Chapter 65
THICKER THAN WATER
LUELLA
"Kiss my boot in front of my Umbra, conquered Princess, so they will see who owns you."
The tip of Caliban’s boot nudged Luella’s knee. She shivered, throat closing up—which only made the spikes dig harder into her throat. She tried to stop from swallowing, to temper her fear, but it was as if she were trying to swim up a waterfall. Futile.
Luella gagged from the pressure of the spikes. She felt something pop along the delicate line of her throat, her skin giving way to the edges. Hot blood leaked from beneath the collar, dripping down her neck.
It was so quiet—no rain, no thrumming inside her chest. She wanted to touch her chest and feel the absence of her power.
She hadn’t known just how loud her power was until it was taken from her.
It felt like a blanket had been thrown over her senses, smothering her. Leaving her in the dark.
Alone.
She had never felt more alone.
"No." Luella tried to sound strong, but even saying a single word forced the spikes to dig in harder. Blood trickled.
Caliban’s eyes dipped to it with dark, appraising mirth.
The shadows coiled around her shoulders. She felt their chill against her wings.
"Do it," Caliban urged. "So they will see who owns you." His voice was quiet.
As she stared up at him, she saw the way shadows curled around his neck and jaw, drifting over his green irises until his entire eye was coated in black.
She wanted to be brave. For herself—for Az, for Bastian, for Graves… for Tharen and Vale.
She wanted to make them proud.
There was no pride in subjugating herself, like he seemed to want from her.
She tipped her chin up. "No," she said loudly.
The word echoed. The Umbra were quiet, save for the faint trickle of watery blood where she imagined it to be lapping against the stone.
Caliban canted his head. "So be it."
His fingers twitched at his side, and the shadows tightened around her, cutting into her belly, twisting around her neck, and making the collar dig in tighter—deeper. She gasped a choked scream as shadows tugged on her lower lip, making her lips part. Her jaw was forced wide open.
Luella was shoved onto her stomach by the shadows. They pinned her.
She saw nothing but her faint reflection in the marbled stone beneath her. Blood dripped from her neck onto the floor.
His boot came into view, prodding at her chin and tilting her face up.
"I can make you hurt in so many ways, conquered Princess. I can make you beg for death," he whispered. "Do this one, little thing—and I will keep you from it all."
Her rapid, short breaths left fog on the shiny tip of his boot. She squeezed her eyes shut as the shadows wrapped tighter. She felt the iciness of one curl high between her thighs, nudging her there.
She sobbed brokenly.
And pressed her lips to the tip of Caliban’s boot, eyes firmly shut all the while.
One breath—just one—and it was over. The crowd roared with cheers, and the shadows loosened, but still kept her pinned on her stomach at his feet. Tears dripped from her closed lids and fell on his boot, mingling with the droplets of blood.
Crystalline innocence and sanguine horror. Her two essences mingled until the red overtook the clear drops of her watery tears, like the blood in the pool. Blood was always thicker than water.
Caliban stepped away. "Soon, she will be my bride—our Queen!"
She was pulled up to her knees by the shadows and all but dragged over the stone to where Caliban had moved to sit on the large throne. She was limp in the shadows’ hold.
She stayed there, kneeling at his feet, unable to move, unable to breathe. Her head hurt, her heart pounded, and she didn’t want to… be here any longer.
She was a voyeur of her own suffering.
Watching passively as the crowd of Umbra reveled. They touched and tasted, and found no shadowed corners because they were shadows. This whole palace was touched by shadows. They didn’t need to hide what they did, so she was forced to watch it all.
Every sinister glance, shrouded in darkness. Every torn gown, every bit of flesh. It was a mass of desolate corruption.
And as she knelt there, before the ruler of it all, she found her thoughts drifting to Serpentis.
The revels at Vale’s castle had been nothing like this.
They had been lewd, wanton, but freeing, in a way.
This was nothing of the sort. Perhaps because she knew these beings were enslaved, forced to bend to the will of their master.
She wondered of the females she watched. The fae with hair as white as hers and eyes of moonlit blue—Luna fae. She watched as they dropped to their knees and were used by the males. She watched as they sat on laps, eyes glassy—some filled with shadows, others clear.
She wasn’t sure which was worse. The ones who were wholly aware of what was being done to them as they dissociated in horror.
Or the Umbra, used but uncaring that they were a pawn to a puppeteer.
Each gasp, each roving hand, and call of laughter, Luella couldn’t help but wonder if somewhere, deep down within them, they were disgusted by what they were being forced to do.
Or were they trapped so deeply within themselves that they didn’t realize they were being hurt and used?
The females with clear eyes were the hardest to watch, Luella realized.
It was the little things. The way their hands curled against the ground or the hard edges of stone chairs, as they were forced onto their knees, between legs.
The tears they tried to hold back. The blood that welled on split lips from hard slaps, unsatisfied that they weren’t doing enough, weren’t pleasing enough.
She watched it all, mind detached far from her body.
She couldn’t drift far, however. Because the collar at her throat kept her from doing so.
Every breath, every swallow—she was forced back into her mind from the cutting sensation of the spikes into her jugular.
It grounded her when she didn’t wish to remain on the ground.
Kept her tethered when she wished she could fly.
Her legs were numb from how long she had been kneeling there.
She couldn’t feel her lower half.
The shadows remained curling around her in warning.
"Who wants to touch?" Caliban boomed, his voice jolting her.
She didn’t look up at him, instead studying the marbled floor.
The crowd roared.
The bodies had been so thick, she couldn’t see through—only glimpses of walls and the reddened pool. As they began to form a line before the throne, she saw what had been hidden from her.
Her hands flexed on her numb thighs. What would it take to rid her of her sight—claw out her eyes? Surely that would be less horrifying than this.
The pool of blood was not a small thing as she had originally thought, but rather a large cavernous hole carved into the base of the throne room—filled to overflowing with blood.
It lapped against the edges, too much to be contained, as it mingled with water from the pure, smaller pools inlaid into the corners, coating parts of the marble floor with pinkish red.
Along the far wall, a place she hadn’t been able to see at all: stone spikes.
They were carved crudely, as if not an original decoration for the room, but an addition.
Sentient shadows curled up the stone spikes, straight toward disembodied heads attached to the ends. Their eyes were wide, unseeing. She was so horrified, she thought they were fake at first.
But she saw the pale grey pallor to their skin, the droop to their jaws, the hollows under their eyes.
Real. They were real.
The malodor that had first struck her came back with a vengeance at the sight—metal, rot, and decay.
One horror was replaced by another as the line began to move at Caliban’s behest.
Then, the Umbra touched her.
He allowed them up the steps one at a time, only for a moment, but that moment was stretched into eternity by the feel of their cold hands on her flesh, stroking over her wings and drifting down her shoulders to her arms. One tried to touch her ruined, swollen hand, and she gasped, making the crowd laugh.
One tried to do more than touch innocently—but Caliban swept his hand up, and the male who had tried to lean forward and place his lips on Luella’s cheek was roughly yanked back, dragged until his feet kissed the edge of the blood pool. He hovered there for a moment, and Caliban said:
"Only a touch—never a taste. You would do well to remember I do not misspeak.
She is mine, firstly and always. Mine to touch, mine to taste, mine to wreck and ruin.
" His shadowed eyes swept throughout the room.
"Let this be the first lesson of what I will do to anyone who attempts to take what I am owed. "
He flattened his hand, and the male was thrust beneath the pool of blood, red droplets splattering the Umbra standing nearby and staining their skin red.
Bubbles popped on the surface.
Luella blinked—
And saw Enora, beneath clean, pure water, struggling for breath as her lover held her under.
When Luella opened her eyes, the blood pool was calm, and Caliban appeared triumphant.
She sat there for so long, she wondered if she’d grow roots, curling beneath the stone as flowers bloomed on her skin.
"You look tired," said Caliban. His fingers gripped her hair and forced her head back until she met his eyes.
She wondered what he thought when he looked into her eyes—did he see how she felt… gone?
He wanted to break her, but already she was broken. It hadn’t taken much. Perhaps she had endured the process of being broken far before he’d ever gotten to her.
"I think it is time to take you to your new room."
At her look of fear, he laughed lowly, dragging her face up higher.