Pain Seeker (The New Orleans Shade Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed by his eyes and his fingers wrapped around my wrist. He was warm, too warm, and his strength was twice much as mine, even though my magic had used up all the energy of his body to heal him.

  His dry lips parted like he wanted to say something. Even though he didn’t, I felt like I’d already heard his voice.

  It kicked me out of my trance. I pulled my hand away from his with all my strength. His sweaty fingers slid over my skin more easily than I thought they would. I kept my head down and ran back to my place, working the lock of the chain around my ankle with my magic.

  I didn’t look up at the bed again. I didn’t allow myself to think about what he was going to do next. I just lay on the warm stone floor and closed my eyes.

  The sound of the hinges screeching when someone pushed the door open woke me up. The sun was up in the sky, which meant sunrise had been hours away. How long had I slept?

  Footsteps.

  “How are you feeling?”

  The sound of the tall fae’s voice rang in my ears.

  “Fine,” said the prince, and that one word had my heartbeat accelerating.

  Because he saw me the night before. He saw me leaning over him while he slept, and he probably thought…

  What did he think? Was he going to even bring it up? Because he’d seen me the first time through the window at the side of his door, and he hadn’t done anything about it. He’d just pretended like I hadn’t been there at all.

  “Yeah? Good. You could barely breathe last night. You were messed up. What the hell happened?” the tall fae said in a rush.

  The prince didn’t answer, but I heard him moving. The bed creaked when he stood from it, as if letting out a sigh of relief. I heard his naked feet connecting with the floor as he made his way toward me. I stood still, arm over half my face, shielding me.

  “War happened,” the prince said, and he was right over my head. “The elf soldiers had spells with them. Terran spells. Witch spells.”

  It made sense. Only magic could break a Heivar sword. Very powerful magic, too. It wasn't unheard of for elves to use Terran spells and potions. They came to us from the Sacri Guild, the authority that governed the magically powered mortals and immortals of Earth. The Guild gave us their magic only when we made agreements with them, offered them our services or goods or whatever they were interested in at the time. Until I’d been thrown away from my home, there had been no arrangement between elves and the Sacri Guild for at least the past ten years.

  Apparently, that had already changed.

  “Right. Why is she still here?” his friend asked, and he didn’t sound just curious. He was impatient, too. “What’s the point? Just kill her already. I’ll get rid of the body.”

  My chest squeezed once more.

  “Can you keep your mouth shut while I get dressed, or do you want me to kick you out?” said the prince, angrier than I’d ever heard him sound.

  “Fine,” his friend said, but he wasn’t happy.

  I didn’t move from the floor at all, just counted the seconds while the prince got dressed.

  “Let’s go. We need to talk,” he said to his friend, and they both walked out of the room.

  The door closed. I breathed a bit easier.

  Even though my magic was strong inside me, my body was still weak. I was so hungry that the rumbling of my stomach had gotten to my head. I lay down on my back and looked out at the sky, squinting my eyes at the sunrays that fell all over me. If I focused for long enough, I could imagine that I wasn’t here at all, a slave, but at home, in my father’s garden, lying on the grass, looking at the sky.

  But it wasn’t meant to be.

  When the door opened again, I had no choice but to sit up. I’d been lying on my back, and if I’d tried to cover my face again, he would have seen anyway. So, I didn’t bother.

  He came straight for me this time, and I jumped to my feet, pressing my back against one of the pillars of the windows.

  This is it, my mind whispered. This was the moment.

  But then I saw the cup and the leather bag in his hand. Food. He’d brought me food again.

  His eyes on my face were hotter than the sunrays. He put the cup and the food on the stool of the window, then went to his bed. He grabbed his pillow, the one he never slept on, on the right of his bed, and his blanket. He strode to me and pushed them into my hands, almost violently.

  And he just watched me.

  Impossible not to meet his eyes. Impossible not to notice how alive and well he looked. Healthy. My magic had worked wonders in his body. Even his skin glowed, though dried blood and dirt smeared his temples and the sides of his jaws still.

  What did he expect me to do with a pillow and a blanket? A pillow would have been nice for my head and my stiff neck, but I didn’t need it. It wasn’t a necessity. And if I kept any of it, except the food, I’d be admitting defeat. Submission.

  I turned around and threw both the pillow and the blanket out the window.

  This time, I felt no joy watching them floating toward the bottom. I only felt regret. And fear.

  But the fae laughed, just like he had the first time I threw his kindness out the window. He laughed, but he also pulled out his sword from his sheath.

  Pulling my hands into my fists, I raised my head.

  Chin up, taran, my father’s voice whispered inside my mind. I’d lived long enough. Now, I finally met my end.

  The prince raised his sword over his head.

  He brought it down again.

  On the chain that connected me to the room’s wall.

  My head spun. What was he doing?

  I nearly asked, the words at the tip of my tongue, as he brought his sword up again, and cut the chain close to my ankle. It wasn’t the blade that broke it, though. It was his magic, spreading in the air, perfectly invisible to the naked eye, and the metal of the chain steamed but not from heat. It was frozen completely, now as easy to break as a loaf of bread.

  The prince grabbed the broken chain and threw it out the window. Then, he leaned down on one knee in front of my feet and froze the lock around my ankle until it broke. He threw that out, too.

  In those moments, I didn’t breathe at all.

  “There. You never really needed those, did you?” he said, but he didn’t seem to be waiting for an answer this time. He simply sheathed his sword and looked at me, a wide, open smile on his face. So different from anything else I’d seen since the day I met him.

  “I’m Mace, by the way,” he said and pointed at the food on the window stool. “Eat up.”

  With that, he turned around and left the room.

  Chapter 11

  Night fell.

  I looked at the sky, at the ceiling, waiting. Always waiting. For my imaginary friend, for the fae, for death.

  Even though I was no longer chained to the wall, I didn’t move away from my place below the windows. The Shade kept me warm. I needed nothing else.

  Except food.

  Maybe it was my imagination playing tricks on me, but I got hungrier faster every time I ate. Or maybe it was the loneliness—all that time I had to think about…everything. My home, my room, my paintings, my friends…the people I’d called by that name once. Had I really been happy at some point in my life? Had I really had any motive to stand up?

  Because I could no longer remember. It felt like I’d always been this stripped of any positivity. This lost to myself.

  When the music on the other side of the door began, I couldn’t resist it. I knew what it meant—the fae were celebrating again. What else was there for me to do but watch them? So, I took one last look at the ceiling, at the window pillars to make sure Hiss wasn’t there, and I slowly made my way toward the door.

  With my legs under me, I sat in front of the windows to the left. The cold slipped into me instantly, and I had to press my palms against the floor, release my magic so that the Shade could warm me. And it did. With every new time I aske
d it, it gave me warmth faster, like it was already comfortable with me. And I was comfortable with it. Such a fascinating creature. I’d talked to it all day. I’d wished it could talk back just as long.

  When I leaned closer to the last window by the door, I saw the hall perfectly clearly, just like I had two nights ago. The image hadn’t changed that much, except there were twice as many fae men in there now, drinking and laughing and dancing. Also, three elf heads decorated the wall on the side of the bar, sticking out of pieces of wood that had turned black from the dried blood. My heart squeezed tightly. I looked at the faces, terrified I might recognize them, but it was impossible to. They were completely disfigured, covered in blood and dirt, and the only way to tell that they were elves was by the color of their hair.

  My stomach rolled at the sight once more, so I quickly looked away. There was nothing to throw up and dry heaving was going to take what little strength I had away from me.

  My eyes landed on the fae prince—Mace. The ease with which he’d given me his name made me think he’d lied until I remembered that Hiss had told me the same name. Which then made me wonder if Hiss might not be imaginary, after all.

  The prince sat at the same place as last time, his table a step higher than everyone else. This time, the fae woman who’d been on his lap sat next to him, and only his friend, the tall and skinny fae, joined them. He and the woman were talking while the prince watched them, his eyes moving from one face to the other every time they spoke. He held onto his cup again and spun it around, and for whatever reason, it felt to me like his attention was on the ale inside it, more so than in what was being said by his friends.

  I watched him pretend to smile and pretend to laugh, and I watched the other fae, all of them drunk, enjoying the night like they had no care in the world. Like they hadn’t murdered people—elf or otherwise—just the night before. Like three severed heads weren’t serving as decoration in the same place they ate.

  But they didn’t mind. They threw food at the elf heads every once in a while—and ale. They spit on them, danced around them, and at some point, one fae, the shortest of all his people, pulled off his trousers and tried to piss on them.

  He would have, if the heads weren’t so high. As it was, all he managed to do was piss on the floor and earn a nasty look from the prince. His hand waved to the side, and two other fae, both of them drunk, grabbed the short one by the arms and started dragging him toward the door.

  A fae woman with a bowl in her hand and a towel in the other rushed to the heads, to where the urine now drenched part of the wall and the floor. It wasn’t the same woman who’d cleaned the prince the night before, but if it wasn’t for the difference in hair color—this fae’s hair was a bit lighter—you could never tell them apart. Sisters, maybe cousins.

  My heart wept. I couldn’t think of a sadder thing in the worlds than men and women so used to war and death and blood that they rejoiced being part of it. All of them looked happy.

  But there was one man in the hall who wasn’t laughing out loud and screaming when he spoke and dancing over the benches and the tables. He sat closest to the door, cup in hand, and he did laugh and talk to the fae around him, but his eyes were alert. He was sober.

  And he watched the prince more intently than I did. He was fae, that much was obvious by his ears alone, yet in his face, there was hatred. There was disgust—and he couldn’t even see me. He was still looking at the prince.

  So did I, confused, sure that I was seeing things again. Fae didn’t hate fae. Fae hated elves.

  But the thought left my head when I found the prince looking right at me.

  Just like the first time, I froze. There was something about the way he looked at me that wiped my mind clean of thoughts until I remembered myself. It didn’t matter that he saw me now. He’d been the one to cut off my chains that same morning. He never told me to stay away from the door.

  But maybe he changed his mind?

  Because while he looked at me, he pushed his chair back and stood up. Both fae sitting with him looked up, confused. What was he doing?

  The fae moved, his eyes still on me. I did, too. I pushed myself back and dragged myself to the wall, to the windows, so scared for a moment that I forgot death was what I wanted. When I remembered, my back was already against the wall and a sigh left my lips. How much longer would I have to endure this?

  It didn’t take long for the door to open. The fae walked inside. His hands were full so he slammed the door shut with his foot. For a second, he was so silent, so perfectly still, that if I hadn’t seen his boots, I’d have wondered if I was alone. It was the reason why I looked at his face, wondering what would happen next.

  Never in a million years would I have been able to guess.

  The fae walked toward me, slowly. In one hand was the gas lamp, and it chased away the darkness in an instant when he left it on the floor, by my feet. In his other hand was a cup and two leather bags, exactly like the ones he always brought me that contained food. He put them down and sat on the floor, next to me, back turned to the wall.

  I looked at him, more confused by the second.

  What was he doing?

  He seemed perfectly at ease as he untied the leather bags and brought them right between our legs. He dragged the cup and put it close to me, too, and then took a strawberry and popped it in his mouth. Just like that.

  My mouth watered. Strawberries were my heaven, and there were another three of them on the leather pieces, along with grapes, two slices of apple, bread, meat, and cheese. My stomach growled and he heard it, but I was way past being embarrassed now.

  “You could have run away at any time,” he said, one leg over the other, his hands on his lap, and he stared at the ceiling. Completely at ease, like he was in the presence of a friend. “You could have killed me so easily, it’s ridiculous. Why didn’t you?”

  He didn’t accuse me. All I heard in his voice was curiosity.

  Slowly, I reached out my hand for a strawberry. They grew in my father’s garden. Their scent reminded me of peace. I expected the fae to stop me. I watched him when my fingers hovered over the strawberry, but he didn’t move his eyes from the ceiling. I grabbed the strawberry and brought it to my lips. The taste exploded on my tongue, taking me far away. My mind expanded, my body relaxed, as if I, too, was in the presence of a friend.

  “Better yet, if you can get out of a chain like that, how is it that you even got caught?” he continued, but by then, it was obvious that he wasn’t expecting an answer. He took a piece of cheese next and ate it, while I went after the second strawberry. By the gods, it was heaven on my tongue. I could never get enough of it, and in those moments, I didn’t even care if he could tell.

  “I was a prisoner once, too, you know,” he whispered while I ate the last strawberry. If the fae killed me now, I would die a happy woman. “I was chained to the wall, too, with unbreakable chains, by the most ruthless man I know.”

  The pain that began at the center of his chest expanded, taking up half my attention while my magic noticed.

  “Have you ever heard about how prisoners are treated by the Winter King, elf?”

  I looked at him, at his profile, the tip of his nose that glowed with the sliver of moonlight that reached it from the windows over our heads.

  “If you heard the rumors, then you don’t know the whole truth. It is a lot uglier than anything people like to talk about.”

  The pain intensified. I couldn’t see his eyes very well, but memories were playing in his mind, like they did for me most of the time. And his memories caused him more pain than mine did me. The ease with which he hid it spoke volumes about who he was. Strong. A lot stronger than me because if my father had imprisoned and tortured me like his apparently had, my soul would have died there, even if my body survived.

  “It’s not like war. Battles are predictable. You kill or be killed. It’s simple,” he continued, reaching out for a piece of meat.

  Now that the strawberr
ies were gone, I ate the grapes, and I listened.

  “Taking lives turns into a rightful act when you’re in battle, and that right is given to you by the man who wants to take yours. Have you ever been in a battle before?”

  He smiled, but the pain inside him only grew deeper. It was calling to every cell in my body, luring me in like a garden full of strawberries.

  “It is the only place, the only time when one second means the difference between life and death. One slip and you’re gone, and the world forgets about you. Just another body to count—to feel shameful for or celebrate over—depends on which side you’re on. Because there are sides. There are always two sides.”

  Even his short pause was loaded, like his voice.

  “We are not the same. We’re different. The only thing both our kinds understand the same way is war, so that’s the only way we communicate.”

  The skepticism that dripped from his voice had me in awe. I held onto the grape right in front of my open mouth but couldn’t bring myself to think about eating it. Eating wasn’t important right now—the fae prince was. The pain in his chest, in his voice, the thoughts in his head. So similar to mine.

  It must be a dream, I said to myself in my head. Just a dream.

  So, I dreamed on, and in my dream, the fae prince spoke again.

  “I remember my first battle,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips. “I was sixteen and had been looking forward to a real fight since I was fourteen. Two years of waiting, and I was finally going to get my wish—I was going to go out there, take lives better, faster than anybody else, and I was going to be proud of it.” His laughter took me by surprise. “And you know what? To this day, that is the only battle I truly remember. All the others are blurred in my mind, but that first one was special. It shaped me. It made me a man.” There was no pride in his words, only disappointment. For some reason, it made me smile.

  I ate my grape.

  “Do you want to know how it went?” The prince looked at me for a second, as if to make sure that I was still there or that I wasn’t sleeping. There was no way for me to hide the curiosity from showing in my eyes, and I didn’t mind that he saw it. I wanted to know how it all went. His first battle, when he’d been barely a boy.