He chuckles. “And go where? Have you been outside of Isiriel? It’s nothing but wasteland for miles. This is where civilization is.”
I set my head back against the rock behind me. “Seems pretty cut and dry to me.”
“What’s cut and dry is what’s happening here,” he says, but I don’t look at him. I look up at the stalactites hanging above us. “By now, the king knows you’re gone. We’ve made it very clear to him that if he wants you back, he’ll agree to a fair election for the throne.”
I look straight at him. “You’re an idiot,” I sneer.
“And you’re a disgusting slut for fucking a monster.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “This is clear jealousy. You’re mad that you’re not man enough to stand beside one of the Isiriel males. Mad that they’re stealing your women and satisfying them like you never could.”
The impact comes quickly. He doesn’t even bother to hit me with his own hand. He swipes the flashlight hard against my cheekbone. The pain slices through me, and my head throbs. For a minute, my vision is white, and then the world comes back into focus. I blink down at the stone floor.
“Sickening whore,” the man hisses at me and stands. “Your husband can give us what we want, or you’ll die. Better hope he’s smarter than you are.”
I grit my teeth until he’s gone, taking the only light with him, and then I start to cry. My cheek hurts, and the back of my head, where he knocked me out earlier, throbs. I settle my face against the cold stone, and it’s a relief.
Wherever Cage is, I hope he’s safe. I don’t know how easy it is to kill an Isiriel male. They have flesh and bones just like the humans do, but they’re bigger and stronger and are basically walking infernos. He’s safe. I have to believe he’s safe, or I’ll lose my shit.
I don’t know what to do. I work slowly at the ropes on my wrists. I read somewhere that rope stretches over time. Maybe if I just keep tugging at this stupid thing, I’ll eventually be able to stretch it enough to slip my hands out.
My stomach starts to roil from the pain in my head, and I lean over and vomit on the ground. The world is spinning. To get to it to stop, I lay down on the ground and focus on breathing to battle the nausea.
What am I supposed to do now? There’s nothing in this cave but the ring I’m attached to, so it’s not like I’m going to be able to strategically use something sharp to get myself free. I stretch out a hand and run it along the wall. It’s smooth. No sharp edges on which to create fiction and break ropes.
I sigh. I really should have seen this coming. I didn’t know there was an active rebellion against Cage—he may not even know that himself—but I should have at least known that it would be dangerous to get married to a king. Aren’t a king’s loved ones always a target?
Loved ones.I’m not about to delude myself into thinking I mean more to Cage than I do. His wholemy lovespouting was just sex talk. The guy was a virgin twenty-four hours ago, so he would probably call any person who made him come his love.
My eyes grow heavy, the pain in my head inescapable, and eventually, I fall asleep.
I jerk awake, staring into the dark. It takes me a second to realize that what woke me up is a cold, wet cloth being held to my swollen cheekbone. Turning my head, I catch sight of a flame, and my heart jumps.
“Cage,” I gasp, trying to push myself up into a sitting position. I’m somehow even dizzier than I was before, and in the confusing shadow, I try to make out Cage’s face, but my mind can’t seem to form a complete picture in the dark.
“I’m sorry, no,” a woman’s voice says, and I jerk away from the hand touching my face. It’s not the comforting warmth of Cage. Instead, as I’m able to finally get my head to stop spinning, I see the shape of a woman’s face. I scramble away from her, until my back hits the cave wall.
“Hey, hey,” she says, and now that I’m looking right at her, I see the fire that she’s started on the floor in the center of the room and the hand that she still has reached out toward me with the cloth on it. On the floor in front of her is a bowl of water. She’s a human, young but clearly still older than me. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I scoff. “Yeah, sure. You just kidnapped me and are holding me hostage. Oh, and your friend hit me. But for sure, now the abuse will end.”
Her hand falls by her side. “I apologize for him. He’s angry. We all are.”
“Right. Angry that you couldn’t come to this realm and take over.”
She dips the cloth in the water and tries to bring it to my face again, but I shift away from her. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” she says quietly.
“I don’t care how complicated it is.”
She nods, setting the cloth in the bowl. “Listen, I don’t think—”
A roar erupts from somewhere in the cave, cutting her off. She immediately scrambles to her feet, and I start to tug at the ropes on my wrists. Some very concerning sounds are coming from down the hall, in the part of the cave that I can’t see. Someone screams, and I stop moving, stop breathing. The woman who woke me has pressed herself against the wall, as far from the opening to the hallway as she can get. I watch her watch the mouth of the cave.
And then that roar sounds again. I turn toward the opening in the cave just in time to see the entire hallway light up with fire. The woman and I both gasp as the flame floods into the room like there’s been an explosion. I duck my head, but the flames blow in and then immediately die back down, leaving nothing but smoke and darkness in their wake.
The cave is suddenly so hot that I start to sweat. I yank at the ropes and listen as the woman starts to whimper in fear. If I’m being honest, part of me enjoys it. The bruise on my cheek throbs.
“Alice!” Cage’s shout is so loud that it feels like the entire cave shudders.
