Chapter Six - Dante
Shadows climbed the walls around me as I hurled the door to my bed chambers open.
I should have never watched the bidding. I shouldn’t have granted myself that one final look at her face. Then I would have never been cursed to see the way she looked at those men gathered round to bid on her soul and her flesh.
I wouldn’t have seen the way she softly bit the red skin of her lower lip. And how she did it for another male.
I threw myself into the chair and with a twist of my wrist set the fire burning in the hearth. I’d been cold since I dismounted and no longer felt the warm weight of her against my chest. My hands ran through the black tangles of my hair. The weeks since I’d first seen her had been nothing short of torment, but this?
That damn look on her beautiful face, the way her eyes spoke of all the unfulfilled promises. It had me thinking of that man she danced with in the tavern, the way my hands had clenched the mug of beer in my fist nearly to breaking. The way he had looked at her body, the longing she’d shown in her expression.
And when that fool of a human had taken her “no” as less of a boundary and more of a suggestion? A smile touched the corner of my mouth. Well, I had made sure he fully understood the meaning of the word for what was left of his short, detestable life.
The fire crackled, and I took a breath. What was done was done. She was here now, the one woman who could unleash everything I’d worked my whole life to keep caged. I’d known what she was months ago when I first caught word of her in the human lands.
The Shrike, they called her. And at first, I’d wanted nothing more than to destroy her, to assure the prophecy could never come to fruition. But then I’d watched her, seen her courage and her ferocity. I’d seen the way her eyes shimmered behind the false golden mask she always put on for the world.
She would be my undoing. And yet, here I was, bringing her into my home. Even now, the servants would be bringing her to the quarters they’d so hastily prepared, quarters that had been empty since I’d been given this estate.
The enemy you can see and control is safer than the enemy at large. That had been what I had convinced myself upon bringing her to Arelia. I would either destroy her entirely or render her helpless here.
Even if a small voice deep within me still whispered there was something more.
I stood, warmed now but still restless. The window in the eastern wall of this room looked down over the city I so loved. My home, my prison. The lights were flickering out, district by district. The last still lit would be the strip of taverns by the lake, a place my brothers and I had been frequent patrons of. They were probably there now, drinking away the headache I’d caused them when I told them I was bringing this girl to Arelia. I winced to think how they would react when they heard the news that I’d taken her as my slave.
She was a human, first and foremost. She was an enemy. The ultimate enemy, if the mark on her chest was any indication. And yet, I was helpless against the pull between us. Even now, it pulled me towards where she was in the slave quarters on the other side of the manor.
I sighed, throwing off the cloak I’d worn in the human lands and changing into my usual attire, just a white tunic and black leather pants. The feathers she noticed in my hood were also in my hair, but not by any choice of mine.
I should go to bed. Or find my way to the lakeside district to lose these heavy thoughts with my brothers. But as I was leaving my room, my feet led me not out of the manor, but to the slave quarters.
With a shaky breath, I composed myself. With shadows hugging the ugly curves of my face, I pushed open the simple wooden door.
She sat at the window, her feet tucked up beneath her and a hand softly combing through the golden waves of her hair. Her eyes gazed at the city below, hazy and unfocused as if they were seeing an entirely different scene. I felt her in my mind, as I had every moment since my fingers had brushed against the scarred skin that marked her chest. Her mind was quiet, for once not plotting or faking through an interaction. She felt so tired, it made my own bones ache.
But then she turned, and I watched as the features of her face slipped back into the beautiful false smile and bravado she always wore. I stepped inside, reminding myself that I was her master now. There were certain things that needed to be done.
She wore the white cotton gown of a slave girl. It did little to hide her ample curves, and I found myself battling to keep my eyes from taking her in too hungrily.
“Well, hello, master,” she sang, no hint of surprise or anger at her situation. Her pure acceptance of everything that had happened in the past day would have made anyone suspicious of her, but I knew what her real intentions were in this place. “Come to begin my training? I assure you, I’m a very quick learner.”
She smiled, and it was the same golden, glowing lie that made my blood boil. The same smile she sought to win over those other males with at the auctioning block. The same smile she gave the man at the tavern. She stood and batted her eye at me, and I couldn’t bear it any longer.
In a blur of movement, I had her held against the wall of the room, one forearm braced on the wall behind her, the other hand around her throat. Her pulse beat rapidly beneath my fingers.
And still, that damned smile was on her red lips, mocking me with its falseness. Gods be damned if I couldn’t make her wipe that smile from her face.
“Your training will consist of nothing more than submitting to me,” I ground out, watching her earnest green eyes as they searched for my face beneath the shadows. “And realizing that you are to bat your pretty eyes at no one else.”
Her panic touched against the edge of my thoughts. My breath caught as I remembered how she had screamed in her mind at the auction, how desperately she had wished to be away from there. I was helpless. There had been no choice for me but to give her what she wanted. Even if it meant I would be the villain in her eyes.
I took my hand from her throat to the side of her face. A chill ran through me as my skin brushed hers. I couldn’t keep myself from touching her, it seemed. I ran my thumb across her lips.
When her eyes found mine again, there was something else behind them, something heated, something primal. Beneath the caress of my thumb, her smile fell. Her body melted against the wall, so slightly I would have missed it had I not felt her thoughts turn molten in my own head.
The corner of my own mouth drew up in a smirk. She had dropped the mask, and gods was she stunning beneath it.
“There you are,” I said, my voice low and thick with the terrible thoughts filling my head. Had they come from her or my own mind? “The greedy, lustful little thing beneath the pretty smile.”
I pushed back from the wall and created some space between the heat of our bodies. Her eyes remained fixed on me as I stepped to the bench by the window and motioned to it.
“Sit.”
Rhea obeyed, moving silently towards the bench with that catlike way she had. She watched me with hard eyes and a partially concealed hunger.
I took a long breath and tried to refortify the walls in my mind to keep her out. I could hardly control my own lust for her, but both of our desires in my head were overwhelming. With her suspicious eyes still on me, I sat on the bench beside her. Then I reached down and pulled her leg across my lap. Slowly, using every ounce of control I’d ever taught myself, I slid my hand up the smooth skin of her thigh, pushing the fabric away.
Before I could react, and perhaps taking advantage of the lust that must have been evident in my eyes, Rhea’s hand shot out towards my throat. If I’d been a human man, I would have been dead.
As it were, I had barely caught the hand that slashed towards my throat. Rhea’s green eyes were blazing like a forest on fire as I clenched down on the hand in mine and turned it over. She whimpered as a tiny, needle-like blade fell from her hand and clattered against the stone of the floor.
I laughed, a quick barking sound that surprised us both.
“Maybe I should have let Lord Farish purchase you. His death has been a long time coming.”
She was glaring at me now, but I welcomed the anger and darkness that washed from her in waves. I wanted her this way, her real self, the woman who would wield the weapon. The pretenses and shining lies she hid behind were dangerous. The enemy you can see is always preferred.
“No witty retort?” I held her hand by the wrist tightly in one of mine, taking the other and holding it in the same, just in case she had any other tricks up her sleeve. I noted the way her eyes flicked to my hand where hers were tightly clasped. “Has the day drained all the humor and smiles from you, then?”
“Don’t mock me,” she hissed as I returned my attention to her leg on my lap.
“I’ll do as I please with you.”
She sat silent, her eyes burning into me as I drew the cotton away and brought my hand up the soft skin to the upper crux of her thigh. Rhea drew in a sharp breath that sounded almost like a moan. It brought my control to the very edge. I clenched my jaw. All the years I’d worked to master my control, and the smallest sound from this damn woman had me unraveling. I grabbed onto the soft flesh of her thigh for a moment as I steadied myself.
Then, with a rush of the dark power that plagued my soul, a ring of shadows broke from my fingertips and traced their way in an intricate banded pattern around her upper thigh. I held her fast as she cried out and her head fell back against the wall. I kept hold of her until the shadows had seeped into her skin, leaving behind the mark I knew all would recognize.
I released her, but she remained with her head thrown back against the wall, her hair falling in golden waves around her arched body, her eyes closed tightly. She left her leg draped over my lap.
She was a portrait in her pain.
Slowly, tenderly, I drew my hand over the place where my shadows had marked her, soothing the hurt with gentle circles of my fingers. Her skin was tanned, marked with darker spots the humans called beauty stains. All of her was beautiful.
I felt her thoughts pressing against the walls of my mind and looked up. Her eyes were open now and watching me. I couldn’t make out what she was thinking from the lines of her face, and I was loath to open the connection between us to find out.
“You are mine, now,” I said, my voice a heavy rumble. “You’ll be something pretty for the other fae lords to envy.”
Carefully, I moved her leg off of mine and stood.
“Our first chance to make them all green is tonight. Kiya will be in to dress you shortly.”
Rhea only remained sitting against the window, the city behind her like a sparkling halo. With all the power the gods had cursed me with, I pulled my eyes from the remarkable sight of her and left the room.