Chapter 9
RAANA
They hadn’t gone back to the estate before being loaded into the car meant to drive to Callisto, but Raana didn’t care. She had nothing there. She had nothing anywhere. Whatever illusion she’d had of her life, of a life, had shattered the instant Cassius opened his mouth.
Or perhaps it had been shattered for years, but she’d been too foolish to notice.
She and Adrien hadn’t spoken once since they’d left Io’s borders. Whether he’d found out his father’s intentions for her, she didn’t know. And again, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
The prince was either angry with her or keen on giving her space.
Either way, she didn’t protest. Silence, not having to speak, was welcomed.
Every time she opened her mouth, even to take a breath, she felt like screaming or sobbing—and every time she berated herself to get her shit together, it only made her more volatile.
It was a wonder she hadn’t encased the entire vehicle in shadows as they drove, damning them all. Just as Helene had always predicted.
By the time they’d arrived at Callisto’s Pack Hall, with watercolors of dusk falling to inky darkness, Raana couldn’t even muster the energy to marvel at the building nestled into the lush, verdant landscape. The garden pathways and creeping vines over brick foundations.
She was an empty shell as they were greeted by staff clad in deep green uniforms and brought up and up and over to where they’d be lodging—
“We’re in the same room?” Raana rasped, standing before the threshold of a guest suite as the Imperial Guards who’d come along made a sweep of the space. An assurance that there were no traps laid for the Highest Prince.
Adrien finished thanking and dismissing the staff member who’d directed them to this wing of the hall. “We are,” was all he answered, his eyes doing their own pass of the terrain from where he stood in the alcove.
Raana pursed her lips. “You neglected to mention that.”
“It didn’t seem important.”
“Really?” She’d said it with such disbelieving force, the most emotion she’d allowed herself to show in hours, that it made Adrien turn her way. She folded her arms, adding softly, “How will this look to others? You and I staying together?”
“I don’t care.”
Another flippant response. One that felt purposeful, to get underneath her skin.
The guards, one of them Sandrine—who couldn’t seem to look at Raana without a distrustful sneer—concluded their search, deeming the room safe.
They bowed to Adrien as they stepped out, and Raana—now in a more modest version of their custom uniform—received a shallow, frigid movement in farewell.
Adrien’s keenness towards her was undeniable now.
After what had happened at the hall. She was sure that they had opinions.
And she was equally sure they were not favorable.
The prince’s new plaything.
With a low grumble at their forms, retreating to their bedrooms down the hall, Raana turned to her own—hers and Adrien’s.
She was too tired to fight, so, without meeting Adrien’s eyes, she stepped along the path he’d cleared for her into the suite.
It wasn’t long until a bitter laugh tumbled from her mouth. “Oh, of course.”
Only one bed.
A grand one, thankfully, unlike the small mattress at the inn during that chilled, rainy night.
Four mahogany posters were set in the middle of the rustic enclosure.
It looked divine. Soft. Silk pillows and a gorgeously embroidered duvet that she was sure cost more than half the wares in the cottage.
The estate had been just as luxurious, Io’s hall boasting as much, if not more splendor.
The wealth of these people. These places. These kingdoms.
Would she need to become used to it? Not embracing the abundance but observing it?
While she stood in her spot, Adrien closed the door.
He walked to the modest living space in the corner of the room.
Two oak-colored chairs and a couch set before a tall, arched window overlooking the distant forest. To its side lay a bookshelf, ridden more so with knick-knacks than actual reading material.
They’d be together all night… did she want their only conversation to be the one they’d had at the door?
“This story didn’t end well for us before,” she said, gesturing to the bed.
Adrien turned, following her movement. “Too well, you mean.” He let the taunt linger before he sat, getting comfortable on the couch. Arms behind his head, ankle balancing on a knee. “I can sleep here.”
“No.” The answer was too quick, and an agitating smirk played on his lips. His brows raised at her apparent invitation. “I mean, no. You’re the royalty here. I’m a ‘guard.’ If anything, I should be on the couch.”
“You’re a lady,” he said. “You should be comfortable.”
Raana snorted. “A lady?”
“You had me on the floor last time this happened,” Adrien said.
“That was different,” Raana argued. “We were in some small, obscure town. You weren’t the Imperial Heir.”
“I’m always the Imperial Heir.” His tone was almost mocking. Tired.
Raana sighed. “It was different. Though it didn’t stop much.”
“It did not,” Adrien conceded jovially. “Because you were cold, and I was too courteous. But it’s summer now, so I won’t believe you when you start pretending to shiver so I’ll come warm the bed.”
Raana scoffed. “As if I needed trickery to seduce you. You were at your wits’ end, panting after me like a Spirits-damn dog by the time night fell.”
Adrien’s flattened brows showed he didn’t much appreciate the comparison. He uncrossed his legs. “It was the height of the season.”
“The season,” Raana drawled. “Which translates to all you wolves becoming lecherous bastards because of nature and instinct.”
“More or less,” Adrien grumbled. “Though, don’t play the innocent card. I remember well you begging me to fuck you.”
Such a crude, easy sentence.
Raana’s cheeks heated, her blood, too. The distance between them suddenly felt too great. Too much. Her grip on her forearms tightened. “I wasn’t begging.”
“Demanding,” Adrien said, waving his hand. “Either way, it was insanely attractive.”
“I was caught up in the moment.”
“We’ve been caught up in many moments, lady.”
Many moments—and they had led nowhere because they were wiser now. Because they knew better.
Raana sighed through her nose, then realized he’d successfully distracted her. For a fleeting moment, everything didn’t seem so horrible. She’d almost forgotten. She wasn’t sure why that made her feel stupid and… guilty.
“I’m going to get washed for bed. We have an early morning, right?”
The corner of Adrien’s lips tilted downwards, and he only nodded as she turned to walk away.
The mattress was far too big. Far too chilly. The ceiling was so far away, its surface smooth. No cracks for Raana to count as she stared, only a chandelier with jewels like emerald raindrops, which she didn’t bother lingering on.
She twisted her head, her loosely tied curls a whisper against the silken pillow, and glanced across the patchwork of darkness to where Adrien slept, actually slept.
His chest rose and fell steadily, the faintest snores escaping his parted lips.
He was directly beneath a stream of moonlight, the Goddess’s fingers seeming to trace every contour of his body, every honed, lethal, deity-blessed muscle lovingly.
He’d taken the couch. Wouldn’t hear any more argument for it. He’d offered for her to join him on the sofa if she was adamant about sleeping with him, but mentioned it would be a waste of such a beautiful bed. Smartass.
Raana had learned, while he readied for sleep, that this hadn’t been the original plan.
According to the guards she’d heard chattering outside while they waited for a final order from Adrien, Raana was supposed to be staying in her own suite across the hall.
And they did, in fact, now believe her to be his harlot.
Why else would he change the plan? Why else keep her so close?
Why else—but to keep an eye on her. She, who’d been on a spiral for what felt like endless hours.
Her, whose life would never be the same again.
She, who had taken these four walls and him and pretended, tonight, that they were a fortress.
That this room, their banter, and this too-big, too-cold bed were all that existed.
She wouldn’t ask him whether he’d learned the truth of his father’s intentions for her. Wouldn’t let herself think about the witches in their prison that he hadn’t been entirely truthful about. Even if she had “no right” to know in the mess of politics and nonsense.
She’d worry about them once they returned to Io. Would see if there was something she could do to help them—somehow.
Somehow…
Cassius had said he wouldn’t “imprison her like the others,” but “precautions” would be taken. Precautions. She may as well have been his prisoner at that point.
Raana rolled onto her side; her tongue clamped so hard between her teeth that she drew blood. Her splintered heart fractured further, that hollow wound festering.
She was alone. She had no one.
But she couldn’t cry anymore. Couldn’t let this break her. Couldn’t give Cassius, Helene, or any of them the satisfaction.
Her fingers wrapped around her conduit, still around her neck but resting on the soft, white sheets.
It burned within her touch as she muttered not an incantation but a prayer.
Not to the Mother or Spirits, but to whoever the hell would listen.
Asking for answers, begging for a way out before the darkness of sleep claimed her.
Raana’s eyes flew open, her body rigid, and her bed sheets soaked with sweat.
No, not sweat.
Not sheets, either.
Raana’s fingers drew over the frigid, wet stones beneath her touch. Wildly familiar but wrong—so wrong. The air felt hollow as she slowly rose, her eyes drawing over dank cavern walls embedded with translucent crystals. Familiar. And wrong.
“Isla.”