5. Quarrel
CHAPTER FIVE
Quarrel
Ihad yet to look away from the ring he’d torn off his hand. Flesh clung to the insides, and the ring’s black, polished stone reflected the torchlight across from the cells.
“Volcan was not the only one I believed was murdered by redbloods.”
Cassiel sat with his back against the bars facing my cell.
His unsaid words insinuated he had also believed his mother’s death was caused by redbloods.
When he tipped his head back, some of his locks spilled onto my side.
I curled my fingers into my palm. Wanting to touch his hair was not much of a surprise considering he was my bondmate.
The title sank into my stomach like a stone. With everything that had happened recently, I had not given more thought to what we were to each other.
“Another lie,” I mused, shaking my head.
He hummed his assent.
It must have been a reminder each time he touched me that redbloods took everyone he cared for away from him. I stamped down the smidgen of sympathy rousing in my belly.
Cassiel stood. He kept yanking and tugging at his tunic. His scabbed blackened thumb had begun to heal.
With a sound of frustration, he tore the blood-stiffened fabric off, exposing his sculpted chest. I hated that my eyes tracked the carved ridges of his torso. Especially the way the dips framed his midsection.
I exhaled hard, dropping my head to scratch at a dried bloodstain on my dress. “How long were you on the streets until the council came for you?”
“I had reached my seventeenth annum.” He offered a response with ease. I paced to the corner and gingerly lowered.
“How did they Awaken you?”
“I do not know.” Frustration coated his words.
“Is there anything you do know?” I tucked my chin onto my raised knees.
He was silent, and his eyebrows raised. “Yes,” he responded in a silky tone.
I lifted my head, waiting.
“That you are mine.”
“You are mad,” I blurted. “I want nothing to do with you.”
His focus sharpened, and he barked out a laugh. In a single fluid motion that belied his size, he strode toward the bars between us.
I huffed, pushing onto my feet with a bit more effort since I had to favor my hip. “Humored to hear the truth?” I retorted.
“Sarcasm, Vessel, I thought you above it.”
“My lord,” I mocked pointedly.
His stare hardened. “You anger me.”
“That is quite evident.” I lifted my chin, gritting my teeth.
I knew the cell was empty since someone had removed the bucket I had peed in while I had been with Al, but still, I scanned.
“What are you searching for?”
“Something to toss at your hard head.” I limped over to the bars.
He did not waste a moment, reaching out and snagging the front of Branwen’s coat. He yanked me until I hovered as close as possible.
“I will not have you scheming. I will find a way out of this.” We stood staring at each other.
“Don’t know what you mean.” I tilted my chin up.
“You are not fooling me.” His sweet breath reached my nose.
I breathed in. He smelled so good—I tensed and slapped at his grip on the coat.
“Release me,” I ordered tersely.
The slightest smirk crossed his features, but an echoing thud of steps cut off whatever remark bubbled behind his lips.
Drusilla had returned, and this time was different. She carried herself stiffly. She didn’t begin her wheedling. No, instead, she strode directly in front of his cell with the customary distance that put her out of Cassiel’s grip.
“I know you hate me, my son, but I will show you I care and have always cared for you.”
I turned to where she motioned.
An officer had hold of Hester’s arm, pulling her forward, while a second officer, the wide-set man that had beaten me in the carriage, strode forward to Drusilla’s side.
“Step back, son, I do not want to have to harm you.”
Cassiel stepped back, holding both arms outward.
The burly man approached, slid the lock inside the keyhole, and turned until it clicked.
It was still in the middle of swinging open when Cassiel sprang forward.
For one split moment, hope rippled free.
Then Cassiel dropped onto the ground with a shout, both legs snapped at an odd angle.
The other officer shoved Hester inside his cell.
They slammed it shut, locking it and backing up quickly.
“Wait for me at the entrance,” Drusilla said to them.
Both turned and left quickly. Drusilla rubbed her thumb across the top of the item in her hand.
I squinted. It was that thing Al had—the effigy.
It seemed to be made of fabric or leather.
Different sections jutted out to create a crude form of a body.
“I did not want to harm you, but I will if you must learn your lesson.”
He reached down and straightened his leg where it twisted outward near his shin. Bone snapped and cracked. I winced, knowing how much that must have hurt to move around broken bones, but Cassiel’s expression did not shift.
Not even as he popped the second leg into place.
He gingerly pushed up and prowled toward Hester, who pressed her back to the exit. She shook so hard it rattled her teeth. Cassiel reached Hester and slid his hand around her neck, keeping his eyes on Drusilla. My breath stopped in my throat. I could hear my pulse thundering in my ears.
“You seek to continue poisoning me?”
Drusilla’s mouth flattened. “She has not been injected, and the effects fade within a sennight. You have nothing to worry about.”
Cassiel let out a harsh laugh. “I want nothing from you.” He began to squeeze. Blood surged under his fingernails where her skin split.
Hester gasped, her hands raising to his forearm.
He could have ended it, but this was a show specifically for Drusilla.
Cassiel always made a point.
“Do whatever you wish with her.” Drusilla turned, her shoulders dropping the slightest bit. She continued to caress the effigy in her hand as if it truly was Cassiel and not just a way to harm him.
I waited and hoped to Saints it would not be too late. I watched her until she disappeared into the tunnel.
“Stop,” I whispered, rushing to the bars to take hold of them. Onyx dripped down his wrist. “Cassiel, stop.” I said urgently. His head slowly turned toward me. Hester’s hands slid off his arm. “Cassiel!”
He released her, and she fell to the ground with a heaving gasp.
“Hester.”
Her eyes focused on me. “Amara?” she croaked, rolling onto her knees and scuttling towards me. She gripped my hand, hunching away from Cassiel.
“Breathe,” I ordered.
She sucked in another breath. I kept rubbing the top of her hand. All the girls were multiple annums younger than me, closer to Miriam’s age than mine.
“It is you,” she breathed, gripping the bars. “How are you still . . . here?” She kept shaking her head. “And why is His Highness in a cell?”
“I should kill her,” he commented calmly. “It would be doing her a favor.” He brushed blue blood on the front of his trousers.
“No,” I blurted, sitting back and curling my legs under me. After a slight pinch, the pain eased in my injured leg.
“Feed from her,” I said to him, shoving down that pressure bubbling in my stomach. “Regain your strength.”
“No.”
“Stop being contrary.”
“I will only feed from you.” His sharp focus pierced me.
“You need not do this,” I said bluntly. Nothing but his eyebrow moved. “Do not behave as if you are doing me a favor. As if you have some loyalty to me.”
“I do.” There was no space for argument in his tone.
I shook my head and turned away. If I continued to look into his matter-of-fact eyes—I did not want to give it more thought.
“If you think your pretty words will make me let you feed on me. You are mistaken.”
His lips twitched the slightest bit. That sardonic edge to his expression did not fade.
“Cassiel,” I scoffed. Hester’s eyes only grew wider. “How will we escape if—”
“Feeding is not what has me this weakened.” His words lashed out, and my spine went ramrod straight.
He watched me with such intensity. The silence became deafening. If it was not only starvation . . .
“Amara?” Hester whispered. In the time I knew her, she had never sounded so frightened. I shook away the cobwebs clinging to my thoughts. “I heard it is because of you.”
What was me? My comment to him collided with my racing thoughts. He had not simply resurrected me; he never let me die . . .
“Because you are keeping me alive.” That was what all of Drusilla’s comments were about. I was the reason he could not break through the bars.
He offered me his back instead of answering, but he needn’t say a word.
I knew he’d brought me back, but I did not know he was continuing to keep me alive. That I was the reason why he was weak.
My vision swam, but I did not move it from the hard line of Cassiel’s shoulders. I had wished him death and my rash words came true. A knot formed in my throat, and I squeezed my cold hands into fists.
“Cassiel. Feed on her.” He lowered in his usual spot. I ground my teeth together. “Please.”
“Such manners,” he mused, more levity in his voice than was needed. “Still no.” He did not even take a moment to think on it.
I sank my fingers into my messy hair, and Hester caught my focus. She had not stopped trembling. Would Drusilla take Cassiel’s refusal out on her? I could see it unfold. Drusilla in a rage and lashing out—Hester at the brunt of it.
I refused to let that happen, and if he was not willing to bite her . . .
“We have to make it seem like he is feeding on you.” I scooted forward, scanning my cell. “We need something sharp.”
“Like that?”
She pointed inside my cell. Nestled against the bottom bolt was a sliver of stone that angled into a small point. I reached for it and held it in the palm of my hand. The tip was a bit blunt, but it would have to do.
“Hold your arm out,” I ordered. Hester stretched her arm out, and I took her wrist. “This will hurt.”
I poised the sharp tip against the inside of her forearm and pressed. Hester turned her head away, screwing her face with pain. Blue blood bubbled around the stone, and I pulled it out. Squinting, I eyed the distance between them, not wanting to space the punctures incorrectly.
I tugged at the button holding my coat together and stretched the front of my dress outward.
The two scabbed up punctures remained on the swell of my breast. I let her wrist go and used my fingers to measure the length and returned to her arm, stabbing the second hole an appropriate distance from the first.
She hissed, scrunching her eyes tightly together. Both crude wounds dripped blood.
“Close enough,” I mumbled. “At least if they feel like you’re keeping him alive, they will not take you away.” And kill her for knowing too much. I kept that to myself.
“I do not think it matters anymore,” she whispered. “Since Nocturn, none of the feeders have been allowed to leave our chambers. Branwen and Vera managed to slip out for a brief moment. They said they saw you, but it was not you.”
“I hoped to keep all of you out of it.”
She frowned and leaned her forehead against the bar. “I want to return home.”
“You . . .” My promise stuck in my throat. I looked over at Piper in her cell, sleeping. I had made her many promises, and now she was . . .
“They will not let them leave.”
I gave Cassiel a pointed glare, and he put his hands up.
“Is that true?” Hester asked, serious. My gaze trailed to Piper again. “Is that your wraithling?”
My lip twitched with the urge to tremble, but I bit down on it.
“There is a lot to explain,” I stalled, dreading that it would tear apart everything she knew as truth.
“We have nothing but time.”
I nodded curtly and began to tell her of the lies the realms had been living under. The designations and the true roles each of us had. I covered the hatred for redbloods and the council utilizing hosts.
Cassiel was attentive to my words, receiving the only explanation I’d uttered since I first tried to explain everything to him and he had me tossed into the pit. His expression only tightened with each word that came from me. To the point that he seemed close to shattering.
We had to work together to escape, but at this moment, I did not want to engage with him.
He left me too unsteady.
I let out a slow breath and repeated all the information Al had offered.