6. Bryony
brYONY
Stellan hit the floor hard enough to crack stone.
I stayed against the wall and kept the torch aimed between us. The gate had sealed behind me, leaving no handle, lock or visible join. My phone still recorded, although the lack of signal made calling anyone impossible.
At least the message I’d sent upstairs had gone through. Arthur knew exactly where I’d disappeared.
The thought was less comforting under several tonnes of stone.
Stellan pushed himself upright on both knees. Chains ran from his wrists to iron rings in opposite walls. More fixed his ankles to the dais and circled his waist before disappearing behind the throne. Blood slid over his hands from skin split by the cuffs.
“Did it break anything?” I asked.
“Only the floor.” His voice came rougher now. “Stay where you are until the chains settle.”
I didn’t need the warning. I finally had enough light to see all of him, and safe wasn’t the first word that came to mind.
Long silver hair fell over one shoulder and partly covered his face. His eyes were grey-blue, pale enough to catch the red light moving through the room. Hunger sharpened his cheekbones and mouth, but captivity hadn’t taken the heavy muscle from his chest or arms.
Black tattoos covered both shoulders. Wings spread across his back, every feather following the shape of the muscle under it. Older scars cut through the ink at his spine and ribs.
The raven on Edith’s key matched the wings on his skin.
I held up the key. “The wings match this. Tell me what that means without giving me a century of court history.”
Stellan glanced at the raven worked into its bow.
“It was the mark of the Blood King before anyone built Harrowmere. The court put the same mark into my skin when it accepted me. Edith carried the key because her family held the human side of the court. It opens the places that require both offices, including the way out of this room. The mark doesn’t mean she owned me, and it doesn’t mean you do. ”
“Good. I wasn’t planning to add vampire ownership to today’s paperwork.”
“That already makes you better qualified than the last person who wanted the Crown.”
He turned his head, and the torchlight caught his fangs.
I tightened my hold on it.
My body chose that moment to remember the attraction travelling through the bond. Heat collected low in my stomach while I stood in a sealed vampire court with a bleeding man who had admitted he might bite me.
Excellent judgement all round.
Stellan’s gaze lifted to mine. He’d felt the response.
“Don’t say anything,” I warned.
“I value my remaining dignity.”
“That makes one of us.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, then pain pulled it tight again. The chain around his waist shortened another inch and forced him forwards.
I felt the pressure through the bond. Iron dug into my own wrists for one sharp second, although nothing touched them.
“How do I stop that?”
“You don’t. Harrowmere wants me down while its heir stands inside the cage.”
“I’m not standing over anyone.”
I lowered myself to sit against the wall, keeping the torch and the sealed gate within reach. The change put us closer to eye level without putting me closer to him.
The chain at his waist loosened.
Stellan looked at it, then at me. “Apparently that satisfied it.”
“Good. The haunted house and I have reached our first compromise.”
He shifted back onto one hip. His right arm trembled as he eased the twisted cuff. I felt the drag of metal against damaged skin again and rubbed my wrist.
“Can we stop sharing that part?” I asked.
“I’d stop feeling it myself if I knew how.”
The answer had no joke in it. I watched him breathe through the pain until the bond settled.
“Tell me what happens if we wait here for the people who know my location,” I said. “Give me the practical version.”
“They can enter the house, but they won’t find the stairs unless Harrowmere shows them.
The court opened for your blood and sealed itself after you crossed the gate.
It will keep us here while the Crown waits for you to claim it.
The chains will continue tightening whenever the room thinks I’m resisting, and the bond will keep passing my hunger to you.
Waiting gives the house more time to wear us down. ”
“Then I collect Edith’s case, use whatever she left inside it to open the gate and take the stairs back up. You stay chained until I know freeing you helps with that plan.”
“That’s sensible. One problem remains. The gate needs the old key and the mark of the Blood King at the same time. I can’t reach the seal with both wrists fixed to the dais.”
I looked at the six separate restraints holding him. “So you need one hand. You can explain why after I have the case and you’ve stopped looking at my bandage like it contains fucking dinner.”
He turned his head farther away. “It does contain dinner. I’m agreeing not to treat it that way.”
The court stayed quiet around us. Red lamps burned along the pillars. The dark crown waited above the throne, and Edith’s metal case sat on its low plinth several metres away.
I needed the case. Reaching it meant crossing the room.
“Show me exactly how far the chains let you move.”
Stellan looked at the blood on my bandaged hand. “That demonstration may encourage them to change the answer.”
“Then move slowly. I’m not coming closer until I know the limit.”
He planted one foot and rose with surprising balance despite all the iron attached to him. He unfolded to his full height, at least a head taller than me, and the muscles across his stomach tightened as he tested his footing.
The bond passed a pulse of hunger and something warmer straight through me.
I concentrated on the chains.
Stellan stepped to the left edge of the dais. The wrist restraints allowed his arms to lower but not reach beyond the carved stone. The chain at his waist stopped him half a metre before the red line on the floor.
He tested the right side next, then moved behind the throne until the ankle restraints locked.
“That’s my reach while the court is calm,” he said. “It may shorten the chains again if you touch the throne or offer blood.”
“I’m doing neither.”
I traced a route with the torch. I could stay near the outer wall, pass behind the last pillar and reach the plinth without coming within two metres of him. If the chains moved, I had open space and a heavy metal torch.
The plan wasn’t perfect. It was better than sitting under the house until someone arrived with their own agenda.
I stood.
Stellan moved to the far side of the dais without being asked. He turned his face away from my injured hand and braced both hands against the stone behind him.
He was still dangerous, but moving away earned him some trust.
“If the chains change, tell me before I feel it through the bond.”
“You’ll hear the iron first. Move away from me, not towards the gate. Harrowmere has sealed it, and getting trapped against it would remove your best weapon.”
The explanation made sense.
I started around the room.
The room reacted as I moved. Red light followed my boots. The black roses worked into the pillars opened as I passed, their metal petals turning towards me.
I ignored them and kept my attention on Stellan’s restraints.
The closer I moved to the throne, the more of him I felt. Hunger pulled at the cut in my palm. Desire followed, hot and blunt. An image of my coat on the floor flashed through my mind, followed by his hands on my waist and his mouth at my throat.
I stopped behind the pillar.
Stellan’s fingers tightened on the stone. “Shit. That wasn’t deliberate.”
“It was specific.”
“I’m keeping it from becoming action.”
I looked round the stone. His fingers had dug into the edge of the dais, and every muscle in his arms was tight with the effort to stay there.
The sight didn’t help.
“Keep it on your side of the room.”
“I’m doing my best.”
I believed him. That was becoming its own problem.
The metal case waited on the plinth. It was smaller than the box Arthur had given me, with a narrow handle and a raven stamped into the lid. No hinges or lock showed until I held Edith’s key near it.
A keyhole opened in the raven’s chest.
“Subtle,” I muttered.
The old key turned without resistance. Several catches released, and the lid lifted on its own.
I took two steps back before shining the torch inside.
A thick envelope lay on top of several folded documents. Beside them rested a silver flask and a smaller iron key tied with red thread.
Stellan made a low sound behind me.
The bond filled with hunger so quickly that my stomach cramped.
“Blood?”
“Yes.” He stayed at the far side of the dais. “Sealed and fresh enough to smell from here.”
I picked up the envelope first. Edith had written my name across it in the same large letters she’d used on the first one.
I read it aloud so neither of us could later argue about what Edith had meant.
“Bryony. If Stellan is still alive, give him the silver flask before you unlock anything. It won’t satisfy him, but it will return enough control for the first restraint.
The small key opens the right wrist cuff.
Open that one only. He needs one hand to help you leave the court.
He doesn’t need both. Take the case with you.
Keep the Crown where it is. I trusted Stellan once.
I believe you can trust him far enough to get out. Edith.”
I read it twice. Death hadn’t made my grandmother any less fond of instructions that created more questions.
“She says to give you the flask before I use the smaller key on your right wrist.”
Stellan’s attention snapped from the silver container to my face. The bond passed his hope to me so strongly that I flinched. Caution replaced it almost at once.
“Feed me first, then wait before you bring the key near me. If the blood isn’t enough, keep the cuff locked. Edith was usually right about the dangerous parts.”
I picked up the flask with my uninjured hand. It was cold and heavier than it looked. The stopper had been sealed with black wax stamped with Edith’s initial.
“Before I give you this, tell me what it will do to the bond. I’m not interested in discovering another blood rule after it’s too late.”
“Stored blood won’t bind you to me. It will quiet the hunger and give me enough strength to use one hand without losing control of it. The flask is sealed with Edith’s mark, and I can’t smell any court magic mixed into it. If she prepared it, the blood was meant for feeding, nothing more.”
“And how do I get it to you without entering your reach?”
“Roll it along the left side of the throne. The floor slopes towards the dais. I’ll catch it before it strikes the stone.”
I put the case handle over my arm, crouched near the plinth and sent the flask across the stone.
It rolled exactly where he said it would. Stellan caught it under his bare foot before it struck the dais. He dragged it close enough to pick up, broke the wax and pulled out the stopper.
The smell reached me through the bond before it reached the air.
My mouth watered to my shock.
Stellan tipped the flask and drank.
His throat worked with each swallow. Colour returned slowly under his skin. The hollow look around his eyes eased, and the tremor left his arms. Blood touched his lower lip when he lowered the empty flask.
He caught the drop with his tongue.
Heat tightened low in my body.
The sight sent heat through me. My judgement had been unreliable for the last hour.
Stellan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re staring.”
I looked down at Edith’s case before I embarrassed myself.
The bond changed as the blood settled in him. His hunger remained, but it no longer crowded every other feeling. Strength rolled through his body, followed by a sense of control that loosened my own shoulders.
I kept my distance. “How much control do you actually have now?”
“Enough to think without the hunger drowning everything else. I can still smell your blood, and I still want it. The difference is that I can choose to stay where I am. If that changes, you’ll feel it through the bond before I move.”
Stellan flexed his hands. The right cuff clicked.
A small keyhole appeared under the iron.
Edith’s second key warmed inside the case.
I closed the case and hooked the handle over my forearm. I wasn’t leaving it beside the throne.
Stellan lowered himself to one knee and held his right arm away from his body. The other wrist, both ankles and the chain at his waist stayed locked.
“What can one free hand do that the rest of you can’t?”
“The right cuff keeps me from reaching the raven seal at the base of the throne. Once it’s open, I can press my mark to it while you use Edith’s key.
That will open the narrow service door behind the dais.
The passage leads towards the upper house.
The other restraints will keep me here if the blood isn’t enough and my hunger gets worse. ”
He laid his hand flat against the floor. “If you use the key, step back the instant the cuff opens. I’ll keep my hand down until you’re clear.”
I checked every restraint again. One free hand would leave him fixed to four points of the dais, and he’d warned me each time the court changed.
It was a risk.
So was staying trapped in the room with him half-starved and no way to reach the exit.
I took the small key from the case and wrapped my fingers around the heavy torch.
“One cuff,” I said. “Then we find the way out.”
Stellan’s pale eyes held mine. “One cuff.”
The court unlocked the red line between us.