Chapter 41
I wince as Wend drags the brush painfully through my hair, but I don’t say anything. She was just as brutal yesterday when she came up to help me wash away the mud. She scrubbed me raw, while Frena was noticeably absent and Ryn even more subdued than before.
I watch in the mirror as she ties my hair into a few thick, sloppy braids, then knots a veillet over my head so hard my skull aches. I sit and take the rough treatment. This time, I deserve it. I tricked Frena. I can understand why Wend is so angry.
“There,” she says, her lashless eyes scouring over me with a look of distaste. “Anything else?”
The braids aren’t tied off at the ends, so I know they’ll just fall out, but I shake my head. “No, thank you.”
With a sharp nod, she leaves me in the washroom to go help Ryn finish tidying Piper’s room. I stare at the clouded glass of the mirrored wall, the burnished spots of silver splaying starbursts that sparkle in the daylight.
I’m wearing a cream linen frock, with another set of thick bandages tied beneath. My scabs split wide open from yesterday’s ordeal, and everything was covered in mud, so my back stings, but I’ve largely dismissed the pain.
It’s easier to ignore when my mind is so full.
“Breakfast,” Wend grits out, and I turn, following her to the sitting room where she’s left a tray of food.
There’s a pitcher of water, a single slice of bread with no jam or butter in sight, and a curdled-looking bowl of porridge.
It looks like prisoner’s gruel.
I barely suppress a grimace. “Thanks.”
She turns and starts dusting the hearth without comment. Ryn comes in carrying the dirty linens, and her eyes quickly dart to and from the tray, her lips pressing thin.
The door opens then, and we all turn as Piper strides inside. He glances over at Wend and Ryn as they drop into curtsies. “My lord.”
Piper nods as he walks over, his gaze tracking me. “I see you no longer look like you sprouted from a mud bog.”
“I see you’re getting around fine with that nonfatal venom,” I counter.
He smirks as he lifts the hem of his black jerkin, showing his own bandages beneath—and a tantalizing peek of skin. “The mud was surprisingly packed in.”
“You’re welcome.”
A low chuckle drifts from his lips as he drops his shirt, and my stomach skips. This easy amusement, this new lightness between us has my insides warming.
He comes around the sofa and spots my tray of food. A frown forms over his face. “What’s that?”
I feel Wend’s eyes on me, but I don’t look. “Breakfast,” I say with a tight smile that doesn’t quite curve my lips.
The line draws in deeper between his eyebrows. “That?”
“It’s great,” I lie. “I prefer my breakfast to be . . . bland.”
He watches me for a second before shrugging, and then he turns to the women. “Thank you, you two can go.”
The servants quickly dip into another set of curtsies. Wend passes me a fierce glare before she shuts the door behind her as if to warn me from saying anything. Not that I planned on it. I don’t need to give her any more reason to hate me.
“Will you sit?” Piper asks, and I take the sofa while he lowers onto the chair beside it.
He leans forward with his elbows propped on his knees, and since he’s wearing a sleeveless leather jerkin again, his arms are exposed from shoulders to wrists. His muscles bulge, veins running down his tanned forearms in a way that makes my mouth water.
He runs a thumb over his lips as he watches me, like he’s deciding what to say, and my eyes track his movement. It infuses the memory of our kiss straight into my mind, and I find my mouth tingling before I jerk my gaze back up to his eyes.
“We should talk.”
I nod in agreement. Since the moment he led me back to the leyline and we returned to his castle, I’ve done nothing but think.
Turned over every stone in my head and come to terms with the truths that’ve gathered.
I knew that things had changed between us, and I was right.
I can see it now as clearly as my own reflection in a mirror.
“How’s your back?” he asks.
My chest warms at the worry in his tone. “Better now that it’s cleaned and bandaged.”
He tips his head and then gestures toward me. “I know you have questions. Go ahead and ask.”
I waste no time. “Is it true that you’ll only need a small amount of fiend blood to be able to prevent Plagues?”
“We believe so. We’ve been testing it. So far, we’ve been able to successfully combat against certain Plagues whenever we had a blood match.
It took some experimental amounts, but we believe we now know how much blood needs to be dropped around a burg—and how often—in order to prevent them.
Though we haven’t tested for a bigger city yet, nor every Plague. ”
“And the fiends, they’re all doing this willingly, right?”
“Yes. They know the stakes. As you saw for yourself at the Plague burg, we gave them all a choice. They can either help and offer their blood or not.”
“But you’re not allowing them to return home.”
“Not yet,” he says carefully. “But I will once it’s safe. Once we’ve progressed to a point when I can inform the other Governs while preventing any insurgence or harmful practices.”
“And Ciona is going to be able to trace every single fiend to which Plague they can prevent?”
“That’s the hope. She’s close. As you saw, she has most of them traced correctly already. Her magic is very powerful.”
My eyes drop as I turn over his answers. He’s finally being open and honest, which is a relief, because this is all life-changing. World-changing. A Brekon without Plagues is a completely foreign concept. I’ve never known anything different.
“Estinya.”
I look up.
His gaze is unwavering. “I know I apologized yesterday, but I’d like to do so again.”
My stomach dips.
“I was harsh to you from the beginning because I didn’t understand the instinct to keep you close or why I was so .
. . aware of you. I was cruel and impatient, trying to ignore this urge, irritated because I couldn’t, and very preoccupied with my mission.
” Frustration jumps in the muscle of his jaw.
“In time, I hope you will believe me when I say that I am sorry. I should’ve handled things differently. ”
My heartbeat feels shaky. “Are you only saying that because we latched?”
“No.” He leans in, and the look in his eye makes my breath split. “Understand this. I still would’ve wanted you whether we latched or not.”
I suck in a breath, my insides leaping at his confession. “You wanted me?”
“Since the moment I spoke to you. Saw you. Since something pulled me toward the spot where you were chained and bloodied. I knew the second you tried to run, and felt your every breath that night in my tent. Every minute on the horse was a torment with you pressed so close against me. And that smart mouth of yours only made it worse.”
“You hate my smart mouth.”
“No, blight. I lap up every word and ceaselessly imagine devouring them right from the source.”
Stunned, my heart pounds, my fingertips tingling with a warmth that’s now spread all over. His words are like an elixir, filling me with heady craving.
“My magic picked up on my attraction to you, not the other way around. It was just . . . inconvenient timing, as I was too focused on the tasks at hand. I was trying to separate it all in my head. Tried to look at everyone as a collection so that my own conscience wouldn’t deter me from my plan.
But in doing so, I was a complete prick.
More so to you, because you were a major distraction from my plans. ”
I frown, feeling slightly doused. “Distraction?”
A low laugh slips out of him. “Not just a distraction. A consumption. You were all I could think about. There are a hundred things I needed to be doing at any given moment, and yet my thoughts were devoured by you.”
All those heated feelings come rushing back up, and I realize I need more. That now, I can’t help but feel the same want that gleams in his gaze.
His eyes slowly drag over me, hooking me right through the belly. “The only reason I could stand to walk away was knowing that you were here, safe in my rooms. Sleeping in my bed.”
I swallow hard at the way he says that one word— bed. It made his voice turn to gravel, made his eyes roughen in a way that peels me raw. When I feel my cheeks heat, he smirks, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
“I . . . I did lie,” I reluctantly admit. “I do feel drawn to you.”
A flash of relief mingles with triumph over his face. “Good,” he says, his tone deep. Sinking down low.
“But I still hate that you took people against their will,” I add.
“I know. But I want us to start building some trust.”
My brows lift. “Attraction is one thing. Trust is something else. Trust is big.”
He dips his head. “It is. But we’re connected now, for life. We need to be able to trust each other. I want you to be able to trust me.”
I swallow hard. “I want that too.”
Desperately.
Somewhere between all that hate and heat, I developed complicated feelings that I can no longer ignore.
“Will you tell me where the fae are—the ones you stole from Hamelyn?” I ask, because if he wants to build more than attraction between us, then I need to know he really means it. “And the fiends, where were they taken after the Plague burg?”
“They’re in a burg called Wystinn. It’s very remote, very deep in my territory, and only accessible through my leyline. Now that all of the fiends have been tested, they’re settled there, with the fae.”
“I’d like to visit and see them for myself.”
He pauses.
“You want me to trust you,” I point out. “This would help. Because despite everything . . . I don’t know you.”
His head tilts as he thinks over my words. “You’re right. I’ll take you tomorrow. But I want something in return.”
“What?”
He flashes me a wry look. “Don’t sound so worried. I’d simply like you to dine with me tonight.”
I nearly choke on my tongue. “Dine with you?”
“Yes,” he says smoothly, before flicking his eyes to the tray. “I’ll even be sure to add some bland options.”