Chapter 28
Somewhere in the space between us, that scraping heat from his proximity has walled me in. Caught me in a place I don’t know how to leave.
All I should feel is pain. Abhorrence. Anger.
But somehow, I don’t.
While I’m confined within his confusing presence, the Piper works methodically, with so much more patience than I would’ve guessed. Whatever he’s slathering on me is working too, because the pain becomes more bearable. A softened edge on a once-sharp corner.
I stare across his bed, at the wall where I can see his shallow shadow. I can tell he has one knee cocked, balanced against the mattress near my hip. Can tell he’s leaning over me, like a wraith come to suck out the soul of the dead.
“Do you know how many times you were whipped?” he suddenly asks.
I shake my head upon the bed. “No.”
“Thirteen. Thirteen lashings with a whip tainted with some kind of poison.”
My stomach churns.
“Oh,” I say, voice shrunken. Mind bulging with the memory of each swinging lash.
“Tell me the truth. What did you do to earn that?”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes. “Existed,” I whisper.
He lets out a noise of disbelief. “What was it? Did you steal? Attack someone?”
The question shocks me so much I rear up, head twisting over my shoulder to look at him. His eyes flick up to meet mine.
“No, I didn’t attack someone,” I seethe. “I was whipped for missing curfew. By one minute.”
There’s a pause. Then a doubt.
“I commanded you to speak truthfully.”
My teeth grind, but hurt flashes through me too. I shouldn’t care that he doesn’t believe me—but I do. “I am speaking truthfully.”
The look he gives me is so patronizing it makes me wish I could kick him. “They don’t whip someone thirteen times for breaking curfew.”
“They do when you’re a filthy fiend.”
His eyes hook into me, the two of us locking in a heavy glare. The silence is brooding. A pensive heed we both seem to take, and in it, he inspects me.
So I inspect him right back.
I try to find things I can hate. Faults to make him seem less intimidating.
Less striking. His lips aren’t hidden by his stubble, but pronounced by it.
His hair is combed but still loose, hanging around his neck.
He’s no stranger to being outdoors, his complexion tan and smooth, his brown hair honeyed with those blond streaks I keep searching out.
His lashes are dark and thick, just like his arching brows, both highlighting the warmth that lies at the bottoms of his brown eyes.
Much to my disappointment, I can’t find a single imperfection. Even the stained red tips of his pointed ears somehow only add to his attraction instead of looking like a bloodied scar.
His face is deceivingly stunning. His presence horribly magnetic. No wonder the papers are enamored with him. It’s hard not to be.
With a slow slip, his gaze drops to my lips. It’s so unexpected, his attention so rapt, that my breath fizzles out.
A change splits behind his irises—a look. A thought. Something that dilates his pupils and causes my belly to heat.
Then, a touch. The barest graze of his thumb at my shoulder that has nothing to do with my wounds. So soft it’s like he tried to stop it, but couldn’t help himself. My breath catches, and when he hears it, he suddenly pulls back, wrenching his eyes away before clearing his throat.
The moment shatters with his tonal command. “Turn back around.”
My face feels hot as I turn my head and rest my cheek on the mattress again.
I’m spinning. My thoughts a dizzying mess, my pulse caught in a whirl.
What was that?
When I realize I’m breathing hard, I have to work to get my lungs to stop panting and for my heartbeat to calm.
He continues his ministrations, and his touch is so damn gentle. I almost wish it wasn’t. Almost wish he would be cruel again, if only to spare me from this baffling turmoil that’s twisting me up.
“Why are you keeping me in here?” I ask quietly. “Why not leave me with the other fiends?”
Because now, more than ever, I crave space from him. Seek to tuck tail and run.
“I should.”
The reply is said under his breath, so low that I barely catch it.
I gnaw on my lip. “So why don’t you?”
“I . . . don’t know.” His confession is quiet. Careful. “There’s something about you.”
My pulse chops up into pieces. It puts a nick in my thoughts and a dent in my barrier.
Because his words don’t make sense.
And neither do my reactions to him. How my skin heats in a way that has nothing to do with the slop of salve he’s coating over my injuries, and everything to do with him.
His presence. His unyielding attraction.
His deadly allure.
It’s hard not to get muddled when his touch is so tender. His fingers work rhythmically against the split strings of my back, strumming each one gently, like he cares.
But it’s a trick.
He needs me for something. Needs all of us. I have to remind myself that’s the only reason he’s doing this. It’s not out of the kindness of his heart, but to serve a purpose. He is my kidnapper. My keeper.
. . . And yet.
My traitorous skin tingles at his every movement.
His snaring magic, his ruinous beauty—it’s enough to turn my head. To make my body react against my will. I can’t help it—and I hate that I can’t help it. I hate that he’s somehow blurred my vision, when the line should be clear.
But I’m also not blind. He hasn’t hurt me. Not as much as he could have. So maybe he’s not as horrible as I first thought, but I certainly can’t trust him.
He has his motives, and I have mine.
The Piper reaches the lowest wound, to the split that goes from my spine to my hip. His fingertip swipes down so slowly that my breath hitches and knots.
His touch is right there, gliding over the top curve of my ass, smoothing over the crescent dip. I hold completely still. He pauses at the corner of the lash. Stays there, with just a whisper of a touch, making goosebumps scatter.
He doesn’t move. No more rubbing on salve. No more dragging over the wounds. Just . . . pressing.
Something shifts. An energy, maybe. Something soundless but heavy. My hands shake within the stillness. He sucks in a breath.
I bite my lip, waiting. For what, I don’t know. But I do know I’m standing on the tip of a blade, and both ways will cut me, no matter which side I fall.
But just as quickly as he stopped, he moves again. He goes to the final portion of ripped skin, pastes it over with thick tincture.
Then his hand pulls away.
Something sizzles in my stomach, before evaporating. I unknot my chest enough to pull in a trembling inhale, and I instantly berate myself for my reaction.
It’s just his magic, I tell myself.
It is not, another voice says.
The mattress moves, rising without his weight to bear. “Stand up,” he rasps.
I push myself to stand, but I don’t turn around. Don’t do anything but hold on to the front of my dress. I keep my eyes at the other end of the room, where wood meets plaster.
Where shadow meets light.
“Is that better?” His voice is scouring. Delving.
My voice spoons out, “Yes.”
“Good. I . . .” His words drift off. Too far away to grasp. Too hot to touch.
Then he murmurs again, “There’s something about you.”
I’m pulled so taut, so tight. His hands aren’t on me anymore, but I can still feel him. All over my exposed back.
“Why are you saying this?” I ask, and my tone is full of shake.
There’s a loaded pause within the rattle. I can hear him swallow.
“I saw you on that post. Smelled your tainted blood,” he says quietly, in a voice I barely recognize. I don’t even breathe as I listen, hanging on his every word. “Then I saw the look in your eyes. Heard the rhythm of your voice.”
My heartbeat flutters as frantically as the wings of a moth, trapped and frightened, with no idea where to go. Internally, my thoughts blare.
Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?
“I could sense it, even on that post.”
“Sense what?” My question comes out with breathless desperation. A need to know what this is.
He dips his head then, his face hovering right between the juncture of my neck and shoulder. The rush of gravity presses against my exposed skin and makes my chest tighten.
“Beneath the infection, you smell . . . sweet.”
I heat up, near blistering, his nose and mouth just an inch away.
He inhales.
Chills erupt down my arms.
Then he moves, and I feel him drag a finger against the side of my left horn, nearly making me shiver. Nobody has ever touched my horns before—not like this. It makes my heart hammer, makes my body tingle all over. As if his finger were moving down the side of my neck in a whisper-soft graze.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
As if jolting from a dream, he suddenly jerks away, both face and hand. No more inhale at my neck. No more touch at my horn. I hear his booted steps back up.
But I’ve lost traction. It feels like the ground has crumbled beneath my feet, and I don’t know where to go or how to regain a solid path to stand on.
“You’ve captured my attention, blight.”
He says it like an accusation. As if I did something wrong.
“I captured your attention?” I say hoarsely, trying to stack up my backbone from the puddle it melted into. “Well, you captured me. Full stop.”
A noise of frustration leaves him. “Will you turn around and look at me?”
I’m afraid to face him. To face whatever the hell this is. But I can’t back down. So I fist my hands at my dress again and turn. Our gazes clash, and I have to lock my teeth together to keep from looking away.
“Tell me the truth,” he commands. “Have you felt drawn to me too?”
My pulse slams against my ears, but I swallow hard and shake my head. “No.”
The word falls out with vehemence, but it feels flawed. Unstable.
His eyes narrow. “I don’t believe you.”
I lift my chin with bravado. “Why would I feel drawn to the man who stole me?”
It’s a question. A deflection.
Because as much as I won’t admit it, there is a grip around my torso every time he’s near. I’ve felt it since the moment he lured me out of Hamelyn—no, before that. When I first set eyes on him while I was chained to that post.
“You tell me,” he challenges. Then before I can reply, he lifts his hand and strokes my horn again.
This time, I do have a full-body shiver. One that I can’t suppress. My eyes snap open in mortification, not even realizing they’d fluttered shut, or that I’d swayed toward him.
Heat infuses my cheeks as I rear back.
He stands over me, height stretching, presence consuming. “Now try to lie again and say you aren’t drawn to me.”
Anger buffs up my throat. “It’s just your music,” I argue. “Your magic.”
He cocks his head, his expression mocking. “Is it?”
My heart stutters. My mind berates.
“It is. I don’t want anything to do with you,” I bite out.
My answer changes the energy into something sharp and bitter. Seconds stretch between us into a silence that sours.
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” I say with defiance.
It has to be.
His lips press down, his expression hardening. Closing off.
My stomach drops.
“Fine. Since that’s how you feel, I trust you can bind yourself,” he tells me, jutting a roll of fabric forward.
I snatch it up, careful not to touch him. I clutch the roll in one trembling hand while my other still holds the front of my dress. There’s something loaded in the air, something that was heaved down at my feet that I don’t dare pick up.
Turning, he moves away, disappearing into his dressing room while I stay rooted in place. He comes back out with a bundle of clothes stuffed beneath his arm. He doesn’t look at me as he strides past.
I hear him walk through the sitting room and then wrench open the main door, his voice snapping as he talks to the guards in the corridor. “Send the servants up to change the bedding—it reeks of fiend. And someone untie that sheet from the fucking railing.”
I only breathe again when the door slams shut behind him.