She toddled her way over to the wardrobe and threw open the doors. My eyes narrowed as I watched her disappear waist deep into the rows of silk dresses. I flicked a glance in the direction of the door she’d left completely open and my heart began to race. Could I? More importantly, could I in a dress and heels?
Not waiting for my moment to vanish, I bolted off the bed and made a mad dash for the door. Without missing a beat, I grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door shut behind me and snapped the key, locking Isama inside. Tearing the key out, I tossed it aside before whipping around on my heels and dashing through the narrow corridor.
My heart drummed in time to the pounding of my feet. I took every turn by memory until I reached the stairs. I tumbled down them, literally half running and half stumbling until I hit the bottom landing. Fear and anticipation lathered the back of my throat with the taste of sour milk. I swallowed it down and surveyed my surroundings. Left was the direction Isama had taken me the first day. That was where Khrane’s throne room was.
I turned right and bolted through an arched opening and down a curving hallway. I saw nothing as I pushed my legs to pump harder, faster. I tossed a glance back once to see if anyone was behind me, but the corridor remained eerily empty. A tiny voice in my head questioned why somewhere so enormous would be so void of life when it was evident Khrane was an egomaniac who thrived on people bowing at his awesomeness. Shouldn’t the place have been crawling with servants and … I dunno, other crazies? Where was everyone?
Pushing aside my paranoia, I took the next turn at the same unfaltering pace and pushed through to the other side, straight into a parlor room.
My confused mind had no time to question why a corridor would end so abruptly in a room made for tea when a voice rang out from my right.
“Just in time.”
I whipped around, fear, annoyance and surprise crashing through me as Khrane nimbly rose out of the high backed chair facing the roaring hearth. He nimbly set the teacup down on a tiny saucer and set both on the coffee table before turning to me.
Adrenaline still singing through my veins, I twisted around and shot into the corridor, only to find myself stumbling straight back into the parlor room. Bemused, I tried again with the same results.
“It’s not going to change, Princess,” Khrane muttered dryly, watching me with a bored expression.
“How…?” I stared at the opening, seeing the hallway I’d come down.
Khrane motioned for me to take a seat on the cream colored loveseat on his left. “Tea?”
“No, thank you!” I snapped, breathing hard. “I would like to go home.”
“If you wish.”
I stilled, disbelieving my ears. “What? Really?”
Without waiting for me to join him, he regained his seat and lifted the teapot. He poured tea into his teacup, added a sugar cube and stirred with all the calm and grace of a southern gentleman.
“Yes. Really. I have learned all I need to know about you, Princess.” He clinked the teaspoon on the lip of his cup and rested it in the saucer.
I dared myself three uncertain steps closer. “So, you’re going to let me go?”
He took a sip of his drink, set it down. “Yes, but only if you answer one thing for me.”
Suspicion burrowed into me and I eyed him through slitted eyes. “What?”
He gestured to the loveseat again. I gritted my teeth, but shuffled over and sat.
“Tell me about Garrison.”
I stiffened. “Who?”
“Please don’t insult my intelligence, Princess.” Nimbly, he set his teacup down and eyed me. “What is he to you?”
A nightmare.
“Nobody,” I said instead.
Khrane’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me. This is your freedom I’m offering you. Answer my one simple question and I will personally deliver you, unharmed, to your father.”
It was so easy. All I had to do was tell him and I could go home, back to Isaiah.
“He’s nobody,” I repeated.
My companion sighed and sat back. “See, I don’t believe you. Why would someone of no importance consume so much of your bloodlust?” His gaze became intense. “I’m interested.”
“I don’t think there’s anything I can tell you about him,” I replied calmly. “And I don’t have bloodlust.”
“Oh I don’t believe that.” He folded one leg over the other. “You forget that your fears, your hopes and dreams are an open book to me, Princess. I know what’s inside your head. So I have to ask myself, why would a mere mortal cause you such terror? And why would Acheron let him live? He could have had this Garrison killed without even raising a finger.” He sucked in a breath before expelling it loudly. “I have to wonder what it is about this single human that has a Sire like Acheron Reaghan cowering.”
Anger crackled inside me. “My father doesn’t cower.”
“Then why hasn’t he killed him?”
“He’s not a murderer. That isn’t a crime.”
Khrane laughed like I’d said something adorable. “In our world, Princess, it is. There is a reason we are feared by mortals and despised by angels. We are toxic poison. It is in our nature to destroy those who oppose us, threaten us or try to take that which is ours. Your father’s leniency is curious and insulting.” He picked up his tea, took a sip and then stared into the dark liquid as he spoke. “When word got to me that Acheron Reaghan had a human daughter, well, I had to see it for myself. Our kind can’t have children with humans. The mere notion is repulsive, if not completely unnatural. Children forged by such a union are filthy, repugnant creatures that not even we look kindly upon. Mindless half-breeds…” He curled his lips in disgust. “They’re killed on sight.” His colorless eyes rested on me. “Then there is you. A princess born of mortal and immortal blood and more beautiful than any pureblood. Can you fault my curiosity?”
I frowned at him, ignoring the blush warming my cheeks. “You couldn’t just drop in for tea like a normal person?”
He averted his eyes. “The living plane doesn’t agree with me. All those mortals just wandering aimlessly about…” He gave a shudder. “I prefer the comfort of my own home.”
“How long have I been here?” I demanded.
Khrane waved a dismissive hand. “We do not concern ourselves with such mortal obsessions. Time doesn’t apply to us as we have eons.”
Fantastic.
“Well, I like my mortal obsessions, so can I leave now?”
He bent his head to the side. “You have yet to answer my question.”
“I told you, I don’t know anything about Garrison.” Which wasn’t entirely a lie, but I wasn’t about to tell a human-hating maniac about the other human-hating maniac topside. The last thing the world needed was those two psychopaths bonding over world domination.
“All right.” Khrane rose to his feet. “If that is what you claim, then so be it.”
I hurriedly got up as well. “I can go?”
He swept an arm in the direction of the door.
I wasted no time. I practically ran, only to be brought up short when he called me back.
“Not so fast, Princess.”
I skidded to a halt and turned.
Khrane clasped his hands behind his back and ventured casually towards me. “You won’t get very far through the nexus without assistance. Each door leads to a specific location. One false turn and you may wind up in Siberia, or the realm of fire breathers.”
I watched him warily as he came to a stop no more than three feet away from me. “Is there a map?”
He shook his head. “If you will allow me the honors, I will escort you myself.”
I shook my head. “Seriously. It’s fine. If you call Ashton—”
“Then you will have to wait until he arrives, whilst we can leave at this very moment.”
I should have said no. I should have just waited, but I was so done being there. I was done seeing this guy’s face. I wanted to leave.
I nod
ded. “Okay. Thank you.”
Khrane beamed widely, but his eyes remained chillingly sharp. “I’ll fetch my coat.”
He never moved though. Isama scurried into the room, a wool coat slung over her scaly arm. She never glanced my way as she helped him sling the material on. He said something to Isama in a language I didn’t understand before marching past both of us and starting for the door. I followed quickly.
The parlor door opened to a different corridor, this one wider and opening into a grand foyer. The lavish stairway coiling upwards wasn’t the one I’d seen before and nothing looked familiar. I shuddered as I thought of Stephen King’s Rose Red series, the house that continuously kept changing so it could confuse the inhabitants before killing them in gruesome methods.
“Where is everyone?” I asked as we reached a set of black doors.
Khrane glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Everyone?”
I waved at all the emptiness around us. “There’s no one here. Doesn’t it get lonely?”
He paused a moment mid stride and really looked at me. “You don’t see them?”
I should have seen that coming. “The hallows?”
His eyes narrowed. “So you know about them, but you don’t see them. Interesting.”
Then he was walking again without even letting me speak.
“Are there hallows here?” I asked, running to catch up.
“There are hallows everywhere,” he answered simply. “Even in the mortal world. Souls are the only beings that can travel the planes without the nexus.”
As always, at the mention of invisible forces watching my every move, I grimaced.
“Why can’t I see them?” I asked.
“Perhaps because you are still partially human and thus possess your human soul,” he decided with a very definitive tone. “We can see them because we are not of the living plane, thus technically not alive, whereas you are.” He gave me no chance to respond. “Shall we?” Khrane turned to me, one gloved hand resting on the gold knob.
I nodded, turning away from the house of horrors.
Outside the window of the room I was kept in, the world had been covered in a thick, black blanket, but I could always make out the odd tree top, or field of grass. But when Khrane wrenched open the door, we were underground, buried under miles of rock and dirt. The chamber the house sat in was a yawning expense of dark tunnels, their opening so high and massive, I couldn’t even see the tops. The ceiling was a black smear of shadows broken by a round disk of light so bright it was painful to look upon. The blinding shards spilled across a ground carpeted in snow.
No. Not snow. Ivory sticks. They were strewn in all directions for as far as I could see. A long, thin path was formed from the doorstep all the way into the distance. Khrane took it without faltering. I fell into step behind him.
Not sticks. Bones. Human bones. I wasn’t a doctor, but I recognized enough to know these weren’t the remains of any animal. The leering skulls, the disjointed arm bones, the curved rack of a torso, it was a massive graveyard of horror. Entire skeletons lay sprawled as though tossed aside with complete disregard.
“What is this place?”
Strides long and purposeful, Khrane never glanced back when he replied, “Home.”
The macabre garden of death went on for what seemed like forever before we ducked into a tunnel and left it and the sprawling manor behind. Khrane waved a hand and a small ball of light flickered to life above our heads. It zipped on ahead, illuminating our path through the stalagmites and stalactites dripping from the ceiling and rising from the floors like the jagged teeth of something much too big.
“Why did you take me?” I asked abruptly, quickly changing the topic before my mind started picturing demons. Being afraid of darkness seemed highly stupid at that point. Yet, I welcomed the distraction.
“Would you believe me if I said for your delightful company?” He snickered when I shot him a dry glower. “The truth then. I wanted to meet you.”
“Why?”
“Because you are a creature that should not exist. Yet I have been anticipating your arrival for centuries.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“A child with feet in both worlds.”
Something zinged down my spine as those familiar words hit home somewhere inside me. But I shoved it aside. I was part human. He couldn’t do anything to me. He couldn’t hurt me.
I shuddered. “How much longer?”
He glanced down the seemingly endless tunnel. “Time and space are only a matter of perspective here,” he explained. “We don’t bend to its power, which is why days here are months, sometimes years back in the mortal world.”
That explained why I never saw a clock anywhere in Agartha, whether I was in Luxuria or Aumon.
“So how do you know when it’s time to do something? Like get up or have supper?”
“Eons of practice,” he replied simply.
“Why are you underground?” I asked, and he looked at me.
“Am I? Or is that something I wish for you to see?”
I exhaled. When people started answering my questions with questions, I knew it was time to stop. Any further discussion with this guy would only result in a very pissed off me and what was the point of that?
“Your father has truly kept you quite ignorant hasn’t he, Princess? It makes me wonder why.” He swung his arms and clasped his hands behind his back. “So I looked into it, into you. It’s amazing what you can learn just by asking the right people, isn’t it? It took some doing, but I think I finally understand.”
“Understand what?” A better question came to mind. “What people?”
He looked at me. “Oh, I would never reveal my informants.”
“They’re wrong,” I muttered, averting my eyes.
“How would you know? I haven’t even told you what I have learned.” He stopped and turned to me. “Like your mother, for example and how you were conceived. I also know what you’re running from.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know anything.”
“Tell me about the human.” His hand reached out and caught a strand of hair. He curled it around his finger. “The one you care so much about.”
I smacked his hand away before I could catch my temper. “He’s none of your business.”
“Consider me a concerned uncle.”
There was no containing my disgust.
It must have shown because he smirked. “Did you know that I can have your father beheaded for what he’s done? All I would have to do is present you to the other members of the Guild.” He pivoted on his heels and started walking. I had no choice but to follow. “They would be horrified. Such a thing has never happened. What your father has done is disgusting, breeding with a filthy human woman. He may as well have mated with a dog.”
“Don’t talk about my mother that way!” I growled before I could stop myself. “If anyone’s a dog, it’s you.”
He came to an abrupt halt and I skidded to a stop to avoid walking into him. His white eyes were black and his darkened lips were curled back over his serrated fangs. “Did I not warn you to watch your tongue, Princess? It is not too late for me to change my mind.”
The light darkened above us to spill crimson fingers across the hard lines of his face. Sewerage and stagnant water filled the cold space with their foul stench, and I was powerless to slow my breathing as I watched the man in front of me watch me back with sparking danger. He pushed himself closer to me and I found myself scuttling back until the jagged walls were cutting into my spine.
When he raised his free hand and reached for me, I flinched, cringing back. But that didn’t seem to bother him as he followed my retreat and smoothed cold fingers against my cheek. He brushed back a coil of hair that had fallen from its pin and my stomach churned. I jerked my face away, barely noticing the crack of my skull ricocheting off the wall behind me.
“I disgust you,” he deduced.
I met his gaze through th
e riot of curls that had tumbled loose around my face and barely contained my revolution.
Tendrils of black coiled around the corners of his eyes, but his lips curled up in an almost grin. He grabbed my chin with fingers seemingly of steel and thrust my face up to his. “Oh what I wouldn’t give for the honor of breaking you.” He skimmed my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb and I had to suppress the urge to snap at it with my teeth. “How unfortunate you have a higher calling and I have no desire to touch a dirty little half-blood.”
Then get your stinking hands off me! I wanted to snap. He must have seen it in my eyes. The pinching fingers left my chin only to wrap around my throat. He shifted closer, pinning me to the wall with the strong length of his body and I stilled all over, not even daring to breathe.
“Because of your human blood, I can’t physically harm you,” he growled into my upturned face. His fingers tightened until I gasped. “As much as I wish it, but I can make you suffer, Princess. I can make you beg and scream and…” He bit his lip, that look of dark hunger returning to his eyes. “And not in any way that you will find remotely pleasurable.”
Ignoring the desperate crack of my heart, I met his gaze unflinching. “I’ll never beg you.”
Pointy, notched teeth flashed in a broad, menacing leer. “We shall see.”
He drew away and, without glancing at me again, turned.
I shoved off the wall and followed him, trying my damnedest not to scrub the phantom imprint of his touch off my skin. I glared at the back of his skull, wishing I could bash it in with a rock.
“Wishing me ill harm will do you no good, Princess,” he remarked breezily. “I have had women much stronger and more dangerous than you cast me those icy glares I feel prodding between my shoulder blades.”
I bared my teeth. “Shocking that not one of them has killed you yet.”
He turned his head a fraction of an inch to the side and peered at me from the corner of his eye. “Oh they have tried, but I cannot be killed.”
“Everything can die,” I replied evenly. “But some are just harder to kill.”
Touching Fire (Touch Saga) Page 40