Chapter Four #2
He grinned. Once again, I was amusing him, not irritating him. Certainly not enough to force him to turn the carriage around. “The terms of the treaty were that all acts of aggression between my kingdom and yours cease—”
“Exactly. You—”
“—therefore, plunging a sword in my chest, unprovoked and before a hundred witnesses, counts as an act of aggression, wouldn’t you say?” His grin was terrible to behold. “Do tell me, my queen. You know how age rots the mind.”
My lips pressed into a thin, numb line. “What does this mean? What will you do?”
“Now you ask?” He cocked his head. “Now you inquire about the treaty? Only now you mention your father, and not even to ask if he’s still alive? Why is that?”
“Because I’m not—!” I choked on Emiana’s name, strangled by curse and frustration. I sighed. “I don’t care what happens to that man. In the end, he was no better than a broker—selling his own daughter to warm his enemy’s bed. That’s all I was to him in the end. A pawn to sacrifice.”
He gave me a long, leveling look. “I see. So that was not the first time he’s struck you.”
“I—” I started to say I don’t know, then memories that weren’t mine rose to the surface.
“No, it was not the first,” I replied, knowing it to be true.
“Nor was it a common occurrence. He’d have had to spend more time in my presence for that—barring the one night a month I was allowed to sit beside him during the Meya’s Moon feast.”
Impossibly thick lashes cast long shadows over his unnatural eyes. They were beacons that kept drawing me back to them, no matter how much I wanted to look away.
“Take heart, my queen, for your plan worked.”
“My plan?”
“To break the treaty and therefore remove all barriers and excuses... for me to kill him.”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to work.
Although I will say, your seduction techniques are quite unique and advanced.
Pretending that you care so much for my honor, you’d kill the man who hurt me, is a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t erase the fact that if you truly wanted my happiness and freedom from a man who’d rule and control me.
.. you’d turn this carriage around right now and take me home. ”
“No.”
Anger welled in my throat. It was everything in me not to leap across the divide and claw the boredom off his face.
“Why?” I cried. “Why do you want me? I know of you.
I know kings, queens, and emissaries from the four kingdoms have offered you money, land, brides, and grooms all in hopes of you lifting the beast curse off the land.
“You turned them all down by way of severed heads and mangled limbs sent back to where they came from. Why now? Why say yes to this marriage? Why force me to go back with you when you want this marriage even less than I do?”
“I have answered this question, but if you wish to hear it again, I will oblige,” he replied. “I have mastered the magical arts, created a superior race, conquered my kingdom, and amassed wealth that rivals the coffers of this and the human lands. But...
“It’s not enough.” He snapped his fingers and the torn curtains vanished from my grip and reappeared whole and intact over the window. “There was one more horizon to conquer. One that’s always been out of my reach... until a little bird plunged a sword through my chest.”
He smiled, and for the first time, I felt I’d done something very wrong.
“There is something we must do, and at first, I did not believe you were the one to stand at my side. But I see now I was wrong. When you’re in my presence, there’s no fear in your eyes, tremble in your chin, or deference in your speech.
You do not fear me, though you do revile me, and yet, arousal wafts thick and heavy from your lethal pussy—telling of your desire for me. ”
My face heated. “That is not—!”
“That wasn’t a question,” he growled, slicing in. “Merely a fact that ever more intrigues me. I demanded the All Mother aid me, and she gifted me you.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, lulling my lids heavy once more. “A beautiful little enigma wrapped in venom and violence.”
He laughed—full and free. “Of course I’m not going to give you back, little bird.
I’m going to trap you within my cage and watch you squirm.
Listen to you scream. Delight as you buck and fight and defy until I have conquered the most interesting challenge yet—claim of your life, your soul, and your heart. ”
I wanted to rage. To give him exactly what he asked for—screaming, fighting, and bucking—but I could do no such thing. Darkness claimed me again, dragging me under to where I would not wake.
THE CARRIAGE BUCKED, jolting me out of sleep and off my seat. I fell flat across a hard, sweet-smelling body and was immediately captured in his arms.
“Good evening, my bride.” Fearsome claws trailed a shiver-inducing path up my spine. “I trust you slept well.”
I shoved off his lap, escaping those tickling claws. He took no notice as he leaned over, sweeping back the curtain.
“Welcome home.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out. I’d seen many maps of the faelands, and all of them had a huge, looming shadow where the kingdom of Wind and Wild should be.
There was nothing else there could be for every cartologists who crossed the border never made it back alive. I understood why in that moment.
“It’s dead,” I breathed. “Everything... dead.”
There were a million words to describe the frozen wasteland surrounding me—smothering me. But none would capture the sight so completely as dead.
Snow blanketed the hills and mountains, wiping away any trace of greens, browns, reds, oranges, or any sign life once existed beneath the ice. Twisted, snarled, bare stumps reached for the skies, their skinny frozen branches beseeching the sun for warmth.
That was it. The world had washed away. Summer, light, laughter, and warmth disappeared, and all that was left were dead trees, mountains, and ice.
“Is this the curse?” I pressed my fingertips to the glass. The cold seeped into my bones, chilling me to the core. “This is what it does? It sucks the life out of... everything.”
Alisdair didn’t answer. I couldn’t be certain he heard me. That was fine. He didn’t need to explain himself. My supposed new home said all that needed to be said.
This is what we’ve fought a thousand years to prevent. This land of winter and death, where we’d roam forever as mindless beasts. And somewhere, buried under the unmarked ice, was Shadowsoul’s wretched, still-beating heart.
No wonder our fae forces couldn’t find it. No wonder we could never stop trying.
“Enough,” I announced, facing him. “No more games. No more stories. This is not my home. It can’t be. I need to get back to Lyrica. I have—” people who need me.
The rest of the sentence wouldn’t come out. Seemed Princess Emiana did not have anyone in Lyrica who needed her. Well, I did, and I wouldn’t be a bird in Shadowsoul’s cage any more than I’d be a pawn in Emiana’s escape.
“—important things to do,” I finished. “Take me back, or Meya bless it, open the door and throw me out here. I don’t care. I just need you to let me go. What will it take for you to dub this the shortest sham marriage in fae history? Name your price.”
“To make such a statement one must have something to bargain.” He leveled that hated smirk on me—the one that said I was being a funny little bird again. “What will you give me if I let you go?”
“You can tell everyone—all the nations—that I, Princess Emiana, am responsible for breaking the treaty. I have let down my people—nay, the entire fae race, and I should be named and condemned for the selfish, manipulative witch I am.” Of course the curse let me say that. Every word of it was true.
“Hmm,” he vocalized, tipping his chin. The act drew my attention to how full and chiseled it was.
A sharp fist clench and nails piercing my palm made me stop.
“This is awkward for you, little bird, because I already ordered my people to spread that very truth throughout the kingdoms. Nearly word for word.” He cocked his head, studying me in that unsettling way. “What else?”
“This can be your chance to prove the whole world is wrong about you. Deep down, there is goodness and kindness in your soul. What price can be put on your redemption—?”
“No.”
I bit hard on my lip, penning in a stream of foul words. Something about his nos put me in a chokehold. My survival instincts sensed pushing him would have dire consequences.
“I—I will...” I cast my mind for something—anything. “Lie,” I blurted. “I will lie to King Salman, assuming he still lives, and tell him the heart no longer resides in the kingdom of Wind and Wild.”
His grin melted away, but mine widened. I had his attention now.
“I’ll say I witnessed you unearth it, put it in a chest, and tossed it in the sea.
It now lurks at the bottom of the ocean, never to be recovered.
” I leaned forward in my eagerness, bumping my knees against his.
“One lie from these lips will end the war and grant peace—true peace—that your kingdom hasn’t known in over a thousand years.
What say you?” I held out my hand. “Do we have a bargain?”
He eyed my hand, expression unreadable. “What you speak of is treason, my queen. Deliberately misleading your former king, acting as spy, and spreading false information to the detriment of their war effort. If discovered to be untrue, you will be tried and executed in a cauldron of molten iron.”
My throat seized. I was not aware of the punishment.
“Knowing this, you’d make such a bargain all for the sake of returning to Lyrica to attend to important things?”
The most important.
“Yes,” I said clearly. “I will.”
I thrust my hand out farther. “Do we have a bargain?”
“Well, well, it appeared you did have something to trade. You are not to be underestimated.” He firmly clasped my hand. “I will remember that.”
“No need.” I looked him in the eyes. “We will never see each other again after today.”