Chapter 5
Five
I watched where he had left, my body shaking, my heart racing. I needed to make sure this wasn’t a trick—that he wouldn’t return a moment later, ready to finish what he started.
When my trembling finally eased and my pulse slowed, I moved over to the table and grabbed the napkin and held it to my bleeding palm, trying to figure out what had happened.
What had stopped Lord Vaelor from killing me?
The rage had been there, as had the desire to avenge his own death.
A demon wasn’t capable of compassion, so it had to be for another reason.
I glanced out the window. Maybe he planned on delivering me to the mercenary army after all.
There had to be some way out of this. Away from him. Away from this camp.
I spun toward the door, my heart rate picking up when I heard the handle jiggle. The door opened and Erlinen stepped in.
Thank the gods it wasn’t Vaelor.
Erlinen observed me, her eyes narrowed. “You will come with me.”
She left the room. Both she and her master seemed to enjoy abrupt exits.
She led me through the front entryway to the large spiral staircase. I didn’t know where I was going—to a torture chamber, or perhaps a tower prison cell. Leaving the house wasn’t an option, and so I had no choice but to follow.
After climbing the stairs, she took me down a long, wide hallway.
It was mostly empty. The walls were bare except for the occasional alcove where a candelabra sat, lighting the way.
She opened the double doors and took me into a large bedchamber.
The room was large, suffocatingly large.
My entire cabin back home could have fit in this room.
Erlinen gave me another disdainful glance as she marched over to the dresser and yanked open the drawer. “Humans are so small. It will be a wonder if there is anything suitable.”
“Suitable?” I echoed warily.
Erlinen sifted through the drawer and pulled out a white, lacy shift. She walked up to me and lifted it. “Hm, it’ll do.” She held it out to me.
I blinked and stared at her. “I don’t understand…”
“What is there not to understand? You’ll sleep here tonight. Feron is bringing water for your bath.”
“I thought—” I had no clue what was going on. In less than an hour I went from nearly poisoned to being given nightclothes. “I thought Lord Vaelor wanted me dead.”
Erlinen gave a long sigh, as if her evening would have been that much more enjoyable cleaning my lifeless body off the dining room floor instead of handing me clothes. “So did I. Now take the nightgown.”
I took it from her with my good hand. The fabric was soft and supple and held a fresh linen smell. Unlike my own tattered dress, which I had worn since my capture, this one appeared spotless.
Feron burst into the chamber, lugging a bucket of water and growling under his breath.
“Enough of that,” Erlinen snapped at him. “Who are you to question his lordship?”
He snorted as he walked up to the copper tub near the dresser and poured the water into it. A little steam rose. Gods, was the bathwater heated?
Erlinen faced me. “You should clean out your wound in the tub. There is a strip of cloth you may wrap it in on the vanity. We shall leave you to attend to your needs. Unless you wish for me to attend to you?”
She raised an eyebrow at me in expectation and didn’t move. She was serious.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll be fine.”
Erlinen nodded, and both she and Feron hurried from the room. The door slammed, and the lock snapped into place. I wouldn’t be leaving.
I sank to my knees, a sob of disbelief breaking out of me. The soft nightgown slipped from my fingers onto the floor. My body shook uncontrollably, and I pressed my uninjured hand over my eyes as I fought to breathe evenly as all the tension seeped out of me.
I was alive.
But why?
This resembled Vaelor’s prior attempt—his kind words meant to persuade me to drink. Maybe he’d make me lower my defenses, and when I was asleep in bed or naked in the water, he’d appear to take the revenge he’d always desired.
The more I thought about it, the more likely that seemed.
I rose, backing away from the nightgown and the bath. I refused to touch it. To touch any of it. I wouldn’t fall for his tricks. And even if I possessed no means of defense against a spirit, I wouldn’t be caught unaware.
My limbs felt weak and achy as I crawled onto the bed and pressed my back to the stiff wooden backboard.
I didn’t get under the covers. Pulling my legs up under my dirty, plain dress, I wrapped my arms around them.
I held the cloth to my injured hand, pressing hard, using the pain to keep me grounded and awake.
And I watched the door.
I don’t know how long I sat there, watching, but at some point my resistance waned. Exhaustion from the day’s events made my eyelids heavy. It came crashing onto my shoulders, and my head drooped.
Lord Vaelor stood in the dining room with spiderwebs crisscrossing the walls. He brushed his hand over my face while he tilted the goblet of blood past my lips.
“Take it, little human,” he said in a deathly soft voice. “You know you want to.”
I tipped my head back as the metallic taste slid over my tongue and down my throat, all the while his orange eyes gazed at me, both deadly and possessive.
He lifted the goblet. “There.” His nails scraped across my skin, leaving icy trails while his other hand slipped into my hair. “Now you belong to me.”
I sought to stagger away, but his hold was too firm. Horror built in me as fire shot up my throat. Poison. I’d let him kill me.
Then Vaelor’s face transformed—eyes growing larger, head flatter, massive tusks protruding from a huge, elongated jaw.
Raxus glared down at me. Sneering and triumphant, his fist in my hair. “The boy is mine.”
He jerked my head painfully, and Gerand was there, crying, screaming, reaching out to me. “No,” I choked as the poison took its hold, the heat of it scorching me, making me hoarse. “Gerand. Please. Please.”
They carried him away, the dark mist of my dream swallowing him. Leaving me alone with nothing but agony and emptiness as I gagged and my own blood spilled from my throat, falling from my lips. I’d die here, and Gerand would be gone for good. Nobody to help. Nobody to save him.
“Gerand!”
At first, I thought the sound of breaking glass was just my heart shattering, but a moment later my eyes flew open and I whipped my head up. I was in Lord Vaelor’s manor—the room still and dark. I breathed hard. Cold sweat covered my body. A nightmare. It had only been a nightmare.
A white mist hung at the end of the bed. A broken vase lay shattered on the floor, and the ghostly outline of a figure, of a face I recognized. Lord Vaelor’s gaze glowed in the blackness, watching me. I inhaled, poised to cry out, though no rescue would come.
I blinked, praying I was dreaming and that he wasn’t really there, ready to exact his revenge.
When my eyes opened, he was gone, but the shattered vase was still there.
I remained awake until the sun rose.
Erlinen walked into the room with a broom and a dustpan the next morning. She paused, looking me over and frowned. “What’s this? Why didn’t you take a bath? And your clothes?” She took in the discarded nightgown on the floor.
My fingers sank into my filth-covered skirts. “I refuse to play Lord Vaelor’s games.”
She snorted. “There are no games.” She stalked over to the broken vase and began sweeping.
“He tried to kill me last night.”
“And then he offered you a bed and a bath, and you refused him. Do you think that will make him happy?” She looked at me. “Now, you’ll get undressed and get into the water, or I’ll call Feron in here and we’ll strip your raggedy clothes from you and force you in.”
“I want answers.”
“His lordship doesn’t owe you. You murdered him, and he has the grace not to kill you, and you demand answers?
You ungrateful little whelp.” Her good wing spread while the other lay dead at her back.
“Your actions destroyed everything he was seeking to achieve. I’ll be returning shortly to take you to breakfast, and you better be in the bath or getting out of it. ”
She took the broom and dustbin full of broken shards and marched from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
Approaching the tub, I dipped my uninjured hand into the now-cool water. Then I dropped to my knees, cupped a handful, and brought it to my lips. The cool liquid soothed my parched throat.
Afterward, I rose and crossed to the dresser, where another vase sat. Lifting it, I returned to the tub and filled it with water before carrying it back and setting it in its place.
At least dehydration would not be what killed me here.
No, I’d die from lack of food.
My stomach ached, but I ignored it as I stepped up to the tub.
I didn’t have any other choice. I believed Erlinen’s threats, so I undressed and climbed into the bath.
To monitor the bedchamber door, I positioned myself facing it.
I wasn’t sure why. If I was worried about Lord Vaelor coming upon me, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t come through any wall in the room, like he had done last night when he disappeared after spying on me.
I plunged my wounded hand into the water and felt the gentle ache as I cleaned off the crusted blood.
The cold didn’t bother me. I’d spent my life bathing in rivers and streams that were much colder than this tepid water.
I stared at the assortment of bars and lotions on the table next to the bath, unwilling to touch them.
The amount struck me as extravagant. I washed the off my body and hair from the last few days.
The rash I’d self-inflicted on myself had disappeared because I’d run out of eran root before I’d even poisoned the demon camp.
The lack of protection made me feel vulnerable, and I could only hope that Lord Vaelor’s torments didn’t include anything sexual.
Not that my rash would put off a spirit, anyway.
Could spirits even have sex? With my luck, they probably could.