Briar
MY GROWLING STOMACH WOKE ME. I KNEW THERE WAS NO POINT trying Evres for a second time. Let him think one hungry night would break me—maybe he would decide that’s all it took.
When the dungeon door opened the following day, I was ready.
I’d put on the heavy bloodred dress, the diamond necklace choking me like the collar it was around my neck.
I finger-combed my ratted and tangled hair to the best of my abilities and braided it off my face with practiced hands.
Prettying myself up for a monster, donning the appearance of someone braver than myself.
I even pinched my cheeks, pinking them up as I waited.
Evres’s expression was more than a little smug when he saw me sitting at the back of my cell, carefully avoiding the rivulets of suspicious liquid dripping from the ceiling.
My very life depended on how good an actress I could be.
Luckily, much of my young life had been exactly that: pretending to be something else.
That had been to keep me safe, too. Except then, I’d had my sister.
I’d had Vellia. Now it was just me, and so it took a greater force of will to pretend alone.
But ultimately I conjured an image in my mind that I projected outward—pretending I was sitting eagerly at the edges of a ball, waiting for an invitation to dance, and not a prisoner in a cell.
I fought the urge to shudder at his poisoned tone and softly said, “Yes, Your Highness.”
Evres seemed to like the sound of his newly appointed title on my timid lips. He studied the way I moved to stand with a practiced poise as if rising from a moon prayer. I folded my hands and bowed my head, waiting for him to speak, the picture of subservience.
“I was there the night of your failed wedding, you know?” That was not what I was expecting him to say. “Look at me.” His command was soft yet threatening as he casually leaned against the bars.
My eyes were the hardest part of me to control. Too wide, and I was surprised. Too narrow, and I was angry. I pulled my senses further inward, far from the surface. Be the porcelain doll, expressionless, unruffled.
“You looked so beautiful in that dress,” Evres continued, “though I think we can do better for our own wedding. Something that will catch the moonlight and make those blue eyes sing.” He pursed his lips, considering me.
“I remember the way your eyes drifted over the crowd the last time. Did you even see me then? You looked right through me.”
It was a testament to my training that I managed to hide my surprise.
Was he . . . jealous? What an incredibly arrogant and petty thing to say to me while I was trapped behind bars.
Evres really thought he should be a memorable part of my wedding ceremony to someone else?
Yet we’d had no introductions. Not a single handshake or exchange the last time I was here.
He wasn’t even royalty until this year. This man really thought the Moon Goddess shined out of his ass, didn’t he?
I thought back to my almost wedding day.
I remembered the maid with the raven hair bringing my breakfast. I remembered the seamstress with her full lips and freckled cheeks fixing my hem.
I remembered searching for Maez’s dark eyes and mischievous smirk in every room I entered .
. . but the only men I ever took notice of were the ones I was trying to protect myself against. And Evres wasn’t important enough to be a threat to me back then.
Instead of voicing my disdain for his jealous sentiments, I said meekly, “I was frightened, Your Highness. I was trying to do as was expected of me.”
I kept my gaze averted, but from my periphery, I could see Evres cock his head like a predator locking in on his prey.
“Expectations.” His chin dipped. “I will expect more from you, Briar Marriel, daughter of the last King of Olmdere. Perhaps now with better instruction, you will rise to the task,” he mused.
He tossed something at me, a small object that bounced off my dress and clattered onto the ground at my feet: a ring. “Put that on.”
I stooped and picked up the golden band—two rubies sat on either side of a giant crescent-shaped diamond that matched the one around my neck.
I slid the ring over my finger without hesitation, the weight of the heavy stone making it wobble on my slender finger.
“It’s beautiful; thank you, Your Highness,” I said, masking that—to me—it was one of the most heinous sights I’d ever seen.
His ring on my finger. His promise of subjugation, and not honor and cherishment.
Maybe he felt what I’d been trying to hide, but either way, Evres didn’t seem to care for that level of gratitude, ignoring me. He expects me to be grateful. Me saying such things is redundant to him.
I noted that for future consideration.
“Now that you are my betrothed,” he said, eyeing the ring as if its presence was proposal enough, “you are mine to do with as I please. I will erase you and reshape you into everything I desire you to be and you will smile while you do it”—his eyes stabbed daggers into me and held, a fly caught in his web—“you will spread your legs for me whenever I command and I will breed you and break you until I have as many heirs as my heart desires and then I will keep going. I own the air in your lungs and the blood in your veins. Do you understand?”
It wasn’t a question—or rather, it was a trivia question, with only one right answer.
It took every single year of training for my mouth not to fall open, for my eyes not to widen in shock.
I lowered my gaze out of self-preservation and feigned obeisance, feeling instant relief from breaking our eye contact.
I gave another short bow. “Yes, Your Highness.”
I heard the jangling of metal against metal as Evres produced the keys from his pocket and opened the dungeon door. As he yanked it ajar, I wanted to push past him and flee the cell, but instead I stood stock-still and waited for his command, imagining my bare feet tethered to the wet stone.
“Then you may go to your room,” he said. “I trust you will be able to find it. It is the same one you resided in last time you were here.”
“Yes, thank you, Your Highness.” I offered another quick bow. There could never be too many with someone like him. In truth, I had no idea where I was going but I wasn’t about to ask a venomous beast like him to guide me.
I took a tentative step forward, waiting for Evres to make way, but he didn’t move from the doorway, forcing me to get within a hair’s breadth from him to push past. I kept my eyes trained on the silver buttons of his tunic, the skirt of my dress brushing over the tops of his boots as I moved past. My heart punched against my sternum.
I had just skirted past him when his hand snapped out, grabbing me roughly by the upper arm and slamming me back against the bars.
I tried not to yelp as my head smacked against the steel, but there was only so much I could contain.
Evres shot toward me, his mouth hovering over my own.
A cold hand lifted to cup my cheek and he swept his thumb across my bottom lip.
His chest pressed into mine as he breathed me in and I fought with every ounce of restraint not to let my shoulders bunch up around my ears.
I fought the tension building in my muscles, desperate to fight and flee.
He wants you to flinch. Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm . . .
I’d felt unsafe with men my whole life. I caught their lingering stares, their lust-filled looks tinged with violence; knew with acute surety that I never wanted to be trapped alone with one of them, let alone give one my heart.
When Grae had told me our marriage would be in name alone, I’d felt such relief.
For one thing, I knew him and trusted him.
For another, it meant nothing would ever be forced on me.
Bedding a man would’ve been just another way I was forced to pretend.
And when I’d found my mate, I felt so blissfully confident that no man would ever touch me again.
Tears welled in my eyes at the thought, but Evres was too close to see them.
I wondered what he’d think of them. They’d likely spur on his violence; worse, they’d probably turn him on.
His mouth dropped, his lips colliding with mine in a bruising kiss, one I was forced to return.
You have to move; react! It was all I could do to listen, to not let the fear freeze me.
So I worked my tongue over his, meeting each of his kisses with a disingenuous passion of my own.
His mouth tasted as rotten as his soul. As I kissed him, I dreamed of biting out his tongue, blood dripping down my neck as I chewed it, masticating and swallowing as he choked on his own blood.
Surprisingly, this fantasy was enough to keep me engaged. I held on to the thought like a prayer, like a curse: he will die at my hand.
I could do it, I told myself. I will do it, I affirmed . . . once I knew I could survive to tell the tale.
Oh yes, I was made of stronger stuff. But Evres didn’t need to know that . . . yet.
When he pulled away his eyelids were drooped, his lips parted as he stared at my seemingly eager mouth.
I prayed to all the Gods that I could work my magic over him like I had Wolf men before.
He shook the spell of that kiss from his eyes and released me, taking a step back, eyes just slightly hooded.
“Go to your room,” he commanded once again. I took a step when he continued, “And get ready for a reception with the King. You will face the wrath of your pack ruler for your crimes.”
He said it so nonchalantly—like an afterthought, I wasn’t sure if what I’d heard was real.
I had somehow forgotten about Nero. About the brute that had created this Wolf standing before me.
The one staring pointedly at me, making it clear he could kiss me and threaten me in the same breath and not blink.
I would note that to myself, too.
My cheeks flamed, fear coiling in my heart, as I turned and walked toward the dungeon door.
Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run.
It would only make him want to chase me.
I battled the tears threatening to spill as I reached the threshold and stared at the cloudless sky through the stained glass windows.
Please, Maez, I begged the sky and the Moon Goddess hidden by the daylight, the Goddess who had gifted me a mate, one who I’d found my way back to against all odds, against dark magic itself.
Please. Come save me.