Chapter 31 #2
The female’s fingers wrapped around Daisy’s wrist, and she yanked. The dagger pierced her stomach. The female elicited a bloodcurdling scream before convulsing on top of Daisy. Not usually what a stomach wound would do.
Violence will set you free.
With that, the female died. She draped down over Daisy and lay still.
Daisy breathed heavily for a long moment as hot liquid spilled over her, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to understand why the female would urgently feed Zorn’s teachings back to her and then kill herself for the trouble.
Clapping pulled her focus away, and then rough hands were grabbing her.
Pulling her. The dagger was ripped out of her palm as she was set on her feet.
Large, clumsy hands pulled weapons out of the sheaths wrapped around her body and haphazardly patted her down to find any others.
A palm touched the magical knife under her clothes but didn’t stop, continuing to search.
That done, the guard roughly grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the dais. She limped badly, the knife wound in her thigh screaming.
The king leaned against the arm of the throne. The other royals lounged, ready to be through with the evening.
“Well done,” the king said, stroking the diamond chalice. “I thought she had you there.”
Laughter and chatter went on behind her, the nobles having a wonderful time with each other now that the entertainment had finished.
The king’s gaze roamed over Daisy’s body, stopping on the areas the female had cut or slashed.
“And not too banged up. Fantastic.” He put up his hand. “Take her to my chambers. Strap her in.” His gaze lifted, and given the direction, Daisy knew he was looking at Tarian. “You need fewer distractions. If you finish quickly, however, I will let you have one last night with her.”
After all… His red eyes rooted Daisy to the spot. The royal black around his irises started to move, increasing in size and speed, flowing around his pupils. You’ll still be useable even with a broken mind.
He jerked his head. The two guards yanked her to walking. This was it. It was happening. She was on her own with a magically diseased creature hellbent on destroying her. Not just pain, either, but torture. He’d try to break her spirit little by little until there was nothing left.
But she had her knife. And she had her resolve. She might be human, but she was not as easily breakable as they all thought.
The female still lay in the center of the marble floor, surrounded by a sea of red. She didn’t move. She’d given her life to help Daisy and, through Daisy, Tarian. Yet Daisy didn’t have any idea how she fit into all this. Why she was helping? What did she know?
Tarian hadn’t stood. He hadn’t moved since the last time she’d spied him. But now he lowered his hand from his lips, his expression hard, his eyes concerned.
Into her mind, he said, Some toys come alive in the middle of the night…
He let the sentence linger. Her sentence, spoken to him when in the human world.
She finished it. And kill you in your sleep.
His smile was slight.
Come back to me, he whispered, and then she was being walked through a side door into a lavish hall made for royalty.
Pain ripped through her heart at having to leave him, especially like this. At the uncertainty in his voice and the terror she’d heard beneath the words.
She wanted to curl into herself and shut off.
To reflect on what had gotten her here, what had gone on in that room—that battle—and how the fuck this had all become her journey.
She realized she’d gotten used to Tarian being around to protect her in this place.
Used to the Fallen watching her back and dogging her heels.
Even in the prison they’d been watching. She had no such luxuries now.
She pushed down her confusion, her fear, and the complete ickiness of her predicament and started paying attention.
She noticed each turn and the face of each servant.
When they entered through a grand set of double doors, she noticed the furniture, the sharp objects, and the items that could crush a skull, just like Kayla had first advised her.
Servants scurried around and out, giving the guards privacy. They’d likely do the same thing for the king, knowing he’d want to play with his new toy in peace. That was great fucking news.
Not great news was the straps the guards were leading her toward. They existed in an obvious bedchamber and looked like kinky torture devices popular among people with safe words. She doubted she’d get to choose one of those.
They took her along the side of the main bedchamber to a washroom. Without ceremony, the guards stopped. One of them yanked her around to face him before reaching for the buttons on her clothing.
“Whoa there, bud.” She slapped his hands away. “I’m going to need dinner and dancing first.”
The guard scowled and lifted his arm. She braced for the impact of his palm. When the blow came, she purposely stepped onto her bad leg and fell into the other guard.
“Do as you’re told,” the first guard gritted out.
She didn’t point out that he hadn’t actually told her to do anything.
She slipped the knife she’d just stolen from Guard Number Two into her pants pocket.
“Let me do it,” she said, taking a step back. She lifted her hands to show she was unarmed.
The first guard narrowed his eyes but grunted assent.
She undid the buttons and sacrificed a little dignity to give them a booby show as she figured out the knife situation. It was magically glued to her side, after all, and she needed to shed it in a way that these fools didn’t notice.
Thankfully, the moment her fingers brushed the sheath, the whole thing slid down to the tucked-in portion of her shirt.
She bunched it all, waved her boobs around for good measure, and then put shirt and sheath in a ball in the corner.
Her pants went next. She turned and bent to shimmy them down her thighs.
The guards got a peek of certain areas that needed shaving, and she kept the stolen knife.
Distracting males did not take a lot of brain power.
Knowing guards would not be interested in doing cleanup, she kicked her balled-up clothes more toward a corner and covered herself in mock embarrassment. There they wouldn’t be so obvious to the actual cleaning crew.
“Wash,” the first guard said.
She stared at the tub and the water contraption. Hesitantly, she reached for the chain. They stepped back to give her space. The king obviously wanted a clean toy.
After the most awkward bath she’d ever taken—which still wasn’t as awkward as that guy in the apartment in San Francisco, where she busted in, tied him up, and left Zorn to torture him—she wrapped herself in a towel and waited for instructions.
“Come on.” The guard reached for her, but Daisy backed away again. She turned and quickly bent for her clothes. “You don’t need those,” he said.
Well, no shit, but she had an ulterior motive, and these guards were thankfully too dumb to see that.
“They’re mine.” She bundled them up in a ball and hugged them into her chest as though they were her teddy bear.
“You don’t—”
“Leave it,” Guard Two said impatiently. He motioned her on, not bothering to secure her arm.
The first guard grabbed her upper arm and pulled her with them, walking back to the bedchamber where the outer doors had been closed.
She ignored the huge four-poster bed and the golden cuffs that hung from two pegs in the headboard.
Against the far wall, where there was space to swing a whip or just stand back and watch, leather covered the stone with manacles hanging at the sides.
More pegs had been drilled in and a few splotches of blood hadn’t been cleaned off the floor from the last unwilling participant.
The cold from earlier was back, lodging in her stomach. Shivers ran through her length.
She had weapons and was being escorted by two dead guys. It would be fine. This would be fine. She was not in over her head here. Not yet.
Guard Two veered toward a chest. He opened it and pulled out a black, lacy garment with red ribbons. He flung it at Daisy, who dropped her bundle in “surprise,” “missed” catching the garment, and “accidentally” dropped her towel in the process.
It wasn’t hard to call up tears as she bent to pick up everything, her lip quivering and her hair lank from the bath. She looked pitiful and she knew it. Counted on it, actually. She needed a second to think. To gauge the situation.
She sniffled as she straightened with the garment, limping and shuffling to get her balance. Her feet hit the edge of her bundle as Guard Two said, “Put it on.”
She cried harder as she bent to do as instructed, creating a tent with her towel as she tried to put on the item.
Her knife was right there, at her fingertips.
She could grab it and launch herself forward, getting one in surprise and the second right after.
Then what? If those two were needed elsewhere, their absence would be noticed.
Someone would come in looking for them, and before she knew it, she’d either have a pile of bodies or be outnumbered.
If the former, it wouldn’t be long before they sent enough people that a sneak attack would no longer work.
Both of those scenarios ended with her getting caught and used. Broken, maybe not of mind but of body, and no use to Tarian. She couldn’t have that.
She stepped into the garment and looked back at the contraption on the wall.
The chains looped through metal rings at the top corners and ended in metal manacles with heavily worn leather around the insides.
The king liked to play, first with pain, then probably with pleasure.
Little hooks stuck into the stone in various places were used to keep the chains at certain lengths, and that length changed based on the captive’s various positions, so she assumed.