“I meant you, Fallon,” he replies softly.
I stop kneading my sore chest. “Is there something that’s escaping me about modern marriage rites? Don’t both parties have a say?”
“They do.”
As we turn down another bend, I ask, “Then why the Cauldron is everyone so convinced I’d ever agree to marry a spineless king?”
Dante halts right in front of me, and even though he’s broad—made broader by his armor—I don’t miss the sprawl of the room behind him.
“Because that spineless king”—Dante’s pupils are tight with loathing—“will feed your little halfling friend a steel blade if you turn him down.”
Dante steps sideways, revealing a sight that stops my heart.
Five
Antoni sits gagged in the middle of another lofty obsidian room, blue eyes wild behind clumped locks of light-brown hair. When his gaze lands on mine, my pulse detonates. I rip my arm out of Cato’s grip, then reach down for the sword in his baldric. Before I can yank it out and behead the Faerie King, Cato shackles my wrist, urging me to calm down with whispers that don’t reach my thundering eardrums.
Glaring at the sergeant, I snatch my hand back, then spin around and slap Dante. “You bastard! You fucking bastard!”
“Fallon, stop!” Cato’s yell reaches me at the same time as the vines from an earth-Fae’s palms.
They slink around my arms, my abdomen, and my collarbone until I’m as trussed up as the boars Marcello roasts on spits. I thrash but that only tautens my bindings. When the vines reach my ankles, I teeter into Dante’s chest, my cheek smacking the gold breastplate.
Fucking Faerie magic.
One of Dante’s hands settles on the small of my back, holding me up; the other grips my hair and levers back my head. “You will regret slapping me, moya.”
“The only thing I’ll ever regret is our afternoon on Barrack Island.” Since my mouth has yet to be gagged, I launch a wad of spit into his face. With immense satisfaction, it slithers down the bridge of his aquiline nose.
The burn of his gaze is forbidding, and yet it doesn’t frighten me. “Remove the sailor’s nails!”
“What?” I choke. “No!” I twist my head toward Antoni, leaving many strands clutched in Dante’s fist. “NO! Antoni’s for naught.” Oh Gods, oh Gods, oh Gods . . . what have I done? “Remove my nails! Take mine!”
“A queen has need for nails; a prisoner does not.” Dante watches the two soldiers close in on Antoni, whose eyes shine with dread.
“The only use I’ll have for them will be to scratch your face, so you best take them, Dante.”
He slides me a bored look.
“Please don’t hurt him.” I hate that he’s reducing me to begging. “Dante, please.”
His eyes meet mine. They’re so cold, they spread ice through my veins.
A tear trips over my lash line. “Please, command them to stop.”
He doesn’t.
As Antoni’s wounded grunts turn into feral cries, heated tears bleed from my eyes.
I weep for him.
I weep with him.
The torture feels as though it lasts an eternity. When his keening abates, I dare a look in my friend’s direction.
Antoni lays on his side, hair splayed around his sweat-soaked face, lids clamped shut, fingertips crimson. A slick puddle blooms beneath his bound hands. I shift my gaze to his chest and survey it until I catch the shallow rise and fall of his rib cage.
Alive. He’s alive. Knowing this does little to drive away the horror and guilt battering my own chest. I’ll avenge you, Antoni. I swear it.
