Chapter 13
Blood had pooled onto the floor. It was a nearly dried and darkened puddle surrounding the prince where he lay still. He hadn’t tried to move. All he did was blink at the ceiling, occasionally coughing.
We’d sat in silence for what felt like hours. So long that the candles burned low, and the moon now soared high, bathing Alek in its cool light. I stayed huddled against the wall in the shadows like a scared child, as if I could make myself disappear from this nightmare. I couldn’t.
And him. Gods.
I’d seen my fair share of brutality. I’d seen whores beaten and battered for disobeying the law—their fingers crushed for touching another human; made to stand on their feet for a full day for mouthing off to a client. I’d never seen something so vicious between them. A father and son, no less.
The prince stirred, digging into his pocket, his every movement wretched in pain. He was weakened, having lost blood, starving to death.
I dragged a hand down my face, but my eyes continued to drift back to him. Back to the future king.
I could end him. I could kill a vultae king. It would maybe even be easier than expected, and if I could somehow make it look like he bled to death, then maybe there was a chance I wouldn’t be blamed.
I’d be a fool not to think that was what he was doing.
There was zero chance he was lying there thinking about anything other than ending me. Or at least ending his pain, and consequently, me. His agony would be over the second he crawled atop me, and the threat from his father would vanish.
Landry’s face bore into my mind’s eye. For the first time, I was grateful he’d left. I was grateful he wasn’t wrapped up in this horror.
What the prince had been digging from his pocket was one of those little rolls of dried leaves. He pinched it between his lips and summoned a flame into his palm, but it disappeared with a pop before he could light it, scattering embers of orange in the air.
“Hey.” I wet my lips. My voice sounded strange cutting through the silence that had been settled around us for so long. “Can you break this chain?”
He tried again with the fire. But it didn’t hold.
“Can you?” I asked when he didn’t answer. “If you can, do it now, and I’ll find a way out of here.”
The fire in his palm crackled as it disappeared the instant he summoned it. He coughed, tossing one arm over his forehead.
“Prince Alekus.”
“Alekus, huh?” he asked, his voice low. “And here I was thinking we were friends, human.”
Never in my life had I met such an unserious demon. “Can you break the fucking chain or not?”
“If those well-fed, strapping soldiers couldn’t break it,” he said, smearing a hand over his face, “then what makes you think I can?”
Fuck. Good point.
My chain dragged the floor as I slowly stood, my legs aching from the huddled position. It wasn’t like there was a use in hiding. He knew I was here. How it wasn’t killing him was the insane part.
“I need real clothes,” I said, bouncing a little. “I can’t wear this.”
He tried again to light his herbs, failing.
“I need to borrow something of yours.”
“Now we’re wearing each other’s clothes? So, we are friends.”
No. We were not fucking friends. We were the furthest thing from it, both separately considering killing the other, but we also had to figure out how to survive. If I was to trust what he said, that he really wanted his first to be ‘special,’ then maybe we could get through these two weeks.
I kept a cautious eye on him as I padded across the floor to the wall, where three candles hung inside seeded glass orbs. I lifted the pelmet of one of them and twisted the candle from its spike. Holding my palm beneath it, I walked it to where he lay.
Good grief, there was more blood than I realized as I approached him. Maybe, I wouldn’t have to kill him at all. He’d die on his own.
I knelt beside him on the floor and extended the candle toward his lips. It had to feel like a low blow to have a human provide him—a powerful creature who could summon fire at will—a flame, but he didn’t anger. Rather, a smirk tugged at his lips.
I gulped, presenting the candle a bit closer.
He snatched my wrist so fast I nearly gasped as hot wax splashed onto his chest through the opening in his shirt, but his molten copper gaze never broke with mine. Even as he dipped the tip of his cigarette into the flame and sucked.
He held the smoke at the top of his lungs. Then his gaze fell to my mouth as he exhaled fragrant, spicy smoke into the air between us, my wrist still captured in his huge hand as he forced me to breathe it.
“Are you always so sweet, human?” he asked as I started to jerk my wrist, but he held it effortlessly, like he barely noticed.
“No,” I said, winding my wrist inside his grip. “I’m not sweet.”
“Then what would you call this?”
I tugged harder. “A mistake.”
He let go of my wrist at the same time I pulled extra hard, sending me falling backward onto my ass with a lit candle. He chuckled because, of course, he did. I pushed myself up to a stand, glaring as I yanked my chain from his reach.
I replaced the candle onto its spike. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to heave open his heavy ass armoire door.
I needed a shirt that tied or buttoned down the front because of this awful chain.
The only one was embroidered with a fancy Novithian crest on the sleeve and heavy embellished silver buttons down the front.
There were a few Vultean words stitched around the cuffs that I couldn’t understand.
I’d never worn something so nice. I wasn’t sure I ever even held something so nice in my hands, the fabric so weighty and lovely. I laid the shirt onto the bed, casting him a sidelong glare as I slid the slinky silver tank top down my body.
He smoked, his expression unreadable as I slid my arms through the exquisite shirt, smoothing my hands down the thick material.
“That is my ceremonial chemise, crafted for me by the high priestesses. You like it?” He blew out smoke. “It’s yours.”
I sucked my cheeks, doing my best to ignore him. But I’d likely chosen the most important one. I opened a drawer where black trousers were folded. It smelled like him, the armoire. A little like the earth and a little like herbal ashes, but there was a sweetness, too, that I couldn’t quite name.
I stepped into the trousers. They were far too large for me, even more so than the shirt. He was as muscular as a horse and I…didn’t eat. He’d made sure to point that out. Is there supposed to be something sexy about starving vermin?
Whatever. It was better to be starving and unattractive than something that looked tasty to him.
My chain followed me as I started for the door, fastening the buttons of his trousers, which my hips barely supported.
The door was also heavier than I remembered, or maybe my exhaustion was getting to me, but I hauled it open, just enough to poke my head through.
Four soldiers spun around from their low conversation to gape at me. One of them parted his lips to speak when I shoved the door shut.
“Shit.” I swabbed a hand over my face. “There are four of them. There are four guards.”
He cut his eyes to the side. “Did you have a desired number of guards in mind?”
“Yes. Two I could easily handle. Three would be a challenge, but I could do it.” I swayed a little, hands on my hips. “Four on the other hand…”
His eyebrows lifted. “And when you say handle?”
I blinked hard at him. As if the answer wasn’t obvious.
A grin curled his perfect lips. “So, your plan to escape this room was to seduce up to three of my father’s highly trained soldiers?”
“Do you have a better plan?”
“No, I like yours.” His grin broadened. “Even if you are decisively confident, little human.”
I twisted to face him. It was like the weight of the day was beginning to stack atop me like a hoard of bricks. “I’m not ‘decisively confident’.”
“Absurdly confident then?”
“Or, you have no idea what little effort it takes to manipulate your kind. I can do it in my fucking sleep.”
He sucked another drag from his herbs, humor dancing in his expression as he exhaled smoke. “You’re right. I have no idea. I’ve never been seduced before.”
My tongue skated over my teeth. No, I supposed he hadn’t. Which was why he was a dying virgin. I just had so many questions. I really did. Questions like, What is wrong with you? You have everything given to you. You have no regard for any of it? Have you a slow and painful death wish?
But as much as my curiosity was killing me, let his motives die with him. I really didn’t want to give him a reason to change his mind. My very presence in this room could change it. Any second, he could smell me, and that would be it.
Fuck. I had to get out of here.
I darted toward the windows, my chain scraping and winding behind me. Then I realized I’d already tried the windows and we were far too high up.
So, I darted back toward the door, gripping the handle to pull it open again, but I stopped myself from pulling because he was right. Even if there was one less, they were highly trained palace soldiers. It would be difficult to seduce all of them.
“Calm down,” Alek said, inhaling a drag of his herbs as he shook his head. “Your heart is going to explode—”
“Well then stop listening to it. Why can you hear it so well anyway? Ignore it. It’s none of your business.”
“You don’t understand. There is no ignoring it, human. It pounds in my ears.”
He was right. It was pounding in mine, too. “I’m going to fucking die in here.”
“You’re not going to die,” he said. “You need to breathe—”
“I’ll never see my brother again.” Everything inside me was beginning to spiral. “The last words I said to him were awful. Just awful.”
“Breathe, Feloré.”
“I can’t fucking believe this is happening. I can’t—”
Breathe. I couldn’t…breathe.
“Hey,” Alek said, but I couldn’t hear him. Not really.
My heart was thudding. It felt like it was clawing up my throat, a deafening sound, sealing off my ability to speak. I’d never experienced a panic so all-consuming.