Chapter 8
Drak
Blood trickled down the curve of Lux’s neck, and as torturous as it was not to lick it up, I resisted. She needed bandages, not another vampire’s mouth on her throat. Not that I should drink from her anyway. Her blood hurt like a bitch.
“Good girl,” I said as she allowed me to scoop her into my arms. “Let me carry you.”
“Don’t patronize me,” she breathed, but it was half-hearted. “You’re not controlling me.”
“No, I’m not. I’m helping you. And you didn’t snap at me when I called you my wife. Maybe we’ll pull off this marriage after all.” A smirk danced on my lips.
Thick lashes fluttered as she lifted her heavy eyelids to stare at me. Her lips parted. “But it’s a lie.”
I knew this would come up. Lux hated lies.
“You know lying isn’t my game,” I said. “But we’re in this together.
” Why did that sound so damn good? I’d never been together with anyone.
Sitting on that throne alone was all I knew since the gods ripped the only family I had away from me.
“I won’t lie to you. This marriage will be a lot easier to play off if you’ll admit what you thought of me when we…
” Now wasn’t the time to bring up the desire I knew we both felt, so I cleared my throat and shifted the conversation.
“I can heal you.” I stared at the bite on her neck.
She tore her eyes away, letting them stare behind me as I carried her down the winding hallway and back to the front of the castle. The dull grey couldn’t be that interesting.
“We don’t have that kind of relationship,” she said, referring to the connection vampires required to heal a human.
This connection had to be both sexual and…
loving from the human’s side…and she had let no one heal her since Kayn.
Despite her claim, I knew she was needy for me, because hints of her thoughts flickered in my mind.
“Wanting Drak is a betrayal to Kayn.”
“Fuck no, it’s not,” I said before I could stop myself.
A gasp escaped her as she flicked her eyes up to mine. Her face twisted into a frown, and whatever softness she had felt for me recently vanished in the wake of my blunt hatred for the Exile.
“That’s not for you to speak on,” she said.
“It’s not, but I’m going to, anyway. Kayn used you—”
Her hand shot to my chest, putting slight pressure against me with the heel of her palm.
“Stop. You’re using me too.” My bow furrowed.
“You want to keep your throne, right? Then you’ve got to deal with Silver’s army, and that means getting me to summon a god for you.
” I shook my head and opened my mouth, but she didn’t let me speak. “How are you any different?”
“I didn’t train you for my own gain.”
“No, but this marriage and the summoning will help you get what you want.”
I couldn’t deny that, but I could show her he was using her in a way that I never would.
“The difference is obvious, Lux. You just don’t want to see it because you’ve been brought up to see me as an enemy of witches.
The executioners were not my doing. They were part of a system I was carefully waiting to change. ”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t see the difference. That fucking bastard is willing to sacrifice you. From the beginning, he only wanted to train you.” She said nothing because she knew I was right. “He insisted you become the huntress.”
“And I don’t regret that.”
“But he had no concern for your mind. Your free will.” Her body stiffened, but I didn’t let her resistance to the truth deter me.
“He watched my mother’s descent into madness when I thought he was just another vampire in our court.
But he was worse. And now he knows exactly the risk he wanted you to take without informing you. ”
“Fuck.”
Her curse came loud and clear to my thoughts.
“I would never lie to you,” I said.
The soft line of her mouth hardened, and she craned her neck to glare up at me.
I never should have brought up Kayn. A sharp hiss of air escaped her before she spoke.
“If you want me safe, then why the Hel are traitors still finding their way into Mara’s Keep?
Isn’t this place supposed to be fortified? ”
“You forget, these traitors were once my council and courtiers. They know Mara’s Keep as well as I do.
Better than you. And the line between those who are still loyal to me and those who are now loyal to Silver is blurred, which means they’ve tricked my guards rather easily.
I told you your sister was dangerous. You didn’t listen.
” I drew her tighter against me, letting her feel the heat of my chest; she was as cold as she was spent.
There’d better be fresh blankets in the healing room.
Maybe she wouldn’t be so Hel-bent on destroying us if you hadn’t ordered someone to sew her mouth shut.
“So I should have allowed her to compel me?” I laughed, but it was empty. “I would have died. You realize that, right? I have no doubt she would have been used to kill me. And you know what it means to do whatever it takes to survive.”
“Fine, then tell me this. Will we be ready to leave for Yggdrasil if Silver doesn’t show up after the wedding?” Her black eyes drilled into me, but it was the blood still trickling from her neck that concerned me the most.
I smiled, but it was hollow. “You know, I admire how aware you are of your body’s limitations. It takes an intelligent and patient person to reach that point. But for a woman as aware as you, you’re dangerously underestimating what the wasteland would do to you.”
If the journey took us too long, she'd wither away like those forced to live in the wasteland. It was a miracle that the witches exiled there by the Blood Council had survived at all. Though most didn’t for long.
Their magic had strung them along, giving them rare chances to cultivate plants and bits of breathable air.
“To no fault of my own,” she snapped, fiery with exhaustion. Or maybe it was because of her defense of Kayn. I’d hit a nerve whenever I suggested he was using her, and now she was like a wild animal in my arms, snapping at me as I helped her. “I’ve never been there.”
“And you really should never go,” I said as I pushed through one of the many unmarked doors that kept this castle a mystery to outsiders.
“This isn’t the way to my bedchambers.” She pushed against my chest again, trying to get out of my arms, but I pressed her more tightly against my body. The look of a wild animal exaggerated as she scowled at me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she bit me at this point.
“The servants have bandages stored near the kitchens.”
“And what do you mean, ‘you should never go there’?” She repeated my words with a bite in her voice. “Does that mean you’re not preparing to go if Silver doesn’t come here? Because we had an agreement—”
I laughed. “I made you a promise, Lux, and I’ll keep it. I swore I’d never lie to you, so when I said I’d guide you through the wasteland, it was the truth. But first, we'll try my method of taking down your sister.”
The door groaned as it swung inward. A small room with dark cabinets lined the walls. The heavy cabinet doors made the space look even tighter. A little table stood against the back wall, and someone had left a bottle open on top. Some sort of citrusy tincture filled the air.
I carried her to the back of the narrow room where two thin candles glowed dimly on a table, the only light in the room.
She twisted in my arms, eyes fixed on the black stains across the floor.
They covered the cracked wooden table and the floor beneath it.
The stone in here wasn’t polished marble like the throne room or many of the bedchambers in Mara’s Keep.
Rather, it was rough and unfinished, porous enough to soak the blood that spilled there.
She was no stranger to blood, but she still reeled back, every limb in her body tensing.
“What is it?” I asked as I placed her on the table. “You’re not usually afraid of blood.”
She forced a grim smile. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” I breathed as I tore a clean linen cloth into strips. “You can’t stop staring at the stains.” I tilted my head to catch her gaze. “Lux, listen to me. I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s the gods isn’t it?” Vitriol curled around my tongue.
“They’re in your head again, messing with your mind.
I told you not to give them control.” I grabbed her arm, and when she ripped it away, she hissed at me like a cornered cat.
Worry flashed across her eyes, and my voice softened.
“It’s not the gods this time. You really think you’re betraying Kayn. ”
Her shoulder twitched in a lifeless shrug. “It’s not that. I just—he helped me. So did Stasia, and now they’re Silver’s hostages because of me. You have no right to say anything about it.”
“Fine,” I frowned. “But it will be your blood staining the stone if you don’t let me bandage you.
” She said nothing, so I got to work gathering supplies.
Yanking a cabinet open, I pulled out a small bottle of brown-tinted cleansing solution and another handful of cloths ripped into strips.
When I turned around, I tilted my head. “Lean against me so you don’t fall off the table. ”
“I can sit here just fine.”
“That’s why you’re falling into the cabinet?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped as she slipped off the table and hobbled toward the door.
I shook my head, tendrils of deep brown hair escaping from the knot at the back of my head. “Have I told you that you’re fucking impossible?”
“Have I told you that your desperation to control everyone is painfully obvious and…” Before she could reach for the support of the cabinet again, she swayed, tipping forward.
I dipped at the knees and caught her in one arm.
Though the skin around her eyes had turned a sickly grey, she stayed awake and aware as I stuffed the bottle and linens into my pocket, then used both hands to hoist her over my shoulder.