I sit, my legs feeling like they belong to a stranger. I stare at the steam rising from the tea, my hands knotted in my lap. I want to ask her how to get out. I want to ask her for a weapon. I want to tell her to run.
But the words that itch at the back of my throat are a betrayal. My tongue feels heavy with the shame of them. I try to swallow them down, but they’re like glass, cutting me from the inside out.
“Where…” I start, my voice cracking. I clear my throat, looking at the floor. “Where is he?”
The question hangs in the air, pathetic and needy. I hate myself. I want to reach into my chest and squeeze my heart until it stops thumping for a man who stripped a human being in front of me.
Sloane pauses, her hand lingering on the silk napkin she’s unfolding. She doesn’t pity me—not like Elena did. She looks at me with a knowing, weary sort of recognition.
“He is at the North Gate,” she says softly, her eyes moving to the window. “There was… a disturbance last night. He’s seeing to the cleanup.”
“Is he…” I bite my lip, the words slipping out before I can choke them back. “Is he hurt?”
I want the answer to be yes. I want to hear that he’s bleeding out in the dirt. But my pulse is racing with a frantic, sickening worry that makes my stomach flip.
Sloane gives me a small, sad smile—the kind you give a child who’s fallen in love with fire.
“Mr. Hale is many things, Miss Wendy,” she says, her voice as smooth as the marble around us. “But he is rarely the one who ends up bleeding. He’ll be back shortly. He told Vane that he had… unfinished business in this room.”
She leans down, tucking a loose, damp curl behind my ear, her eyes searching mine. “Eat your breakfast. You’ll need your strength. The master doesn’t like it when his things aren’t… resilient.”
She picks up the empty carafe from the nightstand—the one that held the honey—and walks toward the door with that same confident, swaying stride.
“Wait,” I whisper.
She stops, looking back over her shoulder.
“Does he… does he ever talk about her?” I ask, my voice barely audible. “The woman before me?”
Sloane’s expression shifts, a shadow of something dark and ancient crossing her beautiful face. “There was no one before you, Miss Wendy. Not like this. Many women have walked through these halls, but you’re the first one who made him leave the lights on.”
She slips out of the room, the door clicking shut behind her.
I’m alone again. I pick up a piece of the toast, but it tastes like ash. I look at the door, then at the bed, then at the bite mark on my shoulder.
“Come back,” I whisper, the tears starting to fall again, hot and furious. “Come back so I can kill you.”
The toast remains untouched, a dry, crumbling square of wheat that looks like a tombstone on the silver tray. I stare at the closed door, Sloane’s words echoing in the vaulted silence of the room.
No one before you. Not like this.
“Liar,” I hiss, the word wet with the salt of my own tears.
My mind is a jagged mess of broken glass, each shard reflecting a different lie.Not like this. What does that even mean? Does it mean he hasn’t flayed anyone else’s sanity? Does it mean he hasn’t painted anyone else’s skin with honey and salt before?
He’s a collector. That’s what he said. And collectors always find a newer, brighter toy.
“He’s playing with me,” I whisper, my voice cracking as I pull my knees to my chest on the velvet chair. “He’s just waiting. He’s waiting for the moment the fire in my eyes goes out, and then he’ll get bored. He’ll get bored and he’ll reach for that silver scalpel.”
I can see it so clearly. My skin draped over the goldrod in the dining room, next to Mikhail’s. A matching set. The “Hale Collection.” He’d probably laugh while he did it, making some witty, comment about how the black lace of my dress looks better without the girl inside it.
I sob, a violent, racking tremor that makes my ribs ache.
But it’s not just the fear. It’s the rage—the blistering, white-hot fury directed at my own treacherous heart.Why do I care that he’s at the gate? Why did I feel that sickening, oily slide of relief when Sloane said he wasn’t hurt?
“You’re pathetic, Wendy,” I snarl, my fingernails digging into my own palms until I draw blood. “He’s a murderer. He’s a monster who choked the air out of you an hour ago, and you’re sitting here like a fucking widow waiting for him to come home from the wars.”
I hate that I miss the weight of him. I hate that the room feels too large and too cold without his terrifying, suffocating presence. I should be looking for a way out. I should be tying bedsheets together or looking for a heavy lamp to bash his skull in when he walks through that door.
