“Then who are they for?”
“Your mother. She always believed in you. And look what you’ve done to repay her. I’m glad she’s not here to see this. To see what a coward you really are.”
“Silence.”
This time, the anger I mustered wasn’t fake. I knew that my mother had wanted me to save the universe. I knew she had wanted me to at least try. But how could I save everyone and protect Carolyn at the same time? It wasn’t possible.
Carolyn narrowed her eyes at me.
“Why? Why would I do that? What are you going to do if I don’t, hm? Are you going to use your magic powers against me? Going to bully me into submission?”
“I’ll destroy you,” I said, weakly. “You know I can.”
Something in her shifted then. I wasn’t sure what had brought it on, but when she glanced in my direction, she was all mixed-up hope and uncertainty. Longing to see me as a better man than I really am.
“Anatole. I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but I don’t want to believe that this is really you. You know what your mother said. We have to defeat this evil together. That means you can’t be hiding behind some unaffected wall anymore. You have to help me.”
It was a tempting offer. One I wanted nothing more than to take. Instead, I lifted my lips into a human-hating sneer, the kind I might have delivered to her long, long ago, when we first met one another and I was a fool in a different kind of way. “If I was interested in helping you, human, I’d send you right back to Earth where you belong.”
There was a breath of silence. Then: clap. clap. Clap.
My entire body froze in place. The clapping could only be coming from one man, and the sound of familiar footfall on the stone floor behind me only solidified my suspicions. My brother had been watching this whole time, listening to ensure that my loyalties were all in tact.
His slippery-smooth voice came to me on a cold breeze as he idled up beside me at the bars of Carolyn’s cage. There was a kind of crazed fire in his eyes, the light of a man who had too much power and not enough to do with it.
“What a performance! The drama! The intrigue! The unresolved sexual tension.”
I scraped into a bow. “Your Majesty.”
“I am impressed, Anatole. When I sent you down here, I didn’t have much faith in your ability to resist her. Yet, you did. You artfully dodged every one of her tricks and her ploys.”
“It’s only because of your leadership and guidance that I was able to do so, brother. Of course. You are the greatest guide against this human menace.”
Turning away from the bars slightly and righting myself to my full height, I watched as my brother’s dark eyes raked over Carolyn’s small, shivering body.
“And what a menace she is. Plain. But pretty.”
“Pretty for a human, I suppose,” I muttered, though I knew Carolyn to be one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever seen.
Adric considered her, peering down from the bridge of his long, cracked nose. I hated that look, hated the way he stared at her as though she were a thing to be owned and dominated and not as the person she was, the person so deserving of love and affection and freedom.
But what I hated most about it was the realization that the way he looked at her now was the way I’d looked at her when we’d first met. The way he felt about humans—that they were dangerous obstacles that demanded elimination—was the way I’d felt about humans not so long ago.
A pit opened in my stomach. Maybe I had not been beyond understanding and redemption when Carolyn had first found me, but my brother certainly was now. There would be no convincing him of the humans’ virtues; there would be no shaking him from his belief that they all deserved to die at the end of his sword.
“You know,” he said, casually, as if he weren’t throwing around orders, “I was perhaps too quick to toss her in here, to keep her from you. I didn’t trust your magic, but you’ve proven yourself. You should have her.”
“Have her?” I repeated, my heart stuttering at the implications.
“Yes. You were the one to force the other humans from the program to remain here as pets. Don’t you think it’s time to get one of your own? Besides, with your magic, I am sure you’ll have no trouble keeping her in line.”
No. I could not “have” Carolyn. Not under any circumstances. Having Carolyn near me would mean that she would be closer to danger, closer to harm, and I needed to do everything in my power to keep that from happening. And not only would Carolyn be closer to harm, she would also be closer to me, which was unacceptable.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from falling in love with her again. And falling in love would destroy everything.
Besides, Adric had been the one to demand that I send her away. He had known the weakness of my heart, seen that Carolyn stood at the center of it. Why did he want, all of the sudden, for the two of us to reunite?
Did he believe that I would hurt Carolyn? That the dark magic in my heart would be enough to tear her and I apart forever? If he believed that, then he was a bigger fool than I’d originally believed.
“But brother. You were the one who—”
“The future is always changing, Anatole.” Adric tapped his temple, the universal sign for I can read the future, so don’t even try to test me. “Always in motion. Perhaps you would do well to not question the wisdom of the king who holds that future in his hands. Take the girl. Break her. Show her how the Velkin treat humans.”
Woosh. Before I could even mutter my reply—“As you wish, my King.”—Adric was gone in a puff of green smoke, tinted with the golden sparks that always came with fresh magic.
When I finally glanced back at Carolyn, who hadn’t said a word during our interaction with Adric, I could sense that this time, her shivers weren’t from the cold of the dungeons. It was from having seen him again.
I didn’t blame her. Any encounter with my brother now left me with that same shaken, uncertain feeling, one that permeated all the way down to my bones. But I couldn’t let her see that. Couldn’t let her know that she wasn’t alone.
Instead, I magicked away the lock on the cell, opened the door wide, and reached for the pair of binder restraints nearby. The thought of putting the woman I loved in chains was enough to confirm the one thought I’d had about myself from the beginning. I am a monster.
“Come along now.”
Chapter Five
Carolyn
I couldn’t get over how different the castle looked. When I’d first arrived in Velkin for the first time to begin my studies—what seemed like a lifetime ago—I’d been intimidated, sure. But still, there had been real magic here. Not just the kind that Queen Freia wielded, but the kind that the poets played with. The sort of stuff that inspired awe and wonder in your heart. I hadn’t been able to get over the sight of the creature in the lake or the way plates and goblets magically refilled themselves while you studied or the music of the sirens during choir practice.
Now? There was magic, alright. But the kind of magic a Disney villain tossed around when they wanted to murder infants or set a dragon loose. It was beautiful, in its own dark way. All of the enchanted, stained-glass windows had been replaced with cursed onyx, which glistened and glinted in the steady dark green glow of the torches that hung from every wall. Instructional tapestries and living portraits of Velkin’s most important historical figures had been replaced with roaming-eye paintings and statues of dragons and Snavidkas. The darkness had a kind of alluring beauty to it, the kind of beauty you could get lost in if you looked too close and allowed it to draw you in.
It was the kind of beauty that Anatole had always had. Now, in the black, green, and gold uniform of his brother’s banner men, which was made of velvet and leather and broad gold tassles, he looked like a demon at the gates of Hell, luring me closer and closer to my own doom with his roguish good looks and his charming scowl.
Before all of this happened, I would have teased him about that scowl. I would
have made fun of the way that the shadows sunk into the circles beneath his eyes and tried to emulate the tension knotted between his eyebrows. I would have tried to make him laugh, or at least tried to make him crack that woeful, dark expression in any way that I could.
Today, though, I walked beside him in chains. And I knew that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him by pointing out how ridiculous he looked.
I also knew, though, that I’d been quiet for too long. My tongue itched to say something, to say anything that might try and kickstart conversation between us. I hated him. I loved him. I wanted him. I despised him. But most of all, I needed to know how we could move forward. What could a little, stupid, inconsequential human like me say or do to move the heart of the second most powerful man in all of the realm?
I needed to get moving because if I didn’t, then everyone was going to suffer. All because I didn’t have the courage to see this thing through.
“Things are very different now, I see,” I finally said, breaking the silence between us.
To my surprise, Anatole didn’t tell me to be quiet, human or anything like that. Instead, he continued to lead me up the familiar walk towards his chambers. “Yes. Very different.”
“Not just the towers or the halls,” I continued. “But everything.”
“Indeed. Everything.”
The muscles in his clenched jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything further. I wondered if it hurt him, scowling so tightly like that for so long, but I didn’t dare to ask. I only followed him up, up, up, and up through the hallways and the terraces of the castle until we reached his Royal chambers.
Things in here had changed, too. Different drapes. Shattered ornaments and talismans. Flickering candles and torches in the new green style that seemed to pervade the castle. But it wasn’t until he slammed the door closed behind him with a sickening thud that I realized just how much things had changed.
“So, it looks like you’re stuck with me,” I said, weakly, trying to entice him to speak again.
Once that door slammed behind him, he leaned against it, letting out a long breath and closing his eyes. Carefully, he moved his hands in an intricate, unknowable pattern, his fingers leaving trails of gold-green magic in their wake.
A binding spell? I didn’t know much about magic, but when the door itself glowed with the magic he’d just moved into the world, it was the only explanation I could think of.
Then, he turned his eyes and his locked jaws and his beautiful, frowning lips upon me. It was the most alive I’d seen him look in the entire time since my return. “I don’t know whether to send you away this instant or kiss you.”
My breath stuck. My jaw dropped. What? When I finally realized that I had, indeed, heard him say those words and hadn’t, as I’d at first worried, completely imagined it, I found my voice to speak.
“I beg your pardon?”
He let out a dry scoff, almost rolling his eyes as he tossed off his emerald coat and slipping out of his boots, leaving him only in breeches and a loose tunic. “That’s always been my trouble, hasn’t it? Not knowing whether to remove you out of my life or keep you close. I’ve always wanted you too much for my own good.”
I struggled to keep up with this turn; even worse, I struggled to keep up with my own rampaging emotions, which swung wildly between hope and want and despair and anger. He wanted me? That was a laugh. A real riot. Someone who loved me and wanted me wouldn’t have left me to rot back on Earth, wouldn’t have said everything he’d said to me when he did leave. My body revolted as he came close. I flinched, but nearly relaxed when I realized he was only close to magic me free of the chains.
“Want me? You banished me to Earth. You told me you could never love a human,” I hissed.
Memories of that moment—of his cold dismissal, of the way he turned his back on me and vowed never to love me as long as he could live—still burned me, as fresh as if it were happening right now. I tried to block out the pain, but it kept coming back in rushes.
Anatole, for his part, merely glanced around, then pressed his hand into the small of my back, leading me through the long center of his bedchamber.
“The walls have ears here. Come.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just through here.”
He led me towards a giant door, carved with a river scene. I’d seen doors like this before in Velkin, the enchanted kind. Usually, the creatures and wildlife carved into these scenes moved and played, bringing their pictures to life. In one of these sorts of doors, I would have expected to see carved fish gleefully listing out of the water or otters bathing in the spray. I would have expected the trees to dance in a non-existent breeze. I would have expected the frogs to hop playfully through the reeds.
Nothing moved. The magic at the core of Castle Bloc had been corrupted at its deepest, most basal levels. All of the good that had once been in the very wood and grain and stone here was now in deep, deep hiding.
I didn’t blame the light magic for doing that. If I thought there was any way for me to hide from everything I was currently facing, I probably would, too.
What disturbed me even more, though, was when the door swung open, revealing a grand bathroom, filled with every luxury and refinery that anyone—Velkin or Human—could want. A deep, claw-foot tub. Wash basins. And even, in the corner, surrounded by rocks, something that looked suspiciously like a shower.
That’s where Anatole was leading me. My stomach dropped as he retreated from my side, waved his hand once, and immediately sent the warm water spring pouring down over the rock enclosure. That’s when I realized. He was going to make me get in there. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The thought of being trapped under a hot, steamy shower with the man I very clearly still had feelings for…it was too much, even for me. I could already feel a hot flush blooming across my collarbones.
“You’re not going to make me—”
“Come along.”
There wasn’t any room for argument or discussion. As he pulled me towards the hot spray, I managed to slip out of my shoes so those, at least, wouldn’t get dirty.
At first, the warm rainfall above me was comforting. After being in the dark and dirty and freezing cold dungeons, this warmth and refreshing cleanliness loosened the knots in my muscles and forced me to temporarily close my eyes just to enjoy the feeling.
But then, when I opened them again and saw Anatole standing there, beneath the running water with me, his white tunic clinging to his broad shoulders and revealing every one of the muscles in his torso, I remembered why we were here. Not to make me feel better, but so that he could find the one escape from the tyrant currently running roughshod over this castle and all of its people.
I understood that there were dangers in going against Adric, but the thought of Anatole caving to his brother so thoroughly almost disgusted me. He’d let the man lock me in the dungeon, and now, we were being forced to speak under the spray of a shower because he didn’t want to be overheard?
Stepping back so I was out of the direct spray, I spoke again, all of the emotions flooding out of me in a big heap. The hot water only agitated my already piqued mood. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe this. We’re hiding in a shower because you’re afraid of your big, bad, baby brother.”
“It’s not as simple as all that,” Anatole replied, something torn about his gaze.
“Then explain it to me. In small words, so a stupid human like me could understand,” I spat back.
“You are infuriating, you know that.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told that once or twice.”
“Anything I tell you now could be incredibly dangerous to you. It could put your life at risk.”
Oh, so you dragged me into the shower so you could say sorry, I can’t actually tell you anything? I wasn’t buying that, and I certainly wasn’t going to accept it. Anatole and I were supposed to be in this together, and if my life was at risk, then I needed every tool I possibly could get
my hands on to get myself out of risk.
Besides, my heart needed to know what he’d meant when he’d said he wanted me too much for his own good. Selfish and stupid as it was, I needed to know the truth. Even if that truth broke me in the end.
“Well considering that I’m here, as your property, under the reign of some crazy, evil king, then it seems like my life is already at risk.”
“Yes, and that’s why I did everything in my power to keep you safely on Earth.”
His eyes blazed. The water clinging to his body dripped down his face like new, fresh tears. I balked. Safely on Earth? What the Hell was that supposed to mean?
“…I beg your pardon?”
Despite the fact that we were safely protected here from prying ears, his voice lowered and his intensity only grew. “Do you really believe that, for even a moment, I stopped loving you? That you could be plucked from my heart so easily?”
“You…” I tried to put the pieces of this puzzle together in my head, but no matter how I turned the pieces, I couldn’t get them to fit. “You told me you didn’t want me.”
“Because my brother threatened your life. He wanted you gone, and he told me that if I didn’t send you away, that you would be his first victim. I am sorry that I couldn’t protect you more. I am sorry that you’ve come back. I do not know what I will do if something happens to you now. If I can’t stop him from hurting you.”
I almost choked on my own emotions. Anatole had never stopped loving me. Never once stopped feeling for me. In fact, he’d broken his own heart in an attempt to save me. It had been a foolish and misguided attempt, but still…at least I knew now that he hadn’t just fallen out of love with me.
“You did it to protect me,” I muttered, more of a question than a statement.
“It was the only recourse I saw. I don’t want him to hurt you now, Carolyn. We will have to play this game extremely carefully if you are to remain safe. You really shouldn’t have come here.”
Oh, please. As if I was going to run away when the universe and the life of the man I loved was at stake. If he’d thought that of me, then he clearly didn’t know me as well as I thought he had.
Magic Captive: A Supernatural Academy Romance (The Velkin Royal Academy Series Book 2) Page 4
