Chapter 45 #2
Eyes watering, Imani stared him down. She kept her face impassive, not wanting to show how much fear coursed through her veins at the wild look of malice on his face. She shoved it aside.
He was getting desperate, using his compulsion from the binding over her.
But it was gone now, and it made her chuckle darkly. “Never,” she replied, baring her teeth.
“You forget the order of things. You work for me. I own you.” Kiran lifted his hand. “Do I need to remind you that you’re stuck here, with no one to turn to?”
A distant roaring sounded in her head, suspicion and terror twined into one. The binding was broken now that she had the Drasil—she couldn’t feel a thing.
Her voice was low with a bite as she said, “Days ago, you said you wanted me to trust you. This isn’t the way to do it.”
“And for months, you’ve been saying you’ll never trust me, so why should I keep on trying?”
“I … could have considered it, but you keep taking away my choice—and I hate you for it.”
“You already hated me, so that more or less has no meaning.” A slight smirk curved his lips as he skimmed his hands down her bare arms, making her shiver. “Besides, I did give you a choice. It’s not my fault you’re picking the high road over being with me.”
“Were you serious when you said you’d consider us being together ‘if and when things are different’? I fucking doubt it.”
“I did, and I decided against it after I became king. You may not like my reasons or understand them, but they are valid, nonetheless.”
“Then explain it to me, Your Majesty,” she sneered, still holding her wrist tight to her chest. Why was she still trifling with him?
How had she not learned her lesson? Really, she only had herself to blame, but she needed to pour salt on the wound between them.
Needed to know things were well and truly over.
“I’m mated to my kingdom, and it will always come first. Which means, despite completing the bindings with me, and being my heartmate through and through, you and I can never be.
Any political advantage you can offer me is weak at best, or a liability at worst. I need to marry a noble Niflheim elf, not some nobody, an Essenheim orphan elf. Get it?”
She got it, and she’d been such a fool … a fool in love. Ara had told her explicitly that he’d feel this way. Imani just had yet to fully comprehend the weight of the warning.
“I wish I had never met you.”
“Well, the feeling is starting to become mutual, I assure you,” he said, retrieving a shirt with a salacious grin.
As Kiran slipped it over his head, Imani slammed him against the wall, pushing her lips against his. But he grabbed her by the throat, growling loudly. Imani didn’t make a sound.
He pushed against her throat harder with one hand and shoved his other fingers against the sore flesh on her wrist to steal a cry from her lips before he chuckled.
Imani hesitated, still seething.
He shook his head at her, grinning. “Aren’t you a little monster?” he said, almost to himself.
Damn him. She was done here.
She shoved off him, and he let her walk away. She grabbed her cloak from where she’d dropped it on the floor then made to leave. But he caught her wrist.
“Let us be monsters together. What is wrong with being a monster, Imani? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Because, look at you …” He gently pushed her back so his hands could cradle her cheek in his palm, smiling down at her with nothing but tender affection. “You are so mesmerizing. Don’t go.”
“Don’t you dare touch me.” Imani threw his hand off. “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”
He claimed he owned her, but no one owned her anymore.
She had been bound to the First Witch—and the king—and neither of those people existed anymore.
Not only that, but she’d completed her binding to travel to the Under with him.
There was nothing he could do to keep her here. She belonged to herself now.
Kiran wasn’t to be deterred, though, and with his wand in his hand, he conjured a set of shackles from thin air. Seconds later, Imani felt the cold metal against her skin and heard the locks click into place.
In shock, Imani gaped at her hands. “What is this?” She could barely choke the words out.
Pacing, he shoved his hands through his hair. “I didn’t want to, but you forced me. I can’t let you leave. I need your magic for our cause—and potentially heirs in the future—so I can’t have you going back to Essenheim.”
The trembling started in her hands and spread through her limbs as she stared at him in horror. “You think these can keep me here? You think you can breed me to give you little Eldritch babies?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “You didn’t even bother to take my wand.”
“It can do nothing against cerulean steel—the only metal impervious to Draswood.”
“It seems you’ve thought of everything then,” she murmured. “My grandmother once told me you were far worse than she’d ever imagined. I don’t even think she knew the half of it.”
“Your grandmother was a nasty piece of work whose only real contribution to this world was saving and protecting you,” he snarled.
“On that, we agree. But there’s just one snag in your brilliant plan.”
The Niflheim king froze when Imani let the Drasil slip from the sleeve of her dress into her hand. Those green and black eyes narrowed on it for a moment, but he didn’t say a word as she flicked her wrist twice with the Drasil, slicing through the metal like it was nothing.
Imani rubbed the raw skin where the sigil was still healing and sighed. Her shadows began darkening the room as she prepared to fight to leave.
“How the fuck did you do that?” Voice low, Kiran barely unclenched his teeth with those words.
“I suppose you’re not as smart as you think you are, but nice try attempting to lock me up.” Imani pointed the wand at him. “I’ll be leaving now, and I promise you won’t like what happens if you follow me.”
The king didn’t try to stop her.
As she threw him one last look, what she saw made her shiver.
A razor-sharp smile beamed at her, and the promise of violence seeped from the depths of his eyes.
“There’s no way for you to leave this castle without my permission,” he called after her, cackling like his words were the most amusing he’d ever heard, yet he still didn’t make a move to follow her.
He was wrong. Oh, he had wards and shields to keep her inside, but it would be the second time the previously infallible prince had underestimated her.
It was then that she decided Kiran wouldn’t accept the forgiveness and teamwork like she’d thought possible. She knew without a doubt he believed taking control of Essenheim—alone—would solve their magic problems.
He was wrong.
He was not thinking big enough, and she couldn’t have him ruining her plans.
Indeed, tonight, the real game would begin. And this time, Kiran would be on the back foot.
In fact, she was counting on it.
Imani’s boots clicked on the stone floor with her short, rapid steps as she turned into the closest room she could find. She just needed a little bit of time alone before he found her again.
Inside, she was surprised to see it was the throne room. It was deserted. Of course, only the king could give a person permission to enter.
Heartmates were immune to this rule, it seemed. She stomped forward toward the throne and glared at it, but then she felt an unmistakable calm wash over her. The air in the room had shifted from hostile to welcoming in seconds. It buzzed quietly, vibrating in what felt like pleasure.
The magical gifts from the crown and the throne supposedly marked each relic as innate enemies—one gifting the monarch destructive magic, the other with creation magic—and yet, when the two objects were in the same room, it was obvious they both complemented each other.
How long had it been since the throne and the crown were together?
The wood of the Drasil pulsed with a faint power in her hand, as if it, too, felt at ease and was waking up for the magic she was about to do.
Despite reading about the spell a thousand times, actually performing it terrified her. But, once again, Kiran had left her no choice.
Zadie had been right; staying here was madness.
The new king would continue using her and using her until there was nothing left but a shell, draining her magic, sucking her life force, breeding her.
Imani mentally kicked herself for having let her feelings run wild with him.
If she hadn’t had the Drasil, there would be no chance for her to escape.
Kiran had truly thought of everything, except that Zadie had also seen this coming and had betrayed him to warn her.
Worst of all, Kiran simply didn’t care about the consequences of what this would do to Imani. He obviously didn’t give a shit about her feelings in this situation and considered her a non-threat with zero power.
He was wrong.
The thought made it hard to breathe.
Jaw clenched, Imani tugged at her dress, trying to loosen the corset around her belly a bit more. Why hadn’t she taken better care to choose a looser outfit tonight?
For a moment, she thought about going to her room to retrieve Ara’s trunk of old books and her clothes. But she decided against it. Imani didn’t need any of the books, or maps, or dresses anymore. With this wand, she had everything she required.
Her hands shook from what she was about to do, and Imani fought tears as she ignored the strange twist in her gut at the thought of leaving Kiran.
The feelings were intense, but they were lies, too.
She didn’t need Kiran in her life—she just felt like she did.
She’d never be enslaved like those High-Bred Norn elves from the past.
Her grandmother’s words echoed in her mind.
“What that heartmate of yours doesn’t know yet, and it might take him a while to realize, is that you’ll be the only thing that truly scares him. A weakness if you can’t be controlled.”
On the night of her death, Ara had chosen to warn her.
Worse—she had been right. She’d always been right.
Imani wished she had paid more attention and listened to Ara instead of following her stupid heart.
Despite their contentious relationship, Imani was starting to understand Ara far better than before, and many of her actions and choices made sense to Imani.
The incantations were old but in Elvish, and she’d practiced them repeatedly over the past week in preparation for this exact spell.
Much to her surprise, it only took a few minutes to cast. Before she knew it, light was flickering in and out of the wand, and she took a few deep breaths, preparing herself. No one had cast this spell in possibly thousands of years. Maybe more.
On her exhale, she raised the Drasil in a long, slow arch over her head, feeling the power vibrating through her limbs.
She muttered the old incantation, working hard to enunciate perfectly.
She swept her arm again in an arch, and this time a faint light trailed the line of her wand.
Again and again, she arched her wand and repeated the words.
The space on a wall began to glimmer like a curtain, shimmering repeatedly until a soft pine forest floor could be seen. The more she did it, the more the doorway she was creating solidified and the more it revealed what lay behind it.
At the final swipe, Imani had to take two hands to drag the wand up and around. A faint buzzing could be heard now, and with a grunt of pain, she completed the arch and dropped her shaking arms to her sides.
The humming in the room increased.
She wrenched her wand arm up at the last second, and one shot of bright light flashed around her. Imani flinched, hiding her face with her other arm.
Blinking away the stars, she regained focus … and her mouth dropped open.
Standing several feet taller and wider than her was a glowing, ethereal doorway, and past it, the Draswood Forest.
When she’d asked the spell to take her home, it’d made the Draswood appear.
She shut her eyes. It was time to return to where she belonged.
But before she could, a loud banging forced her to whip around.