Chapter 22
My entire face screamed murder as I glowered around the room. There had been no argument good enough to convince Fig to refrain from shackling me like a common criminal.
He’d just given me a little time to heal and reapply my Glamour before he’d clamped the hematite around my wrist, a chain dangling down, too sturdy to rip the nuisance off, and so the interwoven links jingled with every movement.
My jaw was set tight, and I contemplated strangling Fig with the hematite chain—after all, both were equally annoying. I detested being powerless and cut off from my magic, especially in the den of my enemy.
The hatred soared to new heights as we entered another part of the dungeons, the one where I’d found Nayana.
Standing in the dank cell where she had been held captive, I examined the miserable excuse for a room, determined not to miss anything of importance.
Her scent was still clinging to the small cot.
With a sense of horror, I smelled not only the notes of freshly cut grass, herbs, and citrus, but also her blood and other bodily fluids, which I refused to analyze more closely.
Rage raced through my veins, and although I loathed to admit so, the shackle had been a wise move by my general.
In one corner, I spotted unsteady chalk lines, and I didn’t have to count them to understand that there was one for each day she’d been in captivity. Still, I kneeled down in front of the indication that she’d spent far too long in this place.
With the pad of my index finger, I traced the white lines that became increasingly shaky up until the ninth mark. This one, and the tenth, had been etched into the wall with strength and precision, and despite Naya’s ordeal, which had lasted several more days, no further line could be found.
My poor female. How my heart ached for her.
As if I couldn’t get enough of torturing myself, I rose to my feet and continued with my self-induced task. Finding the two pieces of chalk she must have used didn’t take long, and even though every other person might not have done so, I pocketed them.
There had been a few items I’d gathered during the last months, and the longer Nayana was around me, the more precious my collection of random things—which once had been in her possession—became to me.
The chalk had its place in there as a memento of when I’d failed her beyond measure and as a warning not to repeat such a mistake ever again.
As much as I searched every nook and cranny, there was no trace of her bracelet—the one Antas had given her as a present for our binding, and which had belonged to my mother a long time ago.
Naya hadn’t mentioned the jewelry at all, but I’d noticed how her gaze sometimes brushed her empty arm and her eyes glossed over.
I ached with the want to gut the merchant not only for torturing her but also for making her sad.
When I’d decided to storm Feroy’s headquarters, I hadn’t only had the intention to do precisely that but also to reclaim the wrist circlet.
The bracelet had vanished to wherever the merchant was hiding, so I’d failed in both of my self-imposed purposes.
Devastation clawed at my insides, threatening to swallow me whole.
No, I wouldn’t fall back into destructive patterns. This was a setback, not a failure. One day, I’d kill the merchant—he could count on that.
Turning around, I left the cell and returned to Fig, who was more puzzled about everything we’d found in the compound than angry about what was missing. And yes, I got his contemplation. A prison of hematite under a human merchant’s base was more than suspicious.
Was Feroy conscious of what properties the metal had? Maybe he wasn’t as clueless about the truth as most inhabitants of Ivreia were? But if he was aware of magic or the existence of Galanta and my people, why had he tortured Naya for answers he already possessed? All this made little sense.
“Do we agree about the necessity to gather more information since there’s a possibility that Feroy comprehends what kind of dungeon wing he owned?”
“Get out of my head, Fig.”
“Don’t worry, that’s not a place I want to be in.”
Two hours later, we left the otherwise empty mansion. There was nothing else we’d found.
Before we exited the compound, I stopped and glowered at Fig with impatient expectation. When he didn’t react. I lifted my arm. “Take this off.”
“Will you lose control again?”
“No.” Fine, there was a chance.
“Better not to take risks.”
“I said no.”
“And I don’t believe you.”
“You can’t expect me to run around with my magic reduced to nothing.”
“More sensible than dropping your Glamour while you discard any resemblance to a being capable of reason. That’s not a gamble I’m willing to take.”
“So, your suggestion is to bind me in hematite until when?”
“Well, the restraint has to come off once we’re in Galanta.”
“You’d better not be serious, Fiolar.”
My general’s stern expression softened, and the fucker had the audacity to laugh.
As I showed him my teeth, a steady rumble was the only warning of my annoyance he’d get.
“Hold your horses. We’re not far from the castle. There, Nayana can remove the shackle. She has an excellent influence on you.”
Scoffing, I bared my teeth another time. “Leave her out of it.” And he’d better keep her name out of his mouth and all of her out of his thoughts.
“If you can’t see she’s in the middle of everything already, you’re more delusional than I thought. She’s bound to you through divine magic, for fuck’s sake.”
“Which makes her mine to protect. So I’m the one to decide what she has to know and what she doesn’t.”
“You’re the most crazed and obsessive male I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m neither crazed nor obsessed.” More lies.
Yes, I’d lied to myself for the longest time, but not anymore.
Especially not since I got a taste of her, in more than one sense.
Of course, I hadn’t fully come to terms with the implications, and I had yet to make a plan of how to win her over.
Persistence would be key—after all, there was the mystery of whether or not she’d forgiven me since yesterday.
My patience was already wearing thin. In the end, the question wasn’t if but when she’d cave and see reason—she was mine.
Even if she had those disillusions of a life where she was free, independent, and unattached—how she could believe such bullshit was an enigma to me—there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind.
Like I concluded earlier—once she realized I considered her my forever, she’d hurry into my embrace without a second thought.
So what if we still hadn’t spoken about what had happened in the crypt in Amalach before the rite, when I informed her for the first time that she was mine—although that had been a spontaneous act. Her actions right afterward told another tale than her words.
Then, there had been her divine oath. Granted, I’d written the wording for her, but she hadn’t even tried discussing her part with me. Something she always did when she disagreed with me. Even if I might have implied that those lines were a ceremonial fixture—who could blame me?
My thoughts returned to last evening. She could fib to herself as much as she wanted; we were more than friends helping each other.
If denying the truth for a bit longer helped her to come to terms, then I wouldn’t object. I’d give her time—at least a little while—before I’d nudge her in the right direction. With gentle encouragement, Nayana would get used to the idea that I’d never let her go.
Of course, she’d also embrace the concept of never being in close vicinity to another male ever again—and by near, I was implying more than a few hundred paces.
Oh.
Hmm.
So, maybe Fig had a point, and I had at least some crazed and possessive tendencies. I didn’t mind. Because I’d finally gained the certainty that I was done suppressing my instincts when it came to my Nayana.
“Why are you wearing a manacle?”
“Perchance to see if you fancied a repeat of yesterday, but more experimental?”
Blood shot in my cheeks, and I couldn’t meet Dion’s eyes. The entire morning, my stupid brain had replayed last night’s events on a loop, about how I’d almost begged him to fulfill such a scandalous favor, and then, of course, about how he’d delivered.
The memory alone was enough for my stomach to be in knots, but him standing in front of me, smirking and throwing around dirty jokes? My frayed nerves and I were clueless about how to deal with the situation.
“Jerk. But fine, enjoy your fancy new bracelet until someone else takes mercy on you.”
“Ouch, you wouldn’t do that to me.”
“You’ll find out soon.”
“You wound me.”
“Pity. So? What happened?”
“When I went to the city today to execute revenge, we found out that Fe—he’d disappeared, and I wasn’t too happy with aborting my mission, which spoiled Fig’s mood as well.”
“Execute revenge.” Even though Dion was vague on purpose—either because he was reluctant to remind me of my past ordeal or because he wanted to downplay the events—concluding what he’d hinted at was easy, and I narrowed my eyes.
Torn between the wish to forget and the desire to get answers, I glared at him with what I hoped was strict disapproval.
“That’s a cute look on you.”
So much for getting my point across. “I’m not—hey, let me go. Godsdammit, Dion.”
“No.”
His voice was muffled because he buried his face in the crook of my neck.
His arms clamped me in place like a vise, and his breath tickled my skin.
A very unladylike squeal escaped my lips, and the bastard chuckled.
His playful side had emerged once more, the one that didn’t possess even an ounce of impulse control.
“Princeling.”
“Come on. Take the cuff off and free me, Naya.”
Ugh, did he have to sound so husky? His next deep inhale made me squeak again, and the moment his canines scraped against the skin of my neck, I admitted defeat, patting his arm. “Then I’ll need your wrist. Can’t help you when you crush me.”