Chapter 12
TWELVE
Crymson
I wander the dark halls back to my room late into the evening hours. A bit too much wine from dinner as well as the bottle during backgammon flushes my cheeks. I smile at how nice today has been. Normal even.
As I walk on wavering steps, I can’t stop thinking about how readily Airen took my seat at the gaming table.
The way he looked at Delilah was boyish and charming.
I only hope his motives are honest and not something cruel.
Not that he seems the type, but the fae are mysterious, mischievous creatures.
He’s just like Thorn in that way . . .
With an unsteady grab of the door handle, I have to lean into the frame to keep my balance as I attempt to open my bedroom door.
After a few moments of struggle, the handle has pity on me and releases.
I stumble inside and land on my stomach on my bed.
A drunken giggle slips from my lips before my eyes start to feel heavy.
My feet dangle off the edge, and as my lashes close, I know deep down I should have the self-respect to wiggle the rest of the way onto the fluffy mattress.
I just don’t think I can. I lie flat on my face with a tangle of limbs tucked beneath me, and I know in the morning, I’ll regret every drink I took tonight.
But that’s a problem for morning me, not present me.
Darkness overtakes my swirling thoughts, and the sexiest voice tumbles in from the shadows of my mind.
“Hello, pretty pet,” he whispers.
Christian?
I try to catch a glimpse of the haunting voice that’s consuming my mind, but it’s a sensual, cool touch that skims across my thoughts instead.
“I think of you often. More than often if I’m being honest,” he says with a voice so heavy, I can physically feel regret twisting up my insides.
Do you miss me?
“Mmm, to miss someone is to let them go . . .”
I toss restlessly and say the one thing I’ve been dying to scream at him since he gave me away so willingly to the fae.
You did let me go!
Warm heavy laughter crawls across my flesh, and I shiver in the darkness.
“Sweet pet, you should know by now . . . I’ll never let you go.”
My lashes fly open with a throbbing pain, and trickling sweat kissing my temple. Red eyes shine from across the room, and it takes me a moment to register that something is looking at me.
Christian?
I stand from the bed immediately, but the door sways open from behind the figure, dousing the person in the warm candlelight from the hall.
And sadness pools inside of me when I see her pale face: Delilah.
“Crymson,” she hisses, her shining eyes dancing across my features.
“What are you doing here? What’s wrong?” My hands clasp over hers, and I wait with wide eyes for her reply.
“Nothing–I mean–I’m fine,” she says, looking back at the empty hall behind her before focusing on me once more. “I have to tell you something, something important.”
“Okay,” I whisper, and too much dread and fear sink into me all at once.
I’m getting really tired of people revealing once-in-a-lifetime crises to me every fucking day.
“Airen and I were talking tonight over wine. I think he had a bit too much.” She smiles a conspirator-like smile, and I want badly to ask if getting the King’s guard drunk was her intention, but I don’t want to interrupt nor do I want to be an accomplice in her plotting, “Anyway, I may have tranced him. Just a little.” She holds up her index finger and thumb to indicate it wasn’t a lot of vampiric voodoo magic that she used on the boy who obviously has a crush on her but just a smidgen.
“What?!” I whisper-shriek at her.
“I–I needed information. And he needed to give it to me.”
“I thought you had a fucking crush on him, Delilah! I thought you wanted to be his girlfriend, not his extortionist.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Sometimes, they’re one and the same.” Her eyes twinkle in the dark like the most beautiful demon I’ve ever held hands with.
“Do you want to know what I know or not?” she asks with an arrogant and impatient tilt of her head that reminds me all too much of her brother.
A few seconds tick by before I quickly nod to her without daring to speak a single word.
She takes a long breath, and the hold she now has around my hands is gentle.
Alarmingly gentle. The memory of a case worker holding my small hands lightly as she explained that my mother was gone and that I’d be going away with her for a little while flickers through my thoughts, but I shake it away.
“Airen said the Fae King isn’t your kin. That he only told that to the vampires to get you in the Dark Lands. He said . . . he said you belonged to him. And that there are even bigger secrets that not even Airen is privy to.”
My fingers dig into her palms as my teeth grind together hard.
Hours ago, I was blissfully drunk and unaware of the web of lies he has entangled me in. I even thought I cared for him. I thought . . . it doesn’t matter what I thought.
What matters now is what the fuck he has to say for himself.