Chapter Fifteen
I come to just as we’re entering the dimly lit ballroom, a few candles glowing.
The demon sets me down in the middle of the room, walks away while I sway, blinking.
Realizing what just happened. What might have happened.
I shut my eyes to lock out the memory of the men’s screams. A tiny, secret part of me is glad.
Because if it hadn’t been them, it would have been me.
They surely would have beaten me, perhaps to death. And maybe worse.
“You tried to escape again.” The demon’s tone is easily discerned, his rage, his resentment. He paces in frustration. “You put me in a position I did not want to be in.”
“I…I had to.” My voice breaks. “I can’t stay here forever….”
“What is so terrible here? Have you starved? Been harmed?” The fury in his eyes makes me take a step back. “You’ve lived like a queen, have you not?”
“A queen!” I repeat, outraged. “You’ve shown me no kindness. You won’t help me save my sister.”
“You never asked.”
“You’ve hardly given me a chance, but I tried to earlier! And I know you don’t do favors—you said so yourself. You’ll only say no! You’ve forbidden me to leave.”
“And I’ll keep forbidding it!” he yells, tossing the red slippers at my feet. “Dance.”
“Now?” I jerk my head behind me to find Mr. Brown, waiting at the piano.
“Yes, now,” he commands. I turn back and notice the pained expression on his face. The memory of the gunshot resounding through the air returns.
“But you’re injured. Bleeding,” I say, as it dawns on me.
I stare at the blood-splotch spreading across his shirt, just over his ribs, below his heart.
There’s also a large gash sliced across his temple.
I didn’t know demons could bleed. The last time I saw blood on his shirt I’d assumed it was not his; it likely wasn’t, now that I know he’s been off killing people.
But I didn’t know his sort could bleed. “You were shot, weren’t you? ”
“What care have you for my wounds? Get your ass going and dance. Now,” he snaps, surprising me with his language.
The music starts. My knees shake, my face throbs, the back of my head is sore, and I stand in a bloodied scrap of my chemise—mostly his blood, I realize.
The chemise is ripped all across the top, falling off one shoulder, thankfully leaving my breasts covered.
There’s dirt in my hair and under my nails, scratches on my arms and feet.
And the memory. Fear covering me like a blanket, the way that man’s body did. The way they hurt me.
“Dance.” One word. It is not a request. The fire in the demon’s eyes makes that clear.
I tie up the shoes, which he jerks his head at, telling me without words to hurry, and I follow his order. I dance, spitefully, each step a mark of regret and disdain. I don’t bother smiling at all. I don’t bother pretending. I’m too tired to argue. I just want this to be over. All of it.
At the end of the song, I curtsey and turn, expecting Mr. Brown to follow, to bring me upstairs. There, I can fall into my bed and cry. I can count down the hours until tomorrow, when Mrs. Minthy will have a bath drawn for me. I want to wash this whole night off.
“I did not dismiss you, Corliss.” The demon’s now-restrained voice stops my hand at the door.
I spin around. “Hell’s bells. I don’t care what—”
“Dance. Again. Until I tell you to stop.” Some blood runs down his temple, matting his dark hair, and he lets it, not bothering to wipe it away. This is my punishment for running, for escaping. This is the price I pay for him saving my life. I will dance, and I will do it beautifully.
The piano starts once more, and I march to the middle of the room.
I push out all the emotions, all the pain in my body, and I let the red shoes carry me.
Gliding along in jetés and stepping into passés, I become the music.
Spiraling in pirouettes until I am out of breath, whipping my right leg into delicate yet powerful fouettés turns, I dance until sweat runs in rivulets down my filthy arms, until my ankles quiver, until my breath comes out in gasps.
The room swims before my eyes and I push on.
Everything aches, and I push on. Out of pure spitefulness, I dance harder than I ever have before.
He wants a performance? I will make it for myself.
The whole time the demon just sits, watching me with a hard face, anger pulsing out of his inhuman eyes.
He abhors me, more than ever before. At least we’re even.
As I stand en pointe in an arabesque that should be unflinchingly graceful, my muscles give up, and my bottom leg buckles. I collapse to the hard floor before I can draw a breath or even try to catch myself. The red shoes have betrayed me, my body has betrayed me.
“Get up.”
I try, I do, but my legs give out once more. “I can’t.” Tears run from my eyes. Fuck you. I wasn’t going to let myself cry, not in front of him.
“Are you crying?” There’s such an emptiness in his voice that it makes the tears fall harder.
“No.” I brush my face with one hot, angry hand. Will this night never end?
“Get up and dance. Remember what I said about pushing me?”
I stand, not because he told me to, but to prove to myself I can. I wobble like a newborn foal, and try to rise again on my toes, but both my legs collapse this time, and I land hard, falling on the side of my ankle. The agony of something cracking makes my head spin.
I sob quietly as I lie in a heap on the unforgiving floor. With my bones sore and my spirits thoroughly broken, I close my eyes tight and bow my aching head. His steps are slow, and beyond the pounding in my temples, I make out each one as he comes closer to me.
He will kill me now, as I lie here weak and wilted. He saved me only to kill me.
Somehow, I hardly care. It hurts so badly, my ankle. My heart. Everything. And I’m so exhausted, all this mourning, all the death and hopes dashed to nothingness. My sister is dead, and that’s that. All of this was for nothing.
I wait for the strike, for the blow, for the hands around my throat, for him to end me. Instead, he lifts me off the floor. This is the second time I’ve been in his arms tonight.
Stunned into silence, it takes me a long moment to open my mouth, whisper a weak plea, “Don’t kill me.”
He stares down at the sound of my words, and I’m reflected in his gaze; it swallows me up. All his anger seems to melt away. He shakes his head. “I don’t plan to.”
Everything goes bleary. The blood congealing around the cut on the demon’s face flickers in and out of focus.
But the feel of his arms around me stays steady, the heat of him against me, his lean, strong body like fire against mine.
Then once again, like some damned damsel in distress, I begin to faint.
Before the world goes black, it’s the strangest thing—I almost think I catch him whisper:
I’m sorry…
I don’t remember much about the fire that killed my mother and father. Scattered bits and pieces, memories thick with smoke, ash falling from the sky, the charred bones of our home. In my recollection, I’m standing in the middle of the house, a child of only four, destruction all around me.
But whenever I recalled it out loud, Aven always reminded me that wasn’t true, despite her own nightmares about the incident. “We weren’t even there.”
If we had been, we’d have been killed too, along with our parents. It was only by a miracle that the three of us girls had been sent away to stay with another family while our parents recovered from scarlet fever. If we’d been home, we’d have burned.
Maybe that’s why the three of us were so drawn to the ocean when we came to live with Mavis.
Why we craved the soothing wet air, the salt on our skin, the way the tides ebbed and flowed against the shore, erasing what had been there moments before, as though the sea could work that way with us—our memories.
I love the water, the way it surrounds me, the way it soothes.
I’m in the water.
Coming to this abrupt realization, I snap open my eyes, edge out the fuzzy parts of the lingering dreams, nightmares.
I’m in the copper tub in my room, in front of the fireplace.
It’s filled to the brim with steaming water, thick with soap bubbles and fragrant oil—rose and something herby—something that reminds me of him, the demon. Rosemary.
And it’s at this moment I comprehend that he is holding on to me, keeping me from slumping too far into the water, one black-banded arm wrapped around my waist. Blessedly, my chemise is still on. All of this is clear to me in a matter of seconds, yet the shock of it has me slow to react.
I wrap my arms around my chest, pull up my knees, let out a sharp breath.
“I’m not going to harm you.” He very deliberately doesn’t look at me—not at my face, not at my body. He tries to dab my cheekbone with a wet rag.
I shove at him, fear be damned. “What are you doing?”
“You’re filthy. I’m washing you. And you wouldn’t wake—I thought this might rouse you.”
“That’s your fault,” I say severely, not biting my tongue. Though my trouble waking is probably from hitting my head, he certainly didn’t help the matter by making me dance myself to exhaustion!
Finally, he turns his head, those empty, bottomless eyes meeting mine so intently that I blink, but the flames of my rage have died down. I don’t recognize the look on his face. I stare, awaiting his answer.
“You argue with everything, usually. I was surprised you listened to me this time,” he answers mildly, his fingers gentle as he untangles my matted hair. He looks at my face, only. Keeps his eyes there.
I swat away his touch, then ask with a bitter edge, “How could I refuse? You would have killed me.”
He removes his wet arm, sets it on the edge of the tub, face tired. “So, because you think I’d kill you, you’d dance yourself to death?”