Chapter 10 #2
Finally, they reached a gilded door the Fae pushed open without knocking.
Cillian and Bran were pulled into a room that could have doubled as a small library despite it apparently being used as an office.
Rather than a single story, it was two, with a spiral wooden staircase leading up to a mezzanine that wrapped around each wall and overlooked the main space below.
The walls were lined with bookshelves that sat between arched windows overlooking a swath of greenery Cillian assumed was a garden of some sort.
Even as he took in the space, most of his attention was focused on the pair of Fae before them whom their captor bowed to—no, Cillian thought, just the lord, because that was who sat at the grand wooden desk carved with a motif of wolves.
He wore a soft gray coat embroidered with violet thread that matched a waistcoat of the same color.
His black hair was cut much shorter than their captor’s, and there was a streak of white running through it at an angle.
A faint scar cutting toward his left eye marred the otherwise perfection of his face.
The Fae lord was handsome in a way that would have made Cillian look more than twice at a bar or a club back home. Here, when those silver-colored eyes stared at him and widened fractionally, Cillian only wanted to look away.
The lady standing next to the Fae lord’s ornate chair wore a peach-colored gown that paired well with the soft pink of her pinned-up hair, showing off her pointed ears capped in gold.
She held an open book in her arms, one finger frozen on a page, staring at them with pale yellow eyes, her lips parted slightly in surprise.
The Fae lord set down his pen and stood. “Damarus?”
The Fae who’d caught them in the forest and dragged them to this town gestured with the hand that still held both roots.
He spoke in English rather than the Fae’s own language, and Cillian wondered about the reasoning behind letting him and Bran know what was being said.
“Lord Ainmire. I found mortals in the forest during my ride.”
The Fae lord’s gaze never left Cillian’s face. “Mortals.”
“A witch and their companion.”
Ainmire wrenched his gaze from Cillian to Bran, and Cillian had the sudden urge to step between the two of them. “A witch? And you didn’t kill him?”
“There were extenuating circumstances, as you can see.”
Again, the Fae lord’s attention snapped back to Cillian, the lingering silence in the room suffocating. After a moment, he turned to the lady with him. “Leave us.”
So maybe not his lady, but a lady, someone who worked for him, because she made no argument to the order, merely dipped into a shallow curtsy, set the book on the desk, and left the room in a gliding sweep of her skirts.
The guard from the forest went with her, closing the door behind them both.
The latch caught with a quiet click, the sound overly loud in the silence.
Ainmire finally came out from behind his desk, approaching where they stood in the middle of the room with slow, measured steps.
Light caught on the golden wolf pin attached to the lapel of his coat, making it glint.
He stopped directly in front of Cillian, studying him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
They were of the same height, and Cillian raised his chin a fraction of an inch, ignoring all his discomfort, refusing to show weakness in front of the Fae lord.
Ainmire lifted one ungloved hand and wrapped his fingers around the knot that kept the root tied around Cillian’s throat.
The pressure made Cillian swallow reflexively, throat hurting from how dry it was.
He was pulled closer, forced to move so he didn’t choke.
Ainmire stared at him for a long minute, not blinking, before he finally released the root, letting Cillian rock back onto his heels.
“You say you found them in the forest?” Ainmire asked.
“Well past the boundaries of where the wyrding has encroached in the past,” Damarus said.
“They certainly stink of that place.”
“Your friend here didn’t want to stop somewhere and let us clean up first, so you’ll have to deal with the smell like we have,” Bran said.
“Be quiet,” Cillian said warningly.
Too late. Bran speaking up meant Ainmire’s attention turned to him, a smile curving at his lips that Cillian didn’t like.
“You must be the witch,” Ainmire said, moving to stand in front of Bran, a look in his eyes that made Cillian stiffen. “We Fae have a standing law to kill your kind.”
“Same for us witches,” Bran gritted out.
Ainmire gripped Bran’s chin, forcing his head up. The Fae lord was taller than Bran and seemed intent on using that fact to try to intimidate him. Cillian could have told him it would get him nowhere. “Is that so?”
“Get your hands off him,” Cillian growled. He managed a single step toward Ainmire when something came to rest against his back, over his spine, blade so sharp it cut through the fabric of his shirt with no pressure at all. When it cut into his skin, he froze, warm blood trickling down his back.
“None of that,” Damarus said in a low, amused voice. “Not if you wish to keep his spine intact.”
It took Cillian a moment to realize that Damarus wasn’t speaking to him and hadn’t seen him as a threat.
That it was Bran who’d been the one to cause the Fae to act—Bran, who had magic glowing in his clenched fists tied behind his back, chin still caught in Ainmire’s grip.
Bran’s eyes flicked toward Cillian for a second before he let out a heavy breath and unclenched his fingers, his magic fading to nothing.
Ainmire smiled at Bran, eyes gone half-lidded, thumb moving to drag over Bran’s bottom lip. Cillian wanted to rip his fingers away bone by bone. “Good choice, pet.”
“Fuck you,” Bran spat out.
“I don’t fuck pets. Not until they are housebroken, at least. You tend to bite until then.”
The flash of revolted horror that crossed Bran’s face had Cillian ignoring the knife at his back in his need to put himself in front of Bran.
Before he could even lift his foot off the floor, the root around his throat went tight, cutting off his air.
He was reeled backward, a boot hitting the back of his knees, taking his legs out from beneath him.
Cillian crashed to his knees; the only thing saving them from something worse than bruises was the plush rug covering the hardwood floor.
That knife which rent skin so easily kissed the side of his throat beneath the root.
A stinging pain heralded a tiny trickle of blood sliding down to stain his T-shirt.
The pressure in Cillian’s lungs grew and grew until the root around his throat finally loosened.
He drew in a ragged gasp, mouth and throat so terribly dry.
Bran stared at him with wide eyes, still held in the Fae lord’s grip.
Ainmire finally let Bran go, his attention back on Cillian, where Cillian preferred it to be. On his knees, Cillian had no choice but to tilt his head back to meet the Fae lord’s eyes in that beautiful face. Unlike with Bran, Ainmire didn’t touch him. “You care for this witch.”
It was a statement, not a question. Cillian didn’t respond.
Ainmire studied him with an intensity he couldn’t turn from, not with the knife at his throat. “Such skin you wear.”
“My lord?” Damarus asked. “Your orders?”
“Take him to the cells. He’ll live for now.”
“And the witch?”
“The witch stays with me.”
“No,” Cillian snarled, pressing forward despite the knife at his throat. Surprisingly, Damarus shifted his grip and didn’t cut Cillian’s throat with it.
“If we’re prisoners, then I’m staying with him,” Bran said.
Ainmire laughed, sounding cruelly amused as he turned toward Bran. “You speak as if you have a say in what happens. You will stay, witch, and you will obey like a good little pet, or your companion will die on my say-so, at my whim, whatever it may be.”
The root drew tighter around Cillian’s throat, and he gagged. Bran stared at him with such a bleak expression that Cillian wanted to tell him it was okay, to not worry, but he couldn’t find breath to shape those words.
“Fine,” Bran said desperately. “Just don’t hurt him.”
“Pets don’t give orders. You will do well to learn that.
” Ainmire approached Bran again, divesting him of the roots with casual touches that dragged over Bran’s body.
Bran went rigid, and an icy knot of anger bloomed in Cillian’s chest. “I will show you where he will stay and what will happen if you disobey.”
Cillian didn’t like the sound of that, but he wasn’t in any position to protest. Damarus slid the knife away and hauled him back to his feet by way of the root wrapped around his throat.
Cillian could do nothing but follow where it pulled, and it pulled him back through that eerily beautiful mansion and down into a circular underground room that smelled of blood.
Six cells surrounded a center space cluttered with all manner of instruments and devices Cillian refused to let his mind linger on.
Damarus led him to the third cell, and while the first one was empty, the second one was not.
Cillian only got a brief glimpse of someone huddled in the corner, tucked as small as their body would allow, before the root around his neck and wrists was sliced clean through by that dangerously sharp knife Damarus wielded.
Then, he was shoved rather unceremoniously into the cell.
Alone.
He caught himself before he fell, turning around and throwing himself at the bars as the door clanged shut. Cillian banged his fist against one of the bars, hand aching from the blow. “Let me out.”
Ainmire only smiled at him. “I take no orders from you.”
Cillian wrenched his gaze to where Bran stood, hands clenched into fists and face far too pale beneath the dirt and grime from their passage through the wyrding. “Are you all right?”
Ainmire stepped between them before he could answer, blocking Bran from Cillian’s sight. He was apparently unconcerned with Cillian’s desire for murder right about then. “Truly, you are a sight to behold. Such joy it brings me to see you like this.”
Cillian wished the bars he was clutching so tightly were the Fae lord’s neck. “Don’t you dare hurt him.”
“He only comes to harm if you try anything. The same rules apply to the witch. You are each other’s salvation or damnation, so choose your path wisely, Cillian.”
Ainmire turned from him and left the way they’d come, Bran following after him at the point of Damarus’ knife. Bran looked back at Cillian with wild eyes as he was forced out of a room that was more in line with a dungeon.
“Hey!” Cillian shouted, trying to shake the cell bars loose in his fury, but they wouldn’t budge. “Hey! Bring him back!”
The door closed behind Damarus with a squeak of hinges, and Cillian swore, slamming his fist against the bar once more.
He shoved himself away from the cell door and had to flail his arms as his feet suddenly skated over something smooth and slick, providing no traction to his hiking boots.
He looked down at the dirt floor, staring at the patch of cracked blue-white ice that covered the ground where he stood, the jagged edges of it extending farther into the cell, some of it crawling up the walls.
His breath came out in soft white puffs, the air in the basement suddenly exponentially chillier. Cillian carefully stepped off the ice in favor of solid dirt, cold in a way he rarely was, as he realized that no one had told Ainmire his name upon their arrival.
But the Fae lord had known it.