The room is filled with long, narrow planters, each one overflowing with luminous mushrooms, frilly fungi, lichen, succulents, and other plants that I’ve never seen and have no name for. Similar to the demons he creates, the wight seems to be interbreeding species of plants and fungi from both his world and mine. Thanks to the various bioluminescent varieties, the room is filled with multicolored light—amber, soft blue, muted green, golden, and rosy red.
At the far side of the room, opposite the door, my sister sits in a sort of metal throne, bound there with coils of black vines. She’s been stripped down to her underwear, and she’s bleeding from her brow as well as from shallow cuts along her collarbones, arms, and thighs. The wight has carved symbols into her skin, including his own mark just above her breasts.
Anne has a padded bit in her mouth, part of a harness that’s locked around her head. Her tearful eyes flare with alarm when I step into the room.
The Barrow-Man stands near her with his back to me. He has long black hair, an inky, glossy sheet of it. He’s taller than Beresford and so thin it looks as if a brisk wind could blow him away. The dark silken clothing he wears clings to him like a second skin.
“Welcome, Sybil.” His voice is like gauzy black silk. He rotates to face me, an ethereal fluidity in his movements.
Beresford told me the wight was beautiful, and yet I’m still shocked at his lethal loveliness. Snow-white skin is sucked tight against the sharp, prominent bones of his face. His eyes burn like white stars set in dark sockets, smudged black around the edges and rimmed with long, thick lashes. His lips are plush and purple, with the bluish hint of death. His long, sharp ears aredecorated with twinkling gems, and threadlike silver necklaces lie across his bony chest.
He looks like death incarnate, if death were a beautiful, starving prince.
The Barrow-Man holds a silver chalice, cupped between skeletal white hands laden with diamonds. When he notices my nudity, his fingers tighten on the cup, pointed nails scratching its surface. His pale, fiery eyes take in my form, and the tip of a purple tongue slips out, tracing his lips.
So he does like women.
I bow deeply, then walk toward him, my heart pounding. I try to keep my face soft and pleasant, and I let my hips sway more than usual. “Lord of the Barrow, Genius of Living Design, Prince of Corruption. I heard you wanted to trade. Me for my sister.”
“You,” he breathes. “You have caused me quite a bit of irritation. At last I know why my test subjects have kept disappearing at the most inopportune times. Now that you’re here, with me, perhaps that will no longer be a problem.”
I continue advancing toward him. He doesn’t move, but I notice a slight bulge under the drapery that cloaks his thighs. My body is definitely having an effect on him.
“Why don’t you let Anne go?” I suggest, halting within arm’s reach. “I’m the one you want.”
“Not the only one,” he replies. “Where is the matagot? I know he entered my domain with you. Why isn’t he here?”
“He wouldn’t come any farther. He’s too afraid.” I push out my lower lip in a pout. “You hurt him very badly. Are you going to hurt me, too?”
“A pretty thing like you?” The wight smiles, showing two rows of pointed teeth. “It would be my pleasure.”
He moves so fast I barely see it. One second he’s in front of me, holding the chalice, and the next second the chalice is sitting on a nearby table and the wight is behind me, one cold handcovering my breast and the other splayed against my belly, pulling me tight against his chest. His touch floods my body with a sickening pain and a terrible sense of impending corruption. It’s like I can feel my flesh quivering, waiting, ready for his dreadful command. If he says the word, if he so much asthinksit, my own body will turn against me and begin to rot. My skin will peel, my flesh will blacken, and I’ll decay right here, in his arms.
“You feel it.” His icy breath chills my ear. “You know what I could do to you.”
“Yes,” I manage.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t end you now, you warm, soft thing, you fleshy blood-sac, you needy little human cunt.”
My sister is watching, weeping silently, bleeding. But she hasn’t been rotted or corrupted. She’s hurt, but not damaged beyond repair.
Like the original Beresford, this bastard likes to toy with his victims.
“You want to play with me first,” I say faintly.
“Do I?” His cold fingers compress the flesh of my bare breast. “Do you know what would happen to you if I came inside you, female? Can you imagine what my seed would do to your insides? I’m curious if you could survive it. Perhaps you could. The tonic I gave your father, the one your mother was supposed to drink—it was an experiment of mine. It should have transformed you, not just into a male, but into something unheard of, something marvelous. But we’ll never know if it would have had the desired result, because your fucking cow of a mother didn’t drink it all like a good girl.”
His hand slides down my belly, his long nail teasing my clit viciously, to the point of pain. Anne whimpers, wrenching against the bonds that hold her to the chair.
“What if I impregnate you?” he mutters. “What if we do a little experiment of that kind, to see if you can carry myoffspring? Then I’ll have you and our child as subjects. So many possibilities.”
His hand moves lower. It’s an atrocity, being touched by him, and it’s more horrifying because I know what he’s going to do—he’s going to poke that sharp-nailed finger into my slit. He could tear me up on the inside and not feel a speck of remorse.
I should never have to come him like this.
And yet, the distraction has been very fucking effective.
Beresford,I scream in my mind, as the wight’s claws travel deeper between my legs.Beresford, now!
