“So polite,” he whispers, and I can hear the grin playing on his lips. “I like it when you say please. Say please again.”
“Please,” I say as his other hand glides along my shoulder before cupping the back of my neck.
His thumb traces the line of my jaw and sweeps across my trembling lips. “Please let you go, or please don’t stop?”
His deep voice fills my head and I can’t remember what I want any more. My eyes flicker open and when I meet his piercing gaze, I almost speak the words that my body is desperate for me to cry out. But something behind him catches my eye. Bright andvibrant and green, something so utterly unknown to Baev’kalath that it shines like a beacon in the darkness. My serpent vine on the table, and at that very moment, I watch helplessly as another of its new leaves falls.
Tears well behind my eyes, threatening to fall as achingly as the leaf, but I do not allow it. My anger returns to me, and I need it. It is all I have in this place. To remind me of what I am here for. What I will die for. The rage gives me the strength to look into his eyes and not falter beneath him.
“No,” I say through grit teeth.
“No, what?” he asks, cupping the side of my face.
“No to you,” I snap back, batting his hand away from my cheek. “No to this. No to any plans you or your strange, horrible family want to do to me and my body.” I slip myself free of the grip he has on my waist and he scowls. “If you will not fight, then I will. I am Jewel of the Tenders, not a Mordorin broodmare.”
Daed’s tongue rolls in his cheek. “On that, we agree. A broodmare understands when to keep her mouth closed and her legs parted.”
The back of my stiff hand flies at the side of his face, but Daed catches my arm before it can connect. The cuff of his sleeve slips down his forearm and I spy the tattoo around his wrist.
A band of circles and half circles and crescents.
Identical to the tattoo on hand that reached for me from nowhere, in the room that doesn’t exist. The hand I am still trying to convince myself was a figment of my imagination.
Daed stares deeply into my eyes and the intense heat between us is thick enough to cut with a knife. He glances at my bandaged hand, blood seeping through the bandage.
“That should be healing, human or not. Why isn’t it?”
I tug my arm from him, but he does not release. “I do not know.”
“Do not let the queen see,” he warns. “She will think you are…”
“Soiled? Impure? Weak? Why should I care what she thinks? She is nothing but scheming and vile, rivaled only by her son.”
“Do you hate me, Amara?” he asks, his jaw clenched, his chest heaving with breath.
The words flow from my lips with ease. “Yes, Daed. I hate you.”
A grin pulls at the corner of his mouth as he releases my arm and I watch the tattoo sink beneath his sleeve.
“Good. That makes this all so much easier.”
He puts his hand behind his back and I feel like a fool to be so unprepared for the genuine possibility that tonight my Fae husband murders me in our bedchamber. But he does not draw a blade to slit my throat, instead he drops his head and dips forward, bowing before me, and when he straightens, I have no clue what will happen next.
“Sleep well, wife,” he says calmly, and when he walks straight past me and his shoulders rise and fall, it’s almost as if he’s relieved.
Daed does not go to the door, or the balcony, but instead to the secret wall panel. He pushes against the wood in such a familiar way that this is clearly not his first time, and the hidden door falls open, revealing the darkened passageway within.
A half grin escapes my lips. “That was your plan all along, then? To make your parents believe we would spend the night together, but then slip out a secret door?”
“I didn’t have a plan,” he sighs over his shoulder. “You and I could be tangled in that bed right now, naked and slick with sweat, with your legs wrapped around me.” A breath catches in my throat. “But I would rather spend the night somewhere else.” He glances at me with a sideways look. “With someone else. Good night, Amara.”
He steps into the passageway, the secret door sealing shut behind him. Instantly, the air turns colder, the rain's relentless rhythm drums louder, and the walls feel like they’re closing inon me. I block out the noise and the worry, wandering to the wardrobe and shedding layers of velvet and lace that pool at my feet. As I slip on my nightgown, the sheer fabric glides over my skin, a fleeting echo of the twilight breeze in The Grove.
It would be easy in my sadness to let the dark creep in and allow myself to surrender. But for my people, I must endure. Endure this place. Endure the prince. Endure the weakness plaguing my body that shows no signs of stopping. I hold up my bandaged hand and spy drops of blood seeping through the binding. It’s getting worse, I feel it. I glance back at my serpentine vine. Another day passes in Baev’kalath. Another leaf falls. She survive here. I can not survive here, and that is when I chide myself for being so stupid. This place. This horrid place is killing us. There is no sun. No soil. No hope.
My stomach growls as I’m harshly reminded of my hunger. It seems each day the Mordorin find new ways to torment me. But I will starve to death before eating the flesh of an animal. I pull back the heavy covers and crawl into bed, the mattress curling around me with a warmth and comfort that feels foreign in this place.
As I stare up at the intricately carved scene on the dark wood frame, I’m transported to a world of rolling ocean waves beneath a full moon and a sky brimming with stars. The full moon. The Lover’s Eye. A shiver runs down my spine, and my stomach flutters with a mix of longing and dread. I wonder how many others have lied in this bed. Gazing up at the stars and moon and waves while the prince… I squeeze my eyes tight, erasing the idea from my mind.
