Chapter Nine #3
At that final word, everyone jolted out of shock and started moving around at twice their already hurried pace, likely thinking Jet was there to judge them and their work ethic.
It was as one of those servants was pulling something round and carved with elegant designs that a scent drifted over to me that I’d never smelled before, something warm and comforting that had my stomach letting out a pained grumble.
Jet followed my gaze. “The bread?” he asked.
“Have you never had bread before?” Then, not leaving room for me to shake my head, he shook his own.
“Where would there be a hearth near a lake?” he asked himself.
He started to call out to someone, caught himself, then strode over—pulling me with him—and wrapped the hot bread up in a cloth. “Does anyone have a basket?” he called.
I watched as no fewer than five women scrambled to bring him one, eyes wide, bodies twitchy. Almost as if they expected something terrible to befall them if they didn’t trip over each other to give him what he wanted.
My stomach tensed at the idea of there being some sort of punishment if he was dissatisfied with their work performance.
I knew there was a lot of talk about how unpredictable, insane, and brutal his father was. But what about Jet? Did he have people beaten when they were too slow? Did he have them tossed in prison for failing to meet his standards?
I watched his profile as he grabbed random pieces of fruit and vegetables and tossed them into the basket along with the bread.
Some part of me I didn’t quite understand didn’t want someone so gorgeous to be so cruel. But could he be good if he was raised by such a monster? Was he only kind to me because our fates were linked? Was he sadistic and heartless to everyone else?
Before I could make up my mind, he was leading me through the door to the back of the kitchen and out into the fresh air.
I took a deep breath of pine, wet earth, crushed leaves, and the scent of woodsmoke from the hearth.
Some of the tension still riding my shoulders lessened.
I’d never been indoors before this whole ordeal.
And while I had learned to appreciate a warm fire and a cozy bed, some part of me had been craving the sights, sounds, and scents of the outdoors—the place that had been my home as long as I remembered.
“Oh, these bastards.” Jet let out a snarling sound that had me stiffening as I turned my attention to where his was focused.
A few yards away were half a dozen creatures with red sludge dripping down from the tops of their heads. The closer they got, the more strongly I smelled a mix of copper and decay.
“Fuck off,” he snapped at the creatures. But they simply moved closer, unconcerned with his wishes. “Damned redcaps,” he mumbled to himself. Then, to me, “Come. We can get away from them if you’re a good enough climber.”
With that, his hand left my hip to grab my hand again, and I was nearly running to keep up with his long-legged stride. Even so, the redcaps were right behind us with their decay and body odor scents, their crackling joints, and their eerie grunts and whistling breaths.
A shiver coursed down my spine as I felt one close in behind me, his stench making me retch as Jet pulled me faster.
“Just up there,” he said, nodding his chin toward a rock formation ahead.
At the foot, he deftly ran upward, feet finding footholds that he must have known from memory as I struggled to grab hold and pull myself up.
“Take my hand,” he demanded from the top as the redcaps closed in around me, their bodies pressing close, their sounds buzzing around me until I felt dizzy from it.
When I didn’t extend my hand, Jet’s strong hand closed around my wrist and pulled. There was one moment of stomach-dropping nothingness as the ground fell away and I was dangling in the air, before I felt my feet meet the smooth rock, my body pressed tightly against a slightly breathless Jet.
There it was again, that little tightening in my core, the flutter in my chest.
“We’re safe up here,” he told me, his arm still tightly around me as he glanced down at the redcaps.
My gaze followed his, finding the creatures attempting to scale the rocks, but each falling with loud grunts back to the ground, over and over.
“Persistent, they might be. Agile, they are not,” Jet said, making my gaze find his again.
For reasons I couldn’t name, my gaze moved from his eyes to his lips and back again as the shivery sensations inside intensified.
“Keep looking at me like that and I’m going to forget this is a sham of a marriage.”
He released me as abruptly as he’d grabbed me, leaving me stumbling back a step without his steady frame, a cold wave washing over me, making a hard tremble course through me.
Seeing it, Jet reached for the flask. “You should have more before it gets worse.”
I took the flask, warm in my hand from his body heat, but I didn’t take a drink.
Because I was pretty sure it wasn’t the lack of the lake that had me feeling that way.
I might not understand it, but I was relatively sure it had nothing to do with the separation from my life source… and everything to do with my husband.