I considered offering my guest some rat meat, but thought better of it. “Who’re you?”
“My name is Ogmios.”
“Oh.” The name sharpened my dull mind. Ogmios. The king. The enemy. “What do you want?” I slunk back against the wall.
“To see you.”
I cleared my throat. “Well, it’s a bit difficult here. It’s dark, and several of my visitors have been dead. But if you light a torch, you’ll be able to see me.”
“Already broken?” he asked, almost to himself. “After just two months?”
Two months. I grabbed that tidbit with all the strength I had. Knowing how long I had been there sharpened my mind further. It was like seeing the horizon after floating in a void, a thin line in the distance to orient myself.
“Are you here to kill me?” I asked hollowly. “To execute me for my crimes?”
“Perhaps. I haven’t decided yet. It’s certainly a… temptation.”
There was something there. The way he said it. The old Cassandra would have been able to make sense of it, but this Cassandra had become engulfed in shadows.
“I’m dangerous,” I hissed from my corner. “The Mistress of Dread. That’s me. I’m a threat to your life.”
He let out a thin laugh that chilled my blood—a bitter, mirthless chuckle. “I doubt you’re a risk to anyone at the moment. And to kill you now would be too soon. I want your death to have an impact.”
It was time to prod the beast. “Tell me, King,” I croaked. “Am I your greatest shame?”
“Silence!” He roared.
Bingo.
“Who was she?” I asked. “My mother? I heard her screams, trapped in the Stone. How did you know her? Did she seduce you?”
His fist slammed into the side of my skull. The blow dizzied me, and my mind whirled. The bloodline of dread. And I, its heir.
“Mad mongrel,” the king said in disgust. “I intend to finish with you soon. A public execution for both of you will quash any remnants of opposition.”
Both of you. Both of you. Both of you. My heart sped up, pulse racing as a spark of hope ignited in my chest.
Roan was alive.
I shut my eyes, replacing darkness with darkness. Hope kindled in my heart like a candle flame, and the king shifted.
“I can feel it, you know,” he snapped, fury lacing his voice. “Your emotions leak from you like water from a broken vase. Disgusting abomination. A terrible mistake. Let me tell you where your whore-lover is. There is another cell, much like this one. And he sits there in the darkness, shackled in iron to the wall, surrounded by iron. And I promise you this. Whatever horrors you think you are suffering, his have been worse.”
I let my mind ice over, refusing to give in to the rage.
The king let out a small breath.
I shook, trying to contain myself. And yet, the presence of the old Cassandra simmered under the surface of my mind, whispering, still in control. Telling me what I needed to know.
She told me that women terrified this fae. Why? To men like him, women are the cruelty of nature, wild creatures in need of taming. I’d seen it in his mind—the apple orchard, a fruit hanging from a bough, red and tempting until the skin blackened and rotted before my eyes. He feared his own desires, wouldn’t let himself enjoy too much. Enjoyment meant a lack of control, submitting to base desires, giving in to the beast. He didn’t just hate women. He hated himself.
Right now, he enjoyed his control over a female pixie, but enjoyment meant the need for restraint. Too much pleasure meant he’d lose the leash on himself, indulge in pleasure. And nothing would shame him more.
Let’s see what happened when he felt a real thrill… I flooded my mind with images of Abellio torturing me, of Roan bleeding as they raked him with iron blades. Of both of us burning to death before a crowd of fae. I had been standing on the brink of insanity for too long, and the terror nearly swept me away, but I clung fiercely. And the king let out an exhilarated sigh of pleasure, nearly a moan.
And then I instantly took control of my thoughts, letting the ice encase my emotions, a glacial river. Icy mastery over myself. And I smiled in the darkness. I was in control.
“Enjoying yourself, Your Majesty? Did I take away your pleasure?”
He snarled, lunging for me, grabbing my throat and pressing tight until he regained his composure. Pushing me away in disgust, he stood up abruptly. I had an instant of satisfaction when he forgot how low the ceiling was, smacking his head on the stone. Then he left, slamming the door behind him.
My finger traced my neck as I smiled faintly. The king had given me my control back.
Spurred on by the knowledge that Roan was alive, that I could still find him, I spent every waking moment scraping at the hole in the wall. I didn’t know how long this bubble of clarity would last, but I had to take advantage of it. The fountain pen was wearing away. When, one day, I felt a sudden crack, my heart skipped a beat. I’d finally broken it, destroying what little hope I had left. I pulled it back and felt the tip.
It wasn’t broken.
I stuck it through the wall and felt around. Nothing blocked it. I had drilled a deep hole through the wall.
I set to widening it, twisting the pen inside the wall over and over. The wider the better. I needed it as wide as possible for my plan to work. And I needed it fast. For all I knew, maybe the guards would notice the hole I’d made from the other side. They’d transfer me to a different cell, and I’d have to start again.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Scrape scrape. Dust fell from the wall as the hole widened. Scrape scrape scrape. Darkness in my cell, and darkness outside it. But beyond this hole was a hallway. And that meant hope. Scrape scrape.
And then I heard it. Footsteps. The guards coming. And for the first time in more than two months, I saw something nearly impossible.
A glimmer of light, far away, but still dazzling to my eyes. I nearly shrieked with excitement.
The torch flames cast a warm glow over the hall, faint so far away, but still brilliant as the sun. Colors delighted my eyes—sweet, heavenly light. The walls were cast in a pink-orange hue that danced along the stone.
Light meant reflection. Light meant escape.
A grin curled my lips, and I quickly raised the silver pen to the hole, letting the soft torchlight reflect on it.
And my heart constricted.
All the sheen had been scraped off the pen. Days—weeks?—of using it to scrape the walls had dulled and dented it, leaving only a dark, misshapen rod. I wanted to weep, my mind on the verge of snapping completely.
“Let’s skip her cell today,” one of the guards said. “I want to get home. My wife has been poorly.”
“We skipped it yesterday,” the other guard reminded him. “We don’t want her to starve.”
“Fine,” the first one muttered.
The light from the peephole instantly vanished as they extinguished the torches. I stared at the useless hole in disbelief. The door opened, and I heard the scrape of the clay cup on the floor. Then the door closed.
After a moment, the orange light of the torches penetrated the hole again. It began to move further away.
“How old is your wife?”
“One hundred and thirteen.”
“Cradle robber!”
The light began to fade. Suddenly panicking, I rushed to the cup, lifting it, seeing the outline of its shape for the first time. It was made of rough clay. No reflection.
I tipped the water toward the hole, tilting it just enough, my hands shaking with desperation. Precious drops spilled on the floor. Come on… come on…
A glimmer of orange light flashed over the dark surface of the water, and I felt what I hadn’t felt for months—a reflection bonding with my mind. I searched for another reflection, and leapt.
Chapter 30
I moved slowly, trapped between reflections.
Another reflection glimmered faintly. Far? Near? Distance had no meaning here.
It was… away. And I was moving closer to it, but it felt slow. Too slow.
Confusion swirled in my mind, but I could still vaguely grasp what was going on. Kept away from human emotions for two months, my magic had dried up like rat bones in the sun. What should have been an effortless jump took my last drops of power, and I wasn’t sure I could push on.
The world between reflections stretched out infinitely in all directions, horizonless and empty. I tried to clear my mind. It couldn’t be that I’d broken free from my cell only to end up trapped here, alone for eternity.
No. Not alone. Something flickered in the distance.
A furious face, eyes bright with rage. She was coming for me. She knew this world much better than I did, knew how to move in it. All I could do was float, watching helplessly as Siofra came closer, a menacing smile on her lips.
Frantic, I reached out of the other reflection, and Siofra tried to grab for me as I leapt, her fingers brushing against my ankle, but I was already gone, the clean reflection washing over my skin as I fell—into another cell.
I crawled from a pool of rainwater beneath a small, square, barred window. Sunlight shone through it, and I covered my eyes, the light too bright.
“Cassandra?” A rough whisper.
I rolled away from the window and opened my eyes into tiny slits, my clothing damp.
Roan sat on the floor before me. He was the first one I had thought about when jumping, and I’d searched for him immediately. Thanks to the reflection in the puddle, I’d found him.
He was shackled to a wall, naked. Red wounds slashed across his body, blood seeping from his skin. He still looked beautiful, but his cheekbones were sharper, his skin paler. He squinted at me, his green eyes perplexed. I knew what was happening. He thought he was hallucinating, just like I had. I tried not to gape at the blood crusted over his body.
“Roan!” I crawled to him. “What have they done to you?”
His eyes cleared, as the realization hit him that I was real. “Me? What have they done to you?”
I stared at him, then at myself. Scraps of fetid rags hung over my body. The puddle water formed a sludge over the caked dirt and blood on my body, hardly an inch of skin visible through the grime. I couldn’t smell myself, but I knew I’d been living among dead rats and filth. My elbows and knees protruded from holes in my clothes.
“Abellio.” I couldn’t get the rest of the sentence out, couldn’t form a coherent thought.
“I know.” Sadness gleamed in Roan’s eyes. “He’s been paying me visits.”
I took a deep breath, my eyes burning in the light. “I think he might be the king’s son,” I blurted. “I’m not sure, but I think he could be.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the rest. That I could be the king’s daughter, too. Not just a terror leech. The daughter of the man who’d killed his family, who’d taken everything from him. Devourer of fear, eater of rats—heir of the bloodline of dread.
Roan’s eyes widened. “The king has no heirs.”
“He could be a secret bastard.” And I might be, too. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” My eyes lingered over Roan. He looked like a dream, so beautiful I could hardly believe he was real. Maybe it was the fact that he was naked, or the rainwater he’d had by his side—or just a perk of being a lust fae—but Roan still looked and smelled amazing.
Roan’s expression suddenly cleared, his green eyes keenly alert as though he’d just woken from a dream. “You have to get out of here.” His eyes widened, flashing with panic. “I thought you’d left. I saw you running with the others, and when I couldn’t feel you any more…” His voice grew guttural, ragged with desperation. “When I couldn’t feel you, I had to believe you’d escaped. I thought you were in London.”
I shook my head. “I saw you running for them. You were alone. I couldn’t leave you.”
He stared at me, his eyes shining, hungry. I thought I saw pain flickering there, and he reached for me, but the chains stopped his movement. He broke my gaze, staring again at his shackles as if awaking from a dream. “You have to go, Cassandra,” he said sharply. “They come for me every day at this time. They interrogate me, whenever the shadows grow long like this. They’ll be here any minute.”
Every day at this time. I’d been tortured only once, and it had snapped my mind. They were coming for him every day. Too much. Too much to process. I curled into the corner, shaking.
“Cassandra, what are you doing? Get up!”
“In a minute.” My breath came in short, sharp breaths, and I tried to calm myself. That overwhelming need to protect him tugged at me again, rooting me in place.
“If they find you here… Please leave! This is your chance, Cassandra. This is your one chance.”
I squinted in the light, struggling against the sensory overload. “Leave? Where to?”
“Anywhere! Out of here!”
“I can’t do that,” I said slowly. “I don’t have any power left.”
He paled. “You have to try. You should never have stayed for me, Cassandra.”
I shook my head. “If I get stuck between worlds, we’re both screwed.”
“You must try! You should never have returned for me. You should have left London long ago. You belong in the human world. It’s not safe for you among the fae.”
“Okay, stop arguing!” I held up a hand. “Let’s get out together. First, why are you chained to the wall?”
He blinked. “I am a prisoner. Do you remember what happened?” He spoke slowly, as if to a child.
“Of course I do.” I looked at the shackles closely. “I mean… can’t you rip through them? You’re stronger than any living being I’ve ever seen.”
He raised his wrists, showing me the raw skin, the ravaged wounds where the iron had bit into him. “You think I haven’t been trying?”
I wasn’t letting this go. “You’re Roan Taranis, Lord of the Court of Lust. I’ve seen you tear a man’s heart from his chest more than once. You can rip the shackles from the wall.” I was excited, the sunlight and the physical contact with another person making me giddy.
“These shackles are made of iron, Cassandra. They’ve been weakening me, poisoning my blood.”
“Maybe I can help.” I tried to piece together my thoughts, but they were swirling in my brain like panicked rats. No! Not like rats! Like… something else. There was more to life than rats, and I just needed to remember.
“If you can’t leave through the reflection, you should wait by the door,” Roan said. “They won’t be expecting you. Just get the one with the keys, and throw them to me.”
“It would be easier if we fought them together,” I reasoned.
His eyes were pleading with me. “Cassandra—”
“Shut up for a second.”
I stared at him. He drew strength from human lust, and he’d been starved down here with no human contact, just like I’d been. All he needed was a bit of strength. The Roan Taranis I knew wouldn’t let shackles hold him down—iron or not.
I closed my eyes, moving just close enough to breathe in his scent—the moss and oaks. I thought of us sitting out in the rain on that stone bench. His hand moving slowly up my leg, his sensual kiss warming me, his tongue gently sweeping in. I envisioned the raw desire that had claimed my body. The feel of his fingers stroking me, caressing me. Warmth rippled over my skin, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the spark in his green eyes.
I couldn’t go near him—I knew I smelled too bad, looked too repulsive. But if I thought of him clearly enough, he could feed from my lust from here.
Closing my eyes again, I envisioned myself clean, wearing a white dress and my favorite cherry-colored lip gloss, my hair spilling over my shoulders. In my mind’s eye, this Cassandra—the other Cassandra—crossed to him, tracing a finger over his body, the physical contact blazing over her skin like electricity. She was hungry for him. Her fingers ran down his powerful chest, lower over his stomach, and he sucked in a breath.
Clean Cassandra brea
thed huskily, shivering with excitement, letting her clean hair fall over his shoulders. She lifted her dress, wrapping her legs around him. She was in control. With him shackled, she could do anything she wanted to him. She could lick his neck… taste the salt on his body, the hint of rainwater. She could run her fingertips over his abdomen, tracing lower until he gasped, kiss his neck until he moaned. She could writhe against him, grinding her hips into him, until ecstasy glistened over her skin…
A crack echoed across the room, a low growl rumbling in his throat. My eyes snapped open—Roan had torn one of his hands free, his body glowing with golden light. It was working. I closed my eyes again, just beginning to envision his mouth kissing the inside of Clean Cassandra’s legs, his warm lips moving higher and higher to the apex of her thighs, when—another snap. Free from the wall, he moved for me, eyes burning with lust, horns appearing on his head. Instantly, the flame in my chest ignited, blazing hot.
But I scuttled back. I was the wrong Cassandra. I was the one covered in filth.
Confusion flickered across his features, but the clicking of the door interrupted us, and my heart skipped a beat. No.
The cell door swung open, and two guardsmen stood in the doorway, staring.
Then I realized they didn’t stand a chance, not with Roan freed from his tethers, imbued with the power of my lust.
He was on them like a flash, impaling the first one with his horns. Blood sprayed over the room, and in blur of golden light, Roan was already lunging for the other guard, grabbing him by the throat. He twisted the man’s neck, snapping it like a twig. He shook the now limp body in rage, and then smashed it to the floor. Then he turned to me, his eyes flickering gold, blood streaking his features. From the floor, I stared up at him.
“Let’s go,” he growled, holding out a hand to me.
“Okay,” I said in a throaty whisper. “Is it okay if I lean on you? I’m not feeling myself.”
He leaned down, helping me up. “I think that would be fine.”
Taking the keys from one of the guards, Roan unlocked the iron shackles from his wrists. It took only a minute for Roan to strip one of the guards and pull the man’s clothing over his own naked body. The uniform was about half the size it needed to be, but Roan managed to squeeze his body into it with only a few tears in the fabric. Moreover, he now had a sword.
Agent of Darkness (Dark Fae FBI Book 3) Page 23