by Lexi Ryan
Pain. Lashing, blinding, terrible pain.
A spool of cool relief. And . . . life—pumping through my veins and rushing through my limbs.
I spy my mother looking both relieved and wretched. As if she’d sold a part of herself.
* * *
When I open my eyes, I almost expect to see my mother as she was the day I woke up nine years ago, healed from my burns. But she’s not the one who sits in the chair by this unfamiliar bed. It’s Sebastian, with his pointed ears and delicate fae grace. He’s covered in blood, and his eyes are closed.
“Bash?” My throat is ravaged, and his name comes out broken.
Sebastian jerks awake and releases a long breath as he studies me. “It’s okay,” he says softly, resting a hand on top of mine. “You’re going to be okay. I’m here.”
He’s here. And curse me but it feels good to know so completely that it’s true. For this moment at least, for this set of struggles, I’m not alone. “Thank you.” My voice sounds scratchy. “How long was I out?”
“Only a few hours. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” My stomach churns at the sight of the blood on him. Not on me, though. I’m in a clean, light blue sleeping gown of the softest cotton.
Sebastian catches me studying the gown. “We tried to save your dress, but it was covered in blood and shredded in places.”
“You dressed me?” A silly question, really, given everything else. But the thought of him dressing me in sleep clothes and cleaning the blood off me . . .
He shakes his head, and then his eyes go wide as he realizes what I’m asking. “One of the handmaids changed you. I didn’t—it wasn’t—I wouldn’t . . .”
If I weren’t so exhausted, I might laugh at the red creeping up his neck. “I wasn’t worried about that,” I say softly. He’s taken such good care of me. “Were you hurt?”
“No.” He waves a hand to indicate the bloodstains on his tunic. “This was all yours, courtesy of the Barghest. Luckily, my healer was available when we arrived.”
The room spins. I squeeze my eyes shut to still it, but the smell of blood fills my nose. Seeing it puts me back in that forest again. That wolflike creature lunging toward me. “Barghest? That’s what that thing was?”
“Some call it the death dog.”
“Is it from the Unseelie Court?”
“There are death dogs in all courts, but some of the more powerful Unseelie have them as familiars—animals that have been magically tied to them and can do their unholy bidding.”
Did Mordeus send that Barghest after me? No. That doesn’t make sense. If he truly wants me to retrieve the stolen artifacts for his court, he wouldn’t try to kill me with some mind-linked monster. But Finn . . . Did Finn attack me because I wouldn’t work with him? “Was that one bonded to an Unseelie?”
Sebastian shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“If those wolves hadn’t shown up . . .” I would have been dead. I catch another whiff of my blood and have to turn my face into the pillow. “I’m sorry . . . Do you have something you could change into?”
He mutters a curse and jumps out of the chair. “Of course. I’m sorry.” He turns his back to me as he works the buttons on his shirt.
“We need to talk,” I say. “About what happens next.”
Sebastian looks over his shoulder and meets my eyes. “You should rest first.”
I shake my head and force myself to sit up. I’ve shown more weakness since coming to Faerie than I have in the last nine years, and it needs to stop now. “I’m fine.”
“You’re still recovering from a major injury. Don’t push it.” He turns to me, bare-chested and . . . beautiful.
The room spins again.
I want to hate him like this—his true self—but despite everything, I still find Sebastian as alluring as I did that first day I saw him training in the courtyard.
I force myself to look away from his sun-kissed skin and sculpted arms. “I’m well enough to talk, I think.” I hear the sound of a drawer opening, and when I turn back to him, he’s pulling a fresh shirt over his head.
I watch as the soft white fabric falls over his perfect golden skin. I hate that this attraction didn’t fade alongside the trust I lost when I found out the truth.
If my emotions were a mess before he rescued me in the woods, they’re a disaster now.
He settles back in the chair by the bed and leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Okay. We can talk, if that’s what you want.”
“You saved me.” I swallow. The memory of my terror is still too close to the surface, and I shove it down. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
“I didn’t expect you to come at all.”
He flinches, as if I’d just smacked him. Then hangs his head. “I know you don’t like who I am, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
My guts twist. “I don’t like that you lied about who you are.”
His jaw hardens. Blowing out a breath, he smooths back his white hair and ties it with a strap of leather. “When should I have told you? I couldn’t let anyone in Elora know the truth—I’d have been crucified. And by the time we were friends and I knew you well enough to trust you with the information, you’d made it clear how you felt about my home and my kind.” He swallows. “Maybe it was selfish, but I couldn’t stand the idea of giving you up.”
“Were you ever going to tell me? Or were you going to lie to me forever? Was that the real reason you begged me not to go after Jas? Because you didn’t want me learning the truth?”
“I wanted to tell you. So many times. But my reasons for wanting you to stay on your side of the portal were honest. This is a dangerous place for you.” His gaze drops to my leg, and even though I’m healed, in clean clothes, and covered by blankets, I know he’s seeing the damage the Barghest did. “Do you see now? Do you understand why it terrifies me to have you wandering around my world looking for your sister?”
When he lifts his eyes back to mine, I hold his gaze. “I won’t abandon her.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to allow me to find her.” When I don’t answer, he takes my hand and squeezes my fingers against his palm. “I’ve canceled my obligations for the day, and after you get some sleep, I’ll be escorting you home.”
I jerk my hand away. “No.”
“You could have died tonight. How would that’ve helped Jas?” He shakes his head. “When I find her, don’t make me tell her that she’s lost her only family.”
“Bash—” I close my eyes, remembering. “Sorry. I mean, Prince Ronan.”
“Don’t.” He shifts from the chair to the edge of bed, his warm thigh against my side. “Call me Sebastian. Like you always have. It’s still my name—the one I prefer, at least. No one calls me Prince Ronan but my servants and my subjects.”
The modest apprentice I mooned over for two years has servants and subjects.
I take a breath. Remember your deal with Mordeus. Remember what you’re here to do. “Okay . . . Sebastian. I can’t go home. Gorst’s men are after me, and it’s not safe for me there. Please let me stay. I’ll be careful, but don’t make me go home. There’s nothing for me there.” Even if Gorst’s men weren’t looking for me, I wouldn’t go home without my sister, but maybe if I put the emphasis on my protection rather than rescuing Jas, he’ll agree.
“I can’t protect you outside these palace walls.” But he did tonight. Against all odds, he was there when I needed him.
“I understand,” I whisper.
“Brie . . .”
I can sense that he’s grasping for another argument to send me home. I look around his opulent bedchamber as if seeing it for the first time, as if I haven’t already explored nearly every inch of this castle. I’ve been in here before. I just didn’t know this was his room when I was searching it. “This is a big place, and I won’t get in the way. Can’t you find a little room for me? Isn’t there some way I’d be allo
wed to stay?” I can practically see him thinking it through. I hold my breath.
“There’s only one way,” he says. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”
I school my face into a mask of curiosity. I already know where this is going, and it’s exactly what I need. “Tell me.”
“This morning I will select a dozen women to stay at the castle. Twelve women who want to . . . marry me.” He nearly coughs on the words. “Perhaps if I presented you to my mother as a potential bride . . .” I see it on his face. He’s waiting for me to shoot him down. He has no idea about my deal with King Mordeus or that I need access to this castle, so of course he’d think I’d hate the idea.
“What would I need to do?”
He blows out a breath. “Learn about the court, go to some fussy dinners, maybe a party or two . . .” He gives a shy smile, and for a moment he looks so vulnerable that I forget he’s not the human boy I fell for. “Pretend you like me.”
Part of me wishes I would have to pretend, but my conflicting emotions are all too real. “If I acted like one of these potential brides, would I stay in the palace?”
“Yes. You would be in the guest wing with the other girls.”
“And while I’m here”—while I look for the artifacts the king requires—“you’ll look for Jas?”
“Yes, of course. Whether you stay or return to your home, I’ll search for her.” He brushes his thumb across my knuckles, then rests it there. “You have my word.”
I stare at his hand on mine for a long time, pretending to think about his offer. In truth, it will chafe to watch him choose his bride, and being here will be a constant reminder of his deception and my feelings for him, however misguided. But it will all be worth it when I turn the relics over to the shadow king and take Jasalyn home. “I want to stay.”
His brow furrows.
“What’s that look about?” I ask.
“After you learned who I was and ran away, I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me. I thought I’d lost you forever. You staying here . . .” He shrugs. “Maybe it seems too good to be true.”
I force myself to smile, but part of me is curling up in shame. If I stay, if I do this, I’m not just deceiving some random prince. I’ll be deceiving my friend. I have reasons for my lies, but he had reasons for his too, and it didn’t make it hurt any less when I found out the truth.
I shake my head, trying to shrug off the tangle of emotions.
“Take the night,” he says. “Rest. Think it through. If you’re at my palace, I can’t allow you to sneak out and search for Jas. You have to decide if you can handle that.”
“I’ll be a prisoner?”
“You’ll be protected.” He toys with my hand, and the light touch of his fingertip against my palm sends a needy shiver through me. I blame it on conditioning, on habit. My body doesn’t understand that Sebastian isn’t who I thought he was. “I know it’s not your style to step back and let someone else do the work, but I can’t bend on this. It’s too dangerous. If you’ll promise not to search for Jas—to leave that to me—I’ll keep you here as long as I possibly can.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Thank you so much, Sebastian.”
He tucks the blankets around me, but I can tell his thoughts are already elsewhere. “Now sleep.”
Chapter Ten
I DREAM OF FIRE. Of baby Jas in my arms. I dream of my mother’s desperate pleas for a stranger to heal me and the sound of her tears when he agrees. I dream of night so dark all I can see are the Barghest’s fangs as it lunges for my neck. I dream of silver eyes, and of Jas at five, telling me to count while she hides. Don’t peek! The prince will help you find me.
When I wake, I’m no longer in Sebastian’s chambers. Light pours into the room from a massive wall of windows. Two servants busy themselves around me—one at the foot of the bed, preparing a small breakfast tray, and the other filling the tub inside an attached bathing room.
Did Sebastian carry me here or did he have a goblin move me? It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. But after the way he carried me into the castle in his arms last night, it’s all too easy to imagine him moving me here while I slept. Too easy to imagine that tenderness in his eyes and him dipping to press a kiss to my cheek. I catch myself clinging to the image before shaking it away. Not why I’m here.
As I sit up in bed, the servant adjusts a bouquet of orange day lilies before turning to me. A human. She wears a plain blue dress that hangs loosely on her plump frame, her blond hair tied into a simple but sleek braid. I pat my own hair, which is no doubt wild from a night of restless sleep in a strange bed.
“Good morning, Miss Abriella. I’m Emmaline and that’s Tess,” the woman says, gesturing to the servant in the bathroom. “Would milady like a bath or breakfast first?”
I press a hand to my growling stomach. It’s been far too long since I’ve had anything substantive to eat, and though I’m accustomed to going without food, I’m pushing even my limits. “Breakfast, please.”
She beams at me as if I’ve just offered her a gift. “Good choice.”
Tess emerges from the bathroom, wiping her hands on a beige smock. Twins, I realize when I see her blond braid and identical smile. “Would you like your meal in bed or at the table?”
“The table is fine.” I throw my legs over the side of the bed and stretch, yawning. I was so tired and weak when I fell asleep last night, but this morning I feel better than I have in days—maybe months. The healer must have repaired more than the damage from the Barghest. “Do you have coffee?”
“Of course. The prince told us that you prefer coffee,” Tess says. She bites back a smile, and she and Emmaline exchange a meaningful look. “And day lilies.”
“We asked around,” Emmaline says, leaning in conspiratorially. “He didn’t request flowers to be brought to any of the other girls.”
“Or assign any of them their own rooms yet,” Tess adds, winking at me.
I don’t have to fake my surprise and delight as I approach the table. I run a finger across a soft orange petal. A renegade butterfly flutters in my stomach as I remember Sebastian tucking the flower behind my ear. I don’t want to feel anything for him, but how can I not?
I take a seat at the small table by the windows, pausing a moment to appreciate the heat of the sun on my face. I’ve always been too much of a night owl to care for mornings, but I’m so rested after a full night’s sleep that I feel almost optimistic.
Channeling my inner Jasalyn. She’d be proud.
I take a sip from my mug. It’s different from the brown water folks at home call coffee. This is thicker and more decadent. Layered—as if I can taste the sunshine that warmed the beans and the berries on the bush beside it. It’s as if my love of coffee before was only about its potential and I’m finally tasting it as it should be. But even this can’t distract me from the feast waiting for me. A plate full of pastries, colorful berries, a cup of creamy yogurt, and a platter of cured meats and cheeses. I take a flaky pastry from the tray and nearly moan as it melts on my tongue. I lose myself in the food as my maids busy themselves around me.
I’ve stuffed myself to the point of discomfort when I realize the maids have gone still behind me.
“Your Highness,” they say in unison.
When I turn, they’ve both frozen in low curtsies in front of Sebastian, who gives them a curt nod and warm smile. In truth, I expected the human slaves in Faerie to be drugged or mindless and treated like disposable tools, but if the twins are representative of life for humans here, my assumptions were completely off base.
Maybe nothing is how I thought it was.
“Tess, Emmaline,” he says, nodding to them. “How are you this morning?”
“Good, Your Highness,” Tess says, standing.
“Happy to get to know Lady Abriella,” Emmaline says.
These women don’t look at Sebastian as if he’s their jailer. Their expressions are closer to that of doting aunts. And Sebastian treats th
em to the same charming smile that made half of Fairscape fall for him.
“Could you ladies give me a moment alone with Lady Abriella?”
“Of course,” they say in unison. They each dip into another brief curtsy and scurry away.
Sebastian waits until the door closes behind them before he turns to me. “How are you feeling this morning?” He runs appraising eyes over me, and I shift, suddenly self-conscious in my nightgown in a way I was too tired to be last night.
“I’m good.” I wrap my arms around myself. “I just woke up half an hour ago. Good as new.”
He nods, but I can tell this doesn’t surprise him. He knew I was okay, or he wouldn’t have let me out of his sight. That’s not why he’s here this morning. “What we talked about last night—do you really want to do this?”
I hold my breath and nod. Please don’t send me home. Please don’t make me fail Jas.
He rolls his shoulders back. “Okay then. You’ll have to go before my mother and me this afternoon and state your wish to . . .” He clears his throat but doesn’t finish.
“Marry you?” I ask.
He nods. “I know how you truly feel, of course, but my mother cannot.”
“I understand.”
He turns to the day lilies and adjusts them in the vase, avoiding my gaze. “I need to ask you a favor.”
“What’s that?”
He’s quiet for so long, I begin to fidget with my silverware. When he does speak, his voice is lower than before. “Keep our history a secret. I don’t want my mother knowing that we met before today. It would . . . skew her judgment of you.”
There is no future for me and Sebastian, so this shouldn’t hurt. But I can’t deny the sharp twisting in my chest. “You don’t want her to know where I came from. That I cleaned fancy houses instead of living in one?” That aside from thievery and hiding in the dark, I don’t have any skills or talents to speak of.
“I don’t want her to know anything that might make her question why you’re really here.” He swallows and turns back to me. There’s a storm of worry brewing in those sea-green eyes. “Despite my better judgment, I don’t want you to leave, Brie. I like the idea of having you around.”