Nightbird: Book 3 of the Gilded Cage trilogy

by Bailey, Fawn

  I was absolutely certain I would do whatever he asked of me, even something as vile and disgusting as the task that lay ahead. I would do anything to earn the approval of my father.

  “Do you understand, Kain?” he asked, and I nodded. “Good, good boy.” He smoothed down my hair and gave me a sideways glance. “You’re a good little orphan, Kain."

  Chapter 7

  Ophelia

  Plagued by thoughts and memories, I found it impossible to sleep for the next few nights. All I could think about was the mysterious note I'd found in the wall and how it had reappeared in my book. The one Kain still hadn't seen.

  The silent warning about not telling him what was going on was constantly on my mind. I was desperate to share what was going on, but every time I was about to tell him, the words just wouldn't come out.

  Getting up earlier in the morning was not a problem anymore.

  Every day, I was up bright and early, scouring the grounds of the property before Kain woke up. That was when I first saw him.

  The plague doctor.

  He was wearing the old-fashioned outfit from the middle ages. The large black mask with a beak, a hooded long black coat covering the rest of his body. A hat on top of his head and black boots on his feet. He was unrecognizable. There was no way of me knowing who was hiding under the mask.

  He stood in front of the wall one morning when I made my way through the gardens.

  When I first spotted him, I froze on the spot, my hand still touching the rough stone of the wall. "W-Who are y-you?" I asked, my voice shaking with emotion as the silent figure regarded me curiously. "This is private property. You can't be here."

  Maybe he wasn't actually there. Maybe he was just part of my imagination.

  But now, the figure extended a hand to me, inviting me into its embrace.

  I walked over slowly, every step to the figure excruciating because of the anticipation mixing with fear.

  I could have screamed, I could have run. Yet something inside me, the little Russian girl I used to be, whispered to me to keep going. To find out if Papa really was alive.

  I took the plague doctor's hand gloved in black leather, and he pulled me against him. Suddenly, we disappeared through the wall, and we were on the other side. I never knew there was a hidden passage there. I wondered whether Kain knew about it.

  The hooded figure led me further into the woods. He started going faster and faster, and I felt like Alice chasing the rabbit into Wonderland. I followed the plague doctor, tripped over branches and leaves until we finally made it to a small clearing inside the forest.

  There, he waited for me on a small picnic blanket set up for my arrival.

  As I approached, I noticed a letter on the blanket, with my name scribbled on it in Mamochka's loopy handwriting.

  I took a sharp breath, my eyes lingering on the dark figure before I rushed to the letter, opening it in a hurry with my heart beating so hard I thought I would faint.

  My dear Ophelia, the letter read in Russian.

  Today, on your eighteenth birthday, I want to tell you something.

  There will come a day where you will fall in love.

  I am not talking about marriage, my darling girl. I am talking about falling for someone—perhaps before you marry, perhaps after you do—but feeling like they are your whole life and like you exist solely for them.

  I am worried I won't be there when this moment happens. Your father has a dangerous job, Ophelia. Every day I am afraid we won't make it another day. But I know you are the strongest one of us all. I know you're the one who's always going to survive.

  Ophelia, I want you to know you're free to love anyone you want. I will hold no grudges against the man you choose to pick. I will always be on your side first, and I will always trust your choices.

  You deserve happiness, my beautiful girl, and I want you to know love is waiting for you and will happen when you least expect it.

  Your father loves you too, Ophelia. But you must understand the importance of family. He wants you to make our family bigger by marrying a man he's chosen for you. He is a good man, in his heart. I know sometimes it is hard to see, but I hope one day, you will see the other side of him. The side I know cares about you deeply.

  But whatever you do, Ophelia, don't tell your father if you have fallen for a person he doesn't approve of.

  Keep up the pretense of being happy with Max at all times.

  Ophelia, I am worried about your father's enemies. But I'm not as worried about them as I am about him—

  The letter ended abruptly, and wide-eyed, I turned the paper to find more answers. The paper was sprinkled with tiny red drops, and the color drained from my face when I realized it was blood.

  My eyes went to the plague doctor, angrily judging him for what he'd shown me.

  "Are you going to speak?" I asked him, and he hung his masked head which made me even angrier. "You coward. You're working for him, aren't you? You work for my father!"

  He didn't answer.

  Instead, he started walking back through the forest, the way we'd come from. I hesitated before following him, but I needed his help to get back home. I had never wandered the woods by myself before.

  I followed the plague doctor down the same path until we reached the hidden hatch in the wall. We both stopped in front of it, and the doctor stared at me as I touched the wall.

  "You need to give me answers," I said. "I can't live with this… this not knowing what's going on! Is my father alive? Is Vlada okay? Am I going to see my family again?"

  The figure pulled me closer, pressing a hand over my mouth.

  He didn't say a word but held me in a deathlike grip until I stopped struggling and whimpering. Once I did, he let me go, and I tumbled to the ground.

  He stood above me like a dark prophet, and I shivered on the ground below him. Finally, he unblocked my path, standing aside so I could walk back into the gardens.

  I was shaking by the time I got back inside, my palms sweaty and my head swimming with thoughts I couldn't explain. I knew I had to talk to the man who'd greeted me.

  I rushed back through the hidden gate, panting as I looked around for the plague doctor.

  He was nowhere to be seen.

  Just like he'd appeared out of thin air, he was gone now, gone into the woods that lay behind the property.

  I had to find him.

  I started running into the forest, my bare feet brushing blades of grass wet from the morning dew. I went deeper and deeper into the forest, but there was no sign of him. I finally gave up when my ankle twisted, and I tumbled to the ground. By then, I was filthy, covered in mud and dried grass. I just wanted to go home.

  Feeling stupider than ever, I managed to pick myself up and start walking back the way I came from.

  Had the plague doctor really been there or was he a mirage, a figment of my imagination, a figure my mind had created to toy with me?

  But surely it was a real person. I wasn't going insane. I had everything together. Or at least I had until the notes started appearing.

  I stopped in my tracks when I recognized a warped oak tree. Hadn't I passed that before?

  I looked around myself and realized with horror I had no idea where I was. By walking in what I thought was the direction of home, I'd only managed to get myself more lost. Now I had no idea how to back, and it was at least an hour later. Kain was going to punish me for this, and the worst part was, I wasn't able to tell him anything.

  I forced myself to swallow the tears that welled in my eyes. I didn't have time to cry. I needed to get back home, beg for Kain's forgiveness, and hope he would go easy on me.

  But I couldn't reveal the truth to him. The note had warned me not to. And besides, how would he react when I told him I had followed a man dressed up as a plague doctor into the forest? He would never buy it. He would think I was going crazy.

  I couldn't let that happen.

  Not before I got to the bottom of it.

  And I
couldn't involve Kain.

  What was written in the letter my mother had left me, the one speckled with blood, was true. My father would never approve of Kain—the enemy, the son of the man who'd had my entire family slaughtered. He'd probably put a bullet between his eyes before I could say a single word.

  That wasn't the only thing I remembered from Mamochka's letter, though.

  She distinctly mentioned my father's enemies, but she also spoke about being afraid of someone else, my father himself. I wondered what had interrupted her when she'd been writing the letter.

  I didn't want to see the truth, but it was right under my nose.

  My father had found her writing the letter. The blood on the paper was hers. I remembered a day when her nose was bleeding, and her face was bruised. It could've been that night. It could've been a thousand others.

  My father wasn't afraid of hitting a woman. In fact, he considered it a valuable tool to knock us around and teach us lessons.

  I realized I was getting more and more lost as I made my way through the forest. I was parched, desperate for some food with my stomach rumbling loudly. I wanted to go back home. I wanted to be in Kain's arms, reassured that everything was going to be all right.

  Finally, I came across the old oak tree again. I rested under its gnarled branches and leaned my head on the bark of the trunk.

  I wasn't going crazy.

  I had it all together.

  My father wasn't alive.

  But maybe Vlada was.

  She wasn't playing tricks on me, was she?

  She would never do that.

  I was filled with doubt about what was happening, worry eating away at me. But then I thought of Kain, of the man I had chosen—the one my mother said she'd approve of no matter who he was.

  He needed me back. He would need to punish me, and he would crave to hear the sounds of my anguish just as much as I needed to hear him groan my name. I belonged by his side. I belonged to him. And now, I needed to find my way through the woods before he got really angry.

  With newfound determination, I paved a new path through the forest, turning at angles I hadn't tried before and not giving up even when I arrived at the oak tree for the third time. By then, the sun was heavy in the sky, and I felt delirious. Maybe I was going crazy. Maybe I was losing my mind. Maybe I had imagined the plague doctor.

  Just then, I spotted the stone wall in the far distance. I started running as fast as I could, my hand gratefully resting on the cool stones as I caught my breath.

  I found the secret hatch and made my way through the gardens.

  The house before me was quiet, ominous. It was like a sign of how angry Kain would be once I finally got back. And he really wasn't going to like this.

  I tried to shake out most of the leaves and grass from my hair, but there wasn't much I could do about the mud, trailing a set of dirty footprints throughout the house. I couldn’t see or hear him anywhere inside, but I walked in anyway, my heart beating faster than ever as I looked around for Kain.

  When I least expected it, a strong pair of arms wrapped around my waist and someone pulled me against his muscular, toned body.

  I screamed.

  Chapter 8

  Kain

  “Where have you been?”

  Ophelia let out a relieved breath before her body stiffened in my arms. She looked up, frightened by the expression of pure rage on my face. I grabbed the front of her shirt, making her breathe in audibly as I pulled her flush against my body.

  “Where. Have. You. Been? Don’t make me fucking ask you again, dolly.”

  She averted her eyes. “I didn’t think you’d notice,” she whispered.

  “Notice that my favorite toy was missing?” I hissed. “You didn’t think I’d notice?”

  “I’m s-sorry. It w-won’t happen again.”

  She was stuttering, scared of me. So why was that defiant expression back in her eyes? The spark I’d fucked out of her was back. The one that made her crave the punishments I doled out with a cruel hand.

  “You bet it fucking won’t,” I growled in response. “Now tell me where the fuck you were before I fucking kill somebody.”

  “I went to m-meet somebody,” she managed to get out.

  Her eyes found mine, seeing the anger there as she stared me down, almost daring me to say something about it. I was going to say something, all right. I was going to fuck and pound and beat this bratty attitude right out of her.

  My dolly wasn’t bratty.

  She had a mind of her own, but she was never a goddamn brat. And she was about to learn what happened when she pushed my limits. “Are you going to tell me who?” I asked her in a low grunt, and she stared right into my eyes as she answered, the little work making sure I wouldn’t fucking go easy on her.

  “N-No.”

  She realized her mistake the second the word was out, and my hand wrapped around her throat. Slowly, I forced her to her knees, and she fought me with every inch she got closer to the ground, with all her fucking might.

  “You’re going to obey me,” I told her as I unbuckled my belt, her eyes widening when she heard the clank of the buckle. “You’re going to do exactly as I say. And if I have to, I’m going to fucking beat the truth out of you with my belt on your ass. And I won’t be gentle like I have been lately, dolly. Oh no. I’m going to make sure it fucking hurts.”

  She whimpered, and I leaned down next to her, my breath cool against her trembling lips. I touched the leather of the belt to her lips.

  “Kiss it,” I ordered, and she shivered as she did what I told her. “Good girl. Lick it.”

  Her little tongue darted out between her lips, flicking at the black lacquer as she raised her eyes to mine.

  I took the belt away, wrapped it around her throat and tightened it into a leash. Before I was done, she was gasping, her eyes begging for a reprieve.

  “Open your mouth,” I told her, pulling down my boxers. “Open wide, dolly.”

  She did, and I hooked my fingers in the corners of her mouth, stretching her wider.

  “You want me to degrade you?” I asked her roughly. “You need your Master to show you your place, don’t you, dolly?”

  She nodded, and I slapped her across the face swiftly, making her cry out in outrage.

  “Say it,” I growled.

  Her words came out a mess with her mouth stretched like that, but I didn’t give a shit. I spat into her mouth then, spit dribbling into her throat while silent tears slipped down my cheeks. I thought she’d break, but when I pulled back, her little hands wrapped around my wrists, tugging me back, demanding more of the humiliation she’d just been given.

  She was shivering, not quite able to meet my gaze as I stood in front of her.

  “You want me to fuck that throat?” I asked her, and she nodded.

  Slap.

  This time it served its purpose.

  “Please Master,” Ophelia babbled. “Please, fuck my mouth.”

  I slammed my cock between her lips, and she gagged and choked on my length. “Fucking take it. Take it all the way down your throat, you little disobedient slut.”

  Her eyes found mine, and she dared me to go harder. I didn’t need to be told twice.

  I fucked her throat as if my life depended on it, pulling in and out so fast her mouth popped around my tip every single time, followed by her hungry groan, her hands grabbing me, pulling me back.

  I leaned down, fingers wrapping around her neck and in her hair. I pulled her up, kissing her desperate whore mouth while she attempted to devour me. Her kisses were hungry, needy. She latched onto me, pulling me down with her. She was making me fucking hard, not just with that hand jerking me off like a pro, but with those fucking kisses that blew my mind.

  Finally, I pulled back, gave her a gentle slap on the face and put her back on her knees. Her bottom lip quivered, and she slipped inside the submissive role so beautifully, making me love her even more.

  But I couldn’t let myself forge
t why we were there in the first place. I needed to know where the fuck she’d been all day.

  “Ready to tell me?” I asked her in a low, threatening voice.

  She merely shook her head, her eyes begging me to understand whatever the fuck she was hiding from me. But I wasn’t in a very understanding mood. I told her as much as I dragged her down the hallway by her hair. She didn’t struggle, crawling behind me, as if understanding she deserved the punishment that was awaiting her on the other side of the door once we reached the playroom.

  “I’ll go in first,” I told her. “Count to a hundred, then crawl inside to where I am. You’ll have ninety seconds to convince me to forgive you. Either you do it by admitting where the hell you went and apologizing for disappointing me, or you do some magic on my cock, up to you. Either way, dolly...” I took her chin between my fingers, grinning in her pale, pretty face. “Either way, I wouldn’t waste your breath.”

  I left her sitting outside the door and prepared the room for her arrival.

  * * *

  She opened the door, and her eyes found me in the darkness. She crawled closer, leaving the door ajar behind her. Once she’d crawled to me, she put her head in my lap once she did.

  “I’m so sorry, Master,” she whispered, toying with the zipper of my pants. “I’m sorry I let you down.”

  I stroked her hair while she took my cock out, slowly jerking me before wrapping her pouty lips around the tip. I loved the way her tongue twirled over me, and I groaned with appreciation. Her eyes went up, the perfect mix of innocent and sexy, begging me for forgiveness and so much more that she wasn’t ready for.

  Her tongue dipped in the slit in my cock, and I pulled on her hair hard.

  Ophelia’s lashes fluttered open and closed, her eyes begging for release. I knew what she wanted. The only thing she ever did when she was around me.

  She wanted to fucking come.

  I leaned forward, smiling lovingly at her while I wrapped my fingers around her chin. “Poor little dolly,” I said. “Do you want to come?”