Something wet splashed against my cheek as I walked, making me pause in my steps to raise my hand. The spit was warm against my fingers as I brushed it away, turning a glare to the man who’d been responsible for it.
“Keep walking, Pet,” Malachi ordered, nudging his knee into the backs of my thighs. “You won’t find any friends here should you do something foolish.”
I turned to the male who’d spit at me, memorizing the sharp edges of his youthful, eternal face. His light hair was so blond it was nearly white, but it lacked the ashen quality of Caldris’s. His eyes glimmered with a vibrant purple hue, the deep glare sinking inside me as I looked at his tense mouth.
My own twitched into a smile. “How brave you must feel to spit on a chained woman when surrounded by your friends. Let me assure you, boy,” I said, smiling when he sucked in a ragged breath. I had no doubt he was older than me, but I didn’t let that technicality keep me from forging on. “I do not need my magic to kill you.”
I turned away from him suddenly, my steps continuing forward as I left him forgotten. One day, I’d remember to return the favor he’d shown me. I’d show him how it felt to be unwelcome just for existing.
I’d show them all.
5
Estrella
Malachi stopped us in front of an ornate door, reaching over my head and rapping his knuckles against its metal surface three times in quick succession. Someone on the other side pulled it open, and a male’s face filled my vision. He looked over my shoulder at Malachi, then stepped to the side to allow us entry. I moved into the room slowly, my eyes scanning from side to side as I looked for the threat I knew must be lying in wait.
The walls were crafted in that same blue-tinted stone as the rest of the palace, and heavy brown curtains hung over what I presumed was the sole window in the room. They’d been drawn closed, keeping out any light that might have drifted into the room. To the left of the door sat a single bath. Small side tables carved from heavy, cherry-hued wood were placed sporadically around it. The bed frame was carved from the same wood and had four pillars which jutted toward the ceiling with pointed spikes meant for murder rather than functionality or practicality. A lone fireplace with light limestone lining the mantle waited just beside the bed as a fire blazed in the hearth.
“How are we to have a civilized meal with her smelling like death itself?” a woman asked.
I spun to look at the long table set up in the alcove to the other side of the door. The guard closed the door as I stared at the table, allowing my gaze to travel up from the female’s feet to the dangerous beauty of her face. Mab’s dark eyes snagged mine. Her lips twisted into a disgusting snarl, as if she hadn’t been the very cause of my appearance.
“I would hate to inconvenience you,” I said with a droll smile, glancing over my shoulder at where Malachi lurked. “Return me to my cell and I’ll gladly fit right in with the smell of decay you’ve provided in such lovely accommodations.”
“That mouth will be your downfall one of these days,” Mab said, her voice quiet. While others may have mumbled these words, Mab whispered them threateningly. She didn’t need to speak loudly in order for her message to be heard, not when she was the epitome of evil in the world. To mumble would be beneath her.
She raised her hand, plucking a ripe berry from a bowl on the table and pinching it between two long, black nails. “Bathe her,” she instructed, placing the berry on her tongue as Malachi’s hands grabbed my shoulders. He turned me away from where Mab sat, heading for a water basin with hot steam billowing up over the edge.
I shrugged his hands off me, swatting them away as he stopped beside the basin and waited. With the iron shackles on my wrists, I was limited in how much I could fight. My magic wouldn’t answer my call, hovering just out of reach like a bitter torment.
Mab sighed behind me, as if my obstinance was futile. It didn’t matter if I ended up bathed, I’d take a part of Malachi with me in the process.
“It doesn’t need to be this way. You must long for a nice bath after your week in the dungeon. Get in, and we’ll allow you to wash yourself at your leisure.”
I swallowed, warring with my pride. I knew what the right choice would be for my health and my desire to not be touched. “I can’t remove my dress,” I said, raising my shackled hands in the hopes that I could gain even the slightest bit more power in this situation. Whatever game Mab was playing, whatever fool she thought me to be, this would never be a civilized meal.
She wanted something, and I very much wanted to keep it from her.
“Malachi,” Mab said, waving her hand passively.
Malachi approached my side, removing a dagger from the sheath at his waist. The fabric of my dress tore down over my ass and thighs, leaving my undergarments exposed.
“Hold still, Pet. I would hate to cut you when I don’t intend to,” he said, the cruel twist of his lips displaying the truth to his words. He would cut me later on. He would bleed me. He would do everything in his power to break me.
I raised my wrists cooperatively, holding his gaze as I held my head high. I wouldn’t show signs of bending as he stripped me from my clothes and did his best to humiliate me.
His dagger slid beneath the hem of my sleeve, cutting the fabric as he slid it up my forearm with painful slowness. The edge of the blade glided against my skin. His eyes held mine, making it very clear just how much damage he could do with a single flick of his wrist. He cut all the way to my shoulder, watching as that half of the dress fell to my waist.
I turned my gaze away, refusing to think of his stare upon my flesh and what Caldris would feel through our bond. Malachi stepped around my back, not touching me until he came to my other arm and repeated the process. When he cut through the final threads of the fabric, it fell to my feet.
I slipped out of my underwear, shoving them down my thighs and stepping into the scalding water of the basin. If the intent was to burn me alive to make sure I wouldn’t carry a disease to the Queen of Air and Darkness, they’d met that goal. I lowered myself into the water, ignoring the way my flesh burned and grew pink beneath the heat. Malachi stood beside the basin, watching every move I made as I took the soap in hand and scrubbed the dirt from my body. The water changed color, becoming murky as I sank lower and scrubbed my hair.
“I was told Alfheimr had special products for washing hair that would make it sparkle with life,” I said, glancing toward where Mab eyed me with disdain.
“You’ll earn such luxuries in time if you behave,” she said, continuing to eat the berries from the bowl on the table.
“I’ve never been very good at doing what I’m told,” I said, dragging my fingers through the snarls in my hair as it floated on the surface of the water.
“Malachi,” Mab said softly, and I barely had time to begin to scramble out of the water before his hands were pressing into the front of my shoulders. He shoved me down until water covered my face, then held me there, keeping me trapped beneath the surface. I stared up into the warped sight of his features as the water sloshed against the sides of the basin while I struggled.
My lungs burned with the need to breathe. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold it for any longer, Malachi lifted me out of the water. I sputtered, desperately sucking back a deep lungful of air. He shoved me back down the moment I’d stolen that lone breath, forcing me beneath the surface so harshly that my head clattered against the metal of the basin.