’s why your letters are addressed to Clover. It’s not just the writing is it?’ He says as he paces my room.

I can sense the tension rising. So thick in the room that it’s forming clouds. No, Rune is forming clouds. He’s losing control. He never loses control. ‘Tell me!’ He bellows at me and I try to sink back further but there’s nowhere else to go.

‘They. They don’t know.’ I stutter but he’s in front of me in one stride. His hand around my neck and I’m rising up off the floor. My toes touch the floor but I rise higher and he’s holding me against the door by my neck. I choke out a sob as I beg ‘please.’

His eyes widen but he shakes his head and tightens his grip, his eyes swirling with the oncoming storm. The air was thick with fog, the chill in the air from the wind swirling through my room. ‘Rune, please.’ I beg with the last of my air as tears fall down my face.

He drops me to the floor as I lay huddled up and he towers over me. He reaches down and I cower away, afraid he’s going to hurt me and I see the pain flash in his eyes instantly. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ He says, ashamed.

He scoops me up and cradles me in his arms, then he reaches over to grab the blanket as he drapes it over my body. Rune walks over to my reading chair and he sits back with me cradled against his chest. I feel like I have whiplash from the complete change in demeanour.

‘Who knows?’ He asks and I see it in his eyes. Betrayal. He thinks his brothers know and they are keeping it from him. He thinks I’m engaging with Aether and that’s why Emrys despises me.

‘Just you.’ I say as I place my hand on his chest, trying to reassure him. Trying to tell him that he’s special. I don’t know. I need to do something. I know he finds me attractive. He said as such when he offered to take me to bed. Unless he doesn’t care about looks when he beds a Fae.

His hand glides into my hair and he jumps back into the chair as it runs over the real length. I have a glimmer on me that shows my hair in a short cut above my ears. My Grandma put the glimmer on. She still has her powers but it’s a secret. She didn’t want me to need to cut my hair as it was my comfort in the night.

My mother always stroked my hair as I drifted off to sleep. My Grandma used her power to glimmer me. If someone finds the truth out about me, if they can be trusted and then they caress me - the truth is shown. My hair. My lips raise in a smile and I can’t help it.

The glimmer wouldn’t drop unless he cared about it. It wouldn’t drop unless the touch was loving. I don’t want to tell him that. I might scare him. ‘I was glimmered.’ Is all I say. Rune runs his fingers through my long waves as he begins to see me the way he never has before. As a female.

‘I should have known.’ He says as he tucks my hair behind my ear, his fingertips gliding across my neck and down my bare back. My body shivers with anticipation. My breath hitches as his hand slides over my ribs, my skin tingling with a new feeling I haven’t felt before.

Rune shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. ‘I can’t lie. I can’t keep this from them.’ He tells me.

I sit up in his lap and I plead with him again. Saying everything I can say with my face before I even use my words. ‘It’s not a lie. It’s just withholding the truth.’ I plead.

‘I'm sorry.’ He says as he begins to lift me off him.

‘Please. Please Rune.’ I beg. He groans and drags his hand down his mouth. ‘Rune.’ I’m kneeling on the chair, my hair flowing down my naked back, my breasts on show, and the damp patch in my boxer shorts from the caresses I’d never felt before, until just now.

‘Rune. Please. I’ll do anything.’ He groans again and he crouches down on his feet in front of the chair so he’s at my height. Rune grips my chin between his thumb and forefinger before he smirks in my face. ‘Rune?’ I question.

‘f**k. I love it when you beg.’ He sighs before dropping my chin. ‘One day I’ll have you tied up on my bed, begging me to give you pleasure, but right now.’ He stands. ‘Right now, I won’t let you hypnotise me with your p***y to get what you want. I can’t keep your secret from my brothers. I won’t tell anybody else. You have my word. I have to tell them though. What they decide to do with that is up to them.’

He looks my body up and down. ‘And maybe up to you too. Just change the underwear.’ He says as he dips his fingers into my waistband and pings them against my stomach. ‘We don’t keep secrets. It impacts bonds.’

Arrogant bastard. He’s willing to risk my life for a bond-tie which might not exist. He’s so sure of himself. So sure of them all. I pick up the boot by the bookshelf and throw it at him as the door slams shut.