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Her brother.

Her pale-blue eyes never left mine as he gently unlaced her gown and kicked the door to his chambers closed with the heel of his boot. He was being so caring, so loving with her. This was nothing like the other women I had seen come in and out of these rooms. She was here willingly. She was here at his indulgence, and he was with her at his.

Her fucking brother! She’s fucking her brother!

The weight of my situation collapsed in on me, crushing me under it. I made a deal with The Oaken Rose, the sister of my tormentor, the one who had threatened my life in open court. I made a deal with the one Fae aside from the Ard Rí that I should have never even talked to let alone agreed to anything with.

My body was vibrating, unsure whether I should bolt or attack or evaporate into the ether around me. I needed to do one of them. I needed to do something, but I was stuck, locked in my prison of a body as the two before me slowly, lovingly, and passionately undressed each other.

The King did not even bother to look over at me. He didn’t even seem to notice me as he whispered poetry to his sister, kneeling to capture one of her pale pink nipples in his mouth. Her fingers snaked down and buried themselves in his long hair as she broke eye contact for the first time since she entered, her head tipping back in ecstasy.

His arms circled her, pulling her hungrily against him as he devoured her breast to the tune of her moans and the bass strikes of my heart.

The linen shirt slipped from my fingers and drifted to the floor. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to look away. I wanted to look anywhere but at the pair of demonic angels before me as he lifted her easily from the floor, wrapping her legs around his head, the loud, slick suckling sounds twining with her lascivious, panting moans. My eyes followed them to the bed as he gingerly laid her flat on her back. He rose from his knees, captured her lips in a heart-melting kiss, and thrust soundly into her. They both held their breath, savoring the delights of that first stroke.

I couldn’t flee, but I needed to. I wanted to. All I could do was dig my thumbnail into the palm of my hand and trace a two and one over and over again, matching the frenzied pace of the two before me as they fucked with the grace of two schooled and enamored lovers.

The scent of my blood mixed with the scent of their arousal filled up my senses and drowned me in agony. I screamed inside my head, begging for none of this to be true, for everything to be a lie. The truth had to be that I had an ally in this horrid place. It had kept me from the darkest parts of this existence. That single thread of hope dangling the rotten carrot over my head was all I had.

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I kept slicing, kept digging. Maybe the pain would drive away the nightmare. Maybe the two crying out for each other and whispering their undying love and carnal need in front of me were the illusion, the lie. Maybe if I could wake up, it would all go away.

When Oaken Rose tipped her head back, her eyes connecting with mine and a malignant smile spread from ear to ear, I knew it was not.

Movement from the sitting room caught my attention, but I could not look away from the sight of the King wrapped in the alabaster limbs of his sister as he thrust into her and rained praise and devotion into her rose-bejeweled hair. The Oaken Rose captured his searching mouth in hers, and their tongues warred with each other in sensual indulgence.

Black leather filled my senses, and hope burbled like a dying spring within me. Could it be him?

The body that crept into the room, pushing the well-oiled door only wide enough for them to slip through, was too narrow, too wiry and thin to be The Raven. Even though it was clad from head to toe in midnight, I would know The Raven’s frame from a mile away. He towered above every other Fae in court by nearly a foot and a half. His shoulders were wider than any other, broad, like an ox. His chest was a deep barrel that drew the air from my own lungs. His hips were not narrow like this one’s, and his thighs were like massive trunks.

I tracked the newcomer’s movement, even though the pair did not notice. The flash off the steel of a dagger winked at me in the midafternoon sun streaming in from the window. The blade already looked slick, well-oiled or dripping with some other substance.

I tried to scream. I tried to yell to get the attention of the King and his sister. I didn’t want to save them, but the natural impulse to do so overrode my derision for their very existence. It was no use, though. The King’s tongue lock on me had always been firm, unyielding, no matter how hard I tried to break it. No matter how hard I pushed against it, it held fast.

The world spun to a halt as the dagger was raised over his back, and The Oaken Rose finally took notice. It was too late, though. Strike after strike rained down on him with a solid thunk, like a melon being split, ringing through the silent chamber.

That silence hung as all four of us stood completely still for a fraction of a second before the room exploded in chaos. The Fae in all black tried to rip the dagger from the King’s back, but it was stuck. The Oaken Rose gasped and began pushing at her brother’s shoulders. The King looked up at me, disbelief and confusion playing across his ethereal face. I was frozen there, my thumbnail buried in the arch of the two.

And then everyone was moving but me. The black-clad figure was slithering through the door, with not a single sound.

The Oaken Rose managed to wriggle free from under her brother and was shoving herself into her gown. She did not even spare him a single look as she dashed away after the figure in black.

The King crumpled to the floor. Gasping rattles were all that came from him as I finally felt sensation flow back into my body, and I was dashing for him.

Fucking empathy. I wanted him to die. I wanted my face to be the last thing he ever saw. Yet there I was, slipping in the puddle of blood on the stonework as I tried to help him up. He was too heavy, though, and I couldn’t even lift his arm. His eyes connected with mine, and I saw dark-moss-green-and-black fingers spider through the whites of his fear-flooded gaze.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I screamed for help.

Nothing came out. No sound slipped through the tongue lock at all. Not even a whispered whimper of futility.

You stupid fuck. I can’t even get you help! I mouthed in rage at him as I pushed up, covered from head to toe in his blood. I grabbed the first thing I could find, not knowing what it was or where it came from. But I threw it as hard as I could. The crash of it shattering the window by the bed was satisfying.