by Ella Fields
The doors leading outside weren’t locked. No sentries stood upon the terrace.
“Not normal,” Bron mumbled. “Not normal, is it?” he said again when I didn’t answer.
It wasn’t, and though I shouldn’t have needed to confirm that, I still nodded. “We don’t have the time to worry.” We kept moving. Through the gardens, a pail of carrots overturned in our haste, passed the stables beyond, and into the shrubs that grew thicker as we slowed behind the training pens.
Bron bent at the knees, breathing heavy, wheezing enough that I knew he was stopping himself from coughing. “Where are you taking me?”
I was tempted to roll my eyes. “Anywhere is better than where you were, so why ask? We need to reach the woods.” I blinked at the darkness, the fields of wheat swaying in the night breeze, and said, “That way,” while pointing at the wagons parked aside the field. “We run to each wagon, and we don’t slow until we’ve breached the trees.”
Bron smothered a cough. “I can’t see shit.”
I took his hand, cringing but tugging. “You’ll be fine.”
We ran from wagon to wagon, dodging pitchforks and half-dug holes filled with manure, and though I tried not to, all I could think of was how easy this had been so far. Too easy. So easy that I knew something was wrong.
Not even the kenneled hounds beyond the pens and stables had stirred.
Something was terribly wrong, but we couldn’t turn back. I couldn’t turn back. We had no choice but to see this through. We continued northeast through the woods, Bron unable to sustain the hurried pace and slowing to a dragging walk a few miles out from the ravine.
From what I hoped was the crossover.
“Keep walking,” I said, knowing I had to head back before night bled into morning. “Along the ravine, look down, and you’ll find a hollowed-out tree. It’s a bridge.”
Bron’s blood-covered face, sweat streaking through the brown smudges, creased. “You’re not coming with me?”
I continued as though I hadn’t heard those tempting words. I didn’t wish to go anywhere with him but to see my mother again, just one last time… I swallowed. “Climb inside the tree and walk through to the cave beyond, then follow the forest east for a few miles until you see the lights of Sinshell.”
“Opal,” Bron said. “Your mother has been frantic. She’s threatened our family. Why do you think I even met with the blood king?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, the thought of my mother enough to make words fall into ash over my tongue. “You need to hurry,” I mustered, backing up from the clearing for the cover of the trees. “Tell her I am well. That you saw me, that I helped you leave, and that the lot of you should do nothing for the king treats me well, and I’ve got a plan.”
That would remain to be seen after what I’d now done.
I might as well have taken another dagger to his throat and actually stabbed him.
An idea struck me when Bron hesitated, and I bent down, searching for a stick. Standing, I infused it with all the heartache and love that warred within me, warmth spreading from my fingers over the brown wood—turning it gold.
Bron gaped, one swollen eye now open halfway, and took it from me with a shaking hand.
“Deliver it to her. She can feel it, see it, know all of what you say is true, and then she will see to it that you are cared for before you journey home.” Each word was ice crusting my lips, for he didn’t deserve it, and if my mother knew, she would see to it that he never returned home…
Later, I reminded myself. I couldn’t allow the oily sludge that filled my veins to change my plans. He would get all that was owed to him. But first, he had to be of use. He had to see my mother. He had to return home to Errin.
Bron’s throat moved, and he nodded. “Are you sure?” He threw a glance at the trees behind me, the Keep that loomed far beneath them, miles through the dark but its soft glow still visible through the dancing leaves. “Now is not the time to be a martyr. He’s a fucking monster, Opal. He will kill you.”
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 unnerving patience, eyes glowing brighter by the second.
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 s
lumped against the tree, my hands tunneling into my sweaty, tangled hair. Tears crested, and I closed my eyes over the burn.
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 winners. Still, I vowed to endure whatever else I had to. Even if it left me torn for all eternity.
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 dinner was delivered, but instead of taking it inside and closing the door, I dropped it onto the small table and walked back out into the steak-and-mushroom-scented hall.
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 unnatural silence. Where was he? His scent smothered his rooms, made my blood hum to go in search of him, the most recent bite of it leading toward the stairs.
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.”
The other was a green so velvet, like moss after rain. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t dare ask what happened, knowing without asking that he would never share that information, as something told me it wasn’t a battle injury.
“Why?” He sheathed the blade in a holster at his hip, his gray tunic falling over to conceal it. “You didn’t do it.”
“I know, but I just mean…” Flustered, I curled my fingers at my sides. I clenched them, forcing out, “It must have been agony.”
His upper lip curled over glowing white teeth. “Many things get the title of agonizing, swan. But this”—he pointed at his missing eye with his thumb—“this deserves no such honor.”
I did my best to swallow down the boiling shock before it could move over my face. It must have anyway, for his grin grew truly menacing. “You should return to your birdcage now.”
“I’m not a prisoner.”
He sketched a hand toward the giant dark doors. “Then, by all means, allow me to escort you out.”
The rain hammering against the Keep, tapping ceaselessly at every window, made my face scrunch. Curiosity won out when I eyed his pants, the mud-splattered boots and the weapons that were surely hidden beneath. He’d just returned from somewhere. “What were you doing with the dagger?”
“Admiring it.”
I ignored those biting cold words. “You thought I was up to something?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I wouldn’t have hurt you if that’s what you’re getting at.” His grin turned feral then, entering his eye in a way that made it glow a brighter green. “Our dear king would never forgive me.”
“So you would if it weren’t for that?” I wasn’t afraid, nor was I angered. If anything, I appreciated the honesty. Lies were an old comfort that I now found myself tired of encountering.
Which I think he deciphered when his eye narrowed and his mouth closed, his stiff stance loosening somewhat. “If you were not his mate, your feathers would be a pretty little vase filler by now.”
I laughed even as I inwardly winced. He only eyed me with more suspicion, but his expression slackened when I released a heavy breath. “You think me the enemy when I have killed no one.”
“You don’t need to have blood on your hands to be a murderer,” he stated coolly. “Besides, you released the scummy human prince, proving your untrustworthiness. Mate to the king or not.”
“I did because another kill doesn’t repair anything.” I leaned against the stair railing. “How can you support it? All this death?”
Scythe huffed. “The same way you and yours supported it when they moved against us in the first war.” Taking one step closer, he whispered heatedly, “You started this. Maybe not you, but your family.”
I found nothing to say to that. There was nothing to say when words were becoming so few and futile against numerous allegations.
He smiled, not kindly, and turned on his heel to head down the hall. “Fear makes monsters out of beasts, Princess. Remember that next time you find yourself so ready to condemn.”
I watched the darkness of the hall take him, then returned to my rooms and stared at my cooling dinner. And I waited some more.
Two days passed with the same mind-bending routine. I supposed it was safe to assume he wasn’t coming for me. That no one was coming for me.
But it was never safe to assume anything with the king of wolves.
For the first time in days, I left my rooms and ventured downstairs, the relentless rain outside splattering the Keep’s windows. The vines that encased the exterior created a violent rattle and tapping as thunder boomed overhead.
I didn’t dare go farther than the library, though my curiosity, this insufferable tugging beneath my skin, had me longing to delve deeper into the Keep.
He was here. He’d been here for three days. I’d felt it. Listened to his late return each evening to his rooms while wondering if he’d acknowledge me in mine. He never did, and on the fourth night of silence, the bad weather heightening the edged vibe that’d filled the Keep since its arrival, that incessant longing won out.
I didn’t know what I would say, only that when I reached the landing below the stairs leading to our rooms, I had to follow the sound of his laughter. Up the set of stairs that led to the other side of the highest floor in the Keep, a place I hadn’t yet explored, I trailed his scent, the noise escaping into the halls, and discovered an enormous room.
A ballroom.
Glittering silver c
handeliers hung from the rose-painted ceiling, and beneath them were columns wrapped in more vines. Twinkling fireflies bounced inside of tiny glass orbs that looped around them and floated throughout the room.
Flames danced in black sconces and flared with the energy in the giant space, and given the raucous, wild barking laughter and activities, they were roaring toward the ceiling.
I halted in the doorway, unsure what was going on when it dawned on me that nothing special was taking place. This was no ball, but it was a party of some sort.
Naked females danced together around a large velvet-looking circular chaise in the corner, and my eyes widened when a male approached one and spread her legs, hauling them up around his neck until the female quit laughing. Her back arched, her head and shoulders the only parts of her remaining on the large chaise as the male feasted between her thighs and another crawled over her, his member nearing her mouth.
“A black swan darkens our doorway,” Fang drawled, seated upon a giant throw cushion with a brunette, a pipe between his lips.
“Fuck,” a red-haired male with a deep scar cutting through his cheek muttered from a table overflowing with drink, cards, and piles of coin. “Tres, fetch the king.”
A golden-haired male who I assumed must have been Tres thumped his ale to the table, coins bouncing. “You fetch the king.”
“Just do it,” snapped a raven-haired female beside him.
“The asshole can do it himself,” Tres said, picking up his ale. “And as if he doesn’t know there’s a bird in here.”
“What did you call me?”
“Shit.” Fang slowly rose from the floor, his stunning female companion pouting. “Brim,” he warned.
“You fucking heard me, asshole.”
The tankard went flying, narrowly missing my head as I stepped aside, and it clanged into the hall behind me.