Chapter 6
Delphi stared in wonder as creatures began to appear around them. They were all cloaked, but she could make out horns and clawed feet in the shadows. Fear coiled through her, and she froze, knowing there was no way she could escape the grip around her arm.
"Unhand my property!" Louis shouted from where his men had retreated to the borderline of the forest.
"Your property? I think not, lordling." A hand reached up and pulled back the hood.
Delphi stared up at him, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. He had a lion's head, with a narrower nose like a man's, and the tips of his fangs rested on full dark lips.
Two black horns twisted back from the top of his head, his ears pointed like a lynx's. He had a thick black mane and beard, streaked in places with silver. Through the gap of his cloak, his bare torso was a smooth black bone plating with gold arcane sigils carved into it.
He wore trousers, cut off at the knees to reveal his leonine back legs. He was covered in short midnight black fur, a strange blend of man and lion. Golden eyes studied her, and Delphi felt stripped bare under them.
Louis and his men shrank back in fear, drawing their swords. The only one who didn't look surprised was Narcisse.
"Infernal alchemist, you show your face at last," the beast growled. "Look upon your work, Narcisse. Have we grown more handsome with time?"
Narcisse began to shake. "King Tenebrys. L-Let her go."
"Only if you take her place," Tenebrys replied, his large fingers tightening on Delphi. Narcisse didn't move. He didn't say a word. "That's what I thought. Still a fucking coward."
"How did you find me?" Narcisse finally asked, sweat covering his brow.
"I never stepped into the woods. Not even when the voices called out to me.
Always whispering at me, trying to lure me…
I never went! You shouldn't be here." Fear was making him babble in a way Delphi had never seen before, even when he was drunk.
Tenebrys made a rumbling sound. It took Delphi a moment to realize it was laughter. "You were always so very good at hiding yourself from magic, Narcisse. It's a shame you didn't bother to teach your daughter how to ward her mind as effectively."
"She has nothing to do with this," Narcisse said weakly.
"She came into my woods, and I'm claiming her as a blood price for your crimes."
"What crimes?" Delphi asked, finding her voice at last. None of this was making any sense.
Tenebrys gripped her face and turned it toward him, leaning down until their noses almost touched. "Look what your father did to me. Did he not tell you of his shameful experiments on shifters to make us all monsters?"
A tremble shook Delphi's body, but it was a strange kind of awe, not fear. She forced herself to look into his golden eyes. Her magic really had been released when she had been dreaming, and it had led them straight to her.
"All these years," Delphi whispered. She reached out and touched his cheek. "And you weren't really a dream. You are real."
"Yes. You finally let your guard down enough to lead me right to you."
Delphi flushed hot, knowing exactly how she had let it down.
Tenebrys's nostrils flared, and his hand dropped to run his thumb over the scratch on her neck. Delphi's breath caught, heat rising in her chest, and his golden eyes widened just a little.
"Let her go, monster, or I will come and take her by force," Louis demanded, shattering the moment.
Tenebrys looked back at Narcisse and Louis. "You are welcome to get your army together and try, lordling."
Hissing growls and yips echoed around them from the other shifters. They were all laughing at them.
Delphi gasped as Tenebrys tossed her over his shoulder, and the last thing she saw was Narcisse falling to his knees and vomiting on the grass.
Night closed around them the further they went into the wood.
Delphi's ribs ached from Tenebrys's shoulder, and every time she wriggled, his clawed hands held her tighter to him.
He smelled wild, like the forest, with notes of black sandalwood and an animal musk that reminded her of the heat of her dream.
Every so often, Delphi saw the tip of his tail flicking under the hem of his cloak.
They had been traveling west, but Delphi couldn't be sure. The forest all looked the same to her. Black trees, mist, and moonlight blurred around them. She didn't try to fight him or think of an escape. There was none. It all felt like a surreal dream.
What had Narcisse done to them? How was it even possible? She never would have believed it, except her father had called him by name.
Delphi thought that Narcisse selling her out to Louis was bad enough. She knew he was selfish to his core, but he hadn't offered to trade places to save her. She had been paying for Narcisse's crimes since she was in the cradle, and now these creatures could enact any punishment they wished on her.
Delphi shut her eyes and swallowed hard to keep the tears from her eyes. She refused to be a coward like Narcisse.
The cloying stench of rotting flesh made her open her eyes again, and she wished she hadn't.
She struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.
Tall spikes of iron rose in a circle, fencing in an inner ring of gray stones.
Bodies had been impaled on the spikes and were in varying states of decay.
Some had vaguely humanoid features, while others had rotting wings, horns, and beetle-like bodies.
"What are they?" Delphi asked in a husky voice.
Tenebrys slowed his stride. "Fae that dared to come through the boundary crossing and into my woods."
"I thought the fae were dead and gone," she replied. Her fingers tightened on the edge of his cloak, suddenly more afraid of the dead creatures of legend than of him.
"They stay gone because of me," Tenebrys growled out. "This is a warning to others not to cross me."
Delphi's voice trembled as she asked, "Is one of these stakes for me?"
"You have fae blood, witch, but you were born in this world," Tenebrys replied, moving out of the glade. "Besides, that death would be too quick."
Delphi didn't dare open her mouth again. She drifted off to sleep until Tenebrys's pace slowed once more, and she jolted awake. Moonlight shone off pale stone, and she lifted her head to look around.
Iron gates covered in vines were pulled back, and a sprawling chateau of stone rose around her. The gardens were overgrown, and a stone fountain of a roaring lion was dry and in crumbling disrepair.
Wooden doors at the front of the chateau opened. Torches had been lit in iron sconces hanging from the walls. Dusty paintings and tapestries still hung in their places. It felt abandoned and forgotten.
A coat of arms was carved into the stone above a roaring fireplace, the words 'Lux in Tenebris' etched beneath it in the scholar's tongue. Light in Darkness, Delphi's mind supplied. Something about that family motto niggled at her, but she was too exhausted to remember why.
Her captor carried her up a set of stairs. Delphi didn't think dungeons were kept above ground. She didn't let her mind dwell on what horrors were about to come next.
Tenebrys pushed open a wooden door and dropped her onto a couch, sending a small cloud of dust up into the air. Her bag was placed next to her.
"What do you want from me?" Delphi asked, half dreading the answer. He hadn't put her on an iron stake, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to kill her.
"I want…" Tenebrys began and trailed his large fingers over her chest. Goosebumps spread over Delphi's skin, and she gasped when he plucked the vial of poison out from between her breasts. "This. There will be no escaping me with poison, little flower."
Delphi didn't breathe again until he stepped back. She stared at her new surroundings. In the dim light, it took her a moment to recognize the familiar equipment of an alchemy lab.
"What is this place?" she asked, staring about her.
"This is how your parents ruined me and mine. He never told you about it, so this is your proof," Tenebrys growled. He snatched up a book from a table and shoved it into her hands. "Here are their sins."
Delphi frowned as she looked down at the book. "Do you want me to try and undo what they did? Because I'm not an alchemist."
"It was magic, not alchemy, that made us this way, and there is no undoing what was done," he replied, his gold eyes icing over. "You're not here to help me, little flower. You are here to suffer."
The wooden door slammed behind him, the bolt on the outside sliding shut, imprisoning her in the past.