CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HEART OF GOLD
I didn’t know if I was in a dungeon, a cellar, or inside the floor.
The groan echoed, mournful and hoarse, coming from all directions at once. I scrabbled backward, clawing at the dirt floor with my hands and feet until my back pressed against planks of wood and the top of my head was squashed under a low ceiling.
Fumbling for my knife, I dragged it from the holster on my thigh and slashed through the cold air. The blade whooshed in the stillness, contacting nothing.
Siobhan. Her name stuttered on the tip of my tongue. She could control the spirits and could manipulate the entire castle, but I’d held out against her for almost twenty years.
She’d found me sitting alone in the small barn that day after the storm. I’d left the house, the smells, the atmosphere, and mechanically started my chores. The animals were grateful to see me. The chickens swarmed my feet, clucking impatiently for treats, and the three brown cows lined up next to the milking stool, lowing calmly.
I’d seated myself and dragged an empty pail closer, losing myself in the rhythmic swish, swish, swish, of the milk hitting the metal bucket, coils of steam rising into the air. Siobhan sat behind me on a bale of straw, gently stroking my hair. She didn’t offer me an escape, nor answers.
It was never my decision to make.
Instead, she visited every week for the following year while I carried eggs and milk to the market, slowly selling farm equipment, animals, and clothing to pay my way. She bartered the deals, getting me grossly unfair prices.
I’d idolized her. I tried to rub pure lily pollen on my skin to emulate her scent and padded my hips and breasts to steal her curves. When the deal was finally struck, I was powerless to refuse as the Collectors had chosen me to save them from death. Then she’d transferred a thread of her magic, binding me to my role. I’d be successful for her; do any task she set and make sure I excelled at it. Every smile, every lingering touch, far exceeded the monetary payment. She became my only constant.
It took me many years to uncover the truth and finally see the bodies, crimes, and heartbreak left in our wake. By that point, I thought I was too far gone to save myself.
But I wasn’t hers. And I wasn’t ready to prostrate myself before her.
Something heavy and metallic clunked to the floor, vibrations rocking my body. Very slowly, it dragged toward me.
Another groan sounded, lower, harsher, closer.
I lashed out with the knife again.
My hand dragged through a turbulence in the air, igniting my entire arm. Something shrieked, rancid breath billowing into my face. The blade burned in my palm, and I threw it down, already smelling my seared flesh and feeling the slick drops of serum run down my fingers.
I lunged forward, grasping for the other knife I had stashed in my boot, but multiple hands cinched around my wrists, my ankles, my neck. I flew through the air, smashing down in the center, my face crushed into the dirt.
Freezing shackles snapped around my ankles and a chain dug into my flesh as it wound around my neck, connecting my hands and feet. Even when I lay panting and writhing and cursing on the floor, the bony hands lingered on my body. I knew the ash marks would be branding me with their touch.
The magic in my blood lay dormant, hidden deep within my soul. It knew that when detected, they would slash open my veins and exsanguinate me with hungry maws sucking and clawing for every last drop. The blood from that poor woman in the pit must have gone somewhere. Fed something. It sensed what the prince wanted before I did.
I lay pinioned until my heart forcibly slowed, the cold spearing into my resistance. The room remained pitch black, its darkness spinning around me whenever I tried to focus. Hours may have passed, or was it a day? My stomach growled, my throat barren. Did I want to die this way?
I couldn’t do it. I shouldn’t do it.
My jaw smashed together, shivers wracking my body. Only one person could save me.
“Siobhan?” It was a whisper, forced through gritted teeth. Something in my bones told me she’d come this time.
A circle of warmth enveloped me, her sweet lily scent curdling in the air. She stroked my hair, her lips pressed against my forehead. “You’re ready, my love?”
I would never be ready.
“I want out. I’ll join you, but I want the Collectors freed. I will not be responsible for their deaths.”
“Once was enough, my dear, yes? That blame you set upon yourself has been carried around with you for an unnecessarily long time now.” Her nails massaged my scalp. Tingles of warmth ran down my neck and loosened the rigid muscles of my back. “It’s hindered many of my plans.”
“Or give them another bounty hunter.” I swallowed, leaning into her touch, despising myself more with every flush of warmth toward her.
“It’s not your deal to make. They chose this life and the bond they signed is unbreakable. They were ripped from death’s clutches with the caveat they repay by serving me.”
