I couldn’t breathe. Tears welled up in my eyes and I held still—praying to any god who was left to listen to either take the pain away or let me die.
I can take those off if they hurt you.
Tears trickled down my cheeks. If only that voice in my head, no doubt the memory of Avi, could act on the pain. That’s all I needed. I needed it to end.
“Are you okay?”
I couldn’t speak at first. Sucking in a deep breath, I exhaled through my mouth and tried to reign my feelings in. Keep it together. My voice shook; it betrayed me. “I’m fine.”
“Doubtful.”
“I just won’t do that again.” I leaned back on my heels, quickly running the heel of my hand across my cheeks to wipe away the tears. Dried blood was caked underneath the cuffs; I ignored it. “Lesson learned.”
For a moment, his eyebrows weren’t knitted down into a frown; they were cocked upward, almost like he was concerned. The expression disappeared almost as fast as I’d noticed it. He huffed into his hair and carefully combed his bangs to the side. “We’re late, thanks to you.”
I dug my forearms into my knees and hoisted myself upward. It was awkward and I knew I looked like some kind of clumsy bird, but I was upright. He waited for me to cross the threshold before slamming the door behind us, then started walking down the hallway. No comment, nothing more than a glare in my general direction. Just walking.
The prince must like his pancakes.
I bit back a grin. No doubt he’d be as angry as hell if he knew my running commentary of him. I didn’t care. He was handsome and sexy and he knew it. He also looked pissed off all the time and had the demeanor of an angry boar, which wasn’t hot and, frankly, disgusted me. I’d rather slam my hands into the floor a thousands times and suffer through the pain than have him touch me.
One night down, a lifetime to go.
His strides were long and I had to hustle after him, almost breaking into a run a few times. At the bottom of the staircase, he rounded around to the right side and straight through a set of double doors: the dining room.
That almost seemed to quaint a phrase for what was in front of me. The room was narrow, with a high, domed ceiling. The dome itself was missing several plates of stained glass and, through the gaps, I could see the planks of a room or roof over it. The table beneath was ornately carved, dark wood; the chairs matched and looked ridiculously uncomfortable, with high, tiered embellishments on the straight backs. There were enough chairs for at least twelve people, but the only souls there were Tobias and Meleri.
I inwardly groaned. Great.
Meleri was on her feet almost as soon as Asher walked into the room. She grabbed his arm and yanked his wrist close to her face—I saw the heavy bracelet around his forearm.
And she looked infuriated. “You didn’t lay with her?”
“Mere, I barely know her.”
“That doesn’t matter, Asher, we bought her for you to source energy out of her; she’s a witch, son, she’ll keep you alive. Tobias.” Still holding on to Asher’s arm, she dramatically flailed backwards and glared at her husband. “Talk sense into this boy. He needs to lay with her.”
“He’s not a boy, he’s a man. He’s twenty-three.” He crammed a flat piece of bread into his mouth and chewed loudly, smacking his lips together. Then, around the wad of dough, he said, “A man’s body has a life of its own, but sometimes it just won’t work on command like that.”
Asher’s face was flushed bright red. I almost—almost—felt sorry for him, having his manhood called into question. By his parents. God, that made it worse. He looked like he was ready for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.
He tried to cover his embarrassment with a cough. “Da, I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“She’s attractive. Isn’t she? Isn’t this what you like?” Tobias gestured at me, flicking breadcrumbs all over my skirt. “Show him your legs again, girl, those tight thighs.”
Asher swept his arm out in front of me, blocking me from his parents. “No, Da, don’t make her do that. The way she looks isn’t the point; god, why can’t you just let me get energy myself? There are other ways; sourcing it from whores isn’t the only answer these days.”
Umm…..
“And those ways will get you thrown in Ashgate. Is that what you want? You want to go to a work camp and send me right to my grave?” Meleri drooped her head down and slumped her shoulders. Tobias moved to her side; she waved him away, covering her face with a cloth napkin. “Your brothers and sister are gone, Asher, and you do this to me? You’re all I have left. My youngest, my baby.”
What. The. Fuck.
I turned my head slightly to the right and looked at Asher. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, grinding his sock covered toes into the floor. I could see the irritation in his eyes; the grimace he was trying to hide from his parents. He was twenty-three. And and still their baby.
Just tell them no. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he lost that look on his face like he was being guilted into knocking a nest full of eggs from a tree. He was a man. He was an adult and what he needed to do was tell them his sex life wasn’t any of their business.
He mumbled, “I’ll try again.”
I rolled my eyes.
Meleri’s head snapped up and she opened her arms to him, her smile so sickly sweet that I had to look away. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. “That’s my sweet boy. Now, sit down. We have oysters, watermelon, chocolate, avocado, and asparagus. Here’s a plate. Fill it.”
I remembered as a young teenager hiding in a bookstore with my best friend Kat, who I was sure was long dead, and reading a men’s magazine. The article was about the things that make men horny and I was almost positive she’d received the same damn list. Maybe humans and fae had some similarities after all.
As I watched Asher fill his plate with watermelon, chocolate, and a very, very small piece of asparagus, I realized there was no place setting for me. Aside from the setups in front of Meleri and Tobias, there was only one other ridiculous layouts of two plates, three glasses, and…five, no six, separate utensils.
I swallows hard. So, I wasn’t invited.
Asher sat down next to his father and lifted his water glass to his lips. His eyes met mine.
I looked away.
“Where’s her plate?” He scowled again, setting his cup down with such force that the water sloshed over the rim.
Meleri and Tobias exchanged a glance. She said, “She doesn’t have one.”
“What do you mean, she doesn’t have one?”
“It’s simple, my dear.” She sliced through a thin piece of meat and held her fork out daintily, as if she considered her fingers too delicate to be forced to lift the food to her lips. “Our world is dying. Our greenhouse and barns will only last us so long and we have to be mindful. We need to remember all of our staff, especially those who have been with us for so long.”
He picked his fork up and then promptly set it down. “You’re going to starve her.”
“I never said that.”
“She needs to eat.” He picked up his fork again and held it above his plate like he was poised to spear a piece of food. “She can’t service me if she’s too weak to move.”
“And she will eat, eventually, but not from our table.”
“Mere—“
“Asher, this is the way it has always been. Once she has proved she can provide what you need,” Meleri glanced at me, her upper lip curling in obvious disgust, “she can sit at our table. Until then, she’ll wait.”
Tears sprang into my eyes. I tried to blink them away, but they trickled down my face unabated. I’d done nothing wrong; I hadn’t asked to come here.
Yet I was still being punished.
****
I stood beside the doors for the entire duration of their breakfast: through discussion of the temperature of cows udders to the indifferent discussion of the storm. The pain in
my head and wrists was enough to distract me, but from what I could determine, the temperature was dropping. They were making preparations to seal the house.
Asher’s expression never changed while his parents yammered back and forth. I lost track of time; he never once spoke. Around the time I’d convinced myself that he’d been chewing the same sliver of asparagus for almost five minutes, he looked up at me. He said, “Go back to my room.”
I glanced behind me at first, startled that after so long, someone remembered I existed and wasn’t actually a statue.
When I didn’t respond, he pounded his fist into the table. The china shook; silver utensils clanked off of plates and cups. “I said, fucking go upstairs and wait for me in the bedroom.”
I cursed under my breath but turned, shuffling out of the dining room and back into the great hall. Yeah, find your bedroom. Easier said than done: there were a million rooms in this house, it seemed, and I wasn’t entirely sure that things weren’t moving around when I looked away. It was possible. Maybe his room was in an entirely different wing of the house now.
The hallways seemed darker and longer this time, without his broad shouldered, long haired frame in front of me. There were so many closed doors; so many rooms. It seemed like other than Tobias, Meleri, Asher, and Nerys, the house was deserted. What was the purpose of the other rooms?
I was half-tempted to throw a door open and peek inside, but I was more afraid of someone finding me alone in the hallway. Asher—or worse yet, his parents—and I didn’t want more conversation or suggestions on how I should ‘service him.’ I didn’t care.
So I kept walking.
The maze wasn’t as unnavigable as I’d deemed it and, in fact, it was actually kind of easy to find his room. It was a door separated from the rest—either because, at some point, someone had deemed him different or because his room was so large that he needed to be set off from the rest.
Everything was as we’d left it: his sketchbook was on the bed, his pen on top of it, and I had nothing. No comfortable place to sit, no blankets. No food or water.
Part of me wondered if this was hell. The other part of me knew it wasn’t, since Soleil wasn’t here to annoy me.
I sank down to my knees in front of the fireplace, holding my hands out to the flame in an effort to warm up. The cold here was different than back at home. It wasn’t so much a feeling, but an oily, oppressive force that settled down on your skin and sank down through the layers and bone. I hated it.
There was little about this world that I didn’t hate. Faction 3, Serata; whatever the fuck it was.
With my palms facing the fire and a few moments of stillness, I had a good look at the backs of my wrists. The lace and leather was stained with blood. Even a gentle backward flex of my hands sent a bolt of pain through my hand and I clenched my teeth together until my jaw throbbed. Jesus. It wasn’t like any other pain I’d ever experienced. I’d broke my ankle running when this all started—Soleil mended it—but it was nothing compared to this. I’d walked on that shattered bone.
This was like death’s final sting, over and over again. It would probably be less painful to saw my hands off myself.
I cringed. I was ready to do it, I was ready to face the blood loss and the horror of it—if it meant the pain would all go away.
The bedroom door creaked open and then, after a beat, slammed shut. The door frame rattled, the reverberations clattering a wooden frame on the wall. The little prince had no manners. Jesus. He was like some kind of awkward goat trying to perform ballet.
I could hear his sock feet padding across the floor behind me. He didn’t say anything.
Fine. I didn’t want to talk to him either.
I turned my attention back to my wrists. I could see a purplish-blue bruise spreading across each hand and the soft curve of swelling; at least the bleeding stopped. It was clotted against the lace on my left side…great. That was going to be a bitch when it broke free.
“Are you hungry?”
I jumped. He was quiet for so long I assumed he was doing something else—like minding his own business. Obviously not. Turning slightly, I said, “Yeah.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
What was this, a quiz? I stared at him. “I have no fucking clue. Sometimes they gave us bread and this weird, pasty oatmeal. Sometimes they didn’t.”
“You’re thin.”
“Where I come from, that’s a compliment.”
“Not here. Here, if you’re too small, you don’t survive.” He unwrapped a cloth napkin and held it out to me. “Here. You need your strength.”
He’d brought the avocado, chocolate, and some cheese back for me. While the gesture was kind, my arms were throbbing at the thought of having to handle the food. Peel the avocado. I shuddered.
Asher scowled, yanking the food away from me. “What, is our food not good enough for you?”
“What the fuck is the matter with you? I never said that.” I held my wrists out to him. “You think I want to peel an avocado like this? I can’t even move my fingers without it hurting.”
His jaw went slack and, for a moment, the scowl disappeared. “You’re bleeding?”
“Not anymore.” I turned my wrists to examine them; I immediately regretted it. The tug of my skin was like running fingernails down a fresh, red sunburn. Tears sprang into my eyes. “Why are you doing this to me?”
He didn’t respond.
I snorted and struggled to my feet. “Well, great. Nice talk. You know, if you’re so disgusted by having me near you, why don’t you just kill me? Put me out of my misery.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Oh, well, heaven forbid we give the little prince something to do that isn’t easy.” Fuck me. I hadn’t meant to say my nickname for him out loud. “It’s easy to kill…sometimes too easy.”
“You’r only alive because I can source energy from you.” He sneered, his pink, full lips curling up in obvious disgust. “You could have gone to an energy brothel. See how they treat you.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Do you want some kind of prize for that? Gentle Asher, the witch whisperer. Oh, yes, I’m grateful to you. You took me away from my world, my family. The only people I loved.”
My voice broke. Avi and Soleil were gone—because of people like Asher. People who put themselves up on a pedestal, with their entitlement and their selfishness. We weren’t given a choice. We were taken.
“You’re worthless to me.” He spit at me. “I just need your body, I don’t need the rest of you—I hate your kind. They should have burned you when they had the chance.”
“Oh, well, good. I hate you too, so we have that in common. You fucking fae. It seems to me nature is just slowly killing off your useless kind—“
He lunged forward and grabbed me by the throat, slamming me up against the wall. I pawed at his forearms, but couldn’t bring myself to actually hold onto him. My fear of the pain in my wrists was overwhelming.
He dipped his head near mine, his breath hot against my face. His grip on my neck tightened. “I’ll have you, whenever I want you. I’ll do it however pleasures me the most and I’ll get what I need from you—whether you like it or not. I don’t care who you think you are. I own you.”
I opened my mouth to respond but then closed it. There was no point: he’d win every time. He was right; he owned me. I was just another commodity in Serata. My only value came from what I could give, not who I was. My eyes burned with hot tears and I looked away from him, dropping my gaze down to the floor just beyond his heavily tattooed arm.
He loosened his grip on my throat and dropped his hands to my shoulders, almost as if he was steadying me.
And then he walked away.
Twenty-Four
As I child, I’d thrived on routine. I liked doing the same things, at the same time, every day. Wake up. Pee. Brush teeth. Eat breakfast. Catch school bus. School. Catch school bus. Home. Homework. Dinner. Free time. Bed. There was something alw
ays supremely satisfying to me, knowing that I’d completed all my tasks every day. In high school, I was a list maker. That’s how I managed to keep track of my studies and graduate near the top of my class, despite spending most of my time just off school grounds fucking Vaughn.
After almost a week of living in the Coulthurst mansion, I figured out what their routine was: three meals a day, pretending to be ostentatious and rich and important, and then the rest of the time filled meandering around the house. Or, as in Asher’s case, sitting in his room scowling. Nobody did anything or seemed to have any ambition. Just sit and exist.
I’d overheard him arguing with his mother one day, about how he felt he should be allowed to drive into town and meet his friends. Time away, he called it, when he didn’t have to worry about keeping me happy or making his parents proud.
I snorted, trying to hide my laughter. Yeah, keeping me happy. Because he was so talkative—in reality, he avoided me like I had a communicable disease. Every now and then, I’d find myself watching him, taking in the cut and definition of his jaw bone. His eyes would meet mine—
And he’d look away.
The only good thing about the passage of the first week was that his parents seemed to relax; that is, they embraced the fact I wasn’t going to destroy them or the house with my powers. Either that, or they figured out just how useless a witch I actually was—so much for spending the remainder of their vast fortune on a harbinger or death and destruction. They got a pale girl with hair too dark for her complexion and the ability to do things that amounted to nothing more than parlor tricks.
Considering their expectations, they probably would have been better off buying Soleil.
I edged closer to the fireplace and tilted my face towards the flames. The warmth washed over me and I breathed it in. The smokey, bitter smell of ashen logs and the tingle of char made my eyes water, but it was a sensation. A feeling. I’d felt nothing but pain for the last day and, though it was a reminder I was still alive, I wanted it to end.
My wrists throbbed. Whatever it was anchoring the stone to my flesh didn’t just ache anymore, it was agony. Every movement was torture. I’d spent the morning with my arms drawn and twisted into my abdomen; anything I could do to keep the cuffs from shifting.
Claimed: Faction 3: The Isa Fae Collection Page 20
