Laphaniel said nothing, not a word to defend himself, or me, and I couldn't help the feeling of cold abandonment. I tried to catch his gaze and he turned to me briefly, his eyes hard.
“To Luthien then,” called the dark haired fey, placing his hand on Nefina's shoulder before crouching to face me. “Are you awfully brave, little maggot? Or simply exceedingly stupid?”
“I don't know,” I said honestly, looking down. “Perhaps both.”
He laughed, placing a warm hand against my face. His nails were sharp. “Stupidly brave will still see you dead, foolish thing that you are.”
I was beginning to believe it; watching Laphaniel standing with his brethren, I understood how much he belonged there. He could be as cold and ruthless as they were. He was their equal in beauty and wickedness. He could be cruel just as quickly as he could be lovely. I was starting to believe how foolish I was to think I could keep him.
“Put her out, Alyssa.”
The words barely registered before the willowy fey lunged at me, smacking the back of my head with her bow in a burst of white stars. The world went too bright for a moment as pain exploded through my skull with a sickening velocity. Blackness descended, silencing the gasp that tried to escape my mouth until it was nothing but a wet gurgle.
Chapter Twenty-four
I woke with a sickening headache, remaining completely still until the world around me stopped spinning. There was a metallic taste in my mouth, and I had to take several deep breaths to stop myself from vomiting.
“Speak so brazenly to Luthien and she will paint the walls with you.”
I turned my head, the chill of damp grass brushing against my cheek, soothing the pounding in my skull. Laphaniel sat beside me, knees drawn up to his chest, his gaze fixed ahead. I noticed his knife had been plunged in the earth, buried to the hilt in front of him.
“You just stood by and let them torment me,” I said, closing my eyes as a wave of betrayal threatened to suffocate me.
“Yes, I did,” Laphaniel stated coldly, grabbing the blade from the dirt as he rose to his feet. “But you should not mistake submission for indifference.”
“You never said you had a sister,” I said, pushing myself to my feet as I fought to keep up with him.
“You never asked me.”
I tried to think of something to say. “She seems charming.”
“She's not.”
“Laphaniel...”
He spun on his heel, his eyes dark as he faced me. “Do you understand that I cannot keep you safe here? The archers will have your heart simply because they can; Nefina will break you because you are mine, and because she can.”
“And Luthien?”
He closed his eyes, hiding the black. “I wish I could have stopped you coming here Teya.”
I took the hand he outstretched to me, watching as the heavy clouds parted in places allowing sunlight to trickle over the angry bruise of sky.
“I think I have something to offer Luthien,” I said as he took a breath.
“What?”
“I’m not going to bargain my life away,” I said quickly. “I won’t do that. We’ll replace Niven with someone else, and maybe Luthien will accept a few years of my life as payment?”
He stared at me, and I braced myself for the retort I just knew was itching at his lips. “How many are you willing to give up?” he gritted out instead.
I shrugged, not really knowing how many would be sufficient…what price would Luthien put on Niven’s head? What did I truly think she was worth?
“I’ve been thinking about it since the Eerie; anything can be bought with blood and souls and the swapping of years. You bargain with lives and heartache. I didn’t think I had anything I could offer, but I could afford to lose the last few years of my life. Perhaps ten?”
“You wouldn’t know how long your natural lifespan could be,” Laphaniel pointed out. “A decade is a long time for a human, Teya…to lose so many years…”
“We always want more than we ever get,” I answered. “Perhaps I am destined to live until I am a hundred with you, that will mean I get ninety years before payment is taken. That’s a huge chunk of forever, enough time to see the end of the world and everything beyond it.”
He touched his forehead against mine, his body tense. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to give Luthien any part of you.”
“It’s all I have to give her,” I said, kissing him gently.
He led me out of the clearing and down the hillside in silence, gripping my hand as the looming shadow of Luthien’s home bore down upon us. The consequences of all my choices suddenly weighed around me like a millstone.
The mansion boasted four twisted towers, their pointed roofs tiled with green stained glass. I counted eight floors, with hundreds of windows that gleamed as if the rays of a thousand suns danced off them. Flowers exploded over the pristine stone, even as winter crept in, edging the surrounding trees with frost. It was beautiful and unsettling, perfection with a sinister shadow, and it was then I realised how much I didn't want to go in.
Fey sprawled across the lush green lawns in front of the mansion, some with their mouths open so they could catch the raindrops. They barely glanced up as we passed them, but they noticed us all the same with a flash of teeth or flicker of wing. Lazy smiles crept over lovely faces as they watched us walk by, and I had to wonder if they could hear my heart screaming.
“Keep walking,” Laphaniel whispered, leading me down stone steps that were flanked by two lifelike carvings of horses, frozen forever to rear up out of the stonework.
My head turned as I heard the musical peals of laughter, barely feeling Laphaniel grip my hand as he tried to pull me on.
“Keep walking.” He repeated.
The unmistakable swirl of Glamour snaked around the hedgerows, teasing against me in tainted promises. I tensed, shaking the sudden fog from my mind as I gripped Laphaniel tighter.
“Someone's laughing,” I said, fighting against the urge to follow the sound. I pinched myself hard, forcing my heavy feet away from the intoxicating sound. “Come on, before my disobedient feet wander off without me.”
“You’re getting good at that.”
“I’ve had a fair amount of practice fighting off Glamour,” I said, noting the look of surprise on his face, as I tugged on his hand.
“I guess you have,” he replied dryly.
“Laphaniel!” A sudden voice called out, making me jump as Laphaniel spun around, his hand coming up quickly around me. “I heard whispers it was you, but you know what dryads are like, insufferable gossips. Yet look, here you are!”
A lithe faerie strode towards us, eyes as red as his hair. His lips were stretched to a wide smile, revealing pointed incisors.
“William.” Laphaniel acknowledged the fey with a quick nod of his head, his arm tight around me. “We’re not stopping, this is a fleeting visit.”
William’s eyes flashed, darting to me. “Oh, I insist you join me, and tell me more about that exquisite thing hanging from your arm. Come, come!”
He snatched at me, twirling me into his arms and I was thankful that Laphaniel released me because I really didn’t want my shoulder dislocated.
“I’m not allowed to eat anything, sir,” I began, averting my eyes away in a show of meekness. “He would be very cross at me if he had to carry me home.”
William cupped my chin, tilting my head up so I faced him, his irises dancing like flames. “So well trained, so polite. Come and sit with me, girl. Laphaniel, keep a tight hold on this one, else someone will snatch her away.”
“Noted,” Laphaniel replied, rolling his eyes as I winked at him.
We walked around a maze of ornamental walls covered in flowering vines, stopping at a picnic laid out beneath a canopy of rich silks and velvets.
Wine stained the blankets on the ground, pouring from the cracks in a broken glass held up by a young boy. Blood welled between his fingers, though he didn't seem to notice as it oozed down his
hand to spill amongst the wine. Glamour flowed around the silks like incense, I could smell the desperation clinging to it, a tang of something that had never been present within Laphaniel’s home.
There were three of them sitting around the stained blanket, all human. They were pale and drawn, torn edges of their clothes revealing a collage of bruises, and yet they were still smiling. I shuddered at the looks on their faces, the vacant dullness of their eyes and wondered how long they had been there. How long had it been since they had stopped fighting the Glamour that was holding them?
William gestured with clawed hands to the food in front of him, sitting down to wrap an arm around a waif of a girl who leant heavily against him, her eyes drooping. There were teeth marks on her neck, down her arms, and over the small swell of her breasts.
“Sit, girl,” he said, curling his lip around pointed teeth. "Don’t disgrace your master."
“I would prefer to stay at his side, sir,” I said. “I have an awful habit of wandering off.”
“Ah,” William nodded. “You need to beat that out of her, Laphaniel, quell that defiance, it may be alluring now but it’ll cause no end of problems. I am happy to show you how I force submission into my own pets. Do it right, and you’ll only need to do it once.”
Laphaniel said nothing, his hand squeezing mine, as maybe for the first time he was lost for words. William’s eyes darkened, the flames within flaring a strange blue.
“I would never run from him again,” I said quickly, lifting my shirt to reveal the red mark on my side, not needing to embellish the fear in my voice. “Never again.”
William tilted his head, sharp nails trailing along the wound. “That’s incredibly close to the parts she needs to live, Laphaniel. It’s brutal and it gets the message across, but it is wasteful.”
“I do not need your advice, William, thank you,” Laphaniel said, barely veiled fury radiating from him.
I felt him tug at me, but I couldn't tear my eyes off the small group, my eyes resting on something William was holding in his free hand. He caught me looking, his grin widening as I felt the familiar weight of Glamour snake around me, like a noose.
“Do you want this?” William asked, his voice lilting as it filled my head with a malicious lullaby that made me forget everything else. He shifted so the girl resting against him slid to the floor. “I only have the one.”
Two pairs of eyes snapped towards me, human teeth bared as they crouched low, readying themselves to fight me for what we all suddenly wanted more than anything. The girl was drooling, her gaze flicking from the apple to me, and I realised my lips were wet too.
William tossed the apple, and my body lunged for it. I needed it as I needed air to breathe, craving it more than anything I had ever wanted before. The need for it consumed me, and it would have destroyed me if Laphaniel hadn't thrown himself at my body, using his entire weight to pin me down.
I kicked and bit at him, feeling the bones in my arms crack as I reached for the fruit, screeching in his ear to let me go. His fingers scraped at my skin as he held me down, snatching at my hair to keep me still. His voice was a whisper against the madness in my head.
“Listen to me,” he breathed, the words a song. “You don't want it, you know you don't.”
“It's mine!” I snarled, my mouth snapping against his fingers. “You can't have it!”
His hand tightened on my hair. “It's only an apple, remember? Nothing more.”
Something on a primal level recognised the cadence of his tone, the different weight of magic that swirled my mind, and didn't shy from it. The fight left me, my head cleared and I could do nothing but watch with a fading anguish as the dead-eyed girl clutched at the apple, her face a picture of sheer rapture.
I screamed as the human boy lunged at her, grabbing at her hair and twisting it around his hand so he could use it to smack her head against the hard ground, again and again and again. He didn't stop until she stopped moving. She hadn't even let go of the apple, and still clutched it with bone white fingers.
The boy dropped her wetly to the floor, prising her fingers open to retrieve his prize, not seeming to care that the shining green apple was dripping red as he bit into it. When he had finished... only when he had finished did he begin to cry. Though whether it was for the girl, or because he had finished the apple, I never found out.
William stood, scooping up the waifish girl who clung to him with a whimper. “You should never have brought her here,” he said, shaking his head before he walked away, leaving the weeping boy behind.
I choked on a sob, unable to move from where I lay on the ground as Laphaniel still held me there. I watched dumbly as blood seeped from the broken girl and trickled down the paving to pool close to my hands. A small moan pushed past my lips, and Laphaniel dragged me up, his arms tight around my waist since my legs refused to hold me.
“You used to do that,” I said, my voice cracking as I slowly broke.
“Yes,” he answered, and I could no longer bear to have his hands on me.
“I let you do that to me...I let you torment me...”
“I no longer enjoy tormenting you, Teya”
Cold sweat broke out against my face and my vision wavered. “I'm going to be sick.”
I threw up where I stood, as Laphaniel grabbed at my hair, dragging it away from my face.
“You know what I am, what I have done and what I am capable of. You once thought I was a monster, but you chose to stay in the end, with me. I will not apologise for being cruel, Teya, not when it is my nature to be so.” He paused and took a breath. “I love you, but I don't know if that's going to be enough for you.”
“I don't think I can do this right now,” I forced out, straightening up and wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
“Then when, Teya? You worry that I'll grow bored of you, but perhaps one day you'll decide you no longer want to wake up beside someone like me.”
“Just leave it please?”
“As you wish”
“My head is a mess, Laphaniel, okay? You've thrown my world upside down and I've had barely enough time to think, let alone know if I am okay with it.” I sucked in a shaking breath, shoving the balls of my hands against my eyes to stop the tears that threatened. “No...do you know what? I don't care what you did, who you've hurt because I know damn well I am just thankful that you took Niven, so I could find you, and it sickens me! I am a monster, Laphaniel. I have torn my family apart, and I cannot fix it and god knows I have tried. I don't want Niven back because I love my sister, I want her back, so I can move on and live, and now I just wish I had listened to you and stayed away because there is nothing I can do to make this right. It's too late.”
“Why are you saying that now?” He countered, his voice hopeless. “You can't just turn around and change your mind now...back in the cave, if I had asked you to stay what would you have said?”
“I don't know!”
“Teya!”
“I probably would have said yes,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Does that make you feel better? If you had asked me to stay with you in the cave, I think I would have chosen to abandon my family, and all I believe in to be with you.”
“Damn you,” he snarled looking away. “You can't turn back now. Luthien knows you are here, and she will be waiting for you. I will beg for your life if I have to, but dwelling on what could have been is helping no one.”
“It feels good finally getting it off my chest.” I muttered.
“I despair of you,” he replied bitterly, taking my hand to walk away from the stone maze and away from the garden.
Laphaniel led me up to the great doors of Luthien's mansion, stepping over the various fey that lounged on the steps. They all curled their legs up for Laphaniel, but as I stepped by, they kicked them out again, barring my way.
“Adorable,” one said, curling long fingers around my calf as she leant towards me. “Isn't she, darling?”
“Simply divine,” laughed another, not look
ing up from the book she was reading. “Remember to scream loudly in there, dear one, so that we can hear you.”
I clutched at Laphaniel's hand like a lifeline, my heart thudding against my ribcage. He pushed open the doors and I followed him in, wincing as they slammed shut behind us.
I wondered if I would ever see the outside again.
Laphaniel bent his head low to whisper in my ear, his voice coming out rushed and desperate, scaring me witless. “Do not stray from me, do not touch the food, keep your eyes low and for the love of all things keep your mouth shut.”
My footsteps tapped noisily on the polished floor, the dozens of mirrors bouncing my terrified reflection back infinitely. When I stopped walking, the musical chatter filling the cavernous room silenced instantly, as all the occupants turned and stared at me.
There must have been more than a hundred fey settled in velvet armchairs, or sprawled over giant cushions, entwined in each other's arms. Some were sitting at tables, cards in hands as they gambled over souls. They flew around the delicate chandeliers, the size of fireflies, and they crept out of the fireplace at the end of the room, smiling as the flames licked at their bodies.
It didn't matter that the room was crowded with fey, as my eyes were only drawn to the heartbreakingly beautiful woman at the end of the room. No one else mattered. Unlike all the others, she was smiling at me, though I truly wished she wasn't.
Luthien's deep brown eyes stared at me with an unnerving familiarity, her lips set in a cruel smile that lit up her face with beauty and horror. She stood up, her silver gown flowing around her body like mist, the neckline plunging so low I could see the white of her breast. The unease in the room was tangible, I could almost hear the fey holding their breath in anticipation. They all watched their mistress, who only had eyes for me. I felt Laphaniel's hand on my shoulder, and I took the hint and sank to my knees
Luthien stepped towards us, her arms outstretched to embrace Laphaniel, who kept completely still as she pressed her lips to his cheek.
Darling, There Are Wolves in the Woods Page 19