Chapter 36
Burn
Cora
My knees pulled to my chest as I laid on my side, I opened my eyes to see a set of white ones peering back at me. I pushed myself to a seated position and stared at him, the Fae who said little but saw much.
“Can I help you, Lovel?” I asked, my voice still thick with sleep.
Cedar and I had gone back to our field of wildflowers and far away from any snow that could touch us. I thought he’d want to talk, but he didn’t. He just wanted to hold me, something I’d long ago stopped wishing for.
“You didn’t tell him, I’m surprised,” the Fae replied.
“Didn’t tell who what, exactly?” If I could simply buy myself time, maybe I could come up with another plan.
Sabel and I had agreed to live. In other words, we would stick to a simple story of, Yes, Keres, you are the father, congratulations.
Only the two of us knew, and we promised for our own sake to ensure it stayed that way.
He smirked, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the far wall. Briefly, I wondered if he was as wary of me as I was him, but I let those thoughts go just as quickly.
“Shouldn’t the shifter know he’s to be a father? Even if he can’t be here to be a part of the child’s life, every father deserves to know. Don’t you think?” An arched brow and a knowing smile were the only features he let free across that stoic face.
My mouth felt dry and my chest tight.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I wanted the words to sound strong, but they fell out in a whisper as my hand clutched my lower belly.
His eyes flicked down to my hand and he shook his head.
“I have a sister. Did you know? Her name is Reina. She’s a spiteful child.
Forever speaking before thoughts fully cross her mind.
When I first arrived, you reminded me of her, but I’ve come to learn that you’re not much like her at all.
Your sister? Silvana, right? She’s a great deal like Reina.
But you, Cora, Ice Princess of the North, you have an understated strength.
It isn’t apparent to those who don’t watch you, the things you hide within that dark stare of yours. The power you bury within.”
His head tilted to the side as he watched me.
“What happened to her? Your sister?”
He smiled. “Nothing. She is home, far across the ocean in my own country, safe from the likes of people like your master.”
Nodding, I spoke the words I often resigned for myself. “I’m glad. Powerful little girls deserve a safe childhood. A time in their lives to look back upon when males who crave power come along and ruin it all for them.”
Lovel smiled then, a full gesture that revealed his sharp canines.
“You’re correct, Cora. But the thing about powerful females is that it makes power hungry males underestimate them.
” He stood to his full height then, his hands falling to his sides.
“I don’t imagine we’ll get many moments like this again, and I don’t imagine I’ll receive a chance to see Reina become a powerful female like you and your sister, Cora.
But I want you to know that despite it all, and despite what is to come, I’m rooting for you. ”
He dipped his head slightly in a bowing fashion before he walked from my chambers, closing the door behind him.
I sat there for what felt like a great deal of time, going over his words. Trying to decipher what he meant, if he was friend or foe, but nothing he said really amounted to much.
Laying back down, I forced a deep breath through my nose, trying to calm my racing thoughts.
I hadn’t seen Keres since I’d found out. Rusor had taken me back to my chambers after my meeting with Sabel. I’d been waiting with bated breath to attempt to learn how he felt, what he thought, anything to show me where this would all end up.
I’d meant what I’d told Cedar—I would do everything within my power to protect our family. I just neglected to explain to him that I hadn’t meant my sister or our friends. I’d meant us.
Needing to do something that would take my mind off of my current situation, I thought of Oren.
When I opened my eyes once more, it was to find myself back in the unlit dungeon, similar to Cedar’s. A box made of stone, one small window on the far wall, and a wolf almost as tall as me on all fours.
“Hello, friend,” I whispered gently. Holding my hand out I took a step towards him. He released a low growl. “I know I haven’t come to visit lately. I can honestly say I’ve been a bit busy, but are you ready to go home?”
His massive head turned to the side, his deep midnight-colored fur appearing even darker in this light. Solid gold eyes peered back at me.
“Oren? Do you understand what I’m asking you?”
He growled once more, the noise turning to a whine as he sat down, his eyes not leaving mine. I took that moment to approach him, and when he didn’t make any sudden moves, I ran my fingers through his fur. Doing my utmost to ignore how dirty he felt or when my fingers got stuck in his matted fur.
“We’re going to get your home. Don’t worry,” I whispered reassuringly.
A knock on the door had me sitting up once more. I’d spent a long time projecting myself down to Oren, whispering stories of how Cedar terrorized the intruders of his home. How determined my mate was to see the place cleaned up for his newfound friend.
The door swung open revealing Rusor. So far, he’d been the only guard Keres trusted outside my door.
“Come, My Lady,” he grunted. His hands clasped behind his back and his stare hard. “He’s ready for you now.”
I sighed, suddenly exhausted by the mere thought of it all as I rose to my feet, my hands straightening out the deep emerald green gown I now wore.
“Lead the way, Rusor,” I said with a flourish of my hand.
He nodded, turning as he led me down the many steps to the main floor of the castle and into the entertainment room.
I wasn’t sure what I expected, but Keres lounging across his throne in the middle of the room with others gathered around the outskirts wasn’t it.
He’d had many of the females lined along the windows, the pillows and couches gone. The only furniture that remained was his golden throne he must've dragged in here once more. Lovel stood to his right, and Rusor stopped at the edge of the room, motioning for me to continue on.
A few guards staggered throughout and what I thought would be a conversation between the two of us felt a great deal more foreboding now.
Once in the middle of the room, only roughly ten steps from him, I gave a slight bow, my eyes still trained onto the floor.
No one spoke.
No one made a noise.
But I felt his eyes digging into me.
Finally, a few heartbeats passed, and he spoke.
“Our lovely Cora has returned home to us, however, it has come to my attention that she is a changed female,” he stated, his voice emotionless. “Cora, look at me.”
My eyes finally rose and met his. Using every ounce of power, I kept my face blank to match his own.
“Where is it?” he questioned, his chin sitting atop one hand as he stared at me.
Silence once more filled the room before I found the words to reply.
“Master?” I replied, the word tasting like ash in my mouth.
“Where it is?” he repeated, this time harsher.
“Where is what?” I shot back, the defensiveness catching in my voice.
He bolted up from his throne, his fists clenched at his sides. “Where is the mark?!” he yelled across the room, his eyes wide as a piece of his dark hair fell in front of his eyes.
My lips parted and the only thing you could hear within the oversized room was Keres breathing. All I could do was stare at him, because I wasn’t sure what he was asking me. He shook out his hands, returning to a more relaxed stance as he pushed his hair back from his eyes.
“Either you’re unaware of what I'm seeking, or you truly are still an idiot little girl inside that mind of yours, with no true ideas of the world.”
My mouth closed and I shook my head. “Master, please, if I knew what you sought, I would gladly answer the question, but I do not.”
Keres smiled then, but it wasn’t a pleased one. It was a smile that said he knew things I didn’t and relished the fact of it all.
He glanced towards the guards on his left and nodded. “Strip her down.”
My pulse skyrocketed as the guards approached me, their expressions filled with a multitude of feelings—distaste, lust, hatred.
I took a step back, only to bump into a fourth guard.
His hands dipped in the back of my dress as he tore, leaving the material to fall to the ground in a puddle at my feet.
Knowing better than to cover myself, I bit my tongue and refused to move, but I did not bow. I did not cower. My eyes met his as the guards tried to turn me, move my limbs, and search for a mark that I wasn’t sure sat atop my skin.
The one behind me pushed my hair over one shoulder and then they all stopped moving, stepping away as the fourth one forcibly turned me away from Keres, my eyes falling to Rusor in the back of the room.
For the first time in my long years of being here, I saw an expression cross his face I hadn’t seen before. It was a look of hatred, clear and dark. But just as quickly the look was gone, replaced by the blank look he’d always worn.
I blinked, unsure of what I’d seen, but then his eyes caught my own.
He glanced above his head, and then back at me, only to do it once more.
Following his gaze, my brow furrowed. A small opening in the top of the room where Keres’s carrier birds flew in and out.
There were four, evenly spaced out in the tops of the walls that led through tunnels to help the birds bring Keres his letters directly.
Hands grabbed my shoulders and spun me back towards Keres, his eyes filled with a new sense of hatred I’d yet to see.
“Sabel confessed you are with child, but she swears on all of her magic that the time adds up to be mine, not the bird’s,” he spat, the vitriol clear in his voice and posture as he glared at me.
I said nothing.
A small internal part of me wanted to cower.
She wanted to bow, use the timid voice that Cedar hated with all of his might.
But I couldn’t do it. Something in my very soul wouldn’t allow it, and I briefly wondered if it was my connection to my raven pounding at the walls of my mind reminding me that he wouldn’t tolerate the docile female act any longer.
I was stronger than that—better than that.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand,” Keres growled, and I saw it then. The male that my sister had seen the day he’d almost killed her.
He was small.
This male was afraid of what would happen if those around him saw him for what he really was—powerless and pathetic. I couldn’t take it another moment.
“How did I never see it?” Shaking my head, I stared at him as confusion crossed his face. “How did I never see what a pathetic male you truly are?”
Egging him on wasn’t the wisest of choice. Especially as I could see the anger within him rising once more. He took a step towards me as if he were ready to strike, but I laughed, a full cackle filling the room as those around us shifted uncomfortably.
He stepped closer still, until there were only two steps between us.
“I shall chain you up to the bedposts, and when you birth my child, I’ll slit your throat before he can cry out for you,” he whispered for only my ears, but I knew those close by had heard what he muttered.
I expected fear to course through me, but nothing came. Only elation for the fact that for the first time in my life, I was free.
“You shall never touch me again, Keres. And when I touch you once more? It’ll be as I watch you take your final breath on this plane of existence. I shall celebrate as the Fates welcome you back into the fold and you burn for all of time.”
His lips parted as shock slid across his features. He struck then, reaching out to grab my arm, but I took a step back.
I pulled on my magic, but not just my own. I pulled on everything the Fates had blessed me with. I pulled my magic and my mate’s, and before I knew it, I was flying. Pure white wings outstretched and flapped as I rose from where I’d been standing.
I soared into the air, letting the magic guide me as I rose towards the ceiling.
“Close the damn gates!” Keres screamed at the guards. It hadn’t taken him long to move past the shock of this moment, but I didn’t let myself worry as I flew towards the open gate that Rusor had glanced at before.
“Rusor!” he screamed once more, but the gate didn’t close the entire way as I flew, and before I knew it I was outside in the darkness and snow, flying towards my mate.