chapter forty-seven
THE POISONER
T he rough path of the carriage slowly rocked my consciousness back to the surface. Even when I opened my eyes, I was blind. Scratchy wool fibers brushed against my face and got in my mouth. A hood was over my head, but I could not feel any other clothing on me.
Rope bound my wrists and elbows behind my back, as well as my knees and ankles together. I was now certain that I had been stripped of my clothes. A heavy boot rested on my hip as I lay on my side.
Is he using me as a footrest?
The coach stopped, jolting my body and eliciting a whimper from me due to the pain in my shoulder. More awareness of my body came with the register of pain as I slowly came to full consciousness.
After a moment of stillness, the cold air whipped at me when the door opened. The pressure of the boot was removed only for me to be yanked up into strong arms by the ropes that restrained me. Nothing could stop the wince as I was hauled up into someone’s grasp.
“Ah, so glad you could join us from the dream realm,” Luka’s muffled voice rang through the wool.
I wished I had some witty response, but the energy was not there.
It was like I was in some kind of fever dream. Paralyzed.
When we entered the inside, the sickly-sweet smells of florals overwhelmed my senses, and I lurched. It was too sweet. Like it was masking some other smell.
“Throw up on me, and I will drop you,” he threatened.
He carried me up some stairs. I counted thirty-five steps, a plateau, then twenty-five steps. He pushed open a door with his hip before kicking it shut behind him.
I swiveled my head, desperate to see. He let go, and my back smacked against the floor with a hard thud.
“Hell!” I shouted, my body stiffening. The air was knocked out of me when I landed on my restrained arms.
“Whether this is or isn’t hell will be entirely up to you.” He yanked the wool cover from my head.
It took a second for my eyes to focus on the dark, looming figure above me. I leaned up, but he placed a boot on my chest.
“Good morning,” Luka said sweetly. “Welcome to the Nest.”
I refused to answer him.
He leaned down, grabbing my face and forcing me to suck in my cheeks. “I said good morning . What do we say back?”
I stared silently.
“ Alina ”—his tone was sweet, but tinged with venom—“I don’t think you want me to be your trainer. It never ends well.”
“I am not a dog, you devil.”
“Wrong answer.” He dragged his boot forward to my injured shoulder before pressing down.
I yelled out in pain, tears forced out of my eyes.
“Let’s try again. Good morning, Alina! ” he said enthusiastically, a carnal delight in his expression.
“Good…morning,” I struggled to breathe out.
“Good girl.” He removed his boot and tilted his head at me innocently. “Oh, don’t be discouraged, little one. You’ll get used to the way things are around here soon,” he said, then the door swung open.
Three maids fluttered in with bowls and fresh linens.
He reached down and pulled a knife from his waistband, placing it under one of the ropes. “I’ll reward you by taking these off, but I have no problem wrapping you in knots if you can’t behave,” he warned.
I nodded reluctantly.
He cut the ropes, and they slipped off my limbs. He picked me up and sat down on the edge of the bed with me between his legs.
“Unhand me.”
“This is for your own safety and others’. I have to make sure you don’t hurt the staff, you feral thing.” He hummed, tapping my nose playfully.
Unamused was the most polite way I could describe how I must have looked. He just laughed, positioning me so my back was against his chest, and I faced the maids.
They started to use wet cloths to wipe my body down and clean me up.
A bowl of milky liquid was placed off to the side.
It smelled like vanilla and was soft on my skin.
One of the maids had some type of liquid that she spread over my skin after they scrubbed it.
I looked at my arm where she had put it and studied the oily substance.
It smelled floral. When they were finished, two maids left, and one remained, but this time she pulled out something that clinked together in the box before her.
She reached in and pulled out what looked like a gold collar .
My eyes widened, and I moved to get up, but Lukas’s arms wrapped around my waist and placed me firmly back down in a seated position.
“Let go!” I yelled, turning and smacking him in the face.
He grabbed the wrist that swung, and squeezed. “What did we just say about your behavior?”
His grip made my panic fester, and my eyes darted toward the maid, who brought over a few metal pieces.
“What is this, the Middle Ages?” I growled.
“Oh, don’t think of it like that. Think of it as decoration.”
The maid snapped the flat collar around my neck.
The metal was a flashy gold, and on the collar, there were sharp fleur-de-lis patterns decorating the top and poking upward.
It was designed in a way that didn’t let me lower my head too far without it jabbing into my skin.
It was more decorative than practical, like a way to ensure I could easily be secured or grabbed.
There was a loop at the front of the collar as if to secure a lead to it.
When she finished, she handed the key to Luka before gathering her things and leaving us alone.
I could feel his hungry eyes, so I refused to look at him.
“You can’t be mad at me forever. I am your only friend here,” he breathed against the bruised punctures on my shoulder.
“You lied to me.”
“Lie? No, you must be thinking of a different man,” he retorted. “I meant everything I said to you. Could he say the same?”
I picked at my nails, unsure if I could answer that honestly. If Luka could fool me, I was sure Silas could too.
“I meant it all,” he whispered, his fingers tracing the front of my hips.
“You pretended to be a student to get close, learned about the things I was studying just so you could betray me in the end.” I glared. “How is that fair?”
“Well, I didn’t lie, like I said,” he explained plainly.
“I was once a student, and I’ve been a doctor since before they studied medicine in schools.
” He took my hand in his and studied my red-stained fingertips.
“So you can imagine that it wasn’t hard to piece together who you were, though I wasn’t expecting you to be a woman, I will admit that. ”
I pulled my hand away in disgust.
“You were never in danger. You never have been in your entire life,” he said flatly. “Mr. Astor—or I suppose you know him as Mr. Aston—kept you hidden away. Imagine his surprise when I told him the infamous Poisoner he had been hunting is his hidden gem.”
“What are you saying?” My voice wavered.
“Did your little friend not tell you?” he mocked. “Now I feel special that I get to be the one to tell you!”
“Tell me what?”
“Mr. Aston kept you close all these years because he knew that you were a Host. Why do you think his daughter was only allowed one single friend? Do you think a social butterfly like her didn’t keep other friends as a child out of personal preference?
She begged for a single friend. It was the perfect place to keep an eye on you. ”
“That can’t be true. She and I grew up together. We are the same age. She isn’t one of you,” I practically bit out. “You are lying.”
“That’s because even though we have to be born and grow, we just happen to stop at year twenty-five.” He laughed. “She’s just his recent child.”
“Recent?”
“Yes, well, you’ve met his eldest.”
My brow raised as I waited for him to continue.
“The golden boy didn’t tell you either? Today is not a good day to be Alina, is it?” He shook his head.
As the pieces clicked in my mind, I was internally punishing myself for being so blind.
What I thought was simple rivalry and distaste was actually just siblings interacting with each other.
Their familiarity with one another was making more sense than ever.
How could I not have seen through their banter?
That would explain her hesitancy with he and I spending so much time together.
They both knew and did not tell me a thing.
“She couldn’t have known this would happen.” I tried to at least make an excuse for Phoebe.
“But he knew.” He traced little circles down my arm. “He knew who I was since the exhibition.”
My gut flipped on itself and pinched my insides.
I could feel the anger rising in me with each new revelation.
Every memory became corrupted with what I knew now, exposing everything in a new light.
Why must everyone hide things from me as if I were a child in need of protection?
I could have protected myself if I had known these important details beforehand. Now, they were useless to me.
Luka slipped me off his lap. “Well! That sums up my duties for the day. You’ll be staying in here tonight—food will be brought to you,” he explained, looking back at me as he paused before the doorway. “Welcome home,” he chirped before closing the door, locking it once it snapped in place.
With the room to myself, I finally looked around.
It looked more fitting for a spoiled pet than a person.
There was very little furniture, one of which was a lounging chaise in front of the large window, but it did not look like it could open.
Aside from that, there was the bed, and many pillows and folded wool blankets were neatly placed on the chaise.
I was not even afforded the decency of a mirror.
The walls were blank and gray with a few cracks in the paint, a testimony to their forgotten state. This was a haphazardly organized prison.