Chapter 9 #3
“Am I one to make idle threats, kanin?” He twirled the strands he’d chopped around his finger.
I wanted to kill him. I wanted to impale his body on the tower’s weathervane and watch him sink down it, screaming in agony.
“Answer me,” he growled.
“No.” I spat out the syllable.
“So next time I call . . .?” He left for me to finish.
My chest heaved in fury, blazing fire through my gaze. My jaw locked down, rage bubbling like a cauldron under my skin.
That was the only warning I got. He yanked the knife from my skirt, the one I took from him at the cabin. He grabbed one of my thin braids still woven into my hair and sliced through it. The long plait hit the stone floor with a plop, the severed locks falling loosely right below my ear.
He might as well have stabbed the blade through my chest. I stared at the hair on the ground, the embedded response to scream and cry trembling my body, like he took a chunk of flesh from me too.
My fingers itched to touch the sheared ends, but I didn’t move.
“You disobey me again, it all comes off.” He spoke close to my ear. “Let’s try this again. Next time I call you . . .”
“I come.”
His lips twitched. “Good girl.”
Hate wasn’t a strong enough term for what simmered under my skin. He purposely made me say it. He wanted to put me in my place. Punish me.
The Northerner motioned me to follow him to where he’d laid the pine for bedding, tucking us away from view of the door.
Everything in my bones rejected the notion.
I grew up with people following me, obeying my orders.
Not that I abused it; the king made sure I understood the limits of my power every chance he got.
But it still rubbed every inch of me wrong.
To me he was still the thrall. The one who should bow.
“Lie down.” He pointed to the thin layer of padding barely coating the decaying stone, the roots from trees and plants coming through, swallowing the floor.
My protest sizzled on the tip of my tongue, but I bit back. Grinding my teeth, I lowered myself onto the pine needles, glowering up at him.
“I said lie down.”
Red tainted my vision. He could see the rage constricting my muscles, enjoying the power he had over me.
Inhaling, I wrapped my cloak around me and curled up on my side, facing away from him. He dropped down next to me, and my back stiffened when I felt his body brush mine. I tried to worm away, put space between us. His arms came around me, pulling me into him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I sat back up, protesting his hold. “Don’t touch me.”
“You think I want to?” he sneered, yanking the laces out of his boots, using them to tie my wrists together, then wrap one around his own wrist, triple-knotting them. “I need some sleep, and I don’t trust you not to sneak off.”
“I won’t.”
“Forgive me for not believing a word you say.” He rechecked the bonds, making sure I couldn’t get out of them. Balling up his cloak under his head, he plunked down with a huff, tugging my arm when he shoved it under his head and closing his eyes as if I wasn’t there.
Dizzy with rage, I sat there, his slow, even breaths met with the soft breeze whistling through the tower, echoing like the moans of ghouls against the stone.
My bones sagged, exhaustion claiming every piece of me.
My system cried to shut down, black out the starving stomach, the pain, the lack of sleep, and the grief I still had not fully acknowledged.
I had lost someone who was like a sister.
I could easily blame the man lying next to me, but so much of it was my fault.
My head dropped forward, the short, uneven strands falling on either side of my face.
The wound in my arm throbbed, not letting me forget—I had almost been chopped up and eaten.
The king would never find out what happened to me.
The White Raven vanishing, my soiled betrothal dress and shoes the only evidence I ever passed through that area.
Another woman’s memento of what happened in that cabin.
Lowering myself fully back down to the ground, I blinked numbly up at the collapsing ceiling, covered in vines and roots, the dim light casting through the windows. I craved the sunlight, wanting the rays to shred through the darkness, where horrors seem to flourish and thrive.
The shadowy light was a reminder that as the sky darkened, my chances of getting home dwindled.
There was no doubt the king had guards searching for me, commoners on the lookout for any sign of me.
My kidnapping was a declaration of war, but here I felt nothing but the quiet.
The isolation. The terror no one would find me. Or possibly even care.
Homesick and broken, I turned on my side, forgetting the string tying my wrist to his. His arm came around me, his body curving in behind. He muttered something in his sleep, tucking in tighter, his heat blasting over my chilled skin.
My will wanted to throw him off, get as far as I could from him, but my body had no fight left.
I craved slumber, where I could mentally elude the bonds I could not physically escape.