Rain sat in the armchair, patiently waiting for her.
As the wall re-shut, she tucked the book onto the shelf.
“You have everything you need?” he asked, his gaze fixed up at her.
“What I need is to go home,” she muttered. Her eyes scanned the other books before settling on one in particular. “What’s a trousseau room?”
“It is the room in which your clothes will be stored,” he said. “There are a few dresses, but I will need to acquire more for you.”
Callie slumped back against the wall. She couldn’t exactly escape through a wardrobe. The WC had no windows; it was sealed shut.
“What about the orchard?” she said.
“You know what it is, I’m sure.”
“Obviously,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What’s it like? It must be outside, right?”
Rain’s lips twitched.
“It is in a secure, fenced area of the gardens.” His hands rested on the arms of the chair as he sat forward. “Tell me, Callie. What will you do even if you manage to escape my home? Even if you manage to outmanoeuvre the dangers I have lurking in all parts of my residence, where will you go?”
He smirked at her blank expression.
“To your friend, Meghan?” he pressed. “And where is she? Where will you find her? How will you safely transfer both you and your dear friend to the human realm?”
Callie rolled her jaw and looked up at the shelves. The heat of his gaze tickled her face, like the beginnings of an itch.
“I am fae,” he said, rising from the armchair. “I cannot lie, Callie. Not with my words.”
Her eyes shifted to meet his, a wary stance tightening her body.
“Believe me when I tell you this,” he added darkly. “You are much safer in my home, than alone out there. Outside of my protection—outside of my residence, your chances of survival are miniscule.” Rain made to leave the alcove, but he paused by the drapes. “You waste your energy on burying knives and prodding vines, when you should simply come to terms with your new life.”
Callie gaped at him.
How could he have known about the knife? No one had seen her bury it, only she knew of it.
“And might I say,” he added, “a life with me is not so terrible.”
He slid through the curtains. They rustled behind him.
Then, Callie spurred forward and chased after Rain.
“How did you know?” she blurted. “About the knife, how did you know?”
Rain took out a folded cotton dress from a drawer by the bed. He handed it to her. Callie snatched it, her narrowed eyes never leaving his stony face.
Rain lifted his chin; importance slipped over him, the aura of a dark prince.
“The dirt told me when it regurgitated an instrument that does not belong. I will overlook your indiscretion, as I understand that your feeble emotions need time to adjust in this realm. But I will not allow such betrayals again.” He waved his hand to the dress in her arms. “Dress for bed, Callie.”
A shrill squeak caught in the back of her throat. She looked between Rain and the bed behind him. “You’re out of your damn mind if you think I’m getting in that bed with you.”
Rain seemed to read the truth between her words. He lowered himself to the edge of the bed, holding her stare. “Your body is your own. I would not dare take from you what is not on offer. Fae are superior to humans in every way, including our integrity.”
“Integrity.” Callie sneered. “You wouldn’t know it if it kicked you in the nuts. And I won’t share a bed with the thing keeping me prisoner.”
She let the implications of her word linger between them.
With that, she spun around and stormed through the drapes to the second half of the room. She crouched behind his desk—shielding her shadow from Rain—and changed into the slip. It was comfier than the silk ones she’d been made to wear at night. The softness of the material hugged her prickled skin.
There weren’t many places to sleep other than the bed. The pond and trees took up most space in the second half of the room, and the balcony doors were shut tight.
Callie decided on the flowerbeds by the wall, where she flattened her worn dress and rested on top of it.
Most of the night, she tossed and turned.
The dirt seemed to jab her every so often. Each time she’d almost drifted away to slumber, a twig prodded her side, or a petal tickled her nose.
It was an awful night of the place between awake and asleep, the kind where one’s mind spirals into half-dreams that are banished from memory once the slightest noise is heard.
But when Callie eventually did fall asleep, she stayed asleep until the morning light flooded the chamber. It shone through her closed eyelids, the colour blood-red, and woke her.
But when she woke, she was no longer on the flowerbed.
She was in the arms of Rain, on his bed, tangled in his legs and the sheets. His lips grazed near her cheekbone, his fingers entwined with hers.
Callie slid away from him and stormed back to the flowerbeds, her gaze touching to the glittering rose on the way.
Silly as might have been, Callie couldn’t help but feel a heavy tug in her stomach at the look of the rose, as though it was trying to warn her of something—but warnings came too late, for she was already suffering as the prisoner of a prince.
Rain was gone in the morning.
Davina came with breakfast only for Callie. She wouldn’t answer her questions as she dressed her, then left, and the vines tangled shut behind her.
For a while, Callie roamed the room and riffled through Rain’s things. On his desk, an ornament in the twisted shape of a dragon breathed fire whenever she touched its tail, and parchment scrolls told her in inky letters that ‘Curiosity Killed the Human’ when she tried to read their secrets.
Boredom of the wash-pond came quicker than she’d thought, the balcony doors were still sealed shut, and the books in her alcove refused to come off the shelves. Only the toilet-book slid off the shelf when she tugged it, but the others were as stubborn as a twisted fae prince and wouldn’t budge.
His private alcove, beside hers, looked empty. A small stone nook with nothing in it, no drapes to give it privacy. But he was magic, so she guessed that rooms hid behind the stone blocks in the alcove.
Without Rain in the room, Callie felt the hollow sting of boredom and loneliness. But with him, all of that was only buried under waves of fear and rage.
This couldn’t become her life. She couldn’t become resigned to this fate.
Callie spent most of the day going over her options.
To escape, she had to know where Meghan was, get her, then safely find her way back home. Simple details that seemed more impossible to her than the idea of a fae realm. But the fae realm was very real, and she was trapped in it…with a prince of war. Why couldn’t she have caught the interest of a prince of flowers and freedom?
When the vines unravelled beyond the drapes, Callie was pulled from her thoughts. She expected Davina. The sky was darkening, and her stomach rumbling. Dinner was due.
And all Callie had to show for the time between lunch and dinner was a half-baked plan—
Get Rain to trust her enough to rid the vines from the room, a bit more so she can find her way to a map, and some more again for him to reunite her with Meghan. However long it took wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on. The thought of it only made her insides flood with cold, raw dread.
It wasn’t Davina who came into the room.
Callie looked up at the drapes as they parted for Rain. He wasn’t wearing his armour this time, but a raven-black doublet that matched his combed-back hair, and matching trousers made from material she couldn’t quite place. He looked nothing like a brutal warrior and everything like a refined royal. Even the way his gaze found her on the flower bed and held onto her as he advanced had regal touches to it.
Then Callie realised, she wasn’t staring at Paladin, she was staring at a proud prin
ce. The urge to bow almost dipped her head, but she caught herself fast, and watched as he moved around the pond, eyes on her—his target.
“I looked through your things,” she admitted.
His surprise wasn’t enough to stop him approaching, but it tugged up a sleek eyebrow and cast suspicious shadows over his eyes.
Gain his trust, show him you are honest.
“I was bored,” she added, and picked at blades of grass. “I think your parchment scrolls threatened me.”
Rain stopped when his shiny boots touched the grass she picked at, and he crouched down to meet her at eye-level. He studied her, no secret to the intensity of his search, looking for answers to why she was talking to him.
Callie sighed. “Death by a thousand papercuts sounds like a terrible way to go.”
“I know of worse ways,” he said, dangerous gravel roughening his voice.
She thought back to the gruelling dance and the violent bloodshed that had erupted all around her. The things that the fae did to the humans…
“Me too,” she said quietly, her gaze downcast.
Rain reached out for a lock of her once-midnight hair where charcoal hues fought their way to the surface. She flinched, the memory of a jade-green fae scalping a human boy with his own fingernails springing to mind.
“Tell me what you want,” he demanded. “What schemes tangle in your mind?”
Callie shut her eyes, and let him roll the lock of hair over his fingertips.
“None,” she said. “I’m just…” She trailed off with a shrug and met his fierce, steady gaze. “Tired.”
“Have you not rested?”
“I don’t mean that sort of tired. A bored tired. A scared tired.” It wasn’t lies she told him. “All there is to do here is bathe, look out the window, and bathe some more. The books don’t work, the balcony doors won’t open.” Her gaze turned pleading, her brows bunching together. “If I could just go out on the balcony for a while, even a few minutes a day—”
“No.” The sharpness of his answer sliced through her, like a blade through cream. “You have not earned it, and my trust in you is none.”
“It’s not like I’ll throw myself off the balcony,” she mumbled.
His hand slid from the lock in his fingers to the back of her head. He gripped her hair, tight, and she winced. Forcing her head back to align their faces, Rain glared down at her with the silent warning of a cloud before a storm.
“My answer is no, human. Do not press me. My day has been long and my patience wears thin.”
Even through the shivers that seized her spine and the tears that stung her eyes, she gritted back at him, “Don’t pull my hair.”
Rain loosened his grip, but didn’t release her. Sheets of ice still frosted over his eyes, and a frown took his lips. “Did I make a mistake in choosing you?”
“Yes.”
He considered her, the quickness of her answer, the confidence in it. Then, he rose, his fingers sliding through her hair before leaving her completely. Looking down at her, he seemed to come to some decision.
“Time will reveal all,” he said, as if to himself.
“Lucky for me, I don’t have all the time in the world.”
His weakness was too tempting to pass by. She had to rattle him, in any way she could. If he doubted his decision, he might set her free. They might renegotiate their deal. She had to try.
“I’ll age,” she added, her voice almost pleading. “I’ll grow old and die, and you’ll have wasted all that time on me for nothing.”
Amusement sparked in his eyes, dancing behind the sheets of ice. “In this realm, you will not age. We have all the time in this world.”
Those words struck her cold.
Callie’s face fell and she gaped up at him, like a stunned goldfish.
He smirked, a cruel smile that curled her toes, then he strode to the desk behind her.
She listened a while. The rustle of parchment, the scratch of feather ends, the splashes of ink on paper.
Callie didn’t know how long had passed before she finally swallowed down her dread and scrambled over to the desk.
Hands on the edge, she glared down at him, looking half-wild, half-destroyed.
Rain set down the quill and gently moved the domed rose to the side, keeping it out of harm’s way. Then he leaned back in his chair to study her crumpled face.
“I might not age,” she whispered, desperate. “But I’ll fight you always. I’ll never give you an heir. If I did, I wouldn’t leave it behind in this world.”
A flash of fury swept over his face. His jaw tightened and his fingers curled into tight fists.
“I’m not the wife you want. I’m too young for this—for any of this, even in my world.” It was an almost truth. Many of her friends had started families, but it was never something Callie wanted for herself. She wanted to be in her twenties forever—and not the way Rain offered. “It’s not too late to let me go,” she said. “We can make a new deal.”
Rain stood from his chair, and she had the same shuddering feeling as when he first stood before her in the hall. He seemed taller again, towering over her even with the desk between them, and the danger of his face brought to mind the wolf on the pebble-path.
“Should you provide an heir to my throne,” he began, his voice a growl, “our bargain dictates that it will remain with me. If you wish it, our marriage may continue after that, or you may leave. But never will I allow you to take what I am owed.”
Callie bit the insides of her cheeks, hard.
He leaned closer, eyes alight with anger. “If you dare attempt such foolery, I promise you this, human. I will hunt you to the ends of your world, and inflict such pain on you that you will beg to be my bride once more if only to ease your suffering.”
Even through the shudders that plagued her, Callie bared her teeth at him. “Nothing in any world could ever make me want to be with you. You’re a monster, you’re vile, and you’re a fucking arse.”
Rain watched her a moment.
“I had the intention of allowing you into the orchard tonight,” he said, voice a low growl. “Escorted by a guard, but a treat nonetheless. Perhaps a peace-offering.”
He unfurled his fists and stepped around the desk to move in on her.
“I offer you a royal position as my bride, a chance at eternal life, and in exchange, you threaten to take what will be mine. Our bargain is definite. It cannot be changed. It belongs to nature, as do we both. And,” he added in a low whisper, “I would not free you from it if it was within my power. You are mine, human.”
Callie barked a cruel laugh and leaned closer to him, the corner of the table cutting into her not unlike his sharp gaze.
“All of this,” she shrilled. “This castle, a wife, an heir—none of it will fill that hole inside of you where goodness should be. You’re desperate for what you think will make you happy, make your life whole and complete. But it’s all a charade. A pretty mask to cover up what you really are inside.” His handsome face was no more, now twisted with brewing rage. “A monster,” she spat. “A beast. You’re ugly inside, Rain, and no amount of marriages or children will fix that.”
Rain took a long, deep breath through his flaring nostrils, fingernails cutting into the wood of his desk. The fury radiated from him, seeped from his skin like poison. “I am tempted to destroy every book in your alcove if only to see you weep,” he whispered darkly. “Now, you have truly angered me and I will see you suffer for it.”
She jerked back from the desk.
Before he could move to grab her, Callie bolted through the drapes and into her nook. She grabbed the toilet book and tore through the candle-wax gap that appeared.
As the wall re-sealed, she shuddered and hugged the book closer to her.
Rain stood at the opening of the alcove, a murderous rage twisting his face.
Callie stayed tucked between the toilet and the sink for longer than she could know. And for the first time she arrived in their
realm, she cried. Really cried.
Her sobs rattled the cupboard doors, shook the toilet seat, wet the pages of the blank book in her arms. She sobbed until she couldn’t any longer and a dream full of tortures swept through her foggy mind.
At least in the dance, she’d been near Meghan.
Now, she was utterly alone.
11
Callie’s stomach filled with bile, and soon she was forced over the toilet to throw it up. She’d been in that room long enough that her tummy emptied of food and she barely had the energy to keep her eyes open. The tap water from the basin tasted like soap, and she’d had no choice but to spit it out the moment it’d touched her tongue.
Rain had built the room for a single purpose, and it wasn’t to be a refuge.
But Callie couldn’t leave. If she left, he would hurt her. Kill her, even.
The longer she stayed in there, she was certain the worse his anger got.
Maybe he already had punished her. What if, when she was to try the book again, it wouldn’t work? She could be trapped inside her tomb. He could have cast the room away from his home, and she would be left floating through the realm forever.
Callie wasn’t sure which fate she most afraid of.
But soon, there was no more bile left to throw up, and no more energy left to keep her upright. She pried open her eyes and looked at the wall opposite.
Stone blocks stared back at her. Waxy stone, ready to fall apart when she touched the book to it. If she could only find the courage to do it.
When she peeled herself from the floor, her hands trembled around the book she clutched like a security blanket, and her chapped lips had cracked raw in some places. Thirst turned her throat to sandpaper, hunger sagged her limbs into warm toffee, and fear weighed her feet into stone blocks that dragged closer to the wall.
She paused, and sucked in a long, deep breath that scratched her throat. Then, she pressed the book to the wall, and waited.
For a moment, she didn’t think the wall would slip away. For a moment, her heart stopped and her eyes leaked. But the moment passed, and the wall gave way to her until she was staring into the remains of the alcove.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 19