Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
E ven though I knew it was coming this time, I still have to suppress a horrified gasp when we walk into the banquet hall and see Isera and Alistair kneeling next to the Icehearts’ table. Just like last time, they’re half-naked, handcuffed, blindfolded with iron, and kept bowing forward by the tight chain linked from their collars to the floor.
Fury to rival the demons in hell courses through my body like liquid fire. I’m going to ram a knife through Bane and Jessina’s hearts if it’s the last thing I do.
“Ah, Draven,” Emperor Bane says as we close the distance to the high table. “I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to show.”
We come to a halt below the short platform where their table is located. I remain two steps behind Draven and keep my eyes on the floor. Though to be honest, that is as much to prevent the Icehearts from seeing the rage in my eyes as it is to sell the broken slave act. I draw in a long breath and force myself to swallow down the anger.
Draven bows to his monarchs. “Apologies for my absence. Tracking down the Red Hand is requiring all of my time.”
His tone is respectful and his words are polite, but I can still hear the unspoken second part of that reply. So why are you wasting my time by forcing me to come to this banquet?
However, the Icehearts don’t appear to notice that, because all Bane says is, “Any progress?”
“No.”
Bane clicks his tongue in disapproval. But before he can say anything else, Jessina switches to a topic that makes my stomach twist.
“Selena is looking very… comfortable,” she says, drawing out that final word.
Since my eyes are still on the floor, I can’t see the expression on her face. But she sounds extremely disappointed.
“I thought you would be in the middle of breaking her,” she continues. “This is the most fun part, after all.”
“Indeed,” Emperor Bane picks up. “And yet, there she is. In a dress. No handcuffs. No blindfold. Nothing.”
“Why would I need that?” I can practically hear the wicked smirk in Draven’s voice. “When I have already broken her.”
Silence falls over our section of the banquet hall. Behind us, the other dragon shifter courtiers continue eating and drinking and chatting with each other as if nothing is wrong. As if Draven and I aren’t balancing on the edge of a knife right now. Light from the hundreds of candles in the room flickers in the corner of my eyes and makes the white ice floor gleam. I keep my eyes firmly on those shining reflections while resisting the urge to fidget.
“Already?” Empress Jessina says at last. She sounds more surprised than suspicious, thankfully. “How did you accomplish that?”
“I took her out to the mountainside,” Draven replies. There is both cruel amusement and wicked satisfaction in his voice. “And made her strip naked. Then I shackled her to a boulder and summoned a lightning storm.” He lets out a vicious laugh. “I left her naked and handcuffed in that raging storm for twelve hours. She begged for mercy at my feet after that.”
A jolt shoots through me as Draven suddenly slides his hand up the back of my neck and into my hair. Taking it in a firm grip, he winds my hair around his fist and then pulls down, forcing me to raise my gaze and tilt my head back to expose my throat instead.
“Isn’t that right?” he demands as he stares me down.
The ruthless expression on his face snatches the breath from my lungs. I know that this is an act, but I’m still having trouble convincing my mind not to panic. In this moment, Draven looks like the true Shadow of Death. The hard set to his mouth, the merciless expression on his face, the commanding hand gripping my hair, and the complete and utter authority in his tone… He looks like he’s going to torture me if I don’t obey his every command.
My heart slams against my ribs. Goddess above, Draven is a master at deception. To an extent that I never would have guessed.
I only need to half fake the breathless fear in my voice as I reply, “Yes, sir.”
Satisfaction pulses across his face, and he releases my hair before turning back to the Icehearts.
Jessina purses her lips and drums her fingers on the armrest of the white wooden chair she is seated on. “You should have told us beforehand.” Disdain and malice flood her pale gray eyes as she slides her gaze to me. “I would have liked to see that.”
“Perhaps we can get a little demonstration now,” Bane interjects before Draven can reply. A cruel smile spreads across his lips, and his black eyes glint in the candlelight, as he studies me for a second before locking eyes with Draven again. “Make her crawl to you and bow at your feet.”
My stomach lurches, and it takes all of my willpower to stop the shock and panic from showing on my face. I just stare at Emperor Bane while his eyes are still fixed on Draven. He can’t be serious. Is he actually going to make me?—
“Kneel.”
The command pulses through the air and reverberates through my very soul. Tearing my gaze from the vicious emperor, I slowly turn to face the source of the voice.
Draven has taken a few steps to the side, so that there is some distance between us. Power pulses around his muscular body like black smoke as he stares me down, as if daring me to disobey his command. But for the briefest of moments, I swear I can see a flicker of pleading in his eyes.
His words from earlier echo through my head. They’re going to scrutinize our every move. You need to really sell it.
I lower myself to my knees.
“Crawl to me,” Draven commands.
The banquet hall has gone suddenly dead quiet. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me. It’s so intense that it feels like they’re burning holes through my body. All I want to do is to scream at them. Or cut their eyes out with a knife. But I know that I have no other choice.
So I do as he says.
And crawl on my hands and knees to his feet.
Laughter erupts from somewhere halfway down the room. The moment that first burst of laughter shatters the silence, other courtiers start snickering as well.
My cheeks burn with humiliation, and rage strangles my throat. I can barely breathe through the fury as I come to a halt in front of Draven’s black boots and sit back on my knees again.
“Bow,” he orders, his voice dripping with command.
Sliding my hands closer to his boots, I bend forward and press my forehead against the cool ice floor.
Another wave of cruel laughter ripples through the courtiers. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block it out.
Emperor Bane lets out a mocking chuckle. “So pathetic. So weak. Without their dragon steel, they’re nothing.”
It takes everything I have to stop myself from snapping back that without their iron collars, they are nothing. If they weren’t covered in iron, Isera and Alistair could probably take out half of the courtiers in this room with their fire and ice magic before the courtiers could even shift into their dragon forms.
“I can’t wait until we’ve broken ours enough that they will willingly grovel in public,” he says.
Ours . As if Isera and Alistair are nothing more than toys. Possessions to use and abuse. Suddenly, I’m glad that my forehead is pressed against the floor, because I don’t think I would have been able to stop the rage from showing on my face. Even though my life depends on it.
“Your boots look a little dirty, Draven,” Empress Jessina suddenly says. Her voice is full of challenge and wicked glee. “Tell her to lick them.”
Ice spreads through my veins. She wants me to do what now?
Raising my head, I look up at Draven. But I already know what I’m going to see. A ruthless uncaring mask on his face. A mask that fools everyone. Everyone except me.
His voice is just as hard and merciless as before when he commands, “Lick my boots.”
And because I know that I have no other choice than to see our little act through all the way to the end, I bow down again and lick his boots, just like he ordered me to.
Anger pulses through my whole soul. I am going to kill them for this. I am going to kill them all for this.
Jessina laughs. As do most of the other courtiers.
“Excellent work, Draven,” the satisfied empress says. “Thank you for that little demonstration. It will surely be remembered as the highlight of the night. You may take your seat.”
One second passes, probably while he bowed to the two of them, then he grabs me by the arm and practically yanks me up from the floor. I stumble the first few steps as he hauls me with him while he strides across the room. Once I have gotten my feet properly on the floor again, I pull discreetly against his grip to let him know that he can release me now. He doesn’t.
I glance up at him.
The moment that we reach a spot where our faces are no longer visible to anyone, he clenches his jaw and flexes his hand while fury so cold that it could’ve frozen the sun itself crackles across his features. He looks like he’s going to murder someone.
“You will need to sit on your knees next to my chair,” he whispers as we make our way towards the table closest to the high table, but his words come out more like a growl. “We need to stay for at least an hour before it’s acceptable for us to leave. But I need to get out of here for a few minutes first. Otherwise, I won’t make it through that hour without killing everyone in this room. You need to stay, or they will get suspicious. So just sit there. I will be back soon.”
Before I can even reply, we reach the table we were heading for.
Shock pulses through me when I realize that the table is full of Draven’s people.
His former best friend, Galen, is sitting to the right of the only empty seat, which is at the head of the table. And Lyra, that cheerful shifter with wavy brown hair and orange eyes, is seated opposite him. Both of them are wearing black. As are eight more people sitting beside them at the long table.
All of them watch Draven with outright hostility in their eyes.
“I can’t believe you made her do that,” Galen hisses under his breath as Draven pulls me to a stop to the right of his empty seat at the head of the table. “In front of everyone. Have you at last lost your final shred of?—”
“Shut up,” Draven snarls. Lightning flashes in his eyes, and he turns to me. Finally releasing my arm, he snaps his fingers and points at the floor. “Sit.”
I lower myself to the floor so that I’m sitting on my knees next to his chair, just like he said.
He locks hard eyes on Galen again. “Watch her.”
“Don’t you—” Galen begins retorting, but Draven grabs the collar of his shirt and yanks him halfway up from his seat.
“I’m about to murder someone,” Draven growls in his face. “And unless you want that to be you, you watch her until I get back.”
Galen’s violet eyes are wide with what looks like genuine shock as he stares up at his commander. Then he quickly jerks his chin down in a nod.
Draven just releases his collar, shoving him back down in his seat, and stalks away without another word. His clan members watch him go with a mix of surprise and disdain on their faces.
Part of me is furious that Draven is the one who gets to storm out and be angry and then gather his composure before coming back inside. I’m the one who just crawled across the floor and licked someone’s boots in front of an entire banquet hall, for Mabona’s sake!
But the other part of me can barely believe my luck. Draven has left me unsupervised with his people, who hate him. Which means that I finally have a chance to get the information I need for the heist.
“Sorry you had to go through that,” Lyra says from my left, her voice full of empathy. Then it disappears, and rage takes its place instead as she glances towards where Alistair and Isera are kneeling. “This whole thing is so fucked up.”
“Yeah.” I blow out a long sigh, trying to gather my wits and choose my words very carefully. “I almost escaped, you know. The first day when I woke up, I made it all the way to…” Scrunching up my eyebrows, I pretend to think hard. “I don’t remember which floor it was, but it was close to where the treasury is.”
“The third floor?” the redhead next to Lyra fills in.
Victory pulses through me. The third floor. The treasury is on the third floor. My heart pounds in my chest. Now, I just need one more thing.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” I reply while desperately trying to figure out how to get them to tell me where on the third floor it is.
Lyra furrows her brows. “How did you even get there? The northeast stairwell is like one of the most well-guarded stairwells in the entire castle.”
I almost let out a whoop. For once in my life, I appear to have luck on my side. While sending a heartfelt prayer of thanks to Mabona for what must have been her divine intervention, I suppress the victorious grin that threatens to spread across my mouth.
The treasury is somewhere in the northeast corner on the third floor. Now, I can finally begin plotting out a route for the human resistance to use during their heist.
“Oh, it might not have been that then,” I reply, letting some uncertainty into my voice. “I just assumed it was since that’s where the Master of the Treasury was.”
Lyra raises her eyebrows. “You met the Master of the Treasury?”
“Not exactly.” I grimace. “I tripped over his corpse.”
“Oh, right. That was the day when the Red Hand killed all three of those people.”
I glance from her to Galen, who hasn’t said a word since Draven left. He was tasked with watching me, but his violet eyes are still locked on the side door that Draven stalked out of. Candlelight from the silver holders on the table flickers across his features. It’s difficult to read the expression on his face, but he almost looks… sad.
“What even is the deal with Draven and the Red Hand anyway?” I ask. “He seems almost obsessed with him.”
At that, Galen finally tears his gaze from the door and turns his head to look at me. The sadness is gone from his features. Instead, only contempt shines in his eyes.
“It’s because of his bloody ego,” he huffs.
“Keep it down,” a dark-haired male shifter hisses from farther down the table. He casts a worried glance towards the door that Draven left through. “He could come back any second.”
“What do you mean his ego ?” I ask before Galen can take that advice. Because I desperately want to know more about Draven’s history with the Red Hand.
After casting a glance towards the door, which is still closed, Galen meets my eyes again. “Draven has always won. He has always completed every mission he has been given. Crush that rebellion. Bring that clan to heel. Burn that city. Conquer that castle. Assassinate that person. He always succeeds.” Smug amusement flits across his face for a second. “But not with this guy. The Red Hand is the only one who has ever gotten away. The only one who has ever outsmarted him.”
“And his pride won’t allow that,” Lyra fills in from across the table. She spins her fork in her hand before stabbing it into the piece of steak on her plate. “It’s a threat to his power. Makes him look weak. That’s why he’s so obsessed with personally hunting down the Red Hand.”
“Exactly,” Galen picks up. That smug smile on his face widens a little. “But I, for one, applaud the Red Hand for the sheer size of his balls, defying the Icehearts like this.”
Lyra flicks a glance towards the side door. “Something I wish our not-so-fearless leader had more of too.”
Disgust flickers in Galen’s eyes. “Did you know that during the first six years after he swore allegiance to the Icehearts, Draven didn’t use the half-shift at all. As a gesture of respect and submission.” He scoffs. “Like some kind of?—”
He cuts his sentence off in a heartbeat as the side door is yanked open and Draven strides back in.
I flick my gaze towards him. His hair is slightly disheveled, as if he has been running his hands through it repeatedly. But he does look less inclined to murder someone.
Oppressive silence falls over the dining room table as Draven strides towards the head of the table. His clan members lower their chins in a show of deference as he drops down in his seat. From my place on the floor, I can see the expressions on their faces that Draven can’t from his angle. Disdain and hostility once more lace their features like ice.
I let out a small sigh.
This is going to be a long hour.