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I smiled then and retreated into the dark. “I’d rather he kill me than try to take what does not belong to him.”
Bron cursed. “I was not myself. I swear to you, I wouldn’t have actually—”
I gritted my teeth. “Save it, and if you could be so kind as to return the favor of saving your life by keeping away from the drink and uninterested females, and doing as I’ve said, then that would be thanks enough.”
Bron stared after me for untold minutes, and I waited behind the thick, rough trunk of a giant oak until finally, the grass swayed, and his scent and footsteps faded on the breeze. In his absence, I felt no relief, no sense of accomplishment at duping a murderous king.
I felt nothing but the gathering wind curling my hair back from my face, sweeping inside the folds of my nightgown. I was still wearing the same undergarments. The same pair that contained a rip right over my center, his seed long since dried on the material.
His breathy voice, the hushed cadence of his groans, the simple yet determinedly curious, bone-melting way he touched me—the time between his dominance over my thoughts was growing slimmer and slimmer with each passing day.
I knew he’d be made aware of the prince’s escape as soon as it was discovered. I knew I was the first person he’d interrogate, blame, and he’d have every right to. Perhaps I’d even take Bron’s place in that dungeon.
Yet I continued walking back, dodging rogue tree roots, sharp ferns, and moss-covered rocks until the scent of wheat and roses arrived. When I rounded a gnarled tree, its branches twisting enough that I ducked before stepping over a log, I then scented something else.
Whirling to the right, I found the king.
Leaning against a giant rock that reached his shoulders, he peeled the skin from an apple with a small knife, his eyes not on his task but on me. “I trust our dear prince will have a safe journey home?”
The same clothes from this evening still graced his form, rumpled from our tryst in the back of his carriage. My throat dried, fingers clenching and unfurling at my sides. His tone might have been pleasant enough, but it was his empty gaze that gave away the lurking danger behind his question.
The keys upon the wall. They’d been left there for he or his warriors should they need them, but they’d also have known of far better hiding spots.
He’d left them in plain sight. The unlocked doors. The lack of sentries.
“I-I…” I stammered, fear creating a lump in my throat as my heart ceased to beat.
“You think I didn’t know what you were up to?” he asked, tearing a bite out of the apple, the knife glinting. “Did you think I wouldn’t wonder what you would do when you discovered the vermin in my dungeon?”
I had nothing to say to that. Nothing that would help. No excuses. I didn’t want any. I’d done what I’d done, and I’d take whatever punishment he dished out.
Still, he waited with u
I tried to find the words and tripped over every useless one. “Don’t you ever wonder what it was like before? There’s been enough violence.”
I refrained from gulping at the feral twist of his features, the immediate darkening of his eyes. “Yet your freeing him will only bring more.”
“But you…” I shook my head, incredulous and confused. “You… you just let me free him.”
“I-I-I most certainly did,” he mocked with a cruel curl of his upper lip. “I wanted to see what you would do—and now I know.” In smoke and shadow, he vanished, and dismay filled my entire being like a cloud blocking out the sun.
I couldn’t breathe. My vision darkened. My legs began to quake.
Would he kill me? Hurt me? I’d known something was wrong, so terribly wrong, but I hadn’t thought it would be anything like this.
That he would test me. Knowing I’d fail, he decided to test me anyway, and he was an asshole, for he knew I’d have chosen most things over him. Mate or not.
I slumped against the tree, my hands tu
I’d betrayed him as he’d guessed I would.
I’d betrayed him knowing I’d be caught—perhaps wanting to be. Perhaps hoping that if he hated me the same way I had to hate him, then this would be easier.
I’d betray him again and again if it meant helping those he’d hurt.
There was no way out. Not for either of us. This torment, this deadly game of lust and war, would have no wi
Even if my soul continued to unstitch itself from my heart.
I returned to my rooms uninterrupted, numb, and exhausted enough that I prayed whatever punishment awaiting me could wait until morning.
The sentries were back at their posts. Eyes trailed me. I didn’t look anywhere but straight ahead, using what remained of my energy to keep my head held high—wondering if Bron had even made it over the crossing if the king had known what I was up to.
I had to believe he had. That he’d see my mother, my people, and give them some measure of hope in the form of a useless golden twig.
The morning arrived with breakfast waiting for me outside my door. Bleary-eyed from only managing to capture a few hours of sleep before more nightmares and my torn conscience got the better of me, I carried it inside my rooms without daring a glance at the giant closed doors down the hall.
The bread grew stale by the windowsill, my tea cold and half-drunk in the delicate teacup as midday ruptured through the crawling ivy over the windows.
And still, I waited.
I waited for something that never came, and after drawing myself a bath, I fell asleep upon the fresh furs that’d been placed on the end of my bed while I’d been gone. I woke right before di
The doors to the king’s rooms were open, and I chanced a quick look behind me, knowing there was nothing there save for statues and ghosts, then peered inside.
The bed was made, the décor untouched by dust and fresh books sitting upon his nightstand. I wanted to see what they were, to take a closer look at that map with its horrible red splotches, but I couldn’t move.
Maybe that was due to it being another trap. Or maybe it wasn’t at all, and my paranoia had reached perilous heights in the king’s u
My feet carried me to and down them before I could think better of it, and as I twisted around the last one to follow that scent, a scream raced up my throat.
“Going somewhere?” An imposing male stood by a statue half his size, a statue of his baser self—a wolf.
I stopped. “Who are you?”
In his hand was a dagger, its edge glinting under the candles floating in the crystal chandelier above our heads. “Scythe.”
Flicking my eyes from that dagger to his scarred gaze, I nodded. “I suppose I was looking for the king.”
“You suppose?” he asked with a tilt of his head. That scar, I had to wonder if it was the reason for his uncouth name with the way it curved through the sealed skin of his missing eye. “It was cursed,” he said then, surprising me. He raised the tip of the blade to his face. “To never open, never regenerate and heal.”