Chapter Twenty-Three Siyala #2
No. No. Not this. Anything but this again.
My feet slip against the dirt-covered ground as I try to dig my heels in and back away, twisting in his grasp until he is finally forced to release me.
Anger carves deep lines into his forehead while I retreat, and his hands shake with rage as he searches for the lock of the cell door.
“Fucking Xander should have had you broken in weeks ago,” he says through clenched teeth, the metal slide of the key making my breath grow shallow.
I have no weapons, and my magic has gone back into hiding, burrowing deeply enough that I can only feel the faintest embers of it.
Pressing myself back towards the opposite wall, I try to coax it out again.
To shift into something that has any hope of taking this man on.
But it eludes me, treating me as if I’m the predator on the hunt.
“When I finally join him as one of the Trusted, I’ll show the king just how weak of a link he is. But at least we can have some fun until then.” The lock clicks just as the door behind the commander opens, and the man in the black tunic steps out. Did he just say Xander is a member of the Trusted?
“Commander Miles, your assistance please.”
Light brown eyes reflecting the torchlight hold mine, promise-laden and threatening to make me heave up the broth and bread that sits in my stomach.
With a disgruntled noise, the commander locks the cell door and spins.
He disappears into the room, the second man looking from him to my cell and back again, his expression unmoving as the commander reappears with an unconscious Immie.
Her body is tossed over his shoulder as if she is no better than a sack of rice.
“Immie. Immie!” Panic surges as they pass and she doesn’t stir at the call of her name.
The man not clad in armor strides methodically towards me, my shoulders deflating as I hear Immie’s body smack into the cot, the commander chuckling before he shuts her cell door closed. “Until next time, shifter,” the man says, walking back in the direction of the stairs.
The commander pauses in the corridor, swinging the key on his finger in large circles. “I’ll be back, little kit.”
I keep myself standing until I hear them both reach the top of the steps, the door shutting on squeaky hinges.
Only then do I allow myself to slide down the cold stone until my ass hits the dirt, my knees bent towards my chest. Both hands slam over my mouth as I scream into my palms, tears cresting my eyelids and breaking free to streak down my cheeks.
Little kit. Little kit. Little kit. How I hate that name.
Hate the way it follows me everywhere, just as he said it would.
And without warning, without the will to stop it, I’m thrust back to that night.
The night before I left for the Mortal Kingdom.
My fingers scratch at the ropes binding my hands behind me, the coils tight enough that my wrists have been rubbed raw.
I should have known it was a trap when Kenji invited me over to go on one last berry hunt.
Then again, I’ve never been given a reason to suspect him of hurting me.
“Remember how we used to walk the jungle in search of the ripest bushes?” he had asked, hope rich in his voice.
My magic, as it often did around him, rolled up my neck and pressed at my spine, begging for a shift that I would once again deny. Trying to warn me.
But, upon reflection, I had seen that look in his eyes when I told him that I was leaving.
Had tried forcing myself to believe that it wasn’t jealousy or ownership or anger but sadness.
I am still a girl, hardly past sixteen. A child he has known for the entirety of my life.
A trusted confidant to me and my parents.
He was Papa’s best friend. None of that matters now.
I try again to wriggle my hands loose from the binds around them, but all it does is further irritate my wrists. So I give up, leaning forward over my knees as I heave a rattled breath. The door to the room opens, Kenji’s scent reaching me almost immediately.
“Siyala.” The bitter tone of my name draws my eyes to his, and my body stiffens at the look on his face.
It’s as if the male I’ve known for all these years has morphed into someone else.
The kind and patient expression he often wears is traded for furrowed brows and lips pursed in a tight line.
Shutting the door behind him, he folds his arms over his chest. “Your heart is racing. Are you nervous?”
I don’t see the point in lying, so I nod.
“My throat is dry.” The words come out slightly slurred, a side effect from the dark piya berry juice he slipped into the drink he gave me when I arrived.
The bastard had poisoned me in order to get me to stay, and in the blink of an eye, I went from standing in his living room to waking in his bed.
“Here.” Walking over to a small table near the bed, he pours from a small glass pitcher into a glass, his gaze scrutinizing me as the bed dips beneath the pressure of his knee.
Bringing the cup to my lips, I sip at the cool water, grateful that I don’t detect a hint of anything else flavoring it.
He sighs as he stands to set the cup back down.
“I didn’t want it to be like this, Siyala.
I wanted to give you the time to realize what was right in front of you.
To see in me what I have always seen in you. A partnership—”
“Kenji, you have been like a father to me. I have never seen you as anything other than that.”
“You have a father, Siyala, and I am not him. I want to care for you. To show you what it is to be loved, just as you are. Just as I have done throughout your life.”
“Kenji,” I say on a mangled sob, my hair draping past my shoulders as I rock forward. “No.”
“I have stood by your family for years. Even with the whispering. The rumors. I have given your mother money and your bellies food. Have secured good work for Tiare and Titus, despite how your father’s reputation poisoned your family’s name.
And I did so because I knew it would make you happy to know that they were cared for.
That I could provide for everyone in your family, not just you. ”
Tears blur my vision, and my magic threatens the edges of my mind, but it can’t help me here. Not with the numbing effects of the berry. “I’m sorry, but I—I do not want this. I do not want to be here.” I look up at him, my eyes pleading. “Not with you. Not like that.”
For a moment, he looks stricken by my words.
As if they genuinely hurt him. But it’s soon replaced with that same quiet rage I saw last week, and then he is working the buttons loose down the center of his tunic.
“If you deny me this, I will take it all away. I will leave your mother to rot beneath the debt created by your father. I will ensure that Titus and Tiare never find reputable jobs in Honna or Molsi or any of the surrounding towns ever again. The king may be your cousin, Siyala, but he is only a figurehead. Those who run this kingdom do so undercover, and I will make it known to them that your family is one of liars and cheats. Never to be trusted.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, his fingers popping button after button loose until only a few remain.
“I will ruin your family, and then I will tell everyone that you tried to bed me as payment. That you wanted to whore yourself out so that you would not have to answer for your family’s crimes.
” Tugging his tunic off, he tosses it to the floor before working on the laces at the front of his pants.
“Please,” I whisper through trembling lips. “I just want to leave.”
“This is what you do, little kit,” he chides, and I look away as his pants fall past his hips.
“You take, and you expect not to have to give. You expect the world to bend to your will when you can’t even function on your own.
This is why you will always need me and why, no matter where you go, I will always be in your head.
Reminding you that without me, you are nothing. ”
The bed shifts again, and this time, the heat of his body presses at my side.
“I demand a payment for my kindness,” he says, tucking my hair behind my ears. “And you are my price.”