by Ella Fields
“I’m not sleeping,” I said. “Not in here.”
“Scared?” he goaded with pouting lips.
A bang sounded, and I straightened.
The king didn’t so much as remove his eyes from me and remained where he was as Zad’s voice, faint, as though he were underwater, echoed from out in the hall.
More banging—like thunder striking a tree.
“Go to him,” Ryle said, a careful caress. “I dare you.”
I’d placed one foot in front of the other when my desperate heart made room for my brain to absorb the king’s warning.
I closed my eyes. Reopening them, I marched to the king’s bed and grabbed a black-furred pillow.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I hurried from the bedchamber and into the bathing room, my rage a fire climbing higher with each bang on the door outside. “To sleep.” Then I locked myself inside, knowing it was futile. If the king sought entry, entry he would have.
Even so, the barrier gave a modicum of comfort inside the lair of a monster darkness-bent on giving me none.
Night pressed through the small oval window in the bathing room.
My back ached almost as much as the stupid thing in my chest, but I rose, stretching it out as a hummed tune from outside entered my sleep-addled brain.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept for, but I was willing to wager, based on how awful I felt, that it wasn’t very long. I’d lain there, curled up inside the large tub, the pillow beneath my cheek, as Zad’s banging slowly abated. It seemed to take hours, and I loathed to think of what his hands looked like today.
Tonight, I mentally corrected, remembering a verse so often read from a book as a child. They slept beneath the burning sun and awoke beneath the dancing stars.
Other memories of Zadicus reading to me upon the roof of his manor, beside me in bed, and in the armchair near the fire came crashing in. All tales that hinted at his true self, nudging, avoiding... His hands would be fine, I reminded myself with my teeth gritting. For he was more than royal.
He was a stray faerie prince.
Using what appeared to be some type of brush made from dried thistle, I scrubbed my teeth and drank some mint-flavored water that’d been sitting in a small decanter on the vanity.
Afterward, I stared at the pale cream of my skin, the sharper rise of my cheekbones, and the harsh set of my jaw in the gilded mirror. Rummaging through a basket beneath the vanity, I found a wide-toothed comb, the cool metal warming in my fingers as I dragged it through my tangled hair.
There was nothing to tie it back with, so I let it fall around my shoulders and steeled them, facing the door.
On the other side, the king ceased his humming. His hands were tucked in the velvet pockets of his green pants, a matching cloak thrown haphazardly over his shoulders. The warm spring evening meant he had no need for it, which was evident given his bare chest. And it made me hate him just that little bit more.
“Sleep well?”
“Indeed.”
His brow rose as did the corner of his lips. “You know, I could force you to join me in my bed.”
“You could try,” I said, tone crisp. “But you would fail, and we both know you loathe failure.”
He eyed me for a moment, then straightened, stepping far too close in half a breath.
It took considerable effort to keep my breathing normal. The last thing I wanted was to hint that he unnerved me in any way even though he knew he did. It was highly possible that he unnerved everyone in the same vicinity as him.
“I must admit I’ve been wondering.” Touching a tendril of my hair, he watched the inky strand curl around his finger. “Why in the darkness my dear brother would ever mate with such a cruel beauty.”
I ignored the urge to swallow, biting my tongue.
“Then while I lay awake in the late afternoon hours, I remembered something.” A humorous huff stirred my hair as he lifted it to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Zadicus always did love his fruit. Grapes, apples, lime, lemons...” His eyes sank into mine. “The bittersweet and the oh, so sour.”
I offered a forced smile, my lips tight. Then I forced them apart to murmur, “How lovely. Now that he is here, shall we get to the reason as to why, so we can all move on with our lives?”
My hair slithered through his long, milk-white fingers, and at the last second, he caught the loose curl between them and pulled.
The loss tingled at my scalp for scalding moments. Strands of dark hair lay spilled over the floor, but he merely smiled before throwing open the door leading out into the hall.
In his absence, I stared at the hair for a beat, my chest rising with that ever-climbing fury. It longed to be unleashed, to howl through the halls and tear down his towering wood and onyx nightmare.
Not yet, I told myself.
Half breed. I’d seen only a measure of what the king was capable of, and my magic, as chaos-inducing as it could be, was no match.
The words thumped into the back of my clenched teeth. Not yet.
This hallway appeared different, lighter. Holes in the ceiling, thatched with what looked to be grass and glass, lit the sloping tile and the paintings on the wall. Inside the scratched and marred frames were images of beings I did not recognize. Small depictions of fluttering faeries upon a hillside and wild seas kept me company on the way to the stairs outside a smaller turret at the slopes end.
Where Zad had made off to, I didn’t know.
Nowhere, I realized, when a hand grasped mine before I could place a foot upon the first step.
I was hauled into the shadows against the doorway to whatever lay inside the other turret behind the stairs, its etched wood beneath my palm as I steadied myself and pulled away.
Wild-eyed with mussed hair rocking against his jaw, he licked his lips. “Are you okay?”
“Did you sleep?”
He shook his head, his gaze surveying my body and the dress I was still wearing from last night. “Did he touch you?”
“Did you wait outside his rooms all day?”
“Of course, I did,” he said as though there was nothing else he ought to have done instead, like rest, plan, and preserve his energy so we could get the fuck home.
I tried to contain it, tried to push it down and let it simmer rather than boil into a rage that sharpened every word. “Get your hand off me.”
As he released me, Zad’s eyes flashed with hurt, and he said again, “Did he touch you?”
“Let’s just find out what he wants.”
“Audra,” he barked as I turned to walk away.
“Enough,” I hissed, whirling on him. “It’s because of you we are here. Because of your secret deceit. So whatever happens as a result of that is on you.”
Jaw granite, he glared, tendrils of auburn hair snaking over his cheek and a gold eye. “Did he force you to do anything?”
That he was so concerned about whether his brother had me in his bed, more so than what he himself had done to me... “Let your imagination fill in the blanks. I care not.”
He snatched my hand again upon the top step, his eyes wild once more. “You think you can attempt to stab me in the chest and then just walk away?”
I did something I hadn’t dared to before, that I never thought myself capable of when it came to this male, and threw him back into the wall on a gust of snow-crusted wind.
I hadn’t meant for him to hit it hard enough to shake, dust crumbling, or for him to curse in pain as he crumpled on the floor. But it had become too much. This insidious clenching inside my chest, the barbs that pressed and retreated repeatedly, and the rage that begged to be given an outlet—it was lucky I didn’t accidentally kill him.
I swallowed knives before remembering that, of course, I couldn’t do that.
He was a faerie prince, his uncovered deception revealing all the many ways I’d been a fool. Especially, looking back, as I’d once dared to protect him from Raiden’s rage and the danger that could befall him sh
ould Raiden find out what the lord of the east, this prince in hiding, meant to me. That we’d linked.
My love for him had me willing to ache for what seemed an eternity until I found a way for us to safely be together.
I laughed, no humor to the croaked sound. “You...” I started, my voice hoarse. “I tried to protect you, someone I, and everyone else in my kingdom, should have been protected from.”
He groaned, rising to his feet, his soiled tunic ripped and bloodied at the shoulder. “You never asked.”
“You think I thought to wonder if you were some rogue faerie, hiding within my lands?” I scoffed, wading down the stairs. “Either help me get out of here or stay out of my way as I do it myself.”
He said nothing else as I wound down the stairs and through the tunnel-like halls until I eventually came across a large dining room.
The king sat at a long, marble-topped table with a napkin tucked behind the tie of his cloak and covering little of his bare chest. The moon shrouded the top of the oval window behind his head, his dark hair unchanging beneath its light.
This was all a game, and I was but a chess piece, awaiting his next move.
Unless I decided to play.
Waving a silver spoon toward an empty place setting, Ryle grinned. “Do join me. You must be positively starved after all that dancing.”
I was, but he needn’t hear me admit it. He ate alone. No guards or advisors in sight. I had to wonder if the latter even existed in any of the royal courts of Beldine. Ryle lifted a spoonful of glazed berries to his mouth, chewing as he watched me approach the seat at the opposite end.
I made myself some tea, the gold liquid pouring out of a fat cream teapot inlaid with porcelain bows. The aroma was right and wrong at the same time. Black tea, but with pungent leaves that dissolved inside the small teacup. It was heady, that scent, and I knew I’d be ruined for all tea once I took a sip.
That did not stop me. I lifted it to my lips, ignoring the satisfied curl to Ryle’s as I withheld a moan. Lowering the teacup, I reached for a muffin overloaded with raisins and frosted sugar.
The plate towered with them, and behind and to the right, a bowl of boiled eggs, larger than any I’d seen before, steamed the air. A giant bowl of whole fruit sat in the center of the table and on the other side, a fruit salad. Oatmeal with what smelled like cinnamon sat to my left, and I tugged it over, heaping a spoonful onto my plate. “All this food,” I said. “And you eat alone.”
“You are here, and that is plenty enough.” He sipped some tea. “Besides, I don’t like to share.”
“So you’d rather people starve?”
“Not at all. I merely do not wish to always be in their presence while they eat.”
I eyed his napkin, then his bare chest. “It is spring. What good is the cloak?”
“Rude. I should have your tongue,” he drawled, teeth flashing, “around the tip of my cock.”
I coughed, sending a piece of muffin flying onto the pressed white table linen.
He laughed so genuinely, his eyes watered. Swiping at them, he said, “Oh, you are just such good company. I knew I wouldn’t mind dining with you. In fact, I think I might want to keep you a while.”
“I would rather you didn’t,” I said. “I have a kingdom to rule, and we will likely run into some... issues should I not return home to do just that.”
Ryle plucked up his fork and checked his teeth in the gleaming metal. “Ah, a continent now, is it not?” He lowered the fork, his eyes bright and dancing. “What is it like, being married to a fire-breathing brat while also having a prince of Faerie as your mate?” He clucked his tongue. “So delicious indeed. Why, I ought to have you in my bed to raise the stakes even higher.”
Zadicus chose that moment to enter the room. “You touch her, and we will have more than a dying realm to deal with.”
Ryle, with his sparkling black and gold eyes, stared at me as he said, “Brother dearest, I fear there’s not enough room at the table for you. The kitchen staff will be happy to cater to your beastly appetite, though, I’m sure.” At my raised brow, the High King slapped a hand upon the table, cutlery jangling. “You’ve not heard?”
In response, I shoveled oatmeal into my mouth, expecting to need to force it down. The cinnamon and oats exploded over my tongue, and I felt my eyes widen.
Ryle chuckled. “I hear the sex is better here, too. Just ask your lord.”
Zad growled from behind me and then plucked me from the chair. “Enough.”
“Why, he used to revel in our festivities. Females from all over would flock to our gatherings in hopes of landing upon his giant cock,” Ryle said. “There were only so many he could service in one night, though.”
“I said enough,” Zad stated with a lethal calm that shook the table, food crumbling into dust before my eyes.
Swallowing, I moved out of Zad’s hold.
Even Ryle looked as shocked as I felt, his narrowed eyes taking it in. They then lifted with a careful menace to his brother. “I was only taking the piss,” he said with a smile that was less than pleasant. “No need for tantrums.”
My head was trying to make sense of it. How just three words could contain enough power, enough ire to turn things into nothing.
“You know what,” Ryle said, coming to his feet. “I am feeling rather generous. Take the evening to show your beloved our beautiful home.”
Zad’s suspicion mingled with my own. “I’ve no need for your kindness, and we both know it.” His words hinted that he knew his brother needed him more than he needed Ryle’s generosity.
“You understand what is to happen then.” Ryle grinned. “Wonderful. We need not rattle the foundation of our fortress with unnecessary bloodshed.”
Zad’s voice was glacial. “Do not try to deceive Audra into believing it is not bloodshed you so often desire most.”
“I daresay dear Audra already knows our kind love nothing more than to eat, fuck, play, and fight.” Looking at me, Ryle tilted his head. “Show her around, take her to your favored places for trickery and slaughtering and dismembering. Let her see the flowers that have sprouted from all the creatures you’ve killed.”
I was no stranger to the tales of this land, and I was beginning to think a lot of them held truth. But cruelty, savage brutality, was not something I was a stranger to either. “I’d love nothing more,” I purred, silken with intrigue.
The king let out a roar of laughter, and Zad stiffened beside me, the heat of his ire enveloping as his arm brushed mine.
Stopping mere feet from us, Ryle stared at his brother. Though similar in towering height, Zad stood perhaps half an inch taller. Tension flooded the room, making it hard to draw a breath that wasn’t loaded with their fizzing hatred. “Enjoy her, brother. But be warned, I’ll be watching while I wait.”
Zad lunged, but he caught only that thickened air and raked a hand through his filthy hair. So unkempt, so seemingly shaken to his core, I was struggling to keep hold of my reasons not to comfort him.
He’d betrayed me. He’d done so all the while promising he would not.
He’d sworn to stay by my side, and he had, but he’d also sworn he’d never deceive me as love had once done before, and he had. “I thought you couldn’t lie.”
As if remembering I was still there, his hand dropped, and his features softened. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Omitting the truth is the same thing. Do not deny it any longer.”
He reached for me, but I backed up, then turned for the doors. He followed, clasping my hand in his when I was about to take the stairs back to what I hoped was my own rooms.
“We need to talk without prying ears and eyes.”
“And if I do not wish to?” I said, petulant and uncaring.
We stopped at the bottom of another set of vine-wrapped stairs. His eyes darted left and right, and then he whispered, “As you said earlier, we need to get home, and we cannot figure that out here.”
I pulled my hand free.
“I’ll figure it out on my own.”
He shook his head, his eyes hardening. “Darkness’ sake, Audra, do you not understand yet?” I blinked at him, and he sighed. “You, we, are in way over our heads. This is not something we can walk away from unscathed.” He swallowed, lowering his voice as his evident fear got the better of him. “Please. I beg of you, just listen. You are upset, I know that, and I am deeply sorry, but I’m afraid all this may get worse before it has a chance to get better.”
Staring into his eyes, noting the remorse, the way his entire frame swelled as though it took everything within him not to reach for me and swallow me within his arms, I nodded. “Fine, but I do not forgive you.”
“I know,” he said, gesturing to a dark hallway.
I walked on ahead, admitting quieter than a whisper, “I worry I never will.”
Of course, he heard. His rough exhale stalked me. “I know.”
We walked three halls, passing guest and sitting rooms littered with lesser faeries, and one teeming with those warriors, and finally, the dark gave way to crickets, rushing water, and the night sky.
We exited via a low arched door. It opened into a giant garden with overflowing vegetables and fruit-heavy trees, their branches sagging with bright apples, pears, and lemons.
The grass did not crunch beneath the soles of my slippers. It pressed softly like carpet and tickled like feathers brushing against my ankles.
The thought had me wondering over those giant wings in the throne room, my chest unbearably tight.
Willows and sycamores soared above us, higher than they had any right to be, their glistening, moonlit branches and leaves swaying with the invisible tide of the wind.
Quiet at my side, Zad allowed me to take everything in without interruption. To the right, behind more giant trees and rows of vegetation, loomed giant rocks and cliffs, the spray of the waterfall littering the air and foliage with glowing beads.
We pressed on through the greenery, veering left, deeper into a small forest, its floor shrouded in rocks blanketed in a deep green moss. I stepped over some, my eyesight adjusting to the vibrant colors, the echoing cry of birds, and the sway of the ferns, lulling and calling.
