Chapter Twenty-Three
I have vanished. To where, I don’t know.
I’m in near total darkness, the faint blue light of a few scattered will-o’-the-wisps all I have to examine my surroundings. There is no night sky. One of the small blue orbs drifts upward and I see that I am in a tunnel. The ceiling is woven branches. The light dips and weaves. The walls are branches, too, twisted and black.
I walk forward a few steps, my hands in front of me. Eventually, when I’ve covered enough ground, I encounter another wall impeding my path. I turn and retreat.
Somewhere, something roars. Someone giggles. Both sounds echo through the air, which has grown chill and damp.
A slight breeze turns my head. Arms out to protect me, I seek the source and find an egress into another tunnel.
It’s a labyrinth.
A scream shatters the quiet, and the hairs on my neck raise. “Be sure to give me a good chase,” the king had told me. Something sighs further down this tunnel. As I come closer, slowly, trying to keep my footfalls silent, I hear the unmistakable grunting and panting of coupling. It’s possible I’ll trip over whoever it is if I keep going forward, so when I find another turn, I take it.
There are more will-o-the-wisps here, but the light is still too weak for my human eyes to rely upon it, and the darkness terrifies me. For every moan and peal of laughter, there is a scream of sheer terror. Never before has the court’s name so frightened me. Will I find pleasure here, or torment?
There’s movement behind me. I sense it, hear it over the pounding of my pulse, the ragged breaths tearing from my chest.
Is it worse to see the thing that’s pursuing you? Is it better to know why you should be running? I cannot say, but I look over my shoulder, trembling.
The wisps glide about in their looping dance, and I see the outline of broad shoulders, a bare chest.
The mask of an owl.
I take a few steps back as he advances. “I-I’m meant to be caught by your father.”
Kathras says nothing.
I keep backing up. “He’ll be angry with me,” I try again.
Kathras never slows his determined steps.
Two wisps circle each other at the end of the tunnel, enough to show me in their dim blue light that there’s a juncture there. I don’t need Kathras for my plan. I need to be caught by either Cassan or Arcus.
I break into a run, arms pumping, feet pounding the hard-packed dirt. I’m nearly at the junction when I make a foolish mistake.
I look back.
Kathras is running after me, he’s nearly upon me, and my momentary curiosity is my undoing. My foot catches a root and I tumble to the ground. A hand closes around my ankle and jerks me back. I claw forward, sinking my fingers into the dirt and pulling with all my futile might. But he’s impossibly strong. My flimsy excuse for robes tear. He grabs me by the hips and hauls me up to meet his, ramming his cock deep into me.
I shriek in surprise; he’s shockingly large and long, and he has no plan to be gentle. His grip is crushing, his thrusts punishing. I try to push myself up and he shoves me down again, one hand holding my cheek in the dirt.
He says nothing. Makes no sound at all while I gasp for breath under the onslaught of this debasement. I knew I would be called upon to perform all manner of depravity at court, but the darkness, the violence of it, the inability to escape all wind together into a brutal nightmare.
A voice faraway howls in outrage. Someone else pleads. Another cries out in the throes of ecstasy.
Yet, Kathras is unnervingly silent. The slap of his hips against my ass, the wet squelch as he fucks my already used cunt, and the moans I try to keep silent are the only sound. Soon, I don’t bother to keep them silent; I wriggle my hand beneath me and find my clit, rubbing frantically.
He plows into me so hard, my knees come off the ground and the dirt scrapes my face. It’s not as painful as things I’ve done before, certainly not as frightening as Luthian’s pet abomination, but there is an element of danger in his stoney silence and I break, clutching all around him on a cry of release.
The only way I know that he has finished is when he plunges deep and stills, erupting hot and strong inside of me. His cock twitches once, twice, and then he pulls out.
I roll onto my back. “Your Highness—”
He’s gone, and I am still lost in the darkness.
* * * *
I wander for hours, hearing the occasional rustle or moan, but I don’t encounter anyone else. Arcus never finds me. Cassan never finds me. When the tunnels are lit by the gray light of dawn peeking through the gaps in the branches, I finally give into my aching body and curl up on the damp ground. Something like sleep comes over me, though I’m not entirely unconscious. I hear a bird’s song, the scurry of a fieldmouse through the hedge walls.
I wonder if anyone is looking for me. Surely, I’ll be missed.
Luthian will not let me be forgotten here.
But in the meantime, I’m thirsty and achy, and the scrapes on my cheek, knees, and palms sting. My silk robe is in tatters, and my skin is streaked with dirt. I long for my bed, for a full day of sleep.
And for a reason. Kathras knew his father wanted me. Was that why he took me? He seemed so disaffected, so disinterested, so...
Disgusted.
He was disgusted, standing beside me as I rode Arcus’s cock. Prince Kathras must have thought me a common human trollop, something so foul and beneath him that he wished to debase me in such an aggressive manner.
I hope he felt the pleasure I took in it. I hope my cry of passion shamed him.
“Cenere!” A familiar voice calls from somewhere far away. “Cenere, are you out here?”
“I’m here!” I croak from my parched throat. “I’m here!”
Footsteps approach and Luthian appears. He stops, his blue-gray skin going nearly white as he looks at me.
I try to push myself up, and that snaps him back.
“Don’t,” he says, hurrying to my side. He lifts me as if I am a feather and tucks my head against his shoulder. Cradled to the warmth of his chest, I feel how cold I truly am, and my teeth begin to chatter.
“I’ll kill him,” Luthian seethes, and I want to warn him of what he told me before: that we must always watch our words, that his wards cannot protect us on the grounds. But I’m too tired, my throat too sore.
I reach up and stroke his cheek. “I know.”
We’re not in the labyrinth anymore. His strides take us across a room I’ve never seen before. The walls are black, the candelabras on the walls silver. There’s a fireplace burning with blue flame, and a huge, black-covered bed exactly like the one I imagined when I thought of Luthian that last night before we came to court.
“Where am I?” I ask, though I’m sure I know the answer.
“My chambers,” he confirms, and conjures a bathtub of steaming water from the air. He lowers me into it, and my ruined clothes melt away at the touch of the water. “What did he do to you?”
“It was a game,” I explain. “Surely, you must know—”
“It isn’t a game to strand a vulnerable human in the cold all night.” Soap appears in his hand—sorrow lily, without even having to ask—and a sponge. “You could have frozen to death.”
“It was not freezing weather,” I say softly.
“Look at you. He didn’t even bother to heal you,” Luthian goes on.
“Perhaps he did not know that I needed healing.” I’m beginning to worry that Luthian’s rage will get the better of him, that he’ll do something foolish to avenge this slight against me. “It was dark and chaotic. We didn’t even speak.”
“There’s no excuse!” Luthian paces, daubing some of the soap onto the sponge. “Arcus knows you belong to me. He’s punishing you to make me suffer. But this is beyond even the boundaries of the court!”
“It wasn’t Arcus,” I quickly correct him.
Luthian’s rage is momentarily paused. “He bragged this morning about having you.”
“He did. During the ritual,” I explain. “Not after. Not in the maze.”
This reignites Luthian’s fury. “There is still no excuse. I’ll find who did this to you, Cenere, I swear it. You will not be treated this way again.”
“No, you won’t,” I say gently. I wait for him to argue, but I think I’ve stunned him to silence. I seize the opportunity and go on. “I was doing exactly as everyone else was in that maze. Hunting, being pursued. It was rough and frightening, but it was exciting. You taught me that fear can be arousing. I used that lesson. I took the pain and the degradation, and I turned it into pleasure. Just like you taught me.”
“Whoever it was... they should have healed you,” Luthian protests. “I should have been there.”
“You were there. Just now. You came to my rescue, just like I knew you would. But please, don’t do something foolish. Don’t try to defend my honor at the expense of everything we’ve worked toward.” I search his face and see the hatred in his eyes soften and fade. “I knew you would save me. I knew you would heal me. So, I was never truly afraid.”
The soap and sponge clatter to the floor, and he’s upon me, leaning over the tub to kiss me breathless. He wraps his arms around my wet body, crushes me to his fine brocade coat, muddy streaks and all. His hands roam up my back, into my hair, and he holds me tight, his tongue taking my mouth as roughly as Kathras took me in the maze, and that’s when I recognize what drove both of them.
Possession.
Luthian kisses me to claim me, just as Kathras, I’m now certain, meant to fuck the memory of his father’s cock from me.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes. Luthian wants me. Not just my body, not just the prize between my legs that everyone at court covets. He wants to protect me, to care for me.
He wants me.
I whimper against his mouth.
The spell is broken.
He pulls back, gasping. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, I—”
“We should get you healed and cleaned up.” He straightens his soaked, ruined coat, then summons another, stiffer and more starched than the last. It’s as if he’s donning armor against the very idea of wanting me. He finds the soap and sponge and kneels beside the tub. “Give me your hand.”
Slowly and methodically, he washes the dirt from my skin and makes my scrapes disappear. He picks twigs from my hair and washes my curls thoroughly, and when I am clean and whole again, he lifts me from the tub and magics me dry before putting me to sleep in his huge, empty bed.
I reach for him. “You don’t have to go.”
“I have business to attend,” he says. “Sleep for as long as you need to.”
“Please,” I say, my eyes filling with tears. “Please, stop pretending that you don’t—”
“Sleep,” he says, waving his hand, and I cannot resist his command.