Chapter 2 #2
He sighs again, but doesn’t push. “All right. How about this? I’ll call for the healer.” He keeps the gentle protector act perfectly in place. “There’s no reason for you to sit here and suffer. Let the healer do what she can to make you feel better. Maybe then you’ll feel like eating.”
He gets to his feet and walks over to the door, opens it, and steps outside.
I can hear him talking, but I pay no attention to what he’s saying.
He could be calling for a healer, the guards, or someone else.
There isn’t anything I can do to stop him, and I’m not going to waste what little strength I have trying to find out.
He returns a few minutes later with three women I don’t recognize. One reaches out and tips my head up, turning it from side to side. Her fingers probe at my swollen eye, and I hiss, jerking out of her grip.
“I need her to lie down so I can examine her properly,” she tells Brennan.
He lifts me into his arms without a word. I bite the inside of my cheek to swallow the scream that wants to escape as my ribs protest the movement. His chest is solid and warm against my side, a devastating reminder of the safety he used to represent.
He carries me over to the large bed that dominates one corner of the room, easing me down onto the mattress. The softness of the bed is a jarring contrast to the damp stone of the cell, but I don’t let myself relax into it.
I can’t.
He steps back, making room for the woman.
The healer steps forward, her face a blank mask.
She doesn’t speak to me, and I’m not even sure she recognizes me as a princess of the realm.
She presses along my collarbone, and down my torso.
When her fingers touch my ribs, the pain is a blinding white flash.
I gasp, my back arching off the mattress, and my fingers fist into the fine linen sheets.
“Please hold still.” Her tone is devoid of any sympathy.
She lifts my arms, inspecting the raw, bloodied flesh around my wrists where the iron chains tore into my skin. Every touch sends fresh waves of agony through my body, but I refuse to give Brennan the satisfaction of watching me break.
She moves to my legs, running her palms down my shins, checking for breaks, then finally stepping back. She straightens, wiping her hands on a cloth held by one of the maids, and turns to Brennan.
“There’s very little I can do about her eye until the swelling goes down, and I can see what damage has been done. I can patch her ribs. They’re badly bruised, but not broken. Everything else is minor, and won’t kill her.”
The maid steps forward again, a steaming mug in her hands, a strong scent of herbs rising from it. She holds it out toward me.
“Drink this,” the healer says. “It will help with the pain.”
I shake my head. I don’t want it. I don’t trust anything they want to give me. But it’s a wasted defiance.
The healer’s face hardens, and she gives a nod to the maid. Hands clamp down on my shoulders, pinning me in place, and the healer steps close. Her fingers dig into my jaw, and the pain forces me to open my mouth to breathe, giving her exactly what she needs.
She tips the mug against my lips, pouring the hot liquid past my teeth. I gag, trying to spit it out, and twist away despite the agony in my ribs, but the maid holds me steady while the bitter herbs burn my tongue, and the healer pinches my nose closed and covers my mouth.
I choke, coughing as it hits the back of my throat, and I have no choice but to swallow or drown.
Once the mug is empty, they release their grip.
I slump back, gasping. The drink is already spreading a heavy, drowsy numbness through me, easing the worst of the pain.
While I struggle to catch my breath, the maids move around me, arranging a dress screen to shield me from Brennan’s sight, while they carefully cut away my ruined clothes.
Defeated, exhausted, and on the brink of tears, I don’t fight them anymore, and allow them to move me however they need to.
The healer binds my ribs with linen, so tightly I can barely breathe, then she smears a foul-smelling salve across my cheek and swollen eye.
Her work finished, she walks beyond the screen.
I can hear her murmuring to Brennan, their voices a low hum, but the herbal drink they forced into me makes the words blur together.
The maids ease a clean shift over my head. A dress follows, made from the finest silk and dyed a deep blue. They don’t speak to me, and once I’m dressed, they guide me back to the armchair. One kneels, slipping warm slippers onto my feet.
I sink into the cushions, my body betraying my mind’s desperate need to stay rigid. Every time I lean toward the soup, and the warmth of the fire, I snap upright. The comfort of the clean clothes and the soft chair is a seductive, dangerous trap.
But I’m so tired. Whatever was in that bitter concoction they poured down my throat is taking effect. My good eye drifts shut. Panic spikes through the haze.
I can’t fall asleep, not here.
I bite the inside of my cheek, fighting to keep my eye open. When my vision clears, the dressing screen is gone, and the maids and healer have vanished. The room is empty save for Brennan, who has returned to the seat opposite mine.
His eyes track over me. “Will you eat the soup now, Alleria? Please?”
My hand reaches for the bowl before I make the conscious decision to move.
The thick, drugging haze in my veins turns his soft request into an undeniable command.
I try to tell myself I’m only doing it because I’d be a fool to ignore the needs of my body, but the terrifying truth is that my mind is too clouded to form a refusal.
I lift the spoon. The soup is thick and hot, and so good.
I try to take my time, desperate to hold on to some final shred of free will, but whatever the healer forced down my throat has severed the link between my thoughts and my muscles.
As soon as the first mouthful hits my empty stomach, instinct takes over.
I shovel in another spoonful, and then another, until the bowl is empty.
Brennan gives me a satisfied smile. “Good girl.” The condescension in his tone makes my stomach twist.
“Why did you bring me here?” I fight to stay focused. But it’s hard. My thoughts are sluggish, I want nothing more than to sleep, but there’s a tiny part of me—a small, frantic voice inside my head—warning me not to give in.
He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He looks so patient, so concerned for me, so much like the man who spent days teaching me skills I’d never need but wanted to have, that my heart aches.
“I thought we could talk for a while, before you face your father again. He really doesn’t want to hurt you, Alleria.
But the things you said … the things you refused to tell him.
” Disappointment clouds his features. “You defended those … those creatures. They murdered everyone in the Dell. Do you understand that? They stole you from your bed and kept you prisoner, and yet you’re defending them. ”
I force my head up. “I wasn’t a prisoner. Not when you came and took me.”
“I rescued you.”
“No.” The drug doesn’t want me to argue. It wants me to comply. I fight against it. “I wasn’t in need of rescue.”
“Alleria, you’ve been missing for weeks.” His voice remains soft. “Your father was terrified they’d killed you. When I saw Nella in that village … She was so scared. She crept down the stairs, and risked her life to let me know you were there. Then she told me what they’d done to you.”
“She lied. What she told you isn’t true.”
“Then you tell me. In your own words, tell me what happened.” He reaches out and takes my hand. His grip is warm, his touch gentle as his thumb smooths in slow circles over my knuckles. “I’ve always been there for you. Let me be there now. Tell me what they did to you.”
I want nothing more than to believe him. It would be so easy to surrender. He’s always been my shield against the world. The steadfast guard who chased away my childhood nightmares. The man who held me whenever I needed to cry, and let me soak his tunics without demanding explanations.
I badly want to give in and tell him everything.
My body sways toward him, lulled by the hypnotic, soothing circles his thumb traces over my wrist. Then the fire pops, spitting a shower of sparks against the stone. I flinch, my gaze snapping up to collide with his, and the illusion he’s been weaving shatters.
The expression on his face turns me cold. It’s hungry, hopeful, and patient. The same look he used to wear whenever he took me into the woods to stalk game.
Nausea churns, threatening to bring up the soup I’ve just eaten.
Bile burns the back of my throat. For a couple of moments, the false safety of this room and his presence made me forget everything that happened—the mage tearing into my mind, the damp stone, the iron chains, and the fact it was Brennan’s own men who beat me until the world went dark.
But worst of all, I forgot the words he said right before he handed me to the mage.
She’s already been deflowered, so I might as well get what I’ve been waiting for.
The warmth of his fingers around mine doesn’t feel like comfort anymore. They feel like a snake coiling around its prey.
The food. The healer. The clothes. None of it is because he’s sorry for what has been done to me. He isn’t trying to help me. He’s using every means at his disposal to weaken my defenses until I give him what he wants.
I pull my hand free from his grip. “Don’t touch me.”
“All I’m asking is that you’re honest with me.” He stays in the role of protector, but I’ve seen behind the mask now. “Tell me about the fae who took you. Its weaknesses. How we can defeat it. That’s all I want. Then this will be over. Your father will forgive you, and you can come home again.”
“Home.” I look around the room. Nothing about this place is home anymore.