Chapter Six
Jet
“What are you going to do about your father in the morning?” Vishen asked as we both tipped back some whiskey I’d imported from the human realm the last time I’d visited.
It wasn’t something I’d been able to do for a long time—not since my father’s madness really started to take root.
Before that, I’d been able to slip away from Vishen when he had some sort of training or meeting or simply was bathing, slip through the veil, and go explore the human world.
It didn’t matter how many times I went. Because of the way time moved much more slowly in The Green, each time I dropped in on the humans, their whole world had changed so much.
On those trips, I’d developed certain preferences. Showers. Whiskey. Coffee. Records.
Since being locked down and followed endlessly by the damned redcaps, I’d tried to make do with what I had—nursing the whiskey and coffee I had left, and learning to dig deep and appreciate the music I’d already compiled. But I was antsy for another trip.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s going to notice your new bride can’t speak—if it doesn’t wear off by then. With his paranoia, we both know how wrong that could go,” he said, reaching for an almond from the bowl on my desk.
He wasn’t wrong.
Not only might he punish Grimwood for the lie, he might want to punish my new bride as well. Someone who was completely innocent as far as I could tell.
“I suppose she doesn’t need to break her fast with the family. She could be… recuperating.”
A snort escaped Vishen at that. “Because you’re that good in the sack, huh?” he asked, tossing an almond at me. “When’s the last time you got laid anyway?”
“I have been confined to the castle,” I reminded him. “And nothing about fucking a servant appeals to me.”
“Snob,” Vishen—a man who bedded every attractive woman in a five-mile radius—accused.
“It’s more the issue of them not feeling like they could say no to me.”
“Fair,” he agreed. “So, I’m taking it it’s been a while.”
I exhaled hard.
“That long, huh?” He shot me a smirk.
“Maybe the reins will loosen now that he got what he wanted out of me.”
“Not to piss on your plans, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So, you’re a married man.”
“On paper.”
“Your wife is stunning.”
“Yeah.”
“You could make it a real marriage.”
“She was kidnapped and forced into this.”
“Sure. But who, when given a chance to think it over, wouldn’t want to be a princess? And future queen?”
“It would make life easier if she simply wanted to go along with it. But I don’t think I would blame her if being kidnapped, drugged, and forced into a legally—and soul—binding contract is too much to move past.”
“I guess time will tell. Hopefully, her voice comes back by morning. It will help to know more about her. A name, at least.”
“Yeah.”
“You should get back to her.”
I nodded and got to my feet.
“We’ll meet before breakfast,” I told him.
“I’ll be up.”
“You always are.”
The military barely allowed soldiers a few hours of sleep a day. Despite having a lot more freedom to do as he pleased as my guard, he’d never been able to catch more than three or four hours altogether.
“‘Night,” I called before making my way across the hall and into my room.
My wife hadn’t lit any of the candles, so I moved around in the dark, feeling for the matches in the nightstand.
There was a strange chattering sound in the room as I finally struck a match and lit the first candle, then the next, and the next, until a whole candelabra was lit, casting the bed in orange light.
That was where I saw Knight, his body on top of my wife’s, a little whine escaping him. It only took a second to realize why. And where that chattering sound was coming from.
My wife’s teeth.
Her whole body was trembling hard enough to vibrate the bed.
She seemed fast asleep, an arm out of the blankets and thrown over her head.
Reaching out, I touched the skin of her hand, finding it icy.
Huh.
The thick castle walls did maintain a cooler temperature, but that usually wasn’t an issue until the deepest part of winter. It was still rather mild out—the kind of night where I would typically open the windows and let a cool breeze in.
That didn’t seem to be an option now.
I went to the wardrobe, finding one of the thick woolen blankets reserved for frigid nights, then spread it over her body.
But five minutes later, she was still as cold as death and trembling. Even more alarming, she was whimpering in her sleep as if in pain.
“Alright,” I murmured to myself as I turned and made my way over to the hearth, lowering down to pile some fresh wood inside, then coaxing a fire until it was dancing and spilling hot air into the already stuffy room.
I ducked into the water closet to brush my teeth. When I walked back out, the bedroom was as warm as a midsummer day.
But the woman on the bed was still trembling, chattering, whimpering, and now rocking.
Making my way over to the bed, I climbed on and scooted to the center before sliding an arm under her body and curling her in toward me.
I readjusted the blankets around her, already feeling my shirt starting to stick to me with sweat.
But the closeness on top of the blankets and fire seemed to finally be easing her trembling.
As the night drew on, though, the whimpering in her sleep only seemed to intensify.
Was it simply bad dreams from being ripped away from her life and forced to marry a stranger? Or was there something else going on? Was the Bellhush having other negative effects?
I should have asked Vishen more about it. At the time, though, my only concern was the silence.
Hopefully, as the drugs worked their way through and out of her system, it would all ease.
As it was, all I could do was be a source of heat for her as she tossed, turned, and cried out in her sleep. I maybe got ten or fifteen minutes snatched at a time before something she did woke me up.
I wasn’t complaining, though.
I had a lot to think about.
Besides, I didn’t sleep much. Not because I was forced to live that way, like Vishen.
It was my own mind that didn’t allow much rest. One of those ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ sort of things.
Only I didn’t wear the crown. Not yet. And watching my father drive our realm into the ground while I had to stand by and do nothing was frustrating at best.
To calm that anxiety, I sat awake planning and plotting all the things I would change when it was my turn to take that throne. I’d been doing it for years, and yet there was still no shortage of problems to try to solve—without pissing off too many people in the process.
The work camps, for example, had to fucking go.
Sure, I might still be fine with them for criminals—since my father’s methods of housing and torturing them for eternity were generally unwarranted and entirely too expensive—but not for random Light fae caught in our realm or the humans who were unfortunate enough to be able to get through the veil on our side of The Green.
The imprisonment and forced breeding of rare fae creatures also had to go.
Perhaps if we acted less like animals, the Seelie and Unseelie courts could, if not get along, at least not constantly be gearing up for war.
Unfortunately for me and my plans, my father was still in decently good health, despite losing his mind a little bit more day to day. And those closest to him—from his guards to his political allies—were doing their best to keep his madness from the public eye. He could go on for years like this.
By the time I finally inherited, what the hell would there be left of the kingdom? Aside from men as evil as they were rich and powerful? Men like Grimwood. Ones who thought they could outsmart not only my father, but me.
Maybe I should have called him out at the ceremony. It wasn’t Grimwood’s likely imprisonment and torture that bothered me. But what would happen to this woman?
The best she could hope for would be to be forced to become a servant.
The worst, well, the worst was a fate I’d never knowingly allow a woman to be subjected to.
Given how gorgeous she was, the latter would have been her future.
She might even continue to be drugged by the Bellhush so the wicked men could do unforgivable things without anyone knowing or trying to stop them.
Not calling him out complicated things in ways I hadn’t considered in the moment, though. Like how I could keep the truth from my father. Like what would I do if she decided she didn’t want to be a princess? How could I get myself (and her) out of this clusterfuck of a situation?
There were a few ways out of even such a high-profile political marriage—all of them working in the royal’s favor.
The top being if she were unable to produce an heir.
Which she wouldn’t since I wouldn’t be touching her.
But that would be over a year of ‘trying’ to prove that she couldn’t become with child.
A long sacrifice of her life, but worth having her freedom for the rest of it.
If she were able to speak in the morning, I would suggest it.
It was the easiest way out for both of us.
Without involving Grimwood. More importantly, without involving my father.
Save for, I imagined, another arranged marriage after that.
Likely with someone with grand aspirations, who would make my life a living hell. But at least she’d be willing.
“Whoa. You’re okay. Well, as okay as you can be, I guess,” I said as she jolted hard in my arms and wrenched away.
Rolling onto her back, her eyes went huge, panicked, until consciousness and her memory caught up with her. But that look of shock and fear was quickly replaced with something that twisted her whole face. In a blink, she rolled away again, curling into a tight ball, and rocking.
“What is it?” I asked, climbing off the bed and moving around to find her mouth opened in a silent scream.
“Shit. The fuck?” Knight hopped off the bed, crying. “What hurts?” I asked, but she only curled tighter, tears streaming down her face. “Fuck. Okay.”
I strode across the room, yanked open the door, and called out for Vishen.
He came stumbling out the door, shirtless, his hair still wet.
“Something’s wrong with her.”
His brows pinched as he rushed across the hall and into my room. Taking one look at her face, he whipped the blankets off her.
“Why is it so fucking hot in here?”
“She was shivering all night. Hard.”
“Did she have a fever?” he asked, feeling her head.
“No. She was cold as a corpse.”
Vishen’s brows knitted as his hands moved over her body, seeming to try to feel for injuries.
He was no doctor, but there’d been no doctors in a regiment, either.
So, soldiers got good at treating not only battlefield wounds, but random accidents or illnesses.
Though I had no idea how he was gauging if anywhere he pressed hurt when she was still silently screaming.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She’s not hurt anywhere. Except for this.”
He yanked up her sleeves, revealing bruises wrapped around her wrists and forearms. From where someone a lot stronger than her had held on and likely dragged her.
“And these.” He waved to the tops of her feet and knees, where red scratches were clear in the harsh morning light. That solidified my dragging theory.
Grimwood.
He was going to pay one day.
Slowly. Painfully. Along with whoever did his dirty work for him. Judging by how much deeper and larger some of the bruises were than the other, there were at least two men involved.
“Gotta do something,” I said as she pressed her hands to her face. She still looked like she was crying, but no more tears came.
“I don’t know what to do,” Vishen admitted. I knew it killed him a little. He almost always had advice or answers.
But he wasn’t the type to give up, either.
He yanked her hands away from her face, pulling her mouth open, when something caught my attention.
“Wait. Her eyes… her eyes look like paper.”
“Her mouth is dry too. Get the damn water.”
I brought it over.
“Sit her up so she doesn’t choke.”
Glad for an occupation, I pulled her upright then moved behind her, pulling her against me, her head angled back, so Vishen could open her lips and pour small sips of water in.
Little by little, she stopped struggling against my hold, relaxing a bit as Vishen supplied her with pitcher after pitcher of water.
He glanced over at me and shook his head.
Because why was she in so much pain because she was thirsty? Did she have some sort of condition?
There would be no answers, though, until the drugs wore off. And I was getting a little concerned that it wasn’t wearing off yet.
“I’ll go get more,” Vishen said when she finished the last of the water.
Alone, my wife relaxed against me for just a moment, the relief clear in every muscle in her body.
But then something in her had her jerking, some internal pain she couldn’t tell me about.
Her head turned in toward my neck.
It was only a few seconds before I felt her strangely cool tears streaming down my neck and wetting my shirt.
My arms slid around her.
“I’m going to figure it out,” I vowed.
And suddenly, that was more important than anything else—my mad father, the kingdom, my crown, everything.
“I’ll fix this,” I told her, my hand gliding up and down her back. “Then I’ll kill Grimwood for doing this to you in the first place.”