Chapter 11 #2
Help me understand , I mouthed, my gaze on my reflection. But the dress didn’t answer this time. The whispers rushed faster, and I moved forward, one hand lifting toward the glass.
Fingers clamped on my shoulder. I spun, a scream lodging in my throat, and came face-to-face with a hard-eyed Lorcan.
I jerked backward, trying to dislodge him as protests formed on my tongue. “I wasn’t—”
“Silence,” he hissed. Squeezing harder, he dragged me into the shadowed corner next to the mirror. When I struggled, he yanked me close and clapped a hand over my mouth. A second later, booted footsteps rang out.
“Bright out there tonight,” a man with a gruff voice said. The jangle of metal accompanied the footsteps, which grew louder as a second man replied.
“Aye. The captain doubled the patrols on all the major roads.”
“Expecting trouble?” the first man asked, the clanking sounds drowning the thump of my heartbeat in my head. Lorcan’s palm was hot against my lips. He clamped his other hand around my bicep. My backside lodged against one of his thighs.
A pair of knights rounded the corner and strode in the opposite direction, their crimson cloaks fluttering behind them.
“Always,” the second man grunted. “But it’s worse on a full moon. Those furry fucks get bolder when their blood is hot.”
“Sure, but they fuck more, too,” the other knight said, his voice fading as the men moved away. “Hard to fight when you’re balls-deep in some she-wolf’s cunt.”
Distaste soured my gut. Lorcan tightened his grip, his fingers biting into my arm. He held me against him as the knights’ footsteps grew more distant. When they were gone, he waited a few more beats. Then he leaned down and growled next to my ear.
“Not a word.” He pulled me off the wall and hustled me forward, his grip uncompromising. I caught our reflections in the mirror, and my clothes were normal once more, the dragonstone gown nowhere to be seen. But my eyes still glowed, my expression furious above Lorcan’s hand.
He moved briskly, half dragging me to a narrow door I’d missed when I entered the corridor. He pulled his hand from my mouth as he shouldered open the door and pulled me after him.
“Let go,” I snarled, yanking at my arm. Moonlight streamed in from arrow slits positioned in regular intervals that marched up a stone stairwell that turned forty-five degrees every dozen or so steps.
The stairs were plain and wooden, the planks worn in the middle. It was obviously a servants’ staircase.
A warning flashed in Lorcan’s dark eyes as he tugged me upward.
“I’ll put you over my shoulder if I have to.
Neither of us will like it, but I promise you’ll like it far less than I will.
” He pulled me faster, and any angry reply I might have made died on my lips as I struggled to keep my feet under me.
My stomach pitched as we ascended, pivoting again and again.
The arrow slits flashed past. My breaths grew short, and my head swam.
I’d vomited my dinner on Rasimir’s carpet, and I’d eaten nothing since.
My legs shook, and the stairs threatened to trip me as I fought to match Lorcan’s unforgiving pace.
His hair was pulled back in its queue, but a few strands dangled from the knot.
His jaw was a hard slash above his dark collar. And he was sweating.
No, he was struggling , I realized as I gave him a sharper look. His nostrils were flared, his brows pulled tight. Perspiration dotted his forehead. But he didn’t slow, and he didn’t look at me as we reached the top of the stairs.
A wooden door identical to the one we’d entered loomed ahead. Lorcan marched me to it and yanked it open, revealing the corridor outside my bed chamber.
The knight jumped from his chair, almost dropping his sword in the process. He fumbled it, then offered Lorcan an awkward salute.
“My prince!” The man darted his gaze between Lorcan and me, the blood draining from his face. “You have the princess.”
“Obviously,” Lorcan said, pulling me past the knight.
He hauled me to the door and swept inside, finally releasing me on the threshold.
As I rubbed at my aching arm, he strode to a big, round table and plucked a bouquet of flowers from the vase in the center.
Striding back to the door, he stepped into the corridor and thrust the blooms at the knight.
“These flowers are dead. Fetch fresh ones immediately.”
The knight clutched the stems to his chest. “Y-Yes, Your Highness. Right away.”
Lorcan closed the door in the man’s face. Then he turned to me. “Whatever you were doing just now, don’t do it again.”
I lifted my chin. “I was going for a walk.”
He ran a slow, assessing gaze down my body, leaving a trail of tingling awareness in his wake.
My heart sped up, and I fought the urge to squirm as he took in my thin black shirt and leather trousers.
My chest still heaved from the sprint up the stairs, and my breasts rose and fell under the dark fabric.
At the same time, the scene before the mirror popped into my mind.
Had Lorcan seen the dress, too? Before I could decide whether it was foolish to ask, he offered a cold smile.
“Lies are most effective when they’re not laughably absurd.”
Anger fired in my chest. “I suppose you’d know all about that.”
Something flickered in his eyes—the emotion surfacing and retreating too quickly for me to catch. The fire in the hearth behind him had given up its fight, and only moonlight illuminated the room. But it was even brighter now, and it formed a pearly glow around him.
And something about him was…off. His stance was awkward, his shoulder dipped forward.
I pointed before I could stop myself. “You—”
He moved too quickly for me to track. One minute, I gestured to his shoulder, the next I faced the balcony doors with Lorcan at my back and his palm against my throat. His hand forced my chin up, the back of my head resting against his broad chest as moonlight flooded my vision.
“You won’t escape the Drakhold,” he said in a voice almost too low to catch.
But I heard him, a shiver rising under my skin as his lips brushed the hair at my temple.
“If you managed to leave the castle grounds, the werewolves would find you. And they would rip you apart.” His breath coasted over my cheek, and a dark, spicy scent teased my nose.
“It wouldn’t be quick. They would make it hurt. ”
I swallowed hard, my imagination supplying me with images of how that might look. But he was offering information. I couldn’t afford not to take it. “Is it the werewolves you’re warring against?”
“Werewolves. Witches. The werewolves love fighting among themselves more than anything, but they make useful foot soldiers when properly motivated. They’re disposable.
” His voice slid lower, and the shiver found its way to the surface of my skin.
“The witches will use any weapon they can get their hands on.”
“You called me a weapon.” And I was finished being trapped against him.
I tried to turn, but he clamped his hand harder over my neck.
The scent of blood—fresh and intoxicating—hit me, and my fangs punched from my gums. A growl ripped from my throat as I brought the heel of my boot down on his toes.
He grunted, loosening his grip just enough for me to spin and shove him away with a smack against his shoulder.
He stumbled back, a savage-sounding curse bursting from him. His face went white as chalk, and pain flashed over his features. He angled his body away, but he didn’t move quickly enough. I saw what he tried to hide.
“You’re hurt,” I said, moving forward. He retreated, but I circled him, my gaze on the shoulder he favored. The joint sat too high and too far forward. His thick jacket hid it well, but Mama had treated countless farmers with dislocated shoulders. The signs were obvious.
“It’s nothing,” Lorcan said. He scowled as he kept turning and I continued circling him. “Will you stop following me?”
Curiosity and the scent of blood drew me closer, and I moved in and out of the bands of moonlight. “That has to hurt. I can fix it.”
His scowl deepened as he finally ceased his spinning. He started to square his shoulders, then winced and settled for pinning me with a glare. “It’s not your concern.”
I folded my arms. “It’s a dislocated shoulder. I’ve seen dozens of them.”
“Congratulations.”
“You’re bleeding,” I said, my fangs aching. Power whispered through the air, and it traveled on the scent of his blood. Slashes marred the fabric on his forearm. I’d missed them in the darkened stairwell.
Lorcan took a step back. Then he seemed to realize what he’d done, and his own fangs flashed as he leveled an arrogant look at me. “I said it’s nothing.”
“Saying it doesn’t make it true.” I uncrossed my arms, and I knew my surprise showed as I smothered a gasp. “Are you afraid to let me fix it?”
He huffed. “Of course not.”
“You are,” I said, my surprise growing. Although maybe it shouldn’t have.
Mama had tended a lot of dislocated shoulders—and most of them had belonged to men, who were notorious babies when it came to pain.
Give me a mother in labor any day over a man with an ingrown toenail , she’d said on more than one occasion.
Apparently, men and their pride were the same on both sides of the Feyline.
Exasperation flitted over Lorcan’s face. “I’m not afraid .”
I shrugged. “If you say so.”
“Fine,” he snapped, his tone as frosty as his expression. “Fix it, if you must.”
Renewed surprise rendered me speechless for a second. I gestured to the bed. “You’ll, uh, need to sit down.”
He hesitated, his dark eyes wary. “I’ll stand.”
It was my turn to be exasperated. I heard Mama in my voice as I pointed to the bed. “You’ll fall when the joint pops back into place. Trust me.”