I know where I am, even if only in a dream.
I’m in the Underworld.
And just as I realise who brought me here, a tall, broad shadow slips out from behind the fountain.
I stagger back at the familiar sight of the shadowy cloak clinging to his form and the drawn hood. My heart aches in my chest. Koal has stolen my dream.
The Daemon moves around the fountain, his footsteps on the stone floor making no sound at all, as silent as a night’s breeze. He moves like shadows do.
I take a step back as he advances on me with the lazy grace of a tired beast stalking its prey.
My voice trembles; “What do you want?”
“Such a mundane question for a mundane girl,” he drawls, tone detached and haunted. “Have I not made it clear what I want? Should I try harder?”
His beige, spidery hands reach up to draw back his hood. Like each time I’ve seen him before, his face is strikingly beautiful. So beautiful that a lump of agony catches in my throat, and my heart seems to stop beating altogether. His strong jawline is blessed with two deep dimples that gather shadows of their own, and the spilled ink of his eyes swarm like pools of lost souls that yearn to be unleashed. Black hair, thick and lustrous, is tousled atop his head like a dark halo from the depths of the Underworld we stand in.
“Tell me, mortal,” he starts, wandering his pace around me in a lazy circle. “Who is your father?”
A frown creases my brow. My nose crinkles at the tip as I turn, watching him circle me. “You know who he is. I took you to him that night.”
Koal’s black eyes gleam like two pools of abyss. He studies me coldly. “Who is your true father?”
My mouth parts. I watch him like a stunned goldfish trapped in a bowl. “Prince Poison?” I guess. He is the God our family worships, after all.
“That complicates things,” he mutters as if to himself.
I can’t for the life of me fathom what Prince Poison has to do with our mateship bond.
Koal’s mouth draws into a hard line across his face. “Return to me now, and I will hurt you only a little.”
I let out a strangled laugh.
Tendrils of courage lash through my body. Of course bravery rises up within me in a dream. What real harm can he do to me in here?
“I didn’t escape just to come back to you, Daemon,” I spit, and I refuse to speak his name to him. I refuse to call him anything other than what he is. “And while your offer is so tempting,” I add with a sneer, “I have a better offer.”
The etchings of a dark smile creep onto his face, but it doesn't stick. It’s a ghosted gesture, dancing around the corners of his mouth, never quite taking.
“Silver can offer you nothing other than a pained, brief existence.” He steps closer to me. “I know him well. I know his kind,” he adds darkly.
“And I know yours,” I challenge.
“Precisely.” Another step closer to me, and the shadows of his cloak swallow up my boots. Lashes of the darkness snare around me like snakes, coiled around my ankles, and pin me in place. “With me, you know what to expect, and what will come to be. With Silver,” he says, and that sliver of a smile returns to ghost over his mouth, “you have been made a fool. He will never help you. Once he has gotten what he wants from you, he will abandon all promises he has made, and leave you lost in the world for me to find.”
Slowly, he reaches up his slender hand for my face. His fingertips graze over the cut above my eyebrow, and his haunted gaze runs over my face. “No one can truly help you.”
“My sister did so just fine.”
His eyes flash and he looks daggers into my soul.
“You think she saved you, when all she wanted was to be rid of you,” he hisses at me and, with a wave of his hand, turns to look back at the fountain. “See for yourself what her true motivation was.”
Shaking my head, I clench my eyes shut and turn my face away. I refuse to humour him. I refuse to take the bait he’s laid out before me. Yet, closing my eyes on him does little to banish what he wants me to know.
The distant, familiar sound of Olivia’s voice swarms in the air around me. It’s a faraway noise, as though she stands deep in a tunnel of the cavern, and speaks to her own echo.
“No, she will take it all if she leaves with him. He will allow her that, at least. She must run ... Otherwise, I lose it all.”
“But, Miss Olivia—” Nikah’s whispered voice, all caught up in hushed panic. “—If she runs, she will take her belongings with her. And, if he catches you helping her escape ... I can’t bear to think what he will do.”
I peel my eyes open and look to where the voices come from. The fountain. It glitters a deep royal blue colour that floods the cavern with fresh light.
I see no signs of Olivia or the servant in the cavern, but I hear her as though she stands mere feet away from me.
“It’s easy, Nikah. If he learns that I have helped her, I will tell him she blackmailed me. She knows about the Governor’s son and I. I will explain that she threatened to tell father and Mikhael about the dalliance if I did not help her. Surely he understands vilas enough to know I would do anything to protect my future and reputation. He must understand that. And, if I point him in the right direction after she runs, I will free myself from any punishment he might want for me.”
“Miss Olivia, please. This is no man we are speaking of. This is a Daemon, and if you interfere with his capture of Miss Keela, there will be punishment. This risk is not worth some dresses from the Emporium Quarter.”
My heart stops in my chest.
Koal watches me closely. His pitch-black eyes glitter more brightly than the fountain.
“Some dresses.” Olivia’s ghostly voice carries a sneer with it. “Did you see the pure-silk suit she wore this morning? This is a lot more than some dresses. She has an entire wardrobe stocked to out-fashion everyone in the Capital. If I sit by and let her leave with the Daemon, she will take it all with her. What of this are you not understanding, Nikah?”
Her voice cuts off. Nikah gives no reply, and the fountain’s glow abruptly dims back to its ordinary grey hue.
“That’s a lie,” I whisper, but the shiver in my voice betrays me. I can’t be sure what he’s feeding me is the truth, but I can’t be sure it’s a lie either.
It explains so much. Olivia’s teary reaction at the Tribute of the Daemons, helping me home early so she could plot out her scheme with Nikah, attacking Koal to give me a moment to escape.
This was never about helping me. It was always about taking from me.
Koal’s hand reaches for me. He cups my cheek, and the touch of his skin against mine is ice-cold. “If you believe it is untrue, then why are you weeping?”
I blink up at him and, sure enough, a spill of wetness dampens my face. A tear clings to his thumb as he strokes my cheek. But even that gesture is so cold, so distant, that it chills my spine.
I ache to pull away from him, to wrench myself out of this dream, but the lashes of his shadows are still wrapped around my legs, pinning me to the spot.
Koal leans closer to me. His grip on my face tightens until his fingers are digging into my skin. I feel a distant bite of pain as he forces my face to the side and brings the cool-breath of his mouth to my ear. “Should I punish her now?” His murmured words are icy against my skin. “Or save it all for you?”
My breath clings to my voice; “If that’s your idea of wooing me, then you’re more deluded than I thought”
“The same can be said for you, my dear mate.” There’s a sudden echo of pain on my earlobe. I wince as his teeth drag over my skin. If this wasn’t a dream, I’m sure that blood would spill from the wound. “I have seen your mother—your future,” he warns darkly. “Without me, that is the fate that awaits you. How long do you think you can survive with him?”
“Long enough to do what I need to.”
He draws back until his nose grazes mine, and his black eyes bore into me. “And then you will return t
o me?”
My face slackens.
Never! I want to scream.
Instead, I bite back the words and force out a weak answer; “Sure.”
His mouth falls into a hard line. “Shame I am not a patient creature. Every day you are gone from me is a day that will cost you in blood when I find you—” He inches his mouth closer to mine. It’s like ice-cubes pressed against my lips as he murmurs, “—And I will find you, vilas.”
“Having trouble with that part?”
Koal throws me away from him.
I stumble back, arms out to catch myself, but I have just a moment before—
I cry out.
He strikes me. Hard.
The force pistons me to the stone floor. I brace myself for impact and, the moment I’m meant to hit the ground, I feel moss and sand spring up beneath me, and a scream catches in my throat.
The Underworld falls away around me. White-crystal sand creeps into my view, fat-trunked willow trees drape over me.
I wake up, screaming.
5.
Silver watches me over the simmering flames of the campfire. His eyes swim like molten metal stirring in pots.
I sit opposite him, ragged breaths heaving my chest. Sweat clings his shirt to my skin.
Only moments ago, I spun awake from the wretched dream Koal designed for me. The scream is still fresh in my hoarse throat, and I swear I can feel the early tingles of a bruise forming on my stinging face from when Koal struck me.
I touch my fingertips to my cheek for the third time.
Silver loosens a quiet sigh and shakes his head. His eyes turn down to the moss-eaten sand we sit on. “The dreams are not real,” he echoes to me what he’s already told me twice.
And still, my cheek burns as though it was as real as Silver sitting across the fire from me.
“It is all in your mind,” he adds, but I am unconvinced.
It might have happened in my mind, wrapped up in slumber, but the ice-cold fear that seizes my veins is real enough.
I let my hand fall to my lap, though I ache to cup my cheek. I fight off the urge, since it seems to be bothering Silver. And I must do as little as possible to annoy the ancient aniel. My mere presence alone seems to be doing a fine job of bothering him. I don’t need to add to his grievances with me.
To distract myself—and avoid Silver’s molten gaze—I look around the shore. The tide is high, only a few metres from where we are camped. And even in the dusty pinks of the nearing sunrise, the willow trees look rather ordinary. I hope for magick to spring out at me from the edge of the shore, but everything around me remains mundane. It chips away at the hope I hold inside my chest. An ordinary wood possessing the magick of the world and the Originals gnaws at me with doubt.
“Are you certain this is the right place?” I wonder aloud.
Silver’s eyes flash like the song of swords. “Do not question me,” he warns. “That was one of my few stipulations.”
My mouth pushes out with a pout. Tucking my bare legs under the hem of the shirt, I look to the horizon, where early-morning pinks are starting to creep into the sky, and the thin clouds wisp over the budding sun.
Silver breaks the silence budding between us; “What did he say to you?”
I turn a blank look on him. It’s the first time since I woke that he’s expressed any interest in my dream.
‘Silver can offer you nothing other than a pained, brief existence.’
Kaol’s dark drawl snakes into my mind.
‘You have been made a fool. He will never help you. Once he has gotten what he wants from you, he will abandon all promises he has made, and leave you lost in the world for me to find.’
A sickly sensation twists in my gut. I shut my eyes and turn my cheek to Silver, as if to stop him from reading truths on my face.
“What you would expect,” I mutter and peel my eyes open to drink in the sunrise. The pink wisps are gone, replaced by a burnt-orange hue that blankets the sky. On the hot horizon, where heat swells into liquid lines, the sun has crept up into a mound, like a rounded hill peaking in the distance. “He demanded that I return, threatened me with tortures, and...”
I trail off as another spell of Koal’s voice slithers in my mind; ‘Who is your true father?’
Silver’s voice is a quiet, pressured sound, an urging whisper; “And?”
“And he wanted to know about my father.” I look at him, how the low flames of the simmering fire warp the air that bites at his cutting jawline. “My true father. Whatever that means.”
Mouth flattening into a thin line, Silver blinks his gaze down at the glowing embers between us. “It means your father’s blood does not match your own.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“I explained the ritual to you,” Silver says. “It seems Koal has already begun to collect what he needs to complete it. Your mother’s blood, the blood he bit from your flesh, and your father’s. Only,” he adds and looks up at me from beneath his long lashes, “it appears your father’s blood does not match.”
“But what does that mean?” I ask, a current of impatience tensing through me.
Silver throws me a withering glare. “The man you think is your father, is not.”
“Of course he is.” My face crinkles with a frown.
Silver cuts his bored-looking gaze to me. His long lashes hang low over the liquid gleam of his eyes, casting shadows down the sharpness of his jaw. “He might well be the man who raised you and married your mother, but that doesn’t always make a father.” He blinks a long and considering gesture. “Your mother is poorly, if I recall.”
In answer, I give a curt nod.
“Could it be that your false father poisoned you both?”
My face twists into something ugly. “What are you saying?”
“Isn’t it obvious what I am saying?” His tedious tone matches the dull look he gives me. “That man is not your father. Your mother must have dallied with someone else—and from it, you were created. Perhaps your false father poisoned your mother for her infidelity while you were still in womb. That would explain your mysterious sickness.”
I choke on a shrill laugh. “That is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I have heard anyone say.”
Silver shrugs a graceful, detached gesture and runs his slender fingers over the mossy sand, as if my life is a mere bore to him. “On the contrary, it is glaringly obvious if you think about it.” He looks up at me, his tousled hair shifting in the faint morning breeze. He runs a hand through the thick, blonde locks. “Poison in utero would explain why no healer can agree on your illness, and why it takes a black market remedy to keep you alive. If yours was an ordinary disease, you would at least understand it.”
My lashes flitter with half-blinks.
His words churn in my mind, turning my veins to ice. Is it such an obvious answer to the questions of my illness? Poison, of all things? Could that be why healer after healer throughout my childhood tended to both me and my mother, but none could agree on an answer? None could administer a medicine to keep up our strengths?
I shake my head. “You don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t know me or my life. Leave it alone,” I add and turn my cheek to him. My voice drops to a whisper. “Koal was wrong. He was wrong.”
Other than silence, Silver gives no answer. Still, I feel the ice-cold burn of his gaze searing the side of my face.
For a long while, we sit, with only the rolling sound of the leaving tide to break the quiet between us. And all I can think about is my father—if he truly is that—poisoning my mother while I was in her belly, and cursing us both to a brief lifetime of misery and pain.
Then the rustle of sand pulls my attention.
I watch as Silver pushes up from the shore and takes one swift stride to the black-leather satchel deposited on the mossy floor. Still as naked as when he stripped down to his bare skin, he crouches beside the satchel, flips it open, and rummages through it.
With his back to m
e, my gaze wanders freely; down the muscular lines of his back, over the toned mounds of his backside, down to his bent legs, where not a strand of hair marks his skin. His legs, unlike the rest of his body, don’t wear the black stains of his ink.
Cheeks heating up, I crane my neck to get a better look at his front, but my ogling is cut short. Silver flips the satchel closed and stands. Sand grains rain down from his body and I shift my gaze to the fire, as though I wasn’t just marvelling at him.
“Eat.” Silver tosses a paper-wrapped parcel at me, about the size of a pocket book.
I catch it with a fumble. I unwrap the paper to reveal a sourdough-bread sandwich. “Do you want some?”
In answer, he turns his back to me and starts to pull down the clothes hanging from the branches above. I notice that all the spare attire I had stuffed away in my bag now sways on the branches. He must have hung them up to dry while I was lost in my Daemon nightmare.
The willow tree leaves sway around Silver, as though reaching out to caress his beautiful body. Can’t say I blame them, really.
Silver yanks down the clothes with little care, and I wonder if he is so wealthy and used to the finer materials that he’s never been in a position where he’s had to care for a garment to make it last for years.
I nibble on the corner of the sandwich. Jam, I realise as the sweet tart flavour hits my mouth. I should be so hungry that I devour the sandwich in a mere few bites, but since waking from my dream with Koal, a heavy lead-sensation has been pressing down on my gut, and the nerves of facing the Wild Woods today are biting at my insides. Don’t feel all that hungry, yet I know better than to pass up breakfast. After my dose this morning, I’ll be all out of remedy. Can’t go weakening myself any more than my sickness will do for me.
Once I’m finished with the sandwich—and licking jam from my sticky fingertips—Silver has packed up most of our belongings. The bags are buckled and ready to go. Over a mossy rock, Silver has laid out some of my clothes—the sky-blue dress that I packed, a pair of white cotton stockings, ivory walking boots, and some undergarments.
Among Monsters Page 4