Chapter 26
Back in the basement, the world feels smaller again, but far safer.
In our absence, the music has grown louder, faster, the fiddle crying its way through a tune that has people stamping their feet and laughing too hard.
I sit apart from it all, perched on a low crate, watching, unable to get the image of Luceran and Marlayna out of my head.
It is a torture I was not prepared for. One I do not know how to understand.
I know that we can only ever be together in secret, but never did I think that meant he could take Fae females in the open.
Am I supposed to be accepting of that? Is it the way things are?
No. That sort of thing may be normal in their world, but in mine when you lose someone, you only need that someone.
The more I think on it, the more I spiral, thoughts frenzying in my head until a headache burns behind my eyes.
Someone presses another cup into my hands. I shake my head at first, but they only grin and insist. Maybe I could use something to dull the screaming in my head. I take it. The liquid burns its way down my throat like fire, sharp enough to make my eyes water. I cough, earning a round of laughter.
I ignore them and finish what’s left in my cup before slamming it down on a table.
Then I seek out more. I find another cup, then another.
The heat spreads quickly, blurring the hard edges of the night above and the image I can’t scrub from my mind.
White hair, auburn curls, hands that did not belong to me.
The room tilts slightly.
I blink and suddenly the noise dulls, the music muffled as I’m pulled back into shadow. Strong hands close around my wrists, and I’m drawn into a narrow recess between stone pillars.
“Luceran,” I breathe, heart slamming into my ribs. “Where did you…”
“This has been my castle for centuries,” he murmurs, lifting my hands and pinning them to the wall. “There isn’t a hidden door or tunnel I don’t know.”
Anger surges through the haze.
“I saw you,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “With Marlayna. In the ballroom.”
His jaw tightens. “She means nothing.”
I bark a hollow, mocking laugh. “That’s not what it looked like.”
He presses harder against my wrists, caging me in as he leans over me. “It is you,” he says fiercely. “It has only ever been you.”
The words hit me harder than whatever this homemade concoction is.
Before I can decide whether to believe him, his mouth is on mine, hungry, desperate, achingly familiar.
The music swells. Bodies dance only feet away, laughter and heat and humanity pressing in around us as if daring us to be seen.
My hands stay pinned to the wall. I kiss him back because I want to, because I need to.
His breath is loud in my ears, and just as heat surges through me, shame floods in behind it.
I turn my head sharply away, leaving him gasping.
“Let me go,” I demand, though it comes out quiet.
He does. He releases my wrists and steps back as my arms fall to my sides.
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” I say. “This was a mistake.”
His eyes darken. “I have given you everything I can, Neve. What more do you want from me?”
The question echoes, warped by drink, by ache, by the night itself. I stare at him, the words slipping free before I can weigh them.
“Did you kill your wife?”
His fury is immediate. Explosive. He lunges forward, slamming me back against the stone, his canines dropping, his eyes blazing. For a heartbeat, I think he might hurt me.
Then he stops.
He steps back instead, chest heaving, control snapping back into place with visible effort.
“Never ask me that again,” he snarls.
And then he retreats, the shadows swallowing him whole, until there is nothing left of him at all.
I am alone once more.
The music swells. Someone laughs. The fire crackles.
And I stand there, heart pounding, knowing I have crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed, that whatever comes next, nothing will ever be as good as it was.
I stumble back into the press of bodies, the noise crashing over me like a wave.
Tears blur my vision, and I cannot tell whether it is the room spinning or me.
All I know is that the hurt inside me feels unbearable, as if I would need to cut my heart out to stop it from poisoning the rest of me.
The drink hits harder. My stomach churns.
I brace myself against a beam to keep from falling.
Then a scream rips through the room.
It cleaves the music in two.
At first, I think I am imagining it. Too drunk. Too miserable.
Then it comes again, raw and animal. Laughter dies instantly. Bodies jolt. Heads snap toward the sound as the crowd parts in a ripple of confusion and horror.
A tall, wiry man staggers forward from the same shadows where Luceran emerged.
He looks drunk at first, unsteady and swaying, but then he clutches at his belly, fingers pressing hard. His hands come away slick, and I see the blood seeping between them, dark and spreading, soaking through his shirt and dripping onto the stone.
Someone gasps.
The man looks up, eyes glassy, mouth working as if he’s trying to say something. A name. A warning. Whatever it is never makes it out.
He collapses.
Panic erupts.
The humans scream and scatter, terror ripping through the basement as bodies surge for the stairs. Someone slams into me, nearly sending me sprawling as they claw their way upward, flooding toward the kitchen, toward escape.
I don’t move.
I don’t know if it’s stupidity or bravery or the booze roaring in my veins, but my feet stay planted as the room empties around me. My heart pounds so loudly I can barely hear anything else.
I take a step toward the shadows.
There is heavy breathing in the darkness. Something lingers just beyond what I can make out, shapeless, faceless. My skin prickles. Every instinct screams at me to run, yet I take another step. And then another.
A woman stumbles out of the shadows.
She collapses straight into me, and I stagger under her weight as warmth spills over my hands, my arms, my chest. Blood. Too much of it. Her eyes are wide, fixed on nothing. Her mouth opens in a silent plea that never forms.
Then I see her throat.
Cut to the bone.
Now I scream. And when I glimpse a hand reaching out of the darkness, I decide that is enough. I am not that brave.
I run.
I slip in blood as I bolt for the stairs, taking them two at a time. My lungs burn. My heart claws at my ribs, frantic to escape, as I burst into the kitchen.
Up here, chaos reigns.
Humans are screaming, shoving past the Fae, tearing through the banquet in blind terror. Trays crash to the floor. Goblets shatter. Food and wine spill across stone. Fae voices rise in outrage as their decadent display is torn apart, beauty giving way to panic in a heartbeat.
I turn back once and see the flash of a blade at the bottom of the stairs.
I move again, faster this time as hysteria spreads like wildfire.
The Fae flee as quickly as the humans now, bodies surging together toward the front doors of the castle. There is no dignity left in them. No hauteur. Only terror.
I hear a scream behind me and glance over my shoulder just in time to see another body hit the floor. A man, his eyes wide and glassy, his mouth frozen open as blood pools beneath him.
The screaming swells, rises to something almost unbearable.
Then a loud clatter comes from the banquet hall, followed by a voice begging for mercy.
It cuts off abruptly.
Where is Luceran?
Why isn’t he here?Why isn’t he stopping this?
As everyone else rushes for the doors, trampling one another in their desperation to escape, I turn away from them toward somewhere I feel safe.
My fingers fumble for the library key in my pocket.
I drop it once, curse under my breath, then snatch it up again and jam it into the lock.
The door opens and I slip inside, slamming it shut behind me.
My hands shake so badly I struggle to get the key back into the lock, to turn it, to make it catch.
Lock. Lock. Lock.
The screams outside dull until all I can hear is the blood pounding in my ears.
But as it fades, I hear footsteps instead drawing closer.
I abandon the lock and move fast and quiet, darting between the towering shelves. I barely make it three aisles in when I hear the door groan open.
Footsteps cross the stone.
No. Not footsteps.
They’re too soft. The rhythm is wrong. Different from boots striking stone.
It’s an animal. My eyes widen. A wolf? Luceran?
I take a step forward instinctively and then freeze.
Was it a blade I saw in the basement? Was it a knife that opened that man’s belly? That slit that woman’s throat?
Or was it teeth? Teeth and claws.
That look in his eyes when I asked him about his wife. The fury that flared so fast it terrified me. The anger that has lived inside him for centuries.
Did I push him too far? Did I wake the monster that has stalked Brunemar for generations?
I press myself hard against a bookshelf, wishing I could sink into it, vanish into one of the books and never be found. My breath comes shallow and tight as I strain to listen, every sound magnified in the dark.
He moves through the room.
I hear his breathing reverberating through his chest, the weight of his steps as he pads down the aisle on the other side of the shelf. The air grows colder with every step he takes.
Can he smell me? Is he toying with me? Will he tear me apart the way he did them?
I can’t stay here.
The thought comes sharp and clear, slicing through the terror. How could I have been so foolish? To hide in a room that has become my tomb. To love a Fae who may well be my end.
I don’t want to die.
I take a cautious step sideways and wince as something sharp presses into my leg. Pain flares. I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood just to keep from screaming.