“Sir, all due respect, and usually you are a rock of sense, but your batshit crazy idea would undermine everything she has gone through.”
“She isn’t as strong as when she went,” he bit out, taking the steps two at a time. “She’s weaker. She needs more of my power to sustain her. She is hungry all the time—they are starving her. Not letting her get enough rest. She’s wilting.”
It felt like a hole had opened up in my chest and consumed me. I hadn’t known that about Finley. He hadn’t spoken of it.
“This is my battle, not hers,” he continued, his voice hard and rough, filled with rage. “I will not let her fight it anymore. It is my pain to bear, and I will trade myself for her. She will understand in time.”
“But sire…” I huffed and panted, trying to keep up with him. “Roses don’t wilt, sire.” I sucked in a breath and grabbed the door to keep it from closing in my face after he went through. “I mean, the bush doesn’t. The flowers do, but those are just bee food. The actual plant gets brittle and shitty looking, but it holds up. It weathers the storm. And then, when you least expect it, those fuckers get three drops of water and come back to life and grow wild again.”
“Roses do wilt. They do die. My mother was proof.” He turned left toward the stairs.
“Your mother didn’t have any support. She had a fuckstain of a husband who made her life hell and a son who was suffering. It was draining the life out of her. When you got out, she stopped fighting. She went to her room one night and that was it. She gave in. Finley is not in the same situation. She has a mate who would die for her. She is in hell, but she knows you have her back. So she will not wilt. She will not die. She’ll go straggly and ugly and maybe all fucked up, but at the first drops of water, that bitch will grow wild, just you wait. She’ll fuck up any garden the demon king has cultivated. I mean, I’m really running with this metaphor, but mark my words. She will make it back to us. If anyone could escape her cage, Finley can. That woman breathed life into this ruined kingdom.”
He stopped outside of his door, his back straight and broad but his shoulders hunching just a little. I paused behind him, not sure where this was going. This was all new territory. I’d done a few pep talks, sure, but never this impassioned.
Then again, he’d never mentioned trading himself before.
“I’ll give her two more months. If she’s not back by then, I will summon the demon king and take control of the situation.”
“Four more,” I said, not sure any of us could last four more months of this torment. Actually, Finley probably could. She was stronger than all of us. “Give her four more months. She’ll make something happen by then, I know she will. She just needs time. I can feel it.”
He turned his head a little, as though he might look back. “Three. Three more months. That’s it.”
I opened my mouth to argue, beg, or maybe just cry, who fucking knew anymore, but he crossed the threshold and slammed the door in my face.
“Fuck.” I turned and started jogging down the corridor. “Wait, why am I jogging? I’m not the one on a timeline. Where the fuck am I even going?”
I slowed as the master’s valet walked down the hallway, chest puffed out, back straight, exuding an air of arrogant importance. He wore a tailored suit with a white waistcoat and white bow tie, old-school style. He was the prince’s original valet, and the only reason he hadn’t been killed or kidnapped was because he hid within the castle or the wood every night to keep an incredibly low profile. I admired the brass balls on the guy.
“He needs a pep talk,” I told him as he walked by. “He’s got some crazy ideas.”
The valet didn’t glance my way as he walked past. Not that I was surprised. He had zero time for people who didn’t do their job well, and that was most of the castle at this point. I knew better than to rise above the level of mediocrity, however. Assuming I even knew how, which would be a terrible assumption.
“You going to the party tonight?” Maxine asked, standing at the bottom of the stairs. She had her needlepoint clutched in her right hand, clearly done with her hobby of choice for the day.
“Goddess punch me in the face, Maxine, there are bigger issues right now than parties!” I said, utterly losing my cool now that the master wasn’t within earshot. No, I shouldn’t take it out on her, but then again, she had put salt in my tea that one time, and I had a long-ass memory. “Besides, there are only two lower-powered demons still around, and they don’t have enough juice to make my dick stand up. All that’s left is you fuckers, and not to be a dick or anything, but I’m sick of fucking you people. I’m sick of this whole fucking horse ride, to be honest.”
“You want a horse-fucking ride? What?” she asked, aghast.
I stopped a quarter of the way up the stairs, my hand on the rail, and turned back to see if she was joking.
No, her surprise and disgust and curious expression relayed that that was all she’d taken away from what I said.
“You need help, Maxine.” I turned back up the stairs. “And you won’t find it in needlepoint.”
“Oh, go lick a sponge.”
“I’d rather do that than go to another party, that’s for damn sure. Great goddess blow me, this castle is all wrong. It is one hundred percent wrong.”
Leala was in the tower, taking Finley’s clothes out of the wardrobe, straightening them and dusting them off, and then returning them.
“Leala,” I said as I walked in.
She startled, looking back with wide eyes. “Oh!” She let out a sigh and pressed her palm to her chest. “Hadriel. I didn’t hear you, sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah. Listen…” I started to pace, opening and closing my hands. “Okay, this is going to sound crazy…”
She pulled out another dress and shook it out, running her fingers across a crease. “I’m going to have to iron this one.”
“Damn it, Leala!” I faced her. “This is serious!”
“No, Hadriel, that is hysterical blustering.”
I tilted my head to the side. She had a point.
I went back to pacing.
“The master said that he’d trade himself for Finley.”
She slowed in her movements. “What was that?”
“Yeah, right? It’s fucking crazy. He’s giving her three months, and then he’s going to trade himself for her.” I stopped and faced her again. “She might have three months—she might have three years—but he doesn’t. He cannot stand feeling her suffer without being able to help her. It’s breaking him as nothing else has been able to do so far.”
“We’re all breaking, Hadriel. It’s worse for those of us who knew her the most. I visited her family not long ago. They’ve been hunting the wood for the portals. Hannon, her brother, has decided to go to her. He said they are a team, and he won’t let her do this alone. Not anymore.”
I gaped at her for a moment, at a loss for words. “What the fuck?”
“His animal has been released, but he can’t shift. The master even tried to help him, to no end. He needs someone more experienced to coax his animal out, I guess, but if not even the prince can—”