Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
ALLERIA
The surface beneath my cheek is soft in a way my pillow isn’t. I move my head, rubbing my face against it, while I frown, trying to pull myself out of sleep.
I’m lying on fur.
My eyes snap open on the thought.
Why am I lying on fur?
“Welcome back.”
My heart slams into my throat. The voice came from somewhere to my left, or maybe behind me. I jerk upright, eyes darting around. This isn’t my room. This isn’t anywhere I recognize. I twist, scanning the space, eyes taking in the strange silver-white walls, searching for the voice.
Where is he?
My eyes sweep over the curved walls, the furs I’m sitting on, the strange sourceless light.
There!
Half-hidden by shadow, is a chair, and he’s sitting on it, watching me out of those gold eyes. So still he could be part of the darkness.
Cairn.
My stomach drops. Every muscle in my body locks, some deep animal part of me recognizing the predator before my mind fully catches up. He’s just sitting there, but the way he’s watching me … waiting … a hunter deciding whether to strike.
I scramble backward across the furs, putting distance between us. My breath comes too fast, my thoughts scattering.
I was in my chambers. I was in my bed. I remember lying down, closing my eyes—
“How—” The word tears out of me. “I was in my room. I was—”
“You were.” His head tilts slightly, a corner of his mouth curving up. “Now, you’re not.”
Someone took me from my bed. Someone brought me here while I slept … Where is here? … I didn’t wake up. I didn’t feel anything.
My eyes dart back to him, and part of my brain notes how different he seems from when I last saw him.
His features have sharpened, the bones more defined beneath golden skin.
The dark marks I glimpsed at the stream are clear against his throat and the backs of his hands.
His ears taper to a slight point, visible where he’s tucked hair behind one.
He looks exactly like what he is.
Fae. Other. Dangerous.
“My father will—” My voice shakes.
“Your father will do what, exactly?” He rises from the chair. “Send soldiers? Search parties?”
He doesn’t come straight toward me. Instead, he moves to the side and I have to turn my head to keep him in sight.
“But they will look for me—”
“Let them.” He gives a careless shrug of one shoulder.
He’s still moving, circling around the edge of the space. I twist, trying to track him, but he passes behind me, and for one horrible moment I can’t see him at all. Just the empty tent and the furs and the strange silver walls.
Where is he?
I spin around on my knees, heart pounding, the hair on the back on my neck rising, as every instinct screams that there’s a predator at my back … and then he’s there, on my other side now, still walking that slow circle. His eyes haven’t left me.
“He won’t find you. No one will.”
I try to keep him in sight, but he keeps moving in and out of the shadows. When he appears in front of me again, he stops, head tilting as he looks down at me. I try to stand, scramble to get my feet under me, but my legs won’t cooperate. I’m shaking too hard, my muscles refusing to obey.
“You can’t keep me here!” The words come out thin and desperate. “I’m the king’s daughter.”
“Haven’t we had this conversation before?” He arches an eyebrow, then lowers himself to a crouch, bringing his eyes level with mine. “You’re in my camp.” His voice is soft. “Your title means nothing here, Moirthalen.”
He’s so close I can see the flecks of darker gold in his eyes, and the faint lines of the marks that trace up his neck.
He’s between me and the exit, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move. And he’s watching me the way a cat watches a mouse it’s already caught. Curious what I’ll do, but not concerned.
I lunge for the exit, my body moving before my mind catches up, shoving past him so I can throw myself toward the pale shimmer of the opening. My bare feet slip on the furs, and I go down hard on one knee, pain jolting up my leg, but I scramble forward, aiming for the gap I can see in the wall.
He hits me from behind, and the impact drives the air from my lungs.
I slam face-first into the furs, his weight crushing me flat, his body covering mine.
Before I can draw breath to scream, his hand fists into my hair and wrenches my head back.
My neck arches, my spine bowing, and a cry tears out of me.
“That,” he whispers against my ear, his chest pressed to my back, “was stupid.”
I thrash beneath him, bucking, trying to throw him off.
He’s so much heavier than I am, so much stronger, and every move presses me harder into the furs.
His knee drives against the base of my spine, and when I try to reach back and claw at him, he catches my wrist and twists my arm behind my back. Pain shoots through me.
“Stop! Please—”
“Please?” the word drips with mockery. His breath is hot against my ear, his body a wall of muscle and heat pressed along the length of mine. “You want me to show you mercy?”
“You told me to leave. You said you were done with me.”
His laugh vibrates up my spine. “I changed my mind.”
I try to buck again, and he shifts his weight, pressing me flatter. The thin fabric of my nightgown is nothing between us. I can feel every line of his body, every inch of him holding me in place, and the intimacy of it is almost worse than the threatened violence.
He releases my hair, and I suck in a desperate breath … then his hand wraps around my throat from behind, and the air stalls in my lungs.
He’s gripping so tight, I can feel my pulse slamming against his palm. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything but lie there while his hand tightens around my throat.
Cold spreads from where his fingers touch me. It flows over my skin, wrapping around my neck, a thin line of ice that keeps moving until it’s circled around and met itself.
I try to scream, to beg, but his hand presses harder, while the cold ice tightens like a noose being drawn closed.
I claw at the furs beneath me, my nails tearing through the material, while my legs kick uselessly.
My lungs are burning, screaming for air, and the cold intensifies … and then it stops.
The pressure eases. The cold fades, and his hand lifts from my throat.
I drag in a gasping, ragged breath, tears spilling down my cheeks.
His weight leaves my back, and I roll onto my side, coughing, my hands flying to my neck.
My fingers find metal—a thin band circling my throat.
I run my fingertips around it, searching for a clasp.
But there’s nothing. It’s a smooth, seamless band.
A collar.
I claw at it, digging my nails beneath the edge, pulling at it. It doesn’t move.
“What … what did you do to me?”
A smile curves his lips, eyes gleaming. “I put a leash on you.”
“Take it off!” I’m still clawing at it. “Take it off!”
“I don’t think so.”
“I can’t …” My breath is coming too fast again, panic clawing its way up my chest. It’s choking me. “Please. I can’t breathe.”
“You can breathe fine.” He turns away from me, crossing to the chair he was sitting in before.
I suck in gasping breaths, trying to prove to my mind that I can breathe, that I’m not dying, and push myself upright. I can feel the collar with every swallow, every breath.
He settles into the chair, one ankle crossing over his knee, and watches me. And there’s something in his expression—not triumph exactly, but something close to it. Satisfaction, maybe. The look of someone who has put something exactly where he wants it.
My skin crawls under his gaze. I want to hide from it, but I force myself to stay still.
“You can’t do this. When my father finds out—”
“He won’t find out.” His voice is calm and certain. “Because he won’t find you.”
Before I can respond to that, the entrance moves, and a figure steps through. A woman, tall and sharp-featured, with dark-hair cropped close to her skull. She moves with the coiled grace of someone who knows exactly how much damage she can do.
I know her.
She was in the cages at the Dell. She was standing at the bars, and when I got close, she spat at me.
Her eyes find me, touching the collar around my throat, then up to my face, and her lip curls.
“Serath spoke a little more this morning.” She turns her back on me, dismissing me as no threat. “She asked where you were.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you were handling something.”
They’re talking as if I’m not here. A moment ago, Cairn’s attention was focused solely on me. Now it’s gone, shifted completely to the woman in front of him.
Cairn nods. “Any change in Caelum?”
“The same. Maybe it’s time—”
“No. We have time yet. He’s still in there somewhere.” Cairn’s voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“What are your plans for that?” The woman jerks her chin toward me.
Cairn’s eyes move to me again. “I haven’t decided yet.”
The woman makes a sound, not quite a laugh but close.
“I remember her. Walking past my cage with her soft hands and her clean clothes. Looking at us like we were animals in a menagerie.” Now she does turn, her eyes finding mine, and her lip curls.
“Funny how things change.” She holds my gaze for a second longer, then turns back to Cairn.
“I’ll leave you to your …” With one more glance in my direction she walks out, the flap falling closed behind her.
And then it’s just me and Cairn again. And he’s still watching me. I can feel his eyes on me, even though I’m not looking at him. I’m staring down at my bare feet, toes curling into the fur.
“You can’t leave this shelter. You can move freely inside. Outside is not an option.”
I lift my head. “For how long?”
“For as long as I decide.”
“That’s not—”
“Fair?” He smiles again. “It seems fair to me.”
Rising from his chair, he strides past me toward the entrance, and then he’s gone.
I stay rooted to the spot. My arm is throbbing where the bandage has come loose. The collar around my throat is cool, moving with every breath I take.
I can’t stay here. I have to get out.
I lift my head and look around. The … tent? … is larger than I thought. Furs cover most of the floor, layered in thick shades of white and gray. There’s not much in here. Just a chair, table and the platform where I woke up.
I step toward the entrance. The collar warms against my throat. When I step back, it cools again. Taking a deep breath, I hurl myself toward the entrance. Heat flares at my neck, and the collar tightens. My hand is inches from the door—
I can’t breathe.
I stumble backward, and the pressure releases.
A second test results in the same. He wasn’t lying. I can’t leave.
I back away. My shins hit the platform, and I sink onto the furs, shuffling backward until I’m leaning against the slight rise at one end. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I wrap my arms around them.
Has anyone even noticed my absence yet? Nella? My father? I have no idea what time it is. I don’t know how long I was unconscious for. There’s no way it was a normal sleep. I’d have woken up when he moved me.
I don’t know where this camp is, or how far from the palace we are. I don’t know why Cairn hasn’t just killed me. I don’t know anything, except that I’m trapped, alone, and wearing a collar around my neck like the fae did … Like he did, before he broke it.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I walked past those cages. I looked at them in their iron collars. I saw their broken spirits, and I felt sick but I did nothing. I walked away. I went back to my home, my comfortable life.
And now I’m the one who’s been caged.
I need to find a way out of this. I have to.