23. Chapter 23
Chapter 23
I went about my duties in the King’s chambers without interruption save for the single serving maid who brought me my lunch. I was not allowed to leave his rooms until the end of the day, even if it was to relieve myself or eat lunch. It had been one of his stipulations when I had returned. He wanted me all but shackled to his bed so that, when he wished to torment me, he could. And torment me, he had. Every day, I was to bear witness to him raping or seeming to rape a human or a courtier. After Lady White Dove, I never bothered to help them again. I didn’t go to them to hold their hands. All of them rose afterwards and walked out of their own power. All of them ignored me, and I ignored them right back.
Today would be no different. The only difference from yesterday and today was that I couldn’t control my heartbeat. It would run like a herd of wild horses any time I smelled the soft cedar of the wardrobe, reminding me of the way his eyes had captured mine and watched me. The scent of the freshly carved walnut of the new mantel piece roasting over the fire reminded me of the way his hand would brush against mine, never enough to be mistaken for him taking my hand but just enough for me to feel safe, cherished, held. The sight of the King’s new expertly crafted bed reminded me of the way his hands had fallen to my hips and held me as I straddled him in my madness, not stopping me, absorbing everything I had with acceptance that it was what I needed.
That image stuck in my head like a bur. I had never been accepted for what I needed, had never had someone so handily provide me with the ease and comfort of my needs. And I had needed to cut. I had needed to scream. I had needed to destroy. And he withstood it all. He held me through the storm and ensured I was safe before he collapsed under the weight of his wounds.
The scent of roses mixed with sun-warmed wood filled my nose as I stared at the spot we had ended up, where I had to scrub his blood out of the mortar of the stonework. The King was coming with his newest conquest.
It was a delicate dance. If I was too far away from the bed where he could not see me, he’d make me come to stand right next to him. If I was too close, I could smell his arousal, and that made my skin crawl. I had found a perfect spot in the corner near the window, between the armoire and his arming stand that held dusty, moldering leather armor.
Scurrying to my spot, I began wringing the shirt I was picking up in my hands. He liked it when I looked worried and distressed. It was best to put on the act immediately so that he didn’t have to press the issue . . . because he would press the issue. He would press the issue right up to the edge of it until he was all but millimeters from making physical contact.
Whatever had happened while I was at the temple, it had impressed upon him that he was never to touch me again. And he didn’t . . . but the mind can be battered as easily as the flesh, and he had turned into a master at mental warfare.
Silk the color of unbroken midnight breached the doorway first, then a head of chestnut and oak-brown hair with bloodred roses dripping between the fall of locks as if they grew from her scalp. Delicate pale creamy skin was on display as the shoulder of her gown was pushed down, and the King’s mouth found the crook of her shoulder and neck. Her frenzied hands were everywhere, touching him, gripping him, stroking him, enjoying him. Flashing cornflower-blue eyes leveled on me in my corner as easily as if she had known I would be there, even if she had never seen me here before .
Oaken Rose.
Memories, tattered small and thin as a whisper in a hurricane, came flooding back of the day I was in the throne room. I had been so focused on The Raven and how bitterness poisoned my heart that I had completely forgotten she had been there. She was the one that had been talking to him. She had seemed so familiar with him. Her hair was darker, though, almost black.
My ears began to ring with the deafening sound of shock, of betrayal, as my heart plummeted from my chest to my slippers and scampered out of the window to fling itself into the mercy of whatever lay below.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I had been such a fucking fool. Of course she was so sweet and placating in the garden. She knew exactly what I had been through because she had been there the entire time. She had heard everything and seen everything that had happened to me . . . because it was her fucking brother who did it.
Her brother.
Her pale-blue eyes never left mine as he gently unlaced her gown and kicked the door to his chambers closed with the heel of his boot. He was being so caring, so loving with her. This was nothing like the other women I had seen come in and out of these rooms. She was here willingly. She was here at his indulgence, and he was with her at his.
Her fucking brother! She’s fucking her brother!
The weight of my situation collapsed in on me, crushing me under it. I made a deal with The Oaken Rose, the sister of my tormentor, the one who had threatened my life in open court. I made a deal with the one Fae aside from the Ard Rí that I should have never even talked to let alone agreed to anything with.
My body was vibrating, unsure whether I should bolt or attack or evaporate into the ether around me. I needed to do one of them. I needed to do something, but I was stuck, locked in my prison of a body as the two before me slowly, lovingly, and passionately undressed each other.
The King did not even bother to look over at me. He didn’t even seem to notice me as he whispered poetry to his sister, kneeling to capture one of her pale pink nipples in his mouth. Her fingers snaked down and buried themselves in his long hair as she broke eye contact for the first time since she entered, her head tipping back in ecstasy.
His arms circled her, pulling her hungrily against him as he devoured her breast to the tune of her moans and the bass strikes of my heart.
The linen shirt slipped from my fingers and drifted to the floor. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to look away. I wanted to look anywhere but at the pair of demonic angels before me as he lifted her easily from the floor, wrapping her legs around his head, the loud, slick suckling sounds twining with her lascivious, panting moans. My eyes followed them to the bed as he gingerly laid her flat on her back. He rose from his knees, captured her lips in a heart-melting kiss, and thrust soundly into her. They both held their breath, savoring the delights of that first stroke.
I couldn’t flee, but I needed to. I wanted to. All I could do was dig my thumbnail into the palm of my hand and trace a two and one over and over again, matching the frenzied pace of the two before me as they fucked with the grace of two schooled and enamored lovers.
The scent of my blood mixed with the scent of their arousal filled up my senses and drowned me in agony. I screamed inside my head, begging for none of this to be true, for everything to be a lie. The truth had to be that I had an ally in this horrid place. It had kept me from the darkest parts of this existence. That single thread of hope dangling the rotten carrot over my head was all I had.
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I kept slicing, kept digging. Maybe the pain would drive away the nightmare. Maybe the two crying out for each other and whispering their undying love and carnal need in front of me were the illusion, the lie. Maybe if I could wake up, it would all go away.
When Oaken Rose tipped her head back, her eyes connecting with mine and a malignant smile spread from ear to ear, I knew it was not .
Movement from the sitting room caught my attention, but I could not look away from the sight of the King wrapped in the alabaster limbs of his sister as he thrust into her and rained praise and devotion into her rose-bejeweled hair. The Oaken Rose captured his searching mouth in hers, and their tongues warred with each other in sensual indulgence.
Black leather filled my senses, and hope burbled like a dying spring within me. Could it be him?
The body that crept into the room, pushing the well-oiled door only wide enough for them to slip through, was too narrow, too wiry and thin to be The Raven. Even though it was clad from head to toe in midnight, I would know The Raven’s frame from a mile away. He towered above every other Fae in court by nearly a foot and a half. His shoulders were wider than any other, broad, like an ox. His chest was a deep barrel that drew the air from my own lungs. His hips were not narrow like this one’s, and his thighs were like massive trunks.
I tracked the newcomer’s movement, even though the pair did not notice. The flash off the steel of a dagger winked at me in the midafternoon sun streaming in from the window. The blade already looked slick, well-oiled or dripping with some other substance.
I tried to scream. I tried to yell to get the attention of the King and his sister. I didn’t want to save them, but the natural impulse to do so overrode my derision for their very existence. It was no use, though. The King’s tongue lock on me had always been firm, unyielding, no matter how hard I tried to break it. No matter how hard I pushed against it, it held fast.
The world spun to a halt as the dagger was raised over his back, and The Oaken Rose finally took notice. It was too late, though. Strike after strike rained down on him with a solid thunk , like a melon being split, ringing through the silent chamber.
That silence hung as all four of us stood completely still for a fraction of a second before the room exploded in chaos. The Fae in all black tried to rip the dagger from the King’s back, but it was stuck. The Oaken Rose gasped and began pushing at her brother’s shoulders. The King looked up at me, disbelief and confusion playing across his ethereal face. I was frozen there, my thumbnail buried in the arch of the two.
And then everyone was moving but me. The black-clad figure was slithering through the door, with not a single sound.
The Oaken Rose managed to wriggle free from under her brother and was shoving herself into her gown. She did not even spare him a single look as she dashed away after the figure in black.
The King crumpled to the floor. Gasping rattles were all that came from him as I finally felt sensation flow back into my body, and I was dashing for him.
Fucking empathy. I wanted him to die. I wanted my face to be the last thing he ever saw. Yet there I was, slipping in the puddle of blood on the stonework as I tried to help him up. He was too heavy, though, and I couldn’t even lift his arm. His eyes connected with mine, and I saw dark-moss-green-and-black fingers spider through the whites of his fear-flooded gaze.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I screamed for help.
Nothing came out. No sound slipped through the tongue lock at all. Not even a whispered whimper of futility.
You stupid fuck. I can’t even get you help! I mouthed in rage at him as I pushed up, covered from head to toe in his blood. I grabbed the first thing I could find, not knowing what it was or where it came from. But I threw it as hard as I could. The crash of it shattering the window by the bed was satisfying.
No boots pounding down the floorboards of the hallway came, though.
So, I picked up something else and threw it. Again, nothing.
Stupid fuck. He was known to be so damned violent that none of them cared that there was something trashing his chambers. Of course not—why would they care? They wouldn’t have to pick it up. That would be me. His chambermaid. Who was currently in his chamber to clean up the fucking mess.
Gods be damned. It was all on me. All of it .
I slid back down next to him, trying to remember if you’re supposed to pull it out or not. I think it was leave it in and apply pressure. Yes, that sounded about right.
I rolled him over on his side, and he gripped the bodice of my gown, tearing it with his terror-laced strength. I silently growled my annoyance at his skin touching mine for the first time since the night I was given to him. It felt slimy, slithering, like bog water sliding over me. I hated him for it.
I tore his linen shirt from the hole where the dagger was and scampered back immediately. It was all wrong. The spiders in his eyes were crawling under the skin around his wound. Tiny little black specks with eight legs crept from the gash, scattering about as they writhed under his skin. Bubble after bubble, his blood wept more of the arachnids into the world.
I screamed, and even though the sound was locked behind my throat, it felt good to strain into it with all the disgust and fear I was feeling. It was the release I needed, so I did it again. I screamed a silent bellow at him as he gaped at me, as mute as I was.
Alright, Bandrui, you better fucking show up this time, dammit. I hissed in my mind as the memory of the boon beads came to mind.
Shoving my hands up my skirt, I yanked the whole strand off its secret belt and let them fall into my hand. I didn’t know how to use them. Was that why she hadn’t come last time? The last time I needed her with me in this very room? Was crushing them the wrong thing to do?
The King’s eyes widened when he saw the beads, felt their power throbbing into the world as I felt them throbbing against my palm.
No . . . crushing them was the right thing to do. The knowledge sang in my blood as it pooled around the three little star beads. Crushing them released the magic. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. And for once, Rule #8, “Instincts are your secret weapon,” was going to be trusted.
I closed my eyes and screamed, Help Me! The echo of my plea, desperate as it was, rolled through my head like an avalanche gaining speed and power as it went, and I crushed not one, not two but three of the beads. I needed her more than ever because a dead King was not going to get me free. A dead King would probably lead to a dead Cricket, and that was the last thing that I wanted.
I felt the power escape the beads. Felt it curl like golden glitter around my hand and then dissipate into the air about me. I waited with bated breath. How long would it take her? I needed her to appear out of nowhere. I needed her to step into existence right the fuck now.
Moment after moment ticked by, spiderling after spiderling creeping from the King’s back and the black veins of his wound spreading farther and farther.
Snatching a silver candlestick off the nightstand, I began pounding the floor with it, banging it as hard as I could like a drummer in a metal band.
Only when I heard the first set of panicked foot falls and then a score of others did I stop beating the floor.
The King and I met eye to eye for a moment as the last of the whites of his eyes were eaten by the black.
When his eyes closed, I panicked. I ripped the dagger from his back, and a wave of spiders flooded out of the wound right as the doors were kicked open.