Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
HASANNAH
W ell, I was definitely at a disadvantage. Survival was going to depend more on stalling and not at all on brute force.
What exactly did Dartanyon want? The men brushed his motivations aside as a death wish, but men with power could afford to be dismissive.
I didn't bother to rise, curling my legs underneath me. If playing dead with Fae was a bad idea, playing submissive would keep from riling up their hunting instincts.
So I stayed curled on the floor, offering no threat and no emotion. Years of suppressing my anger and walking away were paying off.
“Lord Dartanyon,” I said. “Why am I here?”
I supposed I should ask where I was, but what could I do with that information? Having reached out along the tendrils of my bond, I hit a block.
“You’re calm,” he observed. He wore all white today, fitted pants and a short-waisted, high-necked jacket that managed to display a sliver of his slender chest. “I expected hysterics.”
I kept the desire to smack him out of my expression. “You haven't hurt me.”
His eyes went distant with thought. Distance was the last thing I wanted, it meant time for him to play around in the murky shadows of his mind. No, stalling meant I had to develop a rapport. A talent I’d honed over years of unknowingly calling on my one drop of Fae blood.
“At the party you said a name,” I said softly. “I wanted to ask you about it, but Andrei interrupted. He does that a lot,” I added, not having to feign annoyance. It would give us something to bond over. “He can be difficult.”
“The word you want is spoiled,” Dartanyon said, refocusing on me. “He has suffered no real loss, endured no true challenge. His power, his status, his wealth have all been handed to him.”
I wasn't going to argue, because of course there was a seed of truth. Andrei came from the city's ruling family. But it wasn't all of the truth.
“And yours wasn't?” I guessed. “My family is poor. My parents love each other, but they had a lot of children. That costs money. They couldn't afford to send me to dance classes.”
I ignored the voice in my head sneering about first world problems and folded my hands in my lap, looking down, slightly self-conscious revealing things to him I hadn't spoken of to Andrei. But if I was going to establish a connection with Dartanyon, I had to be honest.
“When Andrei found me, he couldn't believe I was surviving on noodles.” My lips quirked. “He thought it was a deficiency of intellect rather than a lack of funds. I don’t think he understands poverty. So no, he's never been hungry. But you're not exactly powerless either, Lord Dartanyon. What’s your excuse?”
He blinked slowly. “My excuse?”
“For taking me. I’ve done nothing to you, but you, I assume, intend to cause me harm. What did I do to deserve it?”
“You believe this is about what you deserve ?” He laughed, a tinkling, bitter sound that still managed to sound kind. “You think that those who endure harm or deprivation do so because they deserve it? Ah yes, the American prosperity doctrine. A particularly asinine aspect of your rather noxious culture.”
Said the man from the species where the majority of cultures based everything on a magical power caste system, the top tier of which privileged its members to actions like, say, kidnapping lovers off the street and taking over their lives. And, as Cora warned, privileged them to end those lovers’ lives.
Talk about “If I can’t have you, nobody can.”
“Not always,” I replied finally.
If taking me, hurting me, couldn't be tied back to something I could plead ignorance of or forgiveness for, that meant I couldn't talk him out of whatever crazy was in his head.
I couldn't play the pity or the undeserving victim card if he understood I was innocent—and didn’t care.
“You asked me about the name,” he said.
I tried to moisten my dry bottom lip. “I did.”
Dartanyon stared at me with unblinking eyes, one hand pressed against the glass, a stare that revved my pulse and brought sweat along my spine.
“On the surface, you are nothing like him. He was brilliant, effervescent. He walked into the room and all eyes turned to him. You are contained. Merely a shadow of yourself. But in the end, all eyes turn to you as well. They cannot help themselves.”
I pushed up to my feet. “Who? Someone you cared about?”
“I knew you the first moment I set eyes on you.” His gaze turned haunted. “But you didn’t know me. I will mine you, extract you from this shell you’ve become in this life.” Dartanyon whispered the name again.
I walked forward, placing my hand on the glass against Dartanyon’s. His hand was larger than mine, but the fingers were just as slender.
“If I remind you of him?—”
He shook his head. “You don’t remind me of him. You are him.” Dartanyon paused. “I would know your soul anywhere. I will keep you with me from now on. Safe.”
We were going to have to quibble over the word safe, because he made it sound like the word dead. I curled my fingers into a claw. He wanted to wake me, but he wanted to kill me. He wanted love, but he wanted vengeance.
“I’m your second chance,” I said. “Don’t destroy me. Let me go. Let me dance. Let me be everything I couldn’t when I was with you. Everything that was cut short.”
I was guessing, but I didn’t imagine my guesses were far off. He’d given me enough information I could draw general conclusions. Andrei and Con had also both spoken of Dartanyon’s past a little.
The only thing I couldn’t guess was how Dartanyon’s bonded had died.
Dartanyon pressed his fingers harder against the glass until the tips were bloodless, as if he yearned to reach through the barrier and grasp me.
A single tear rolled down his cheek. “Remember. Remember who you are. And then we’ll go together.”
He turned and began to walk away.
I panicked. “Wait. Dartanyon, wait! Don't leave me here. Don't leave me locked in this cage.”
My worst nightmare, locked in a cage and set aside in a corner with no control over my destiny.
He kept walking, and I sank to the ground.
“Let me out. Let me out so I can be with you. If I’m yours, don’t keep me locked in this cage.” I pressed my hands against the glass in the same spot as his as I tried to sound cajoling rather than desperate.
He’d come back, of course. But not before enough time passed I realized it was a punishment.
I’d decided I’d been here two days based on the waxing and waning of my energy as I slept, and the force of my hunger when Dartanyon finally brought me food and water.
He’d allowed a bathroom break at that time; I’d fallen asleep—probably not natural sleep—then awoke up in a bathroom. After an hour, I’d fallen asleep again, and awoke back in the glass cage.
A cage reminding me more and more of that closed carriage where only days ago, it seemed, I’d been trapped by another Cassanian. Tortured. It was happening all over again, and like then I was just as helpless to prevent it.
Except I wasn’t quite as helpless. I had tools. The main question was; what was I willing to sacrifice to wield them?
The second question was if I was strong enough.
The cage closed in on me, and it took everything to keep my vision bright and focused, to ignore the sweat along my spine and keep my quickening breaths steady.
“I know what they say about me, Lady Hasannah,” Dartanyon said in his low, whimsical, faraway voice. The voice that had always tried to be so gentle, unthreatening. Like the Fae version of “I’m just a nice guy.”
“I don’t,” I said, to keep him talking.
“That I’m mad, that I seek death.” He smiled, lowering his head so his cotton candy and dove hair fell over his shoulders. “They’re right. But they don’t say I’m stupid, do they?”
I wasn’t going to answer that. Andrei didn’t much use the word stupid, but he used other words. None of which would help me get what I wanted.
“How can I harm you?” I asked. “You’re a Lord, and I’m?—”
“Nothing?” His eyes gleamed, a smile on his lips. “But you don’t believe that any more than I do, my swan. If you wish to please me, to earn your release from this dome. . .dance.”
The hunger in his eyes incensed me. “You want to coerce me to give you something you could have had for the price of a ticket. No.”
“I offered you a patronship. You refused me.” He shook his head. “I don’t blame you, you don’t know who you are. But when you danced for me that last time, you felt our bond.”
Nausea curdled my stomach. “You mean when you drew me into a fairy circle? When you drugged me with Ixnie?”
His eyes widened.
I gave him a small smile. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I have nothing else to do. Xavi was yours, wasn’t he? And the flowers, they were yours too. I?—”
I stopped. I was so tunnel visioned. The signs had wagged in my face like a Rottweiler’s tail, and if I’d spent one moment just thinking about it rather than shoving everything to the side because I didn’t want to face it or myself, I could have prevented this. Maybe?
I could have warned Andrei because I would have figured out Dartanyon had been spreading the drug around the Arts building. Had used it against me, and at least one other dancer.
“I’m not your caged bird,” I said, staring at him as my anger built and swept aside common sense. “I’m not your toy ballerina that will pirouette in your box when you wind me up. I’ve never let myself be a thing to be used, and I won’t start now.”
This was the lesson I’d needed to learn.
If they take away your legs, then cut off theirs.
Dartanyon wouldn’t let me go? That was his choice.
But I’d make him pay the price of my capture. I’d show him why “be careful what you wish for” was one of the more ominous adages in human culture.
It hit me—the reason I’d gone along with Andrei’s controlling behavior. Not from fear of who and what he was, but because for the first time in my life, a man gave me as much as he demanded, if not more. I didn’t feel like a thing. Smothered, at times, definitely. To the point where I wanted to jump up and down on the kitchen table shrieking, then leap onto Andrei’s back and ride him like a bucking bronco.
But not a thing . Not just a vessel for his convenience and pleasure.
Dartanyon stared at me a split second, then smiled and lifted his hands to the level of his eyes. Light shimmered at his fingertips, thin tendrils that snapped forward, streaming through the glass, and hit me with delicate force.
“You will dance for me. You’ve forgotten that you were first mine.”
I cried out as the tendrils wrapped around my wrists, my ankles. Cried out, and began to infiltrate the tiny tears in the glass with my own essence. Began to slowly, insidiously, wear him down.
“You’ve forgotten what I promised,” he said. “That you wouldn't escape me in life, in death, that every life your soul reentered, I would be there. Have I ever failed my promise, my love?”
I wanted to scream and slap the glass with my hands. I kept my voice level. “I am not your love. I am Hasannah .”
“You don't know what you are.”
I knew. This demoness, descendent of a distant Fae bloodline. I knew what I was. Good and bad. “I know I’m Andrei’s.”
Anger suffused his face. “You never belonged to that squalling infant Heir.”
He jerked his hands, and my limbs began to move in a parody, the dance steps emerging into a piece I recognized. Gisele.
It wasn't me dancing, it was him. He knew every step by heart.
And I danced it, at his whim.
Again, and again, and again, and I last count of the hours he made me dance. And as I danced, I wrapped delicate ribbons around his soul.
Love me.
Touch me.
You cannot claim me in a cage.
When he cut the strings, his rage spent, every muscle in my body was weaker than a baby bird.
I collapsed to the floor, curling in on myself, weeping. I didn’t have the energy for sobs, or even for pride.
“You will learn,” Dartanyon said. “You always have. And then we'll be together again. But this time, we will be born on an equal plane. You always wanted equality with me, you argued for it. Equality and independence. And you were right.” He sighed. “My Anthoni. My mortal bonded with an immortal’s soul. Does that please you? That I admit you were right and I was wrong? That your gambit bore fruit?”
“Gambit?”
“To this day, the Courts wonder who took you from me. They assume you were a victim of our politics.” He gave me a smile so filled with bitter, ironic sorrow that I flinched. “They never stopped to think that it was by your own hand. An excellent play, my love. You made your point.”
I lifted my head. “I’m not Anthoni. I would never do that to myself.”
But. . .would I? If I wanted to escape, and there was no hope of it. . .could I?
I felt all the blood drain from my face. There was something about this man. Something. Something about the truth of his words. . .
Fae couldn’t lie. Fae couldn’t lie.
“No,” I said. “How could I be your bonded in a former life, but Andrei’s now?”
He looked at me for a second, then turned and began to walk away.
“Wait!” I tried to push to my knees, defiance spent along with my energy. “Please. I'll dance for you. Anything you want. Willingly. I’ll—I’ll walk into the Darkness with you. Willingly.”
It had been three days—four? I didn’t think Andrei was coming. I’d been hidden too well. . .and maybe, maybe he wasn’t coming because he couldn’t. I didn’t know what was happening on the other end of my blacked-out bond. Would I know if he’d died?
I had no idea.
Dartanyon turned slowly, waiting.
I swallowed. “I need real food, and water, and an actual bed before I can think clearly. Don’t you—don’t you want some time with me before we. . .leave together?”
Dartanyon stared. “You forget,” he said gently, “that I know you, my love. You have always been a Loki.”
But not a succubus, and he was already encased in my feathers. I gave a gentle tug.
“You’ve proven twice you can control me.” My shoulders slumped as I looked down. “You have to give me a chance to prove myself. Or what have you gained? A pretty toy in a cage. That isn't what you want.”
I looked up in time to see the flash of yearning across his face. But I didn’t press.
The glass cage began to dissolve.
Dartanyon stepped forward, heels clicking on the floor, and crouched, lifting me into his arms. The monster knew my muscles were the consistency of spaghetti noodles.
I shuddered in Dartanyon’s arms. At least he couldn't read my mind like Andrei. If I controlled my expression and my voice—and I was a decent enough actress to fool ex-boyfriends—then maybe I had a shot at putting him off his guard.
Since he was already certifiably insane.
On the heels of that thought I felt pain, internal guilt, and anger I felt guilty. Yes, Dartanyon had lost someone and that loss hadn't been from something natural like old age. Dartanyon had suffered, but we'd all suffered and suffering didn't come with the right to visit that on other people. You were supposed to deal with it, and try to stop the cycle of harm.
“Where are we going?” I asked softly, twining an arm around his neck as he carried me through a dimly lit hall. I wanted to keep him talking, keep him out of his head where he could imagine all sorts of vile things.
“You need to rest,” he said, his voice companionable enough. “And if you prove to be treacherous, I can return you to your cage, my swan.”
I accepted the gentle warning, glad I’d decided to play the long game rather than employ dramatic, spitting defiance. How did an average girl get out of a twisted situation?
Make nice. Bide her time. Wait until the antagonist was asleep .
I smiled before I suppressed the emotion.
“Will you share what's amusing you?” he asked.
“How do you know what ballet you’re in until you get to the end?”
“You don’t.” Gentle humor in his voice. “Am I the beautiful prince or the villainous sorcerer, my swan?”
Before I could say anything else, he stopped. A door opened, leading into a bedroom, empty except for a large canopied bed.