3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
T he shadows curl over me, and the world disappears once more. There is no noise, no light—nothing but the horrific image of Jamie burned into my mind, his youthful face bloating and rotted. My hands are bound behind my back and a gag is shoved into my mouth, and I don’t know whether it’s physical, or made of the darkness itself. All I know is it keeps my screams trapped indefinitely in my throat.
There is no more room for fear as hot anger radiates through me, burning away every other emotion. I thrash against my bindings, gnash my teeth against the intrusion in my mouth, even as I’m lifted and carried away from the beach.
I no longer feel the cold of my skin, only the fury burning at each one of my nerve endings. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, the weary ache of my muscles giving way to desperate energy. I buck wildly, but whatever has a hold on me is solid. Inescapable.
Time in the blinding darkness inches along, and no matter how I try to level my breathing, to save my strength for whatever awaits when it relents, a sense of hopelessness creeps along the edges of my thoughts. What if it never relents? What if this truly is the plague, and I’m trapped in this horrifying oblivion forever?
I don’t know if I’ve been confined for hours or minutes when the pressure on my wrists loosens like the bindings have been sliced through, and the gag is pulled from my mouth. I scramble upward as the inky black tendrils of night recede like threads wound in a spool. I blink as my surroundings slowly filter into view, revealed inch by inch as the shadows withdraw.
There’s no sign of the beach or the lushly colored plants of the forest beyond the teal bloom still tucked behind my ear. Instead, I’m now standing in the middle of a cavernous room. It takes me a protracted moment to discern the sinister shadows have all gathered atop a dais at the far end of the chamber, as the surrounding decor is nearly as dark.
The engraved pillars lining the center of the room. The highly polished floor. The ceiling stories above me. All immaculately detailed, and entirely devoid of color.
The only light comes from lanterns hung on paneled walls, and the starlight shining through the floor to ceiling windows lining the entirety of the wall behind the dais.
Something rustles beside me, and I whip around to find a man, dressed in an extremely ostentatious manner, watching me with a crooked smile.
“What have you done to Jamie?!” I snarl. I’ve no weapon and am dressed in little more than a rag at this point, but I’ve trained for years to be able to not only defend myself, but to be the predator. The man is huge and armed with a sword sheathed at his hip, so I use what I have: the element of surprise.
I lunge at his legs. His eyes widen in bewilderment, and he topples over with a yelp as my body collides with his kneecaps.
“He was innocent!” I shriek, lashing out with a hard right hook to the man’s jaw as we both go sprawling to the floor.
“Miss, you’ve got the—"
More instinct than strategy, I hit him again, this time with a powerful blow to his windpipe that effectively cuts off his pleas. His brown eyes water and bulge as he chokes, and though he outweighs me by at least a hundred and fifty pounds, he makes no move to counter.
He makes no move to defend himself at all, even as I straddle his muscled waist and land two more hits to his nose. He swears as blood spurts from his nostrils, speckling his ridiculously ruffled shirt and my pathetic nightgown.
With a feral snarl, I get my hands around his throat. I should have attacked from the back, should have planned for how much larger his neck is than my hands, but still, the man makes no move to stop me. Rather than bucking me off, his eyes flick to where the shadows have gathered atop the dais with something close to annoyance.
“If you would be so kind as to cease your assault of my staff, it would be most appreciated,” a lazy voice drawls from behind the tendrils of darkness. Or perhaps, the voice is the darkness.
I freeze, glaring up at the where the deviant power writhes in ribbons of ebony, as the voice continues, “Sam, being polite does not extend to allowing yourself to be strangled by a feral woman in the middle of my throne room. I don’t imagine Marina would appreciate ending her day by scrubbing your blood off the marble.”
I glance uncertainly at the man beneath me, Sam, who gives me an oddly apologetic smile for someone I attempted to strangle only a moment before. Then, with a soft, “Excuse me, miss,” he wraps large hands around my waist and lifts me off of him in one smooth movement, setting me gently on the cold floor. Rising to his feet with a subtle wince, he dusts off his pants, before shooting me a bafflingly friendly wink.
At his full height, Sam towers at least a foot above my 5’4 frame and is at least twice my width. He could have easily ended my attack with one powerful blow which begs the question: Why hadn’t he?
“Apologies, Sir,” Sam says to the voice behind the shadows. To me, he extends a hand and helps me to my feet. Then, he steps a measurable distance away and clasps his hands behind his back, like the entire encounter has been unbearably awkward.
“It is the woman who should apologize,” the voice replies silkily. My anger, which had been momentarily replaced by confusion, rushes back to the surface of my skin.
I stalk toward the dark end of the room furiously, the cold of the black stone floor seeping into my bare feet. “Like hell I’ll apologize! You’ve murdered my friend, and I swear to god, I’ll slit your throat for it.”
It isn’t a threat; it’s a promise. I’ve done far worse to those who’ve hurt me and possess no reservations about doing it again. Morals are a luxury, meant only for those who’ve never had to claw; to bleed; to survive.
The voice laughs, a deep sound that slides between my ribs. “Your friend, was he?” Another laugh, but there’s no humor in it. It’s darkly edged—dangerous. “Some company you keep.”
I prowl forward, wishing I’d managed to grab Sam’s sword while I had him at my mercy. Instead, I stop just short of the raised dais to face down whatever lurks behind the shadows with nothing more than a flimsy, wet nightgown and an exotic flower.
The platform is made of the same shining stone as the pillars, every inch etched in delicate detail. The space above the dais remains infuriatingly unclear, shrouded in the same substance that blinded me on the beach. The same power that murdered Jamie; that took his youth and twisted it into something twisted and decrepit.
“Why don’t you come out from behind those shadows, you gutless asshole,” I snarl, rage bubbling in the back of my throat. “Or can you only face women when you kidnap them?”
“You’re awfully dramatic throwing around words like 'kidnap' and 'murder',” the voice replies irreverently. “The only one to threaten bodily harm in this room is you, Darling. And as far as I can tell, no one has been kidnapped.”
The voice laughs again, and the spiraling shadows shudder in what seems to be… pleasure? A cold shiver runs down my spine as I’m struck with the distinct feeling of sentience, like the dark power is not only alive, but aware .
“You’re free to leave whenever you wish—” Another cruel laugh. “— if you can find the way out.”
Dread coiling in my stomach, I spin slowly, taking in the cavernous room in more detail. Black walls, black ceiling. Black night outside the richly inlaid windows. And absolutely no doors to be seen.
I whirl back around, vibrating with rage as I take two more charged steps toward the dais. “I’ll destroy you for hurting that boy. I don’t give a shit about who you are or the shadows you hide in, I’ll make you regret the moment you set foot on that beach. I’ll carve you apart piece by piece for what you did.”
“Mmm,” the voice hums, like it’s tasted something delicious. “Such a murderous little thing, aren’t we.”
It’s a taunt, not a question, so I don’t bother to answer. Men usually underestimate me, blinded by my long hair, olive skin and petite physique. They never bother to look at what lurks beneath the exterior, never see the sharp, jagged pieces that lie in wait to impale anyone who dares come close. I’ll allow this bastard to make the same mistake and let him live only long enough to regret it.
The tendrils of darkness begin to move, their beautifully grotesque spirals undulating like the waves of a morbid sea. They fan out in hypnotizing flourishes, before receding backward to slowly reveal a man sitting on a shining, ebony throne.
The ribbons slither around his ankles and snake up his wrists, sliding over his lithe body like sheathes of night. He’s sprawled at a careless angle, one large, booted foot tapping a soft beat against the floor, while the other hangs off the armrest, toes playing with the shadows crawling over him. He examines his leather-gloved fingers in a disinterested manner, as if he takes women hostage every day and can’t even be bothered to give me a once over. Loose curls as dark as his shadows fall over his forehead, shielding his face from view, and indignant anger boils in my stomach at his refusal to acknowledge me.
Gritting my teeth, I force myself still and ball my fingers into tight fists at my side. Patience has never been my strong suit, but it has its advantages. A long moment stretches between us, and then, with a bored sigh, the man behind the silky voice and awful power finally deigns to look at me.
My heart tumbles over itself, and red-hot adrenaline spikes through my veins.
My first impression is that he is too much—a portrait in dichotomy. His skin is pure ivory, pale as snow, made more so by the curls that frame his face in the precise shade of a raven’s wing. His cheekbones are impossibly high, his jawline masculinely shaped and shadowed with dark stubble, both a direct contrast to his wickedly lush lips tipped in an arrogantly seductive manner.
He is beauty edged in horror, the ethereal melded with the infernal.
Because all his gorgeous features clash horribly against the hellish pits of his eyes. Where colored irises and bright white would normally be is all a fathomless black, made darker by the makeup he’s smudged around them. Unbidden, shivers slide over my skin the moment the man sets his malevolent gaze on me, and I see the truth of it: there is no light in those eyes at all.
Dread coils in my stomach. Whatever this man is, it isn’t human.
He rises, his posture arrogant and lazy as he cocks his head to examine me with something close to disgust. My cheeks burn as I bristle beneath his frank assessment, staring him down though everything in me screams to back away.
You’ve avoided pain for so long, and this man—he is pain given form.
I’ve survived this long by listening to my instincts when they tell me to run, but this time, I steel my spine and meet his hateful glare with my own.
He raises a brow in cruel amusement, before rising to descend the dais in two long strides. His boots eat up the space between us far too quickly, both his black cloak and shadowed threads of power, billowing ominously behind him. He’s left the top two buttons of his shirt undone to reveal swirling designs tattooed on his snow-white skin. They crawl up his throat to the skin behind his ears in the same rhythmic way the shadows do, framing the chiseled line of his jaw and disappearing beneath the silk fabric of his shirt.
I tear my gaze away from them to take note of the sword sheathed at his hip, and the revolver peeking out from the waistband of his ridiculous leather pants. Both shiny and haphazardly worn, like he rarely has use for them.
The man stops before me, running those terrible eyes from the top of my head to my toes. His gaze isn’t lecherous, though a part of me wishes it was—at least then, I would understand it. As it is, I understand less the longer he assesses me.
His frown deepens, and when his eyes flick back up to mine, I almost rear back at the hatred burning in them.
“What’s your name?” he growls, his tone hardly better than a snarling animal. Like somehow, I’m the one who’s caged him.
I raise my chin indignantly. “None of your business,” I snarl back. If he’s expecting demure pleasantry to contrast his resentful sullenness, he picked the wrong woman to pluck off the beach.
The man cedes a mocking smile and hums again, the melodious sound burying itself beneath my skin. He closes the miniscule space between us, bringing his face so close to mine, I can read every detail. The small diamond stud in his left nostril. A miniscule scar dissecting the bow of his upper lip. Lashes so long, they fan his cheekbones with each blink. Close enough to see there is not one bit of light in the harrowing black of his eyes; not even the glow of the lanterns or an echo of the stars.
He inhales sharply. “' Darling' it is, then.”
In one swift movement, I grab the revolver from his pants and shove the barrel under his chin. “Call me ‘darling’ one more time,” I snap, narrowing my eyes and cocking the hammer. “I dare you.”
The monster grins, and the onyx of his eyes winks maniacally. “With pleasure, Darling. ”
He rolls his tongue sinfully over the word. With precision, I squeeze my trigger finger and brace myself for the kick back.
It never comes.
The man lets out a wild peal of laughter. “Bit out of our depth, aren’t we?” he drawls with barely concealed delight, tipping his head to where tendrils of his power have unspooled from his wrists and stuffed themselves into the barrel of the gun.
I bare my teeth, tightening my fingers on the grip. “I told you,” I tell him, my voice dangerously low. “Your shadows don’t scare me.”
I’ve seen so many horrors, both during the plague and my life before it, that only one thing truly scares me now, and it isn’t some ridiculously dressed, murderous asshole. It is the promise of pain. And shadows cannot cause pain; they can do nothing but shroud me in darkness. And unluckily for him, I’ve been shrouded in my own brand of darkness for years.
The man tilts his head, hatred and curiosity comingling on his face. “Since we’ve established what you’re to be called, Darling, I suppose it’s only polite to introduce myself.”
The gun turns ice cold in my hand, the metal biting so sharply at my skin, I’m forced to let go. The weapon clatters to the ground between us, but I don’t dare take my eyes from the monster in front of me long enough to track where it lands.
“I am the King of Carrion,” he says with flourish, raising his hand toward my face. It takes everything in me not to flinch back in preparation for the strike, but he only plucks something from my hair so precisely, his gloved fingers don’t even graze a strand of my hair. The beautiful teal flower.
Its vibrancy is almost an affront in the dark of the throne room as the king nods to my hand expectantly. My heart wallops against my chest as I stretch out my fingers, out of curiosity or stupidity, I’m not sure. He doesn’t take his unsettling gaze from mine as he gently drops the bloom into my palm.
“I rule this land and the dreams of every person in it.”
Ever so slowly, he removes his gloves finger by finger, revealing more winding tattoos beneath. Then he laughs again, a wicked, wild sound that sends ice careening through my veins.
“And, my darling…I do not wield shadows,” he croons viciously as the dark tendrils of power slither from where they’ve wound around his fingers, to the petals of the bloom in my hand.
In an instant, the flower shrivels entirely. It takes less than a blink for the king’s magic to siphon everything beautiful from it, and leave only a rotted, black corpse behind.
I’m still staring in horror at the dessicated ash crumbling in my sweaty palm, when, in barely more than a whisper, the King of Carrion says, “I am death itself.”