by Brea Viragh
I used the last of my energy to settle at the prince’s side, with the brandy bottle at the ready. An angry swell of pain in my ankle reminded me of my own injury. Well, one problem at a time.
“I’d like to say in advance I’m sorry for this. It’s probably going to sting a bit.” Taking out the cork with my teeth, I spat it aside, aimed the bottle at the largest cut, and poured.
Merek woke with a roar, sprang to his feet, whirling around to face me wearing a murderous scowl.
Chapter 8
Seconds ticked by until the recognition settled into place. On his part, at least. The roar of sound faded off into deadly silence. I still had no idea what kind of person I faced though I watched his expression shift and change, noticing every emotion in his eyes. And when Prince Merek finally figured out who it was who had poured the alcohol over his wound, he hissed, baring his teeth, though murder remained on his face.
“You.”
The word came out low and poisoned.
I wasn’t surprised when he reared back, towering over me despite the slice to his thigh, with his uninjured arm flung behind him poised to strike.
I clutched the bottle against my chest, knowing that if he chose to slit my throat with one of those claws, I had no strength left to get away and save myself. I had no weapon, only the bottle, which I doubted would do any good against a raging beast. Trembling, I just waited and stared.
That did nothing but further enrage him.
“What are you looking at?” he bellowed. “You aren’t welcome here!”
Before I knew how to react, Merek reached down and grabbed my arms, pulling me up to him. He slammed me against the wall. His chest pressed to mine and his grip remained unbreakable. The rough stone bit into my back.
“Do you know what you did to me?” he growled against my ear when he leaned closer, sniffing at my hair. “Take a good look. Stare again at the monster in front of you. It’s been so long since the two of us last stood face to face.”
My blood went cold. His meaning was clear. He wasn’t going to let me walk out of this castle alive. I would pay for what I’d done.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered under my breath. My lower lip trembled. “I want to make things right. Th-that’s why I’m here.”
He slammed me again, hard enough for stars to dance in front of my eyes when the back of my head whipped against the wall. His grip tightened to the point where the tips of his claws punctured through my shirt and skin but I made sure not to cry out.
“What makes you think you will live long enough to make it right?” he asked roughly.
Those words were enough to sap the air from my lungs and whatever strength remained of me. Oh God, I’d made a mistake. A terrible mistake. I’d found the right place, yes, and the right man, but not enough of his humanity remained for him to think before reacting. And his first reaction?
To kill me in revenge for what I’d done to him.
When I spoke again it was a bit louder, any fight drained along with the rest of my energy. This time I didn’t try to hide my shivers. Let him feel the way I reacted to his roars and threats. “I am sorry. I don’t remember what I did. I don’t remember anything.”
The sound he made tread the line between laugh and growl. “You don’t remember. How convenient.”
He dropped me immediately and I slumped to the floor, the threat still shining in his eyes when I dared to look up at him. Blood continued to drip from the wounds he’d re-opened with his sudden movements. They added to the picture of madness he presented.
“You have a lot of nerve showing your face in this castle, Miss Barnes. More nerve than I expected after so many years,” he said. “What was it that brought you back here, hmm? A desire to take one more look at the beast before you met your own death?”
I jolted. He knows my name. I wasn’t sure why the thought surprised me. I shifted to balance on my knees, the bottle still gripped in my left hand. I couldn’t have dropped it if I wanted to; the rest of me had frozen in place.
“Prince Merek—” I started.
Wrong thing to say.
He roared before I could finish, the sound deafening, shaking the rafters of the room. Fear clenched inside of me even as another piece of me blazed with fire.
“You don’t get to call me that!” he shouted. “My name does not pass your lips. Do you understand me?”
Keep calm. Keep collected.
I didn’t wince this time, though I barely managed to restrain myself. “I understand,” I replied. My reed-thin voice did not come out with the force I’d hoped. I tried to remind myself that his anger stemmed from hurt. A deep, raw wound infected with hatred. If the roles were reversed, I would feel the same.
“I thought the scent was familiar when I heard the commotion in the woods. Then I assured myself it could not possibly be the witch, the temptress, who cursed me to a lifetime of this.” He indicated his face, his appearance, his gaze hot and furious. “Surely she would not be so ridiculously stupid to show her face to me after all these years. If I’d truly guessed you were out there, I would have let the creatures have at you.”
Merek shook his head, his chuckle low and abrasive. The haunting sound had my stomach clenching.
“Do I want to know the truth of what you were doing on my lands in the first place?”
Probably not. “It’s…a bit difficult to explain,” I hedged. Then shifted until I was standing again, my weight off of my injured ankle. “There are many layers to the situation.”
“Try.”
I wanted to tell him how much it meant that the man I’d cursed to become a beast had saved me—but I couldn’t find the right words.
When I remained quiet for too long, his fangs flashed and another roar sounded. This time I felt it. The entire room trembled beneath that sound as it penetrated my flesh and bones. Heart pounding, I gasped for air, clasping the bottle until my fingers ached. Staring at His Highness’s royal furred feet with wicked claws tipping each toe. One step would crush my bones.
Maybe I truly had waited too long. Maybe he’d gone insane with the isolation, the stress of having his body turned into something unnatural. Maybe he’d kill me where I cowered rather than let me live long enough to explain myself.
I didn’t even have an explanation!
I prayed for courage even as blinding terror filled me at the continued growl, nearly overwhelming any sane thought. Once again, I’d come face to face with one of those fight or flight moments and found myself paralyzed. Frozen in place and needing more room to breathe.
“I’m not sure what I did to you, and I don’t have a reason why I did it,” I finally said. It felt as if a stone was pressed against my chest to keep me in place. “But I can understand you being angry with me. You probably think I’m a monster.”
“A despicable waste of a human being, more like.”
My head spiraled, dizzy. There was no arguing with him. Not even if I had a reasonable retort. “If that’s how you prefer to think of me,” I replied softly, “then you are well within your rights.”
“It took you this long to drag yourself here? Trying to make amends to me?” Rough fingers grabbed my chin and forced me to look up and meet his gaze. I’m dreaming. I tried to ignore the odd angles and bulging portions of his beast-like face, keeping my focus to those green eyes. “Five years, witch. Five years and not once did you come back for me. You left me to my own devices. To suffer alone.”
“It took me this long because I didn’t know about you,” I said shakily.
“Liar.”
The venom in his voice should not have shocked me, and yet somehow it did. “It’s the truth.”
“Look at you. As perfect as the last time I saw you. Perfect and untouchable. And I’ve been confined here in the castle like it’s a prison, suffering, while you were out there living your life as though nothing had happened!”
I couldn’t look away from the abhorrence in his eyes. Other emotions too, ones I had a harder time placin
g, but none as dangerous as the hatred.
“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know you were here, I didn’t know what I’d done, but the moment Gray Matthews mentioned it to me, I knew I had to come.”
Merek reeled away, growling again and knocking the nearest cabinet clear off the wall. It crashed across the kitchen and shattered, splinters raining down around us.
“How could you not know I was here? You did this to me! How dare you?”
Any composure I’d tried to maintain shattered.
I reacted without thinking, forcing my legs to hold me despite the pain, bolting past him when his back was turned. I’d made a huge mistake. It was stupid for me to have come. It was stupid for me to think I could right this wrong.
The darkness outside the front doors was unusually thick when they opened again automatically. Though a tug at my midsection urged me to turn around, to deal with Merek with reason and logic, I didn’t heed it. Now wasn’t the time.
He would never listen to me. I’d assumed too much thinking I could fix this.
“Where are you going, witch!”
His words echoed after me as I ran into the night. He didn’t even use my name. He’d called me a witch.
Tears stung my eyes and I didn’t know where I’d found the initial strength to run, but it deserted me now. I stopped dead in my tracks at the edge of the courtyard, heaving for breath and leaning my weight away from the injured ankle. Behind me the castle loomed, silent and waiting. My stomach flipped, a queasy sensation rising to my throat.
The night had gotten oddly cold; the forest stretched endless in front of me and the sounds of night creatures screeched nearby. I had to keep going, had to get away. I marshaled what little strength I had left and forced my feet to move. But each step I took away from the castle had my nausea increasing.
I’d already done too much, and without my magic power, if Merek didn’t want me there, then the threat to my life could not be ignored.
“Miss? Miss!”
My eyes darted over my shoulder toward the call—a young girl’s voice—catching a flash of honey-colored blond hair before I turned away again.
A castle servant probably, but I wasn’t about to stick around to find out. The farther I ran, the fainter her voice grew and the more my lungs ached. I kept my focus on the trail in front of me, slipping through the darkness.
Rudy was long since gone and hopefully safe at home even now. I was taking a great risk moving through those scary woods at night but I didn’t plan on waiting for daylight. Not if I faced attacks and name-calling and—
Culpability felt despairingly heavy on my shoulders. Maybe Patricia had been correct in cautioning me to wait for morning. Or better yet, to reconsider my decision.
I’d thought I knew best. I’d thought of nothing but righting the wrong.
Although I should have known, from the way Merek looked at me, that we’d had more of a past connection than I was led to believe. But seeing him as he was now had been an utter surprise.
Tree branches rustled behind me and I swung around, trying to peer through the darkness. Nothing moved, nothing made any sound, so I continued on my way even though my nerves were taut as violin strings.
After some time, fatigue sapped my energy again and I knew I must rest. My ankle still throbbed with pain and every step was torture. I found a tree that had fallen, uprooted, its roots and thick trunk providing enough room for me to consider it proper shelter for the night. I settled in the dirt and dead leaves, trying once again to call my power to me. Trying to find some hint of my former magic, magic that had been strong enough to change a man into a beast.
I found nothing where my memories should be except the usual dark void, found no access to a door that had been slammed shut inside of me. Frustration burned my throat as I burrowed deep into my clothing to stay warm. The chill from the ground seeped into me. It was a summer night but up in the mountains, with the air as thin as my clothing, without a fire one got very cold very quickly.
A fire I had no way to call up even if it meant saving myself. Besides, a fire would have signaled my location. Not just for Merek but for those hideous man-eating creatures I’d encountered earlier. Not to mention who knew what else lurked in the forest shadows.
No, I’d just have to brazen it out as best I could. There was a fallen limb near me and I snatched it up to use as a potential weapon if necessary. As if it would be anything more than a mere nuisance to the powerful creatures. I just needed a little rest before continuing on. Sleep was out of the question. I must stay vigilant.
But despite my best intentions, blackness crept closer and it didn’t take long for me to join it.
Chapter 9
I woke next to a fire, but in an actual fireplace, not deep in the woods. The flames crackled cheerfully and cast dancing shadows on the walls. I lay on a stone floor, not dirt and leaves. A dream? At least I was no longer chilled to the bone. Tightening my arms around me, I closed my eyes again, vaguely aware of my ankle still throbbing and the rest of me feeling like I’d been through a war. I must be dreaming…
“Are you quite comfortable?”
The eerie echo of a man’s deep voice jarred me fully awake with a start, and when I looked up I saw Merek standing there with his arm braced on the mantel, watching me. Judging from the fury in his glower, he still hadn’t decided to let me live.
Fury was putting it mildly.
Merek swung his gaze from my eyes to my boots and back again. I stiffened under the weight of his gaze. Not for the first time wished I’d been successful in running away.
You made your choices and now you must pay for them.
But the voice inside my head didn’t sound entirely my own anymore.
He took a step closer to me, lowering to crouch in front of me with his elbows balanced on massive thighs. His chest heaved as he stared. Eyes narrowing.
I had nowhere to go, backed up as close to the hearth as I could physically get without singeing my clothes. Merek advanced yet again and closed the distance between us. I held my breath. I knew if I lived to be a thousand years old, I would never recover from the pain and betrayal I saw on his face.
“You saved me,” I whispered, swallowing hard. “You came after me.”
What I’d done to him shamed me, and though I told myself to raise the walls higher around my heart, to protect myself from his pain, I couldn’t do it. Because I was responsible for it.
“Try it again, witch. Just try to leave here a second time and see what happens to you. As far as I am concerned, you put yourself into my hands by coming here, and when you die, it will be at my pleasure,” he said, his voice a low growl. Full of dark promise. “After this, you are not to go wandering outside. You are to stay within the boundaries of the castle at all times.”
Why did it sound less a threat and more a caution?
Finally I found my voice, and when I spoke my throat felt raw. “I didn’t think you wanted me here. You made your distaste painfully clear. Why would you concern yourself with keeping me?”
Overwhelmed. Trapped. Alone, with the beast’s unnerving presence, as though I’d stepped into an alternate reality.
Inhaling a calming breath, my tentative peace shattered the moment Merek grabbed my face with both hands. His touch electrified me and for a moment I froze, the rest of my exhaustion gone.
“Make no mistake, Reila Barnes. I don’t want you here,” he snarled. He made no effort to keep the hatred from his tone but displayed monumental effort in not letting his claws sink into my skin. “But what I said stands. If anyone hurts you, it will be me. After what you did, I refuse to let you out of my sight. Especially not after you went to such great lengths to deliver yourself right into my hands.”
“I can fix this.” Unnerved, I reached up and rested my hand over his. Unsurprised when he jerked away, knocking into the chipped coffee table set on the rug behind him in his haste to escape my touch. He turned away.
“Don’t you touch me.�
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Despite my fear, I was oddly grateful to be back at the castle instead of lost in the woods, to be here with him without his fangs showing. I struggled to sit up, though my wracked body complained with every movement.
My attention turned to the soothing warmth of the fire and I willed calmness into my system to replace the fear. Fear wouldn’t help anything. The glowing embers reminded me of nights with my brother Thomas, a pot of tea between us and a book on my lap as he told me about his day. In the last few years I could remember, he and I made the evenings our private time. He would come home from school filled with tales from the day while I made our tea and stoked the fire. Setting the stage to listen.
Except Thomas wasn’t here and this was a vastly different night.
I broke the stillness, speaking over the snapping of logs in the fireplace. “Why did you save me?” I asked at last. “You could have left me out there and let the rest of those terrible creatures return to finish the job. Why didn’t you?”
Merek rose to his full height, shrugging massive shoulders, and only then did I notice how he’d wrapped part of the wrecked sheet around his wounds. I had a similar wrapping tightly pressed against my ankle. Huh.
“A life for a life, Miss Barnes. You took mine. And now yours belongs to me. It felt justified,” he said.
“Yes. I understand.” And, sadly, I did.
He surveyed me warily, like he’d expected me to disagree. I had nothing else to say. He’d saved me twice now, in fact. What I should have voiced was my thanks.
“I want a chance to make things right,” I finally said, attempting to adjust my position to alleviate the cramp in my legs. “Please.”
“Do you really think you can reverse the spell?”
