Chapter 4 Rhianelle #3
I cover it with my hand.
The masked man slowly raises his eyes to mine. “I suppose the imperial seal grew legs and climbed into your pocket by itself.”
“That.” I touch the lump in my dress and my voice comes out high and thin. “This is not what it looks like.”
His thumb moves once against my waist, slow and almost absentminded. “Do you know what we do to thieves in this empire?”
There is no anger in his voice, but a nervous chill still slips through me. I do not know what consequence he has in mind. His calmness only makes the possibilities worse.
The throne room changes around us. One by one, the ghostly courtiers fade. Their laughter dies first, followed by the music, until the final note dissolves into silence.
I step away from him. His hand falls from my waist, but his eyes remain fixed on me as I retreat another pace. The empty throne room feels far larger without the dancers surrounding us.
The right thing to do is to give it back. I should pull the dragon seal from my dress, place it in his hands, then apologize and ask him to forgive me.
But it looks like Coral. I want to keep it.
"I'm sorry," I say.
I spin on my heel and I sprint for the doors. My bare feet slap against the marble and the sound echoes through the empty hall.
Behind me, I hear him laugh.
"Oh, little fawn,” he calls after me. "You shouldn't have done that."
I run faster.
The corridor branches ahead. I take the left passage without thinking and nearly collide with the stone wall waiting at its end. A dead end. I turn sharply and race back the way I came, but the hallway has changed. It is darker now, the moonlight reduced to narrow silver strips across the floor.
My lungs burn and my heart hammers against my ribs. I force myself to move quietly, slipping between pillars and through open doorways in the hope that my old gift will hide me. It should. No one ever hears me when I do not wish to be heard.
The shadows hear me.
They shift along the walls like living vines, lengthening whenever I pass and curling toward my ankles. One brushes the back of my foot. I stumble away from it, fear sharpening every breath.
“You are going the wrong way.” The masked man’s voice drifts from somewhere above.
“I do not remember asking,” I reply to the darkness. I gather my nightdress in one hand and choose the opposite corridor.
A grand staircase spirals downward. I take the steps two at a time, one hand on the railing. The shadows pour down after me like ink spilling from an overturned well.
Behind me, his footsteps remain unhurried.
“You can return it,” his voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere. “And I’ll let you go unharmed.”
I clutch the seal tighter and keep running.
The staircase empties into the library I passed earlier. Shelves rise three stories around me, forming narrow aisles beneath the domed ceiling. I dart between them, hoping the countless rows will conceal me.
A shadow peels itself from the wall ahead and stretches across the aisle, closing the path like a hand around a trapped mouse.
I stop so abruptly that my feet slide across the polished floor.
Another shadow gathers behind me. They spill from every archway now, slithering over the marble and reaching for my feet.
One coils around my ankle.
I choke on a scream as it yanks my leg from beneath me. My hands strike the floor, but before I can rise, more tendrils wind around my calves and waist. They feel cold as smoke yet strong enough to drag me backward.
I twist and kick, clawing uselessly at the darkness. Landon commands a shadow lynx, but I have never known shadow magic could be shaped like these vines. They tighten whenever I struggle, binding me.
The darkness ahead deepens. The masked man steps from it as though the corridor itself has opened to release him.
I try to pull away, but the shadows draw me upright and into his path. His arms close around me before I can fall.
“Caught you,” he says quietly.
I am shaking, though I cannot tell whether it comes from the run, the fear or the slow circle his thumb traces against my hip. My chest rises hard against his, and beneath it I can feel the steady beat of his heart. The rhythm is calm and unwavering. He knows I was never truly going to escape him.
“Give it back,” he murmurs. “Return the seal to me.”
I look up at him, breathless and confused. If he wants it, why does he not simply take it? One hand could slip into the fold of my nightdress and retrieve it with embarrassing ease. Instead, he waits for me to voluntarily surrender it.
I shake my head. “No.”
Something flickers in his gaze. Amusement, perhaps. Then the shadows rise.
I gasp as darkness swallows us both. It folds over my vision and steals the corridor away. For one weightless instant I feel nothing beneath my feet, only cold and motion and the strange sensation of being carried inside a living night.
When the shadows release us, I stagger. Mirrors surround me on every side.
They climb the walls, stretch beneath my feet and cover the ceiling above.
Every surface throws our images back at us until the chamber seems to continue forever in silver and black.
Candlelight burns in a hundred mirrored flames.
At the center of the room, raised upon a stone dais, stands an altar. It is a broad slab of dark polished stone.
Understanding settles over me. This is the consequence he warned me about. This is where thieves are brought for punishment.
Fear curls low in my stomach now, sharp and real. My pulse is beating fast enough to choke me. But I clutch the little dragon through my dress and refuse to yield. The shadows fall away from my limbs.
He guides me toward the dais with one hand at my waist. Before I can protest, he lifts me as though I weigh nothing and sets me upon the edge of the altar. My breath catches. I am seated with my legs dangling, his hands still braced at my waist. The change in height brings us nearly eye to eye.
“Return it to me,” he says calmly.
I clutch the seal through my dress. “No.”
His head tilts slightly. “No?”
That almost-smile again, pulling at the corner of his mouth. He expected that answer.
“Last chance,” he says.
I shake my head and press my lips together.
I push myself backward along the stone, putting as much distance between us as the altar allows. His hand catches my ankle before I reach the far edge and drags me back to him in one smooth pull.
The shadows erupt around me. Two tendrils coil around my wrists and pull my arms above my head while another pair winds around my ankles. Panic surges through me. The bindings jerk and hold me firmly as he eases me back until I am lying upon the altar.
My breath catches when I look up. The mirror above reflects my body against the black stone, silver hair spread beneath my head and dark vines circling my wrists and ankles. The masked man stands between me and the candlelight, repeated endlessly in the mirrors surrounding us.
His gaze travels the length of me, unhurried and thorough. My stomach clenches. I brace for him to reach for the seal, to pry it from me by force. Instead, his hands settle on my knees and push them apart.
The shadow vines coil tighter around my ankles and pull, spreading my legs wider than I can fight. Every inch of exposed skin prickles with cool air. Fear threads through the heat, cold and sharp.
His fingers trail upward along my calf, slow enough that I feel every callus and ridge of his skin against mine. The shadow binding at my ankle loosens just enough to let his hand pass, then tightens again behind it.
I pull against the restraints. They hold.
His hands close around my thighs and drag me down the stone until my hips meet the edge of the altar, until there is nowhere left to retreat. Then he bends and presses his mouth to my knee.
I go still.
It is such a small thing. Such a strange place to kiss. My mind stumbles over it, searching for the cruelty I expected and finding none. There is only the warm press of his lips and the faint rasp of stubble against my skin.
His mouth drags along the inside of my thigh. Confusion tangles with something hotter low in my stomach. This isn’t punishment or anything I have a name for.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
“I’m going to show you what we do to thieves,” he says against my skin, and the promise in his voice turns my blood cold.
My heart slams against my ribs. This is not what I imagined when he spoke of punishment.
Every kiss lands a little higher than the last, climbing the inside of my thigh with a patience that feels like its own kind of torment.
My fingers curl into fists above my head.
The restraints bite gently into my wrists whenever I pull, reminding me that I am not going anywhere.
He pushes the hem of my nightdress up my thigh. Cool air meets my overheated skin, and the sensation makes me shiver. The fabric bunches at my hips.
His hands grip my thighs and ease them wider. The shadows help, adjusting around my ankles as though they are extensions of his will.
I catch my reflection in the mirror above and the sight sends heat flooding through my face and neck. Silver hair fanned across the dark stone. Legs parted by the shadow bindings at my ankles and thighs.
“Already so wet,” he murmurs against my skin. “Did running from me do this? Or was it getting caught?”
The vines tighten around my thighs while his fingers dig into the soft flesh, pinning me open. His mouth presses closer.
The first stroke of his tongue against my center punches the air from my lungs.
My back arches off the altar and the shadows pull taut across my wrists.
I slam my hands against the stone, needing something, anything to ground me as he licks a slow line through my folds.
He draws each sensation out until I can feel my own pulse hammering between my legs, heavy and demanding.
“Wait… please,” I beg.