Cedric should not have this—not as a divine mage of Osurehm, certainly, or really even as a citizen of the realm. Chthonic was evil, or so it was said, and Cedric had always branded himself as so holy, so righteous, so upstanding, a descendant of a dominion many, many generations earlier. He was one of Archibald’schosen, whatever that meant.
It was only one piece of parchment, but it was enough. Amma hugged it to her chest, a wave of relief breaking against her ribs, and then rolled it up to stuff away in her small pouch. She was careful again, popping the hidden ledge beneath the drawers back into place. Now, to get out.
Amma stood and crossed the room to its only window. This one was much larger than the arrowslit in her tower prison, the shutters on it open. Out over the water, the sky was bright with the new day, and she leaned slightly forward. Though she could easily fit through, nothing about the side of the keep was scalable, only a smooth, unadorned wall and craggy cliffside down to rocky death. The sounds of crashing waves enveloped her, the smell of the ocean and the salty breeze on her face feeling, if only for a moment, like freedom.
“Ah, what a lovely if not pleasant surprise.”
Amma spun, heart so quickly in her throat she choked. The click of the lock had been lost in the sound of the waves.
“Abandon the search; I’ve found her,” called Cedric Caldor over his shoulder just before he shut the door behind him, closing the two of them in.
Amma pressed her back to the cool stone of the wall beside the window, breath stolen, sweat already breaking out on her neck.
Free of his armor, Cedric stood in a tailored dress suit and took to the buttons on his coat with a sigh. “I received word you’d been delivered last night, but when they said you had gone missing upon my arrival this morning, somehow I knew—I justknew—exactly where you would be.” He didn’t bother with the faux bravado he used around others, his distaste for her plain even as he smiled. “So eager to once again be in the arms of your betrothed.”
Amma’s mouth went dry, eyes pinging around the room for a weapon, but she’d been through every drawer and knew there wasn’t anything within reach.
“I must say, I’m surprised, Ammalie.” He shrugged off his coat, the tunic beneath crisp and clean, and he paced around the bed toward her, hands clasped behind him. “I had no idea you were so daring. It’s a shame, really—you could have been put to such better use.” Cedric ran his hand along the smooth grain of the liathau footboard. “But then again, your title is your most valuable asset, and we can’t compromise that, can we?”
Swallowing, Amma heard the crack in her wavering voice before she even spoke, “My parents will want to see me.”
Cedric came around the bed and stepped up to her, eyes trailing the floor, lips curled up in a smirk. “And how are they to do that after the little stunt you and that infernal abomination pulled?”
She pressed harder into the wall and away from him, chest tight, every muscle taut, terrified. “What stunt?”
“Don’t lie to me!” Cedric’s hand wrapped around her throat, pinning her. “I didn’t fall for your games before, baroness! I didn’t bend to your will simply because you promised yourself to me.”
Amma gasped in a shallow breath, a foot scuffing against the wall as she tried to pry his fingers from her neck.
“Do you think your words meananything?” He released her throat, and as she sucked in a breath, he took her by the arms and jerked her sideways.
The wall at Amma’s back was gone, the space of the open window making her stomach drop as her arms flailed, one of them catching the ledge, the other wrist caught by Cedric, forcing her to remain dangling out over nothing.
“I would throw you to your death right now for what you’ve done, for the fool you tried to make of me, if it weren’t for the misplaced fealty those morons in Faebarrow have for you. They love their ridiculous, filthy, little baroness who disgraces herself by working in the orchard, treating those low-born, arcana-less peasants like equals. Disgusting.” The accusations were spat at her as if she were treasonous, but they were not new. He’d berated her before for her desire to leave things in Faebarrow as they’d always been.
She remembered how, at first, he had seemed kind, open, willing even. How he had very politely courted her a year prior, and though she had felt nothing at his hollow compliments and meager attempts at endearing himself to her by way of bragging about his reputation, she had gone along with things because it had been asked of her. Because it was her duty.
Even with her trepidation at witnessing the tiny breaks in his mask, the moments he would say something suddenly cruel and then insist it had been but a joke, or when he would make heartless suggestions and then urge her to understand she had no place in deciding her barony’s future, she had still agreed to marry him in hopes that he would eventually see the value in the way Faebarrow operated, in the prosperity of the people, the health of the liathau, and perhaps even in her own happiness.
But Cedric never changed, he only revealed his true self to her—a man who had no interest in the prosperity, health, or happiness of others, least of all of Amma.
“Fuck you, Cedric,” she rasped out, and then she spat in his face. If he were going to call her disgusting, then that’s exactly what she would be.
He sneered, releasing her shoulder to wipe the spit from his cheek. Amma flailed out over the drop, but his other hand held her firm, and then he snorted. “You pretend to be so demure and innocent—if only they knew.” He forced his knee between her legs and shoved her upward to perch on the window ledge, leaning close, hot breath on her face and vicious smirk gnashing. “But I know, baroness. I know that you’re nothing more than a whore. My fucking whore.”
Amma’s skin crawled. She’d do anything to get away from him, to not smell him, to not hear him, to not feel his hands on her. The waves roared and crashed below, and nausea flooded her guts. “Just drop me—I’d rather die.”
“Of course you would.”
Cedric ripped her back into the room and threw her. Amma hit the bed hard, but his hands were off her, and she twisted to scramble away. When she was grabbed again and Cedric’s weight pressed into her back, she screamed, clawing at the linens but going nowhere, ensnared but refusing to surrender.
A hand came around her face, seizing her by the jaw and yanking her head back, lips just against her ear as her throat constricted. “Scream all you’d like, bitch, no one is coming to help. In fact, some of them are looking forward to hearing it themselves. When I leave for Eirengaard, you’ll be staying behind since whores are so hard to come by out here.”
Amma flailed an arm free from underneath him in her frenzied panic, twisted, and wrenched her elbow into Cedric’s side. He grunted, wincing, and enough pressure was taken off of her to drag herself out from under him and kick backward. Whatever she connected with made him groan in a much more satisfying way, and Amma grabbed the bed’s footboard, grit her teeth, and pulled herself forward.
But Cedric was incensed, and the pain seemed to only spur him on, lunging for her and taking a fistful of her hair, ripping her backward. “You’ve got a lot more fight in you now,” he snorted as she tried to twist out of his grip. There was a crack in her ear as his hand made contact with her face, and she was blinded.
White hot pain bloomed across her cheek and the taste of metal coated her tongue. Amma spat, vision returning to see the blood trailing from her mouth to a spot on the white, imported linens, but the pressure of Cedric’s fist in her hair was gone. She dug fingers into the footboard, clinging so tightly she knew she had to be crushing it, just as Cedric grabbed the front of her tunic and pushed her down onto her back.
