Caspian blinked at her response and swiftly returned to his conversation with Mammond, leaving her to eat her meal in peace.
She focused on her meal, but snatches of their conversation were impossible not to overhear. Mammond mentioned something about an enemy in the Underworld who had recently started launching attacks. Apparently, this new demon was well on his way to destabilizing the current regime in the Underworld.
“A war is coming. You best ready your legions. Lucifer will come to call,” Mammond said darkly.
Caspian drawled, “We will be ready when he does, if the little squirt even gets that far, which I highly doubt.”
Her feelings of revulsion only intensified as Mammond finished his goblet, smacked his lips, and turned to Caspian. “Shall we go hunting again today?”
Caspian glanced at her before nodding.
She excused herself, standing up swiftly, and curtseyed with her eyes glued to the wall, unable to look at them. What poor woman would meet her end tonight?
The question haunted her as she climbed the stairs. She tried to distract herself—arranging the inky black poppies in the vase on her bedside table, organizing her jewellery box, and determining which items she might be able to sell next—but nothing could quiet the churning in her stomach.
Every creak and sound from below made her angrier. Made her wonder if the demons were preparing to leave to hunt for another innocent woman.
Was she better than the monsters? If she stayed here and allowed Caspian to dress her in tulle and silks and give her sacks of gold?
The blood whore of a demon.
That’s what she had become.
She closed her eyes. The gold he gave her each week, and the safe landing where she didn’t have to pay for accommodations for a few months, would likely mean the difference between being a well-off commoner when she left, and being so poor that life would become very difficult.
She bit her lip, and her brows drew together. She had always assumed that she couldn’t leave because of the contract—that she had no choice but to stay the whole three months, but guilt was eating away at her.
Would there be another body in the cellar tonight?
And by saying nothing, doing nothing, had she caused the girl’s death as surely as if she had wielded a knife?
Unable to bear the confines of her room any longer, she rose and walked briskly to the library—her safe refuge in this house of horrors. At least there she would be alone and surrounded by books, far enough from the rest of the castle that she could pretend that the world outside the library walls didn’t exist.
The evening found her nestled in an armchair by the window, engrossed in her book, when something caught her eye. Another tendril of darkness snaking out from the bookshelf across from her, curling above the writing desk that held the coin and the stamp.
When she got up to investigate, it was gone.
She peered at the shelf, but there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. No answer as to where the tendril of black smoke could have come from. Frowning, she returned to her book, determinedly ignoring the corner of the library that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
Elizabeth had just settled into her chair and turned the page when Caspian came up to her. He wore a dark travelling cloak, billowing behind his frame like wings of a bat. She glanced up, and then back down to the pages in front of her, struggling not to roll her eyes.
“Don’t,” he said, lifting a hand.
She looked at him in question.
“I saved you. I kept every ridiculous line you drew in the sand. Do not look at me like I am the monster.”
Elizabeth closed her book with a snap and strode up to him, so close their chests were almost touching. Fierceness burned in her eyes, and she had never wanted to snap at someone so much in her entire life. She smiled a cold, cruel smile. “Enjoy your hunting party,” was all she said as she turned on her heel and left, leaving him standing there looking incredulous.
She was proud of herself for not saying any of the vile things at the forefront of her mind.
He strode after her. She glanced back and caught a wave of his emotion, anger visible in every line of his body. What a horrible aura for someone to have. A pit of fire and burning rage. That’s all he was.
She walked faster.
He grabbed her wrist.
She looked at him sharply, and he glanced down at her arm, as if surprised to see he had grabbed her in anger and released her immediately.
