The Deepest Well

by Juliette Cross

  “Never.”

  He laughed. “Never is a very long time. Good thing we have forever to wait it out. I’m a patient man.”

  “You are no man at all.”

  He stiffened, expression hardening for a fleeting moment. “You must come to understand something, sweet Katherine.”

  She tilted her chin higher, refusing to back away.

  “You are in my domain now. There is no escape. I only want to care for you. To love you. The sooner you accept your fate, the sooner we can enjoy one another’s company.”

  “To love me?” she asked with scorn. “How could you possibly know the meaning of the word? You abducted me against my will!”

  He stood close and lifted his hand, trailing a finger down her cheek and along her jaw before letting his hand fall away.

  “Yes. I took you from a man who didn’t deserve you. To give you more than he ever could.”

  “He is a better man than you.”

  “I presume you’re not speaking of your husband, for whom I see you shed no tears.”

  “I did not love my husband, but what you did to him was…barbaric.”

  “Even after he sold you to the highest bidder? I’d say he deserved a barbaric end.”

  She swallowed the knot in her throat, remembering the panic of standing in that room. Then Damas had come. Even so, he was not her knight in shining armor. There was only one man who held that special place in her heart. Only one man who ever would.

  “It is George of whom I speak. You hate him because he is better than you. In every way.”

  “Is he? Then why could he not protect you? Why are you now standing here with me and not him? If he is better than me.”

  Tears stung the backs of her eyes. She had been sure George would save her. He hadn’t. A tear slipped down her cheek.

  “He will come for me,” she whispered.

  Damas smiled sadly. “That’s where you’re wrong, my lady. He will not come for you. He will never come for you. You are mine now, so you’d better get used to the idea.”

  His footsteps echoed on the white marble floor as he strolled toward a grand staircase carpeted in sapphire-and-gold interlacing designs, spiraling upward into the shadows. A wrought-iron chandelier centered above the foyer emitted a strange silver-white candlelight, creating a dreamy aura. A wall-sized oil painting, taller than she and perhaps thirty feet long, hung to the right, depicting a vibrant scene of beautiful angels falling from heaven, tumbling from celestial clouds into a shadowy abyss. One of the angels mirrored the man, the demon prince, standing at the foot of the staircase, beckoning her closer.

  “Come, Katherine. There is no way now but surrender. Or death.”

  To refuse him was futile. She knew this, though her rebellious heart denied the truth of his words. She finally followed, knowing she must find her own way out…if there was one.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The creature he called Laurie was a petite young woman, though not a true woman, dressed in maid’s livery. Her coarse brown hair was pinned on top of her head, and a white mobcap sat atop the mess. Pale gray, papery skinned, dour faced and mousy, she peered out from a pair of yellow eyes like the one called Benjamin. But Laurie actually looked on Katherine with pity, even understanding, although she never spoke.

  “Laurie,” Katherine whispered as she stood out of the tub and wrapped herself in a robe. “Does he mistreat you?”

  The demonic servant shook her head and pointed toward a white dressing screen. The silver platter of delicacies lay on the table untouched—roast lamb, sweetmeats, cream-filled pastries. Katherine refused to partake. She’d even tried to refuse the bath when Damas had brought her into this vast chamber with the enormous bed and emerald velvet coverlet. The seductive trappings of the room urged her to run. He’d given her the choice to obey willingly or he would assist with the bath. When she stopped struggling and stepped toward the pewter tub, he left the room.

  The bedroom was vast—high ceilings with three dangling chandeliers that emitted the same peculiar, ghostly light. In one corner sat a small library—books from floor to ceiling, a soft, plush carpet and a red velvet sofa angled toward the fireplace. Decadence and luxury draped the room, and all of it terrified her.

  Katherine ducked behind the screen. She didn’t know what Laurie had done with that horrific white dress, nor did she care. She hoped she’d burned it. She found two dresses hanging on the wall behind the screen, along with a new silk chemise and a high-quality corset with fine boning. The fact that they all appeared to be her size was even more alarming. How long had Damas been planning her capture?

  She slipped into the chemise and jumped out of her skin to find Laurie standing behind her. She motioned to the corset. Katherine had thought she was too shy to speak. She wasn’t deaf, for she understood everything Katherine said.

  “Yes. I see.”

  Laurie played the part of the lady’s maid, cinching up the lacings and drawing them tight. Katherine wondered about Maggie, hoping that George would take care of her. A fresh wave of sorrow washed over her as she thought of Jane as well. What would they think happened? Would she ever see them again? She remembered hugging Jane good-bye, tears of joy in her eyes because she was embarking on the life she was meant to have, a life of love and adventure with George. The tears threatened to return. She held them back, refusing to give in to defeat.

  Her new maid finished and ducked back into the room. Katherine stared at her two choices. One was a deep burgundy with a dramatic waistline and voluminous skirt. The second was a simpler gown in pale green made of a soft, shimmery material, softer than any silk she had ever seen. The button seam was along the side. She preferred the simple one. When she finished dressing and slipped into a soft pair of shoes, she exited the screen, fearing Damas would be waiting for her. He wasn’t. Neither was Laurie. She was alone.

  Fortune seemed to smile on her and give her this window of escape.

  She crept toward the twelve-foot-tall door and opened it. Everything appeared oversized in this place, as if the prince was too large for the space. No one lingered in the hall, which was lit by the unusual silvery firelight in sconces, reminding her she no longer dwelled in her own world. Part of her mind told her running was futile. The other part—the one that longed for home, for George and the safety of his arms—couldn’t do anything but look for a way out.

  As she edged along the wall, she passed several closed doors until she came to an open entrance to a landing with stone steps spiraling up and down. She took the stairs going down, hoping they’d lead outside. The halls remained empty, giving her courage to move on. The stairs ended at a door, thick and heavy. She pulled on the latch with all her might and slowly dragged open the door. Gusting wind swept inside. Nothing but a smog-laden cliff and darkness lay beyond. Cold mist seeped through her skin, chilling her to the bone.

  Taking a torch, she edged outside and found herself on a narrow ledge, a drop-off into impenetrable black below. She heard voices on the stairs behind her. Panic gripped her, making her move. When she sidled to the left, she saw an even narrower path along the cliff, leading to who knew where. She didn’t care. It led away from her captor. She had to get away from him. With her back to the cliff face, the torch in her left hand, she maneuvered along the mountainside. Whatever voices she’d heard died away. Her heart surged with each step away from his dark castle filled with its sensual surroundings and temptations. She wanted no part of Damas’s feast of sin.

  The wind whirled, pulling at her skirt and whipping her hair, which had fully fallen around her shoulders from the night’s events. Then she heard a snort from below and the long beat of large wings. Frozen in place with one hand gripping the cold rock face, she lifted the torch. A beastly face appeared in the wind, the head of a black dragon level with hers, ice-blue eyes narrowed as it hissed, sharp fangs protruding from a wide mouth. She scre
amed and dropped the torch, which tumbled into the darkness below.

  “This can’t be happening,” she murmured. “This isn’t real.”

  But it was. She could no longer see but only hear the creature hovering in the air, snorting, its breath hot against her skin. Just as she started to edge away along the cliff, something gripped her waist in a tight hold. She touched her fingers to sharp talons and scaly skin the second before she was snatched off the edge into nothingness.

  “No!” she screamed, but it was no use.

  The creature lifted her into the air. Far below, that eerie haze of light blanketing Damas’s lair had muted to midnight blue, outlining the wall surrounding the fortress and the dead forest beyond. The beast carried her back to the cliff ledge, where Damas stood waiting, and dumped Katherine unceremoniously at his feet. Her hip hit hard. Her palms slapped the cold stone.

  The dragon clung to a crag on the edge, its mighty breath huffing out in white gusts. Rock crumbled away from the edge where its claws dug in. Katherine could only stare in horror, trembling, wrapping one arm around her waist where those claws had gripped her, though hadn’t punctured to the skin.

  “Good girl, Portia.” Damas stroked the beast’s snout. The creature closed her eyes under her master’s attentions, growling her pleasure, then suddenly lifted off. The beat of her wings blew Katherine’s hair and gown, baring her pale legs. Then the dragon vanished into darkness once more.

  Katherine expected rage and fury from her captor. He simply squatted before her, perused her face and tucked a loose lock of her hair behind her ear. She was too terrified even to flinch. He smiled, seemingly unperturbed, as if he expected this behavior. Without a word he carefully lifted her in his arms and marched back into his fortress, up the stairs toward the bedroom.

  “You must let me go,” she pleaded. “I’ll die here.”

  “No. You won’t die here. Your mortality stands still while in my domain. In essence, you will live forever now.”

  His flippant response stunned her silent. He moved down the long corridor, white candlelight casting a soft glow, after nonchalantly announcing that she was immortal.

  “Are you being serious?”

  “Never more so. That is why I wanted to bring you to my home. On earth, your life would be too short—a blink in time, your beauty wasting away far too soon. Here”—he paused outside his bedchamber, peering down with a gentle gaze—“you can be my queen for eternity.”

  Katherine had never been the fainting kind, but her head spun at this new revelation. He did not take her to the bed as she’d feared, but placed her on the carpet in the corner next to the velvet sofa. He knelt and chanted strange words in a language she had never heard, with his palm one foot above the floor.

  Black mist curled out of the carpet, swirling around his wrist, then straightening into a line, solidifying into a black iron stake. He continued to chant. More black smoke emitted from his palm, circling the iron stake and zig-zagging into the shape of a chain with a circular cuff at the end. Katherine stared in shock, not even realizing the purpose of this demon essence until he clamped the cuff on her wrist and stood above her.

  “You’re chaining me here?” she asked, rattling the chain and pulling it tight. “Like an animal!”

  “It is for your safety, my lady. Danger lies outside beyond my borders.”

  “Stop calling me that!” she shrieked with hysteria, the tears pouring now. “I am not your lady. I am not yours!” She hiccuped on a sob. “George will come for me. He will.”

  The beautiful demon prince crouched down on his haunches, his expression as patient and calm as ever. “He will never come for you. Once you realize and accept that truth, you will surrender to me. And I will release the chains.”

  With that finality, he rose and left her alone once more.

  She crumbled to the floor, her chain rattling, and wept hard, hot tears until exhaustion and sleep took her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Time passed. Days? Weeks? She wasn’t sure. Even though there was a tall, narrow window, usually concealed behind heavy gold curtains, the light changed little. There was no sun to rise and shine down on this netherworld. A supernatural hue tinted the endless woodlands fuchsia, then purple, then the deepest, darkest blue throughout the cycle of a day. At least, Katherine thought it was a day that passed. She really had no idea.

  She was released from her chains in the library nook once a day, when Laurie came to draw her bath and help her redress. Damas had come the first day after her failed attempt at an escape. When she threw a book at his head, he looked on her with no expression at all, then quietly left the room. He had not returned since.

  He puzzled her. She expected a tyrant, a villain, a monster. To be greeted with patience and calm was perplexing.

  Laurie delivered meals three times daily—always a beautiful array of roasted meats, fragrant herbed vegetables, pastries, bread and jams, cakes and a piping hot pot of tea. All reminders of the life she had left behind. She imagined Damas sifting to the human world daily to fetch her worldly comforts in order to try to make her happy.

  She was miserable. Beyond miserable. She would break out into bouts of weeping without any trigger at all. She’d jerk on the chain till her wrist bled, knowing she couldn’t break it. The cuff would only squeeze tighter when she resisted its hold. Made of demon magic, it could not be escaped. Laurie would tenderly clean whichever arm held the cuff that day at bath time, then cuff the opposite arm on a chain added to her bed. Katherine feared Damas would join her there. But he never did. He never came at all.

  She had left every food tray completely untouched until the third day. She’d begun reading to pass the time, for it seemed to slide by like water through a sieve. She’d been reading a copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, considering Anne Elliot’s plight. Anne had been parted from her love for years when he stepped back into her life. After all that time, their love had remained strong and true.

  “George will come for me,” Katherine whispered, glancing at the tray of food when her stomach rumbled. That was the point at which she decided to live and stay strong and be patient.

  But another day…and another…and another. Nothing changed. The routine was the same till she lost track of the days, if there were even days to track. No contact of any kind with anyone but Laurie, who remained mute. She didn’t look at her with sympathy anymore. After robotically helping her with the bath and dressing her in a new gown, which arrived every night, cleaned and fresh, she’d leave without a word. It was like living with a ghost. Or becoming one.

  Standing in front of the long mirror, she admired the newest dress, the bodice woven with tiny rosebuds, the skirt sweeping out in sky blue. Obviously, Damas was acquiring her wardrobe for her, sifting to London, perhaps even to her own dressmaker, for all she knew.

  Staring at her reflection, pallid and thin, she wished she were readying for a ball and were about to go down for the carriage to take her away. And she’d become so tired of it all. What she wouldn’t do for normalcy, to have her life back. Her mind conjured the sound of the orchestra leading the dancers into a waltz.

  A waltz.

  George.

  She sobbed again, longing for him till she thought she’d literally break in half.

  The loneliness clawed at her, a sad little beast that lurked and burrowed deep within, reminding her she was alone, always alone. And it wasn’t the kind of loneliness she experienced on earth. She’d often spent time alone as Lady Katherine. Thankfully so. Having never quite found too many friends, except for Jane, she’d become accustomed to being on her own. Her own husband was rarely home. Another blessing. A solitary walk through the gardens would clear her thoughts. Afternoon tea in her sunlit parlor with a book would ease her mind. A long ride down Rotten Row was always a pleasant venture. During so much of her quaint little London life, she had enjoyed being alone. />
  But this place… It was different. Dreamy. The air was heavy—not suffocating, but tantalizing. She wondered if there was magic swirling in the atmosphere, the way her thoughts wandered so easily, the way she drifted off to sleep so often only to awaken and find the fire was burning bright and a new candle had been set on her table next to the sofa where she read. She slept often and dreamed of nothing. The emptiness filled her up until she fell onto the carpeted floor, weeping, her chain rattling at her wrist.

  Loneliness never waned but grew exponentially. Always grew. The hollowness beckoned to be filled. She wondered where Damas was, where he had gone, why he left her so abandoned in this place.

  Every time the door opened and Laurie stepped in, Katherine found herself disappointed. Then she’d berate and hate herself for longing to see him. Her desperation to converse, to connect with another person, overwhelmed her till she trembled. She would read more ravenously, trying to escape her tormented reality. The pile of books she’d read and reread rose higher and higher. She noticed that she’d started her third pile, all of them so tall they teetered, ready to fall with the slightest breath of wind.

  How long would she ache with this bitter sorrow slowly eating her from the inside out? No one could tell. There was only ever the sound of the wind howling beyond the castle walls or the crackle of a fire in the grate or Laurie pouring a bath, one pot at a time.

  No words of comfort. No words of any kind. Only those in her mind—memories repeating over and over. She once relived her meeting with George at the church, the way he spoke softly, whispering with kindness, holding her hand and tracing the soft lines of her palm. That memory nearly killed her. She didn’t eat for days, but slowly fell back into the routine.

  Read, eat, sleep. Eat, sleep, read.

  Nothing ever changed, until one day…