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The red wolf left first, the black and gray following, both their tails tucked between their legs.
“You too,” the king said, and I’d been so busy watching the wolves slink past me, the red one stopping to sniff at my leg, that I hadn’t realized he was talking to me.
I blinked, and he sneered, walking toward me when I didn’t move. “Do you really want to enrage me any further, swan?”
“I just…” Too many eyes, even some of those fucking again in varying spaces of the room, were on me. I squared my shoulders and tried again anyway, looking directly into the king’s cold eyes. “I need to talk to you. Please.”
A brow rose. “Please?” He swung one foot in front of the other, slowly stalking forward. “My, my. Well”—he gestured to the hall—“by all means, lead the way.”
Snickering followed as I stepped out, and he trailed, the doors closing behind him.
I couldn’t keep my gaze from the glossed, engraved dark wood. “Something bothering you, sunshine?”
He knew very well what was bothering me, and still, I said, “What were you doing in there?”
The king leaned back against the wall, tucking a hand inside his pant pocket as he eyed me for a heated half minute, then sighed. “What did it look like I was doing?”
“Well, I couldn’t see you, but there were naked females, and they were…” My cheeks grew warm, and I looked down at my bare feet, feeling so incredibly small. Useless and stupid yet again.
“Fucking. They were fucking. Say it with me.”
I refused, and the king laughed without humor, the airy sound raising hairs all over my body. Taking his hand from his pocket and rubbing his jaw, he stated in a bland tone, “We are warriors, but we are also family and friends, and we enjoy the finer things this long eternal life has to offer just like any other creature does.”
My stomach sank so hard and swift that I feared the little food I’d had for di
“You used what I feel for you against me, but I am the fool for letting you.”
“So you retaliate in this way?” I asked, each new breath sharp and slicing. “What would you have me do?” I surprised myself by asking. “If you were me, what would you have done?”
“Swan,” he said, and I’d never heard him say it without inflection, as though it were just a word. “You seek empathy from a male who has none. You are a bird, and I am a beast. Now run along before I ponder the possibility of crafting a flag of victory from those lovely black feathers.”
He left me with his harsh yet undeniably true words and closed himself back inside his den of debauchery.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there with my eyes and chest burning, but when I heard something thump against the closed doors, followed by growling and laughter, I forced myself to head back down the hall.
My foot had barely met the cold marble of the landing when that scent—sweat and earth—returned. But too late for me to realize it was yet another foe.
“He might not pluck those feathers…” Heated breath washed over my shoulder. “But I will.”
Something smacked into the side of my head, and then there was nothing.
I ended up in the dungeon after all, though it wasn’t Dade who’d brought me here.
“Serrin,” the male said with an u
The chain was tight, but not so tight that I struggled to breathe and talk. My hands were bound behind my back with what burned like rope. “Where is he?”
“They left this morning to terrorize a little town named Tulane. You might know of it?”
He indeed knew that I was more than familiar with the town by the border of Sinshell. The Well of Wishes resided there, as well as a creek that contained healing stones and algae. It wasn’t just those things that spiked a nail of fear through my heart, though.
It was the people. Tulane was a farming town. What remained of my father’s extended family still lived there. I wondered if the king knew that, and judging by the gleam in the blue-eyed male before me, I was guessing he did not.
“You know my family lives there. That more i
“Perhaps not anymore,” Serrin said, grimacing again. “I would say all is fair in love and war, but we both know this war and”—he waved a hand at me flippantly—“whatever it is you and Dade have been struggling with is anything but fair.”
The male who, besides being gifted with similar-colored eyes, looked nothing like his nephew knew very well that we were mated.
Serrin circled me, the scrape of his fingers over his short, dark beard mingling with his booted steps.
He was patient, waiting for my curiosity to drown my stubborn desire to remain quiet. “What is it you want?”
Footsteps ceased, his shoulder-length brown hair falling over one eye as he came to a stop before me. “To end this once and for all.” He procured a dagger from a sheath at his waist and stepped closer. “He’ll forgive me, and I hope you do, too, as I’m merely doing what he should’ve already done. Now change.”
Confused, I asked, “What? Why?”
“Just do it.” When I didn’t, he sighed and circled behind me, then thrust the tip of the blade into my arm. I screamed. No one would hear me, I knew, but I couldn’t help it as my blood fizzed and warred against the iron that tried to poison my veins.
I shifted, wings flapping, the chain around my neck tightening, the other end now in Serrin’s hands instead of hooked to the ceiling.
“Stay still, Princess,” he ordered, but I continued to struggle, my neck throwing itself around, instinct screaming to flee, to be rid of the metal around it.
I might have been a bird, but I was half the size of him, and I couldn’t help the urge to swing my beak at his pawing hands. He evaded me. One by one, he plucked the feathers from my body, the sharp pinch enraging me to the point of getting tangled up in the chain on my back.
“That’s it,” Serrin crooned, looming over me now, a hammer and large nail in hand. His boot landed upon my leg, the hammer striking the nail hovering above my wing—once, twice…
I passed out and came to with both wings staked to the stone floor, feathers, too many of them, being gathered in a large sack over by an empty cell.
“You’re awake,” Serrin said, clomping over. “Good. Now, I must send some feathered treasure to the dear golden queen, but of course, a threat ca
Knowing better than to ignore his warning, I did as requested, agony rushing in and blackening my vision from the two holes in my lower arms.
“A few days and they should heal nicely. I missed the bone,” he said as if he’d done me a favor.
I couldn’t talk. I feared that if I opened my mouth, I’d wail like a babe and scream until my lungs gave out.
But it wasn’t over yet.
He hauled me up to sit against the wall, then tore at my gown until I was wearing nothing but my canary yellow undergarments. No, he wasn’t satisfied until he’d plunged the knife inside one of the wounds and twisted, holding the limb over the sack of feathers.
Blood gathered and spread over the luminous black, collecting in a thick layer that would soak clean through the feathers and cream canvas. Shreds of my gown were tossed inside. “Your mother must surrender, swear her fealty to our king, and then we can be done with all this,” Serrin muttered as though I’d agree, and then he was gone.