“Didn’t matter much to me if they starved, considering they would have been dead come nightfall. You should be grateful that I gave you some grace. I knew that you would come back eventually. I think you know by now just how serious I am when it comes to my threats.” He walked across the room, taking up a glass that was stained red. Not from wine, Nymiria noticed. No, the consistency of the liquid he drank was far too thick to be wine. He was drinkingblood. He turned to her, smacking his lips before smiling. “You made the right choice in returning. But, what happened with your mate? From the scent of you, I can tell that he fucked you senseless. But… here you are. Why is that?”
She ground her teeth together, making sure every ounce of ire in her body was visible in the hateful look she dispelled upon him. “You won. That’s all that matters in the end, anyway.” She looked around at the horrid state of the room, the smell of blood and other mysterious bodily fluids permeating through the air. “Can you ask them to leave?” She gestured towards the throng of women still sleeping on the bed. “I’m tired.”
She was mid-stride, heading in the direction of the washroom when Everand jerked her to a halt. Her offensive stare penetrated his as he reached for her hand. Nymiria stiffened nervously. There, right where he’d placed it nearly three weeks ago, was the ring. “Good.” His voice purred, rubbing over it with the pad of his thumb. “How did you get out?”
“You think I’d tell you something like that?”
He gripped her hand harder. From the look on his face, it was clear he was tempted to snap the bones entirely. Thankfully, he refrained. “We won’t be having this problem again, will we?” He asked.
She raised her chin. “I just wanted to see him one last time.” With that, she ripped her arm from his grasp. “You have absolutelynothingto worry over.”
Everand smirked, an angry laugh coming from his throat. “I just find it interesting, I suppose. I have so manyburningquestions, but the one thing I find most intriguing is how it must feel to fuck the man who used to fuck your mother.”
Red bled into her vision, her already sharp breaths growing harsher as she glared at him. His face blurred, that anger deep inside of her, the anger she once claimed to not be her own, was now rising to the surface. All sense of right and wrong—all sense of direction faded from her conscience. She was upon him in a flash. Though her body was much smaller than his, it mattered very little with the amount of strength she now bore.
Her fingers were pressing into his throat, nails puncturing the skin. For just a moment, worry flickered over his features. “You’d be wise to choose your next wordsverycarefully.” She snarled.
Everand’s worry turned to pride, his brow arching as he fought to rid himself of her grip. His voice was straining against the force of her hand when he spoke again. “And you’d be wise… to remember… that…Ihave a whole army of my men…ready…to attack the moment anything happens to me.” Her grip loosened just a fraction at the reminder, her brow twitching to the center. “That’s right. Eadyn won’t even see it coming.”
Nymiria forced herself away from him with a belly-deep growl, her hands trembling with fury as she took steps back. The moonflowers on her arms were glowing, a prickling sensation forming at the tips of her fingers. “I curse you.” She began, lips curling up at the corners. “Icurse you, Everand Alvaros. You will know nothing, but failure from this point on. Everything you attempt, every plan that you concoct will be fruitless. Everything you hold dear to you will crumble and rot—it will mimic the makeup of your soul.” Before she could lift her index finger in his direction, Everand was lunging forward, slamming her into the tile flooring.
Her head collided with the stone, sending web-like cracks through a good portion of the washroom. The palace grounds shook. Nymiria’s vision swam, but it did not stop her. “I am no witch.” She laughed.
“But you have the blood of one running through your veins!” Everand yelled, spittle flying from his mouth and smacking against her cheeks.
“Remember that.” She laughed—a sound that would have made her own blood run cold. “Remember that every single time you try to take what isn’t yours. I hope it haunts you. I hope you never have a restful sleep because of it. And when everythingin your life comes to a disastrous end,remember it. Remember thatIam the one who cursed you.Me.”
“Monsters do, indeed, breed more monsters.”
Her head tilted, eyes narrowing curiously. “I’m not a monster, Everand. I am not a witch, a ghost, or a creature of the night. I am a Goddess.” Though his weight felt like a boulder had been placed on top of her, Nymiria brought her hand down upon his face, her light moving through her veins—pulsing through the delicate swirls of vines and the precious curl of moonflowers until it bled from her fingers. It was not her sigil that she’d burned into his skin.
No.
He yelped and cried, and as Nymiria peeled her hand away from his face, she smiled as she looked at what she’d done. There, branded into his cheek, was the mark of a traitor. The same one the evil men who’d captured her at fifteen burned into her stomach. He fell away from her, fingers trembling around the burn. The smell of charred flesh and burnt hair filled the room, but it was no less nauseating than what she’d smelled in the foyer.
“Now,” she sighed, slowly lifting to her feet. “We have a wedding to prepare, do we not?”
Nymiria turned, prepared to rid herself of her clothes and prepare her bath, but as soon as she reached for the hem of the tunic she’d borrowed from Aziel, fire ripped through the base of her skull and the world went black.
She believed she’d learned her lesson about acting on impulse—she’d experienced such a failure when she’d attempted to sneak up on Aziel in a darkened corridor months ago. Allowing her passion and her anger to control her usually ended in disaster.
When she arrived at Thorn’s palace, she’d gone there with the intent togrin and bear it. She tried to play the part, debated giving in to Everand’s commands if only to save Eadyn and those she loved from his wrath. And while there was a very tiny, minuscule part of her that wanted to believe he wouldn’t send his army to kill them all, she knew better than to give him the benefit of the doubt.
She wasn’t necessarily angry with herself for being so rash, she just wished she would have held onto that anger until the end. Perhaps, she would have even been able to do worse.
But revenge was a peculiar thing. It never truly rid anyone of the anger in their hearts—the confusion, the betrayal. Those things lingered for longer than it took for the body of the perpetrator to decompose. Sometimes, it could even follow one to their death and beyond.
After she’d been knocked unconscious in the washroom, Nymiria awoke with a pounding skull and an emptiness inside of her that was unmistakable. The moment she opened her eyes, she knew that Everand had placed another rune on her. Perhaps multiple. There was no way to feel around and figure out how many or how fresh they were—her hands were shackled. She couldn’t even see, for the sack placed over her head.
Based upon the noises she heard and the sensations she felt, Nymiria was very aware that she was inside of a carriage. She hadn’t even been awarded the right of sitting on a bench. It seemed as though whoever had loaded her up, merely tossed her inside.
She groaned as she shifted off of her side and onto her back, the splitting ache in her skull making her wince. Her hands were shackled in front of her body, allowing her the freedom of removing the sack or at least being able to sneak a look. She had an idea of where she was—the smell of this place haunted her most frightening nightmares.
Everand was taking her to Yaar.
Either that, or Dorid had found her.
Her stomach twisted, palms dampening the moment the realization struck her. She lifted the sack just enough to see the gloomy greys and low-hanging clouds of the kingdom she never dreamed of returning to. It was an interesting turn of events, one she hadn’t even been expecting.
