Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 27
For he would let nothing stand in the way of everything he’d spent years working to achieve.
I fought back a new wave of incoming tears, my lungs tight as I stared down at the ivory cotton linen of the bed. Beyond being an enjoyable pet in his games of revenge, I didn’t matter to Florian. Not nearly enough to change anything. To change him.
I pushed thoughts of him and what he might be doing in my absence aside as the silence in the room swelled once again. “I thought the hunt was composed of those who choose not to belong to any faerie court?”
Molkan lifted his hand from his cheek, saying casually, “They are exactly that.” Noting why I was confused, he smiled slightly, and the sight gave me a modicum of comfort. “Avrin’s brother is a member, and so he is permitted to travel with them from time to time when scouting for things we need.” His expression hardened. “Things that have been stolen from us.”
He hadn’t meant me, yet I was too hesitant to ask what he did mean.
“Artifacts, books, coin, seedlings,” Molkan explained. “Even magic-infused items used to help ward our palace walls.”
“How do you ward a place with items?”
Molkan flashed his teeth in a quick grin. “They contain my blood, you see, but once they’re removed from my land, they become nothing more than collectibles for the curious.”
I frowned. “Florian takes such things from you?”
His brow arched. “You say his name with significant ease.”
My cheeks threatened to flush and give away all of the mistakes I’d made within enclosed rooms and carriages—skies, even atop a horse.
But I maintained eye contact, relieved when Molkan said, “He and his beastly blood-drinking ilk take all that and more, yes.”
Now would be a good time to ask why, but I already knew.
He seemed to assume as much, nodding once with a rough exhale. “You have less questions than I thought you would.”
“I was almost killed,” I said, ignoring the urge to touch my throat. “And my lifelong desire for answers is the reason for that, so...” I smiled as best I could, and nervously combed my fingers through my blood-streaked hair. “I think I just need a moment to remember them all.” My fingers snagged on a small twig. I pulled it free, inspecting another reminder of what had happened on those mountain roads in my lap.
“So he finally decided to do it,” Molkan said with a huff. “I was beginning to think it might not happen.”
“You knew he intended to kill me?” I asked, unable to keep my voice from rising in shock.
“Oh, with certainty.” He laughed at my expression. “I’m not the one to harbor anger toward. You were placed in the middle lands for this exact reason, young one.”
I looked down at the twig. “To keep me from Florian.”
Silence arrived, and I almost thought he’d leave until he linked his hands over his stomach and seemed to come to a decision. “When Lilitha died, he vowed to take everything I loved,” Molkan said, voice low and more rough. “We do not love in the way humans do, but when we care for something, it is almost the same thing.”
“And if you do love something?” I asked.
Molkan smirked. “Then the fiery pits of Nowhere will extinguish before anyone gets away with taking it from us.”
I swallowed. “And Florian loved his sister.”
“As though he were her father,” he said, almost wistful, almost regretful, and as if recalling the male Florian once was. “Mother Mythayla knows Hammond Hellebore ceased wishing to breathe after Lilitha’s birth resulted in the death of his beloved queen and mate.”
He knew them—had known them well. I couldn’t resist asking, “Why did you kill her?”
I thought his amused hum would be all the answer I’d receive. But he sighed and said, “We were all close, as they say in the mortal realm”—he waved his hand—“once upon a time.” Then, for what might have been the first time since I woke, Molkan averted his eyes from me.
He looked down at the patch of woven carpet covering the stone floor at his bare feet. “I think we’ll let you get acquainted with this home I’ve kept you from.” He rose from the chair, his height staggering. “Before I give you information that might just make you wish to leave it.”
A humorless laugh escaped me. “After everything...” I shook my head. “Nothing much can surprise me now.”
The door creaked open, revealing more light stone.
Molkan stood in the doorway for a prolonged moment, then said, “I do advise against tempting our dear goddess to prove you wrong. I’ll have one of the servants along to show you where to bathe shortly.”
The door closed with an echoing click.
I stared at it while his warning chilled the sun-warmed room, unsure what to do now that I’d received everything I thought I’d never get.
A male with shorn white hair arrived within the hour.
He said nothing as we walked down the arched sandstone hall toward windows in the same shape. They lined the expansive length of the hall we entered, giving view to rows of gardens and fruit trees beneath.
Beyond them, woods backed and curled around a glimmering lake to meet with small stone buildings. It was odd to see water that wasn’t frozen, and even more startling to glimpse all of the fresh vegetation, green and ripe and swelling with life.
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock, for I’d already known the seasons of Baneberry rotated between autumn and spring. Yet the lack of ice upon the mild breeze crawling through the arched windows caused something within me to flinch.
Something that recoiled at the mere thought of never feeling the cool touch of Hellebore again.
Of course, that was ridiculous when the source of such weather was a king who’d pulled me from my old skin with such expertise, I’d have never known he was nothing but a hunter savoring the chase of his next kill.
My steps slowed at the sight of the rumored sandstone wall.
It encircled Baneberry Palace, stretching beyond into the tree line feathering the large lake. Guards in brown and green uniforms walked along the wall and stood within three towers. I assumed at least three more stood upon the other side of the palace. Silver armor glinted from chests, heads, and shoulders.
The male I trailed stopped at a darkened doorway to the springs I could hear beneath the steps behind him, and bowed.
“What is your name?” I asked as he began to walk away.
He paused and made a face, then motioned with his hands. Not understanding what he meant, I shook my head.
His mouth pinched, and he looked over his slim shoulder. Looking back at me, he opened his mouth.
To show me he had no tongue.
He closed it and gave me a grim smile, then walked back down the hall to the one containing the room I’d woken in.
I took the winding stone steps down to the gurgling springs, light flaring from sconces on the damp walls, and thought of Delen. Thought of why I’d now met two males from Baneberry who were without the means to talk.
There were two springs to choose from. One was long, the length of a small dam, and the other as small as a garden pond. Heat rose in tempting curls from the latter. Needing something not so sweltering upon my skin, I decided against it.
I stripped out of my ruined clothing and carefully climbed the mossy steps into the wide-open warmth. Rocks lined each end of the large spring and rimmed the smaller one. Moisture dripped down the stone of the underground chamber in fascinating rivulets.
Home.
I dunked my head underwater with a smile.
As I emerged, I pushed hair from my face and ran my hands down my neck. My fingers faltered over raised and tender skin. Indeed, someone had healed me, but Fellan’s attempt to slit my throat might leave a scar.
And if he’d been successful, the daring trio would have needed to remove my head or stab me in the heart for certainty.
I shivered, leaning against the stone as I attempted to calm an onslaught of racing thoughts and breaths I couldn’t seem to control.
“You’ve been a busy little changeling.”
Water crashed as I instantly covered my breasts. Though it was dark and murky enough that he’d hopefully only see the outline of my body at most.
“Relax, I’m not interested in Florian’s toys.” Avrin straightened from the bottom of the stairwell, a crooked grin sparking those gold eyes as he strolled closer. “Or shall we call you his failure?”
I will have what I want.
Fresh fear chilled my nape. Florian and the word failure would never coexist.
I shrank deeper into the water until it tickled my chin. “I’m trying to bathe.”
“Oh?” Avrin’s smile stretched. He tore off his tunic and unfastened his tight pants. “Unfortunately, Princess, these springs are communal.” He pushed his pants down. “You must share.”
I snapped my slack mouth closed and scowled, averting my gaze from his toned and tan abdomen.
“How’s the neck?” the rude creature asked, descending the steps into the pool entirely naked and far too slow.
“Fine.”
He swam to the other side of the spring, then slipped underwater. I was more annoyed than impressed by his dramatic exit from the water.
He swept his fingers through his short black hair. Droplets slid over sculpted cheeks and clung to his long lashes. “I’m curious, Princess.”
I nearly told him not to call me that, but it could no longer be ignored. It was who I was, no matter how ill-fitting.
“Curiosity indeed kills,” I drawled instead and stared at the formation of sharp rocks behind his head. “Or at least it tries.”
“Yet here you are.” I could hear the grin shaping his words. “How did you escape him?”
I met his gaze then, absorbing the unwavering way he watched me. Almost laughing, I suddenly understood why he’d rudely joined me in the springs. “You think he sent me to you?”
Avrin said nothing, just continued to stare.
“I wish,” I admitted, though it lacked the sarcasm I intended, my fingers climbing to my neck again.
His eyes followed and narrowed upon the healing skin. “He did that to you?”
“No,” I said. “Some of his loyal guards with a hatred for this kingdom did.”
Avrin’s head tilted, his lips pursed in thought. “Florian is not the type to have others do such a deed for him. Not with someone as important as you. He’d make a show of it.” At my failure to respond to that, he concluded with a touch more tact, “He didn’t know.” A pause. “You were ambushed.”
He was good, whoever this Avrin was to my long-lost father.
I could only nod while pushing my hands back and forth through the water in an effort to keep the burn within my chest from reaching my eyes.
“You will be asked more questions regarding him, Princess. The winter king is skies-bent on plucking your father’s flesh from his bones until he bleats in surrender, and you’ve spent a great deal of time with him.”
“That’s fine,” I lied, as it was to be expected, and I reluctantly understood.
“But is it?” Avrin pressed.
I made the mistake of glaring at him, and he barked a laugh.
His teeth caught his lip, his study of me completed with furrowed brows and a slight shake of his head. “He burrowed beneath your skin, didn’t he?” There was no use in lying, but that didn’t mean I would put voice to the truth. “As was his plan, I suppose,” Avrin murmured with a smirk.
I looked away, my chest cinched tight. “What will be asked of me?”
He continued to watch me, and it was confirmed that he hadn’t merely decided to take a bath. The interrogating had already begun.
I would need to grow used to it, though all I wanted was to return to my small chamber and sleep until I could find the excitement I should be feeling over finally being exactly where I’d always longed to be.
“Well, you will be asked how you managed to get away from those guards for a start.”
“I materialized.”
His arched brow said he knew there was more, or I would have materialized long before a blade caught my throat.
“I jumped from a carriage when I realized it wasn’t heading into the city.” I saw no harm in telling him, even as I found it hard to explain. “The horse. One of the guards untethered a horse and chased me, and when he dismounted, and I was trapped, I wished only to keep from looking at him if I was going to die.”
The peace that had encompassed me so entirely at that moment still baffled me. If there was ever a time to feel anything but utter contentment within my being, it was when a hate-riddled male with a dagger was trying to end my existence. “I stared at the horse, and the creature reared when the blade...”
“It helped you,” Avrin finished.
I nodded. I’d been too hesitant to admit even to myself that it had happened. But it had. It had, and I didn’t know how I’d done it. “I remember meeting his eyes, the horse,” I said. “And as I did, everything just washed away. The forest around us seemed to mute all else. I was no longer afraid.”
“Your mother had such a gift,” Avrin said.
My lashes lifted, my lips parting.
Avrin informed, “The bond with animals. Most in this kingdom with noble blood do, but for some, it runs deeper. A form of communication where no words are required—only feeling.”
Some of the ice encasing my heart thawed. That I’d been blessed in such a way...
Avrin squashed my awe, his tone mocking. “A useless gift, really, but in this case, it served you well.” A crooked smile curled his mouth, and I wanted to punch it. “Do not despair. Have you any affinity with the land?”
I glowered. “What do you mean?”
“The soil,” he said with a tug of his brows, as if I should know. “And what grows from it.”
“No,” I said, wondering if I should be ashamed when I didn’t care.
Perhaps I should have been. Avrin wiped his hand over his mouth, evidently hiding another stupid grin, and shrugged. “I suggest finding out if you do. Vines and quaking earth make for far more impressive escapes, Princess.” He dunked into the water, emerging some feet away near the mossy steps. “I’ll give you that privacy you were seeking now.”
I didn’t dare look at his naked form. I listened to the slap of his wet feet over the stone and the unfolding of a sun-dried towel pulled from a carving of shelves in the rock. “Avrin,” I said. “Do all the servants have no tongues?”
I sensed that he’d stilled, the rubbing of the towel over his body ceasing.
Carefully and quietly, he said, “Would you keep help in your household who might one day be captured and forced to tell the enemy every secret they’ve heard within your walls?”
My empty stomach roiled. I turned to rest my arms on the ledge of the spring. Water dripped down my hairline.
Avrin watched its descent to my chin. “Didn’t think so,” he said softly.
I didn’t tell him that one of their servants, who I now understood had been captured by Florian, was employed by him and likely various other nobility within Hellebore.
My eyes shifted to the ripples in the water as Avrin padded to the stairs and left me with, “Most are illiterate, too.”
My eyes opened with the incoming dawn. Sleep had been elusive, and the patches of dreams that visited haunting.
Blue eyes. Soft hair. Cold and bruising hands.
I might have crossed the border into a different realm, but I knew I would never escape him.
The same silent male who’d taken me to the communal springs beneath the palace delivered breakfast to my room. It was a small affair of citrus fruits, lemon and honey tea, water, and buttered bread. I ate it all despite hunger being a distant thought shrouded by too many others.
The male returned not an hour later to take the tray.
The palace was awake, yet there was no sound save for that drifting in through the lone glassless window. I sat on the edge of the bed, admiring the never-ending grid of stone and wood beyond the formidable palace wall.
“Thank you,” I said to the servant, still staring at Baneberry’s royal city of Bellebon.
I sensed the male pause. Then his steps, as light as a feather over the stone, neared.
He stood next to the circular window, his lime-green gaze meeting mine as he cocked his head. Bold, I knew, without even knowing wholly as to why, that he would linger and dare try to communicate with me.
He gestured to me, then to the window. To the north, I realized after a moment of frowning at his slender hands. “Hellebore?” I whispered.
He nodded. Unsure how to ask me what he clearly seemed desperate to know, his features creased. He scrubbed his hands over his cheeks and hair.
I smiled with uncertainty, saying low, “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. I’m sorry.”
He stepped forward as if he’d touch me.
I froze, and so did he. Lips pinched between his teeth, he then motioned toward my face. He was asking permission to touch me.
That he’d asked earned him a nod of acceptance.
My hands clasped tight in my lap as he set loose a relieved smile and stood before me. Softly, he made a motion of brushing over my cheek, his fingers nearing my eyes. They closed, and as his fingertips traced my eyelids...
Gasping, I took his wrist. “Delen.”
The servant’s eyes flared, his hand falling. He glanced warily to the closed door and stepped back. He didn’t seem to breathe, inflating with tension as he nodded.
“He was a beautician here, too,” I surmised, as he must have years of experience with such skill and pride in his craft.
The white-haired male nodded again, slowly, as his eyes filled. I studied them, and the rigidness to his jaw, the height of his refined cheekbones. “Your brother?”
Another nod.
I stood, took his hand and squeezed. “He is well, if that’s what you’re asking.” For I knew Delen was, no matter what atrocities Florian continued to commit.
Relief loosened his shoulders, and he squeezed my hand in return as he placed his other hand over his heart.
