“I may die of boredom,” I snipped at him during a particularly low moment. “Isn’t there anything to read in this Hive?”
“Hmm,” Dommik said, nodding to the floor. Single syllable responses made up most of our interactions.
The next night I woke to find a pile of parchment next to me. The top piece readThe Forest and The Flame.
It couldn’t be. He couldn’t have.
Handwritten in scribbled black ink were three chapters of the book he’d gifted to me. Dommik mentioned he’d heard the story many times, not that he knew it well enough to write it from memory.
I tried to imagine Dommik, sitting amongst the debauchery of his old Hive, ignoring Valta and any other vampiric beauties that would throw themselves at him as he etched this story onto paper for me. He’d even remembered what chapter I’d left off on.
Below the title he’d written a small note:I hope you have a Lovely time reading this.
I shouldn’t have lit up at his nickname for me written in such an obvious place, but I did. And I did have a lovely time reading the pages he’d provided me. So much so, I read them twice.
On the third day, I’d picked up my own quill to write Rhazien a letter but ended up throwing it into the hearth. The discomfort of my cycle only amplified my annoyance to full-blown anger and like an unmovable field ox, I decided I wouldn’t be one ofthosewomen. Begging for a crumb of attention. Rhazien would come to me. By my second bath on the third day, I’d decided I would make him crawl and grovel and beg for me to even consider throwing a glance in his direction, if I’d even agree to be in the same room as him.
Where the fuck was he?
And what the fuck has he been doing?
Heneededme but he’d said I’d been his equal. Not a toy he could play with until he got bored. Not a tool to be disposed of after it completed its usefulness.
An equal. A queen.
Was this how other queens felt? Ignored? Abandoned? If so, I didn’t want it. Any of it.
Maybe it was nothing more than a transaction. I could have imagined our connection. Exaggerated our bond in my mind.
By the fourth day of my detention, I was a broken creature held together with rage and my unanswered questions caused me to foam at the mouth. The windowless room with no information and no prospect of when this sentence would end was worse than waiting for the axe in the Illica keep.
When Dommik finally came bearing news from Rhazien, I was baring my teeth.
“I’m not in a mood to be helpful,” I gritted from the lone chair next to the stone fireplace.
Dommik stood on the other side of the modest room, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to reason with me. “My lady. Please. We’re so close to leaving. Let’s just do this and?—”
I put a hand up, silencing him. “Vampire business is vampire business. I am not a vampire. It’s not my business.”
The frustrated commander blew a sharp breath through his nose. “You’re Rhazien’s prospect.”
“Am I?” I snipped. “Really? How could that be when he’s nowhere to be found and I’m treated like a prisoner?”
Yours was the name I was moaning four nights ago,I thought but kept it to myself.
I sounded like an entitled brat and hated this version of myself. Weak, jealous, lonely, and wanting.
“He’s—” he began but stopped himself, clamping his lips together into a tight line.
I raised my brows. “He’s…he’s what?”
A whistling tea kettle was less shrill.
Dommik’s head dropped back and he groaned to the ceiling before sending me a pleading look. “He’s doinghisjob. He’s seeing tohisresponsibilities.Hispart of the plan. We need to see toours.”
His dark brows were knitted together and his full lips were set into a slight pout.
Before I could think about all the reasons not to ask, I said, “Am I making a huge mistake?” I turned away immediately, unable to face the disappointment and judgment that I knew would be plastered over his face.
