Chapter 6 #2
Across from Cassius stood a stockier, familiar man. With friendly pine-colored eyes, so opposed to the wolf opposite him, and a warmer smile to match, though it didn’t make him less intimidating.
Imperial Beta Malakai—Isla’s father. A man who had no idea his mate was alive.
Another secret Raana had been sworn to keep in the depths of that arena. A witch may have been responsible for orchestrating Kai’s father and older brother’s deaths, but the one who’d dealt the killing blows had been Isla’s mother, assumed dead for years.
Raana could barely wrap her mind around how twisted that was, and she had to check herself from wondering at the magical capability the witch must possess.
Skilled with poisons and able to use coercion and mind-control.
It was the darkest of their gifts, forbidden in practice; a law disregarded by some radical coven leaders who cared not for the High Witch’s wrath.
Even the prospect of that scope of power lingering in one’s future should’ve been picked up by one of Her Highest’s dutiful seers—though they’d somehow missed Raana’s fae heritage during their census for magical potential.
Divination itself was an unreliable ability.
“Hello again,” Beta Malakai greeted from where he stood by a map of their continent on the wood-paneled wall. Cassius, on the opposite side of the work, said nothing, only leveling her with that assessing predator’s stare.
Raana bowed low to them both at once, then shifted her feet so they pointed towards the Imperial Alpha. “Your Majesty.”
When she rose, Cassius’s lips lifted into an unnervingly pleased grin. “You’ve trained her well.”
Raana felt Adrien tense, and she fought to keep a scowl off her face while Adrien answered, with a bite in his voice, “No training was necessary.”
Silence fell, and Raana felt one with Malakai as they took in the two Alpha-blooded wolves. She wished Adrien would drag her away or that she could call upon the shadows to get her the hell out of there. But all her effort was focused on keeping them away.
When the room had become insufferable and suffocating, the oak-colored walls closing in, wall lamps burning hot, Cassius finally said, “Leave us be.”
Us.
Oh, Spirits, save her. Mother, bless her. Whomever the hell the fae worshipped… help.
She’d been prepared for it, but hearing his words made her heart drop into her stomach.
Malakai bowed his head to his leader, and Raana felt Adrien’s hand wrap around her arm. “I’ll be right down the hall. Not far.”
He’d brought his face close to hers to speak quietly, but closer than he should’ve in front of his father, of all people. But she just focused on him, on his eyes, steeling herself, her breath, and nodded.
As he and Malakai left the room, she heard Adrien mutter to the Beta, “Before you eventually leave for Deimos, I have a coronation gift I want you to bring Isla, and a mating gift for them both.”
So, Isla was going to become queen soon if she hadn’t already.
“Sit.”
Raana snapped to attention as the door closed, sealing her fate, as Cassius gestured to the seat before him, a grimace on his face that made her wonder if he’d heard Adrien’s parting words.
The demand in his voice couldn’t be missed.
Raana slowly approached the leather chair at the center of the room, smoothing out her dress.
Cassius began pacing behind the chair across from hers, hands in his pockets. “I have to say, it’s shocking.”
Raana took a deep, steadying inhale, pretending his movements weren’t those of a predator stalking prey through a forest. “What is, Your Majesty?”
Spirits, she sounded so weak, and her heart was going to explode. There was no way he couldn’t hear it. Her thumb began playing with her ring, spinning it over her skin. If she didn’t relax, if the shadows reacted, the Alpha would kill her without hesitation.
“How I didn’t realize it sooner.” Cassius ceased his movements. “How no one has. You’re what? Twenty?”
Why did her age matter?
Raana cleared her throat. “Twenty-two, Your Majesty.”
“Twenty-two years,” he said humorlessly, pressing his hands to the back of the couch, looking down at her with narrowed, hungry eyes. “Fae have walked the world for twenty-two years—more, most likely—after centuries, a millennium, and not one of the witches, no one at all, has figured it out.”
Raana’s blood chilled, her entire body locking like she’d been encased in ice.
Fae.
Fae.
This had to be a nightmare. She hadn’t just heard out of his mouth what she thought.
“I—I’m sorry, Your Majesty?”
This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real, couldn’t be…
“My son was wrong. Training is needed, then you’d know better than to lie to me.” Cassius’s tone was threatening, but still, he wore that voracious smile, a fascination glinting in those near-black irises. “I know that’s you, making the room colder. It’s the shadows you control, correct? Darkness.”
Raana couldn’t breathe. Her hands shook, and her fingers pressed so hard into her ring that the iron and subtle runes burned her skin. “I don’t know.”
His eyebrow quirked, head lifting in that detecting, animal way. “Not entirely a lie.” Then he was moving again, away from her. “You truly don’t know what you can do. No one to teach you. Your parents—”
“Are dead.”
So quick to retort. All formality gone. As if a part of her didn’t want him even thinking about her parents, let alone speaking of them. People she’d never even met. Ghosts standing at her side in that room.
Raana flinched when she’d pinched herself to the point she drew blood, the pain a sign this was not a nightmare. There was no escaping this. A drag of her tongue over her teeth had her tensing. Were they becoming sharper? Were her ears…
The corners of Raana’s eyes stung as the tips of her fingers became cold, ebony cresting her crossed legs to gather by the tips. No, no.
She flicked her hand, shooing them away, not wanting to lift it to check her appearance, a prayer on her quiet mouth that the Alpha hadn’t noticed.
There was no need for her to lift her head to catch the plethora of weapons on display in this room, aside from the fact that the Imperial Alpha was a weapon himself. He’d put her down like an animal right here in this chair if she posed any threat.
As if to remind her of that, Cassius rested against the display case holding a brutal-looking sword with an ornate handle.
An antique, but just as lethal in the right hands.
“Your mother, maybe, but I can’t imagine an immortal meeting such a…
mundane fate. Perhaps that’s my own blind optimism.
Foolish, considering the horrible ramifications it could mean for the fabric of our world if your father were alive, roaming Morai… ”
He paused, stepping closer with his weighing stare. Raana had no response and would not move, focusing only on resisting her own magic. She wouldn’t even let her mind wander to that thought she’d had herself on many occasions, if her father still lived.
Cassius seemed to delight in her show of restraint. “Forgive me. I’m not usually a man who struggles for words. I hope you realize what a wonder you are.”
Wonder… that was one way to put it. But it only went so far when her existence, like her absent father’s, meant horrible ramifications for the world. So, when she couldn’t come up with a response, she knew she’d soon start to annoy more than please him.
Her fear and panic threatened to consume her, but she couldn’t let it show so clearly. “How did you… What did I do wrong? Where… When did you figure it out? Did Adrien—”
She cut herself off because of her inevitable fumbling and not wanting to bring the prince into it.
But Cassius finished, “Tell me? No, though, this has helped me better understand my son’s infatuation with you. A rare find, indeed.”
Infatuation—despite everything, the word rang hollow.
“Then how?” Her voice strained, pressed, broke.
Cassius only gave her a smile, a pitying one that dug its claws deep into her, that… that sent her mind reeling back. To a letter, to missing clothes. To lonely, hollow weeks…
“No.” The word had been nothing but a breath from Raana’s mouth.
Now, Cassius sat on the couch before her, as if he’d succeeded in his goal to break her down to something helpless. Someone who wouldn’t fight back at all.
“I’m surprised how simple the choice seemed for Helene. Release you to me, or be turned in. I expected a counteroffer of some sort, but she didn’t even ask for gold.”
Raana’s ears were ringing. Helene’s face flashed in her mind.
Her crinkled, cold chestnut eyes, her dark hair streaked with gray.
The woman who had raised her. Who she’d even called mother until…
until that mask the older witch had worn broke to pieces the night she told Raana the truth of her heritage.
When fragments of hatred and resentment began to flicker in every word spoken by her.
The only person in her life she’d ever felt she could remotely rely on.
Other than…
Other than…
She looked up into Cassius’s face, seeing a fleeting vision of a person she’d given so much to. Her darkest secret, her body, her…
“What do you want?” Raana choked out, his words registering. Release her to him. “Why make a deal for me? What do you need me for?”
Anger glazed her tone. At Helene, yes. She wanted to scream and rip Helene to pieces. But this man, this conniving bastard—he’d started this. He’d sent her world crumbling.
Cassius didn’t seem phased at all, and his apathy straightened her spine. “I want you to work for me.”
Raana blinked blurry, rage-filled eyes. “What?”
“You have a skillset I covet,” he said, rising to his feet again, a reminder of who held power here.
He moved like he wore a crown, heavy and gleaming and everything he was entitled to.
That the world was. “The readings on fae are scarce, archaic, in languages barely studied and only by the oldest scholars. To my understanding, of the two immortal fae courts, only one sect within them can wield shadow as you do. I’ve seen sketches, some translated anecdotes.
Nightmarish things, they are. Darkness made flesh, possessing the ability to be everywhere and nowhere, to see the unseen, to hear the unheard. Incarnates of death, at their worst.”
A lump had formed in Raana’s throat. Where had he read all of that? She couldn’t find anything of the sort, but then again, the resources he has access to as a King of Kings…
Darkness made flesh. Incarnates of death.
“How much does that ring hinder you?” Cassius asked, disrupting her thoughts. “It’s iron, I know. Helene taught you to enchant it. It keeps you appearing mortal, but how much does it restrict your power?”
She wanted him to stop speaking her name. Each mention was a punch to her gut.
“I don’t know,” Raana answered quickly—too quickly—still pressing back against the shadows that wanted to crawl over her skin, to lash out and protect her. Not so much to fight but to prevent him from seeing what she could do. “What are you expecting of me by working for you?”
A feral grin crossed his mouth. “All in due time. Though I appreciate the initiative. You’ll learn once you’ve accepted my offer and sworn your fealty by blood before your deities and our own. I’m gracious. I’ll give you time to consider until after you and Adrien have come back from Callisto.”
Adrien…
Had he known of his father’s plans?
Cassius seemed to pick up on the way her features had shifted, and his tone had become…
gentler but still firm. His movement slowed; his words chosen carefully.
“My son has duties he will need to fulfill as my Heir, which include finding a mate, a future queen of the realm. And though I am gracious, I am not blind. You’re an interest of his, and I’m not sure how much you were involved in his healing, but as a show of gratitude, I’ll allow it to continue as long as it remains hidden and as long as you both know when it must end, it ends.
Our bonds are absolute. Our loyalty is to one, and only one above all.
When it’s time for him to assume his duty, entertaining you will no longer be an option.
Don’t make me have to remove it, remove you. Because I will.”
The threat in his words couldn’t be missed. Raana’s mouth was agape, trying to process. He’d allow her to be Adrien’s mistress until his mate came along? One of the prince’s conquests. A rare find, indeed. A dangerous one to remain a secret forever.
A cocktail of rage, disgust, and hurt coiled within her. Mostly because she realized she was a fool.
“Yes,” she agreed quietly.
Cassius nodded, marking an end to their conversation. When he turned from her, Raana took the hint and rose to her feet, shaking darkness from her hands. Her entire body was loose and trembling. “Your Majesty.” She was impressed by how firm her voice sounded.
It made Cassius turn, his features betraying his slight surprise at the tone.
Before he officially dismissed her, he said, “You can also be assured I won’t imprison you. Not like the others. You’re too valuable right now. Though there will still be precautionary measures taken, I’m sure you understand.”
She opened her mouth to ask what measures, what others, but then closed it. He’d turned away again.
For a moment, Raana didn’t know what to do with her body, with her urge to call upon the darkness to sweep and swallow and whisk her off to any oblivion but here.