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Chapter Fourteen
“What?” I asked, my fork pausing in mid-air. “You are? Why?”
“Because,” he said, sawing at his steak like it had personally wronged him.
“No. That isn’t good enough.” I held up my hand to count off his transgressions. “You dragged me out here. Stole me from my intended fiancé and my crown. Left me nearly to die in the forest. Then built me a fucking cage to use me as bait. You don’t get to just decide I’m going home without telling me why. I deserve answers, and I’m not leaving until I get them.”
His jaw ticked while he stared at me, his knife and fork gripped in his hands like he wanted to use them to crucify a bear.
“Is this because of what we just did?” I asked, wondering why he suddenly wanted to get rid of me. “Did you not...enjoy it?”
He let out a sound of frustration, dropping his utensils with a clatter and pushing himself up from the table. “Of course I enjoyed it,” he said, practically seething. “It was the most alive I’ve felt in centuries.” I frowned at that statement, noting the way his voice dropped at the end. Like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
He walked over to the bed and found his tunic, pulling it over his head with furious movements. When he was done, he stalked back over to the kitchen and opened a cupboard, pulling out a glass decanter full of amber liquid. He poured himself a generous amount and tossed it back, finishing most of it in one gulp.
“If you’re pouring that, I’ll have some too,” I said. With the glass in his hand, he studied me with such a conflicted sense of emotion, I felt like I was being picked apart stitch by stitch. He put his glass down and then found a second, dispensing a generous portion.
Our fingers brushed as he handed it to me, the sensation winding through my limbs and straight to my toes. After what we’d just done, this i
With my eyes on him, I took a large gulp, and then immediately started coughing. The liquor burned straight down my throat, my eyes watering. “Good gods, that tastes like shit,” I said, wiping the back of my lips with my sleeve.
Wicked was laughing, his mouth stretched into a glorious smile I hadn’t seen before. It made his already gorgeous face so breathtaking, my heart nearly stopped.
“I’m glad you think this is so fu
He snorted and was trying to clamp down on his amusement, but I didn’t want him to do that. His laugh was wild and big and seemed to filter out through every pore. In fact, some instinctual part of me wanted to make him smile that way forever.
“Do you want some wine instead, Princess?”
Still rubbing my tongue with my sleeve, I nodded. “Yes, that’s more what I’m used to.”
He gri
He poured me a glass of ruby red wine, and I sipped it with a happy sigh. “That’s better.”
“Go sit by the fire,” he said. “I’ll finish cleaning up.”
He began clearing the plates. “Do you want some help?”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. Though next time you owe me di
I sipped my wine and looked out the window where the snow had started to fall in thick white flakes. The wind had picked up since this afternoon, the howl echoing through the empty castle.
“Um, about that... I’m sorry about that whole thing with the cage?” My voice pitched up at the end, because I wasn’t actually sorry. “How did you get out of there, anyway?”
He cast a look over one of his broad shoulders. “You don’t really think I designed it without a way to unlock it from the inside?”
“Well, actually I did think that, or I wouldn’t have bothered shoving you in.” He arched a skeptical brow. “Okay, yes. I still would have tried.”
With a soft chuckle, he turned away and resumed washing the dishes.
When it seemed like the matter of both the di
Curling my legs under me, I set my head against the back of the sofa and listened to the crackle of the fire. Eventually, Wicked finished cleaning up and settled next to me, his drink full again. Ever careful about giving me space, he didn’t sit too close despite the notable fact he’d had his fingers inside me an hour ago.
“Should we talk about what happened?” I finally asked, unable to stand the tension any longer. It hung in the room as if it were a nosy aunt fishing for the latest gossip. He looked at me, his dark eyes full of thought and his expression inscrutable.
“I wasn’t going to put you in that cage,” he said, surprising me and quite obviously changing the subject. “I was building it for the Reaper.”
“I thought I was the bait?”
He huffed out a sound of frustration and ran a hand down his face. “You were,” he said.
Past tense.
“And now?”
He pi
“And now, I realize I can’t do this.”
A band I’d been wearing around my chest loosened. I hadn’t even understood how worried I’d been until that moment. In silence, I waited for him to continue.
He seemed to be hanging onto the edge of something and couldn’t bear to look down. He took a deep sip of his drink, his gaze on the fire.
“I’ve been trapped in this forest for almost three hundred years,” he said softly.
My brow furrowed as I watched him, studying his profile, the red and orange of the flames reflecting off the edge of his straight nose and the planes of his high cheekbones. He looked at me then, shadows of pain clouding his eyes.
“Why?”
“A witch cursed me to spend eternity within these trees. That’s what these are.” He gestured to the markings that covered his skin, and I had the strongest desire to touch them. I curled my hand into a fist as he continued. “To break the curse, I need an ogre’s heart. She chose this spot near their nest to taunt me. They’re notoriously hard to catch. I’ve tried and tried for centuries and though I’ve come close so many times, I’ve never managed it. But they aren’t immortal, and they’ve been slowly dying out and now there is only one left. If it dies, I’ll be imprisoned here forever.”
As he spoke, I felt the shattered pieces of heartbreak in his voice. His tale seemed to take on a life of its own as it wove through the room, wrapping around my arms and my legs and drawing me closer. Before I knew it, we were sitting together, my knees resting against his thigh, his arm casually thrown over them.
“Why did she curse you?”
He took in a deep breath. “We were lovers for a time. She ended up leaving me for my younger brother, who had his eye on the crown I was set to inherit. He was always more ruthless, and they were a better match. They colluded to get rid of me, the witch cursing me and banishing me to this place.”
“That’s terrible,” I said, my heart squeezing as I imagined how that kind of betrayal must have left the caustic taint of venom in his veins.
“I’ve done some things I’m not proud of,” he said. “You aren’t the first girl I brought here, hoping to lure an ogre.” Both our gazes drifted to the cage. “It never worked, though, and I let them all go. Eventually, I stopped trying to catch them that way.”
“It didn’t work? Ever?”
“No.” He sipped his drink.
“Then why did you need me?”
“Not many wander to this place, but a few years ago, a wizard happened to pass by. He asked for shelter for the night, and I shared my tale. He told me only the blood of a princess would bait an ogre. That they wouldn’t be able to resist its lure. It would put them in a trance, and it would be the only thing they could focus on. Then I could strike it down.”
My mouth popped open as he gave me a wary look.
“It wasn’t long after that I heard about the princess who would soon be of age and that I could win her in the Hunt. So instead of chasing ogres, I spent the last three years learning to bring down the biggest and fiercest stags in the forest.”
He fell silent then, his arm still draped over my legs. I wasn’t sure how to feel. Part of me understood how desperate he had become after all this time, but he had still pla
“I’m sorry,” he said, reading my mind. “It was a selfish, terrible thing to do. After the last girl, I swore I’d never do that to anyone again. But then that wizard offered me what felt like a lifeline, and I was thinking only of myself. I had no idea you’d be so...well, you aren’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly...I didn’t expect to like you.”
I snorted at that. “You like me?”
“You’re a pain in the ass, Princess, but yeah, I do.”
I tried not to feel good about his words, nor look too closely at why they made me feel that way.
He had still pla
“You took me from my family. You took me from the man I was supposed to marry. My friends and my home and my life, all so you could free yourself.”
“I know,” he said. “I promise I’ll take you home tomorrow. I release you of any tie you have to me. You’re free to go home and live the life you were supposed to.”
I nodded slowly, not sure what to say. Not exactly sure how his words made me feel.
“Your brother?” I asked, the pieces clicking together. “He’s the one responsible for the decree?”
Wicked nodded. “He’s responsible for everything your kingdom has endured, Princess. For all the misery and control they hold over you.”
“So if you had been their king...”