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Right. Staring at him, hoping some of the heat beneath my skin would recede, I waited for him to move. It didn’t, and he didn’t, so I huffed and ducked past him.
“What were you so afraid of?” he asked when I neared my rooms. “Just now when I returned? I won’t delude myself into believing it’s still me.”
“I don’t fear you.” I walked faster and opened the door. “But I do despise you,” I said primly, then slammed it behind me.
I heard his laughter and his words through the wood I leaned back against, trying to catch my breath. “Indeed, you’re all I fantasize about too, mate.”
The begi
I woke with a heaving gasp.
A fine layer of sweat covered me from head to toe, my nightgown sticking to my body while my heart thrashed and wailed.
Inside the lukewarm bath, I sat with my knees tucked to my chest, watching the sun slowly chase away night and waiting for the remnants of my nightmare to fade. Beasts of blood and shadow and dagger-like teeth rolled into velvet green hillsides with children ru
It was no nightmare, and that was what made it all the more terrifying.
In the gardens, I wandered through the dew-dotted grass, discovering plants I’d never encountered in our lands, yet with an inhale, I found I knew them all the same. Before the vegetable garden that ate a good portion of the western side of the castle grounds were two long rows of medicinal plants, herbs, and spices.
It was no secret our healers were being used by their armies, but seeing it and some of the plants from our land made it all the more sobering.
The Keep was quiet when I returned, marigolds and thinsilver tucked within the long, flowing sleeves of my sky-blue dress. The bodice was loose, the velvet covering the chest area shifting and sliding in a way that might have felt slightly improper back home as if it were a nightgown or paint smock.
But I was far away from home, and I found I quite liked the freeing cotton fluttering around my ankles. It was as though whoever created it had thought to bring nightwear to daywear and had found the perfect balance.
I knew such things were usually created by the gold Fae, but I was no longer naïve enough to believe the crimson did not have talented dressmakers of their own. I made a mental note to ask Gwe
A russet-haired faerie, one of whom I’d not seen before, waded past me as I rounded the stairs to the foyer inside. I nodded, offering a brief smile, but she did not look up to meet my eyes. In her hands, her trembling hands, I noticed, was a pail.
And bloodstains on her apron. Fresh, I discovered when I inhaled.
Stars. What horrors was he unleashing now? And upon his staff? They seemed to respect him. Feared him most certainly. But I couldn’t deny the awe and loyalty of his people.
My hand squeezed the marble railing. I told myself to leave it alone. I wasn’t here to ensure his staff was well taken care of. I shouldn’t have been here at all.
A clang sounded from somewhere deeper within the Keep, and heartbeats after it, another whiff of blood. My feet carried me off the bottom step and down the hall that contained room after room, most of them grand and unoccupied, and eventually, took me to the kitchens.
Losing the scent, I backtracked, knowing all too well that Dade wouldn’t have lost it. He’d have already found the source with senses far more powerful than most of us. The irksome knowledge only fueled my quest to discover what had happened, so I turned back and found a closed door halfway down the hall. It wasn’t locked.
Knowing I was alone, for now, I opened and closed it behind me, shrouding myself in total darkness.
Bright light flared from my fingertips, and I found myself inside another hallway. A hallway just as beautiful as the one I’d vacated seconds before. So why, I wondered, was it so dark? And spelled, I realized, warded to keep the groans I could hear coming from the other end from seeping out into the Keep. I followed the noise, the rancid scents of death, blood, and other bodily fluids, down into the slow-sloping darkness.
The air grew colder with each step down the cleverly hidden ramp masquerading as a hall. A sharp turn at the end, followed immediately by another, and I shielded my eyes, the warmth in my fingers snuffed. Flames danced in sconces upon the walls of what appeared to be a dungeon. Cells, iron-barred cells, all of them empty save for the ghosts of souls long perished, lined one of the long stone walls of the narrow space.
On the other side, chains and other torture devices hung from the stone and the ceiling in at least ten different places, and in the center, chained to the ceiling and the floor, his arms and legs flayed wide, was a swollen eyed, bloodied prince.
“Heddo?” he mumbled around the metal gag strapped to his mouth. “Who ’ere? Who?” His head whipped side to side as though he could see where I was. But he couldn’t see, or else he’d have known I was now standing right in front of him, my fingers pressed to my mouth and my stomach sinking to my toes.
Prince Bron was hardly recognizable. If it weren’t for his scent, smothered as it was beneath the sweat, blood, and other less than appealing fluids, then perhaps I wouldn’t have even known it was him.
Where have you been?
Nowhere important.
My teeth snapped together.
The chains clanged, and Bron moaned, a sound akin to a blubbering wail following, snot and blood exiting his nostrils. I backed up, unable to remove my eyes from the ribbons of blood covering him, the cuts, deep gashes, and bruises and the recently cleaned space on the floor beneath him.
I had to help him. He’d tried to have me without my permission. Against my will. He might have been heavily intoxicated, but I wouldn’t make excuses for him.
He was just as much a monster as the creature who’d rescued me from him.
Yet surely I couldn’t just leave him to die.
But I couldn’t make my feet move or find a way to help him either.
Tears threatened, but my eyes remained dry. Slowly, I waded back out of the haunted, narrow cave made for pain and murder until those shadows again collected and darkened with each turn.
At the closed door, I waited. I waited until I heard footsteps pass, Gwe
Then I returned to my rooms, where I sat on my pretty bed and stared at my useless hands.