Page 18 of A Bond of Fire and Roses

Without a word, Erax carries me into the bathing chamber where a bath has already been drawn. He drops me into it. I let out a surprised scream as the water submerges me. The water is lukewarm, telling me it’s been waiting a while, but it’s still amazing against my cold, shivering body.

Despite my distress, I’m instantly warmed by its embrace, and my clothes no longer stick to me like sheets of ice when I surface again. I gasp for air, both relieved and shocked by the ordeal, and grasp the sides of the tub. Erax holds me down to prevent me from standing, his eyes blazing with fury. I’ve never seen such rage burn in a pair of eyes before. It’s almost… feral-like. Like staring into the soul of a dragon and not a man at all.

“Erax…leave.” I demand.

He pauses, watching me too closely. He tilts his head to the side, a growl that is terrifying slipping from his lips. “Mine.”

I freeze in the water, feeling almost as cold as I was in the lake, as he backs away to the door. He looks over his shoulder at me. “No male touches you again, Mist. Next time, they die.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

There’s a man screaming for help in the corridor outside my room. Sitting up in my big girl bed, I clutch my doll as my eyes dart to my bedroom door. I shouldn’t go out there. I should stay in my bed, like a good princess. The bells above the castle begin to ring, and I know them well. There is an intruder in the castle. The man screams in pain again and my body shivers. I’ve never heard someone scream like that before. Although his shouts are too far away for me to understand what he is saying, my feet itch to move.

Stay in bed, Mae. Mother and Father wouldn’t like it if I got out of my bed at night.

For once my thoughts do not stop me from crawling out of my bed. I wince as my feet touch the cold stone ground and grab the lantern from my nightstand. Its glow lights my way as I walk over to the door and pull it open. I expect to see the back of my guard, but there is no one outside. Flames flicker from the oil lamps hanging on the walls stretching at either side before me. They grow brighter towards the end of the corridor where a man screams on the floor. My guard stands over him with his enormous sword slammed right through his stomach. I shudder and feel a little sick at the sight of so much blood. There is so much of it that it pools around the man like a puddle, glistening under the firelight like the sun against black water. I instinctively step back, my heart racing so fast I can hear it in my ears. It doesn’t block out the man’s cries though, or his pleas for mercy. My guard growls at him.

“Th-the princess...I only wanted to ta-k-ke her, so they would listen to me! I wouldn’t — have — hurt her!”

“You are a traitor to your kingdom,” my guard snarls at him, and then he slams his heavy boot against the man’s head. The man screams even louder. He is so thin that I can see all his bones poking through his rags. Who is this man? Why did he want to take me? As a princess I’ve always known there are people out there who want to hurt me, so it doesn’t make sense why this man wouldn’t. A cough escapes his mouth, blood spraying across the stone as he chokes out a reply.

“Her parents are evil — monsters — but they might… have listened… if I got their princess.” He starts to cry as more blood pools out from him. “They took my whole family! They threw them into the mines like they were animals for my brother-in-law's crime. They even took my baby girl. She was only two weeks old!” He coughs again, louder and wetter than the one before as his breathing begins to slow. “I thought if I… took the princess… they would let me trade… and maybe let me… see her… my little Marissa…”

He goes still as death greets him and I’m frozen to the spot. He’s dead. He’s dead. I repeat the words over in my head, completely shocked and unable to move. My guard kicks the man’s body to the side and pulls out the sword impaling him. Everything rushes back to me then as the bells suddenly go silent. I shut my room door and run back to my bed, burying my face into my pillow. My cries are smothered but no less painful as the name Marissa etches itself into my mind like a scar carving through my flesh.

The man had just wanted to see his baby.

His little Marissa.

My chest heaves when I wake, breathless and sweaty, and stare up at the unfamiliar ceilings. The quilts around me are too heavy, smelling like strange flowers, and they are suffocating me as I push them off and crawl back to the headboard, hugging my legs close to my chest. What was that dream? Was it real? I don’t remember, if it was. Mines? What was the man even talking about? I’m sure he was just another assassin sent to kill me as a child. He wasn’t the first, and had I still lived in that castle, he wouldn’t have been the last.

I focus on my breathing and try to slow it down as I stare around the room. I feel as trapped in this room as I did in that nightmare. I’m not sure what has kept me going until now. With free reign of this palace, it would have been easy to join my parents and at long last be at peace with them. I could have drowned myself in that lake had I wanted to. I had enough time before Noble came and the whole thing with the frost dragon happened. There are plenty of stairways I could have thrown myself down, and I’ve lost count of the number of windows that don’t have bars on them that I could have jumped from. I simply… haven’t, but now I really wish I had. From tomorrow my life as I know it will be over. I might never get the chance to see Loch again. I’ll be married to the very king who has haunted my nightmares since I was a child.

My hands clutch the sheets and I close my eyes. The ritual and marriage will begin tomorrow morning, if it isn’t morning already. I should appreciate this bed because I doubt, I’ll even be in this bed at all tomorrow night. I’ll be in his bed, where he’ll force me to do whatever he wants to get an heir. It’s not like he wants to do this either. The king hates me as much as I hate him, and lust will always pale in the shadow of hatred.

I lurch out of the bed and run to the door, grabbing the cold metal handle. It clicks open and my legs are running before my mind has caught up. Freedom. I need to be free again and this might be my last chance. My breaths come in pants as I sprint down endless corridors, through the archways and doors. I’m surprised to see no guards, no one watching me pass them. It’s like I’m merely a shadow, a ghost of the girl held captive upstairs.

The darkness is my friend as I run through the maze of corridors until I come to a dead end and a single, massive stained red glass door. My heart is beating so fast as I walk to the door and touch the handle, letting it swing open. My bare feet make prints on the shiny floor as I step inside and let the door shut right behind me. A ballroom. At least, it was probably one, a grand ballroom at that, before time and neglect got its hands upon it. Now the shiny tiles are cracked, and the beautiful tapestries that line each wall telling a story, are dusty and withered, and parts of the cloth ripped and torn in places. Moonlight shines in from the domed ceiling, but a lot of the glass is fractured, threatening to fall down on me. Do it, end this for me. Of course, they don’t, and only the wind whistles through him in answer to my thoughts. Even the wind sounds as lonely as I feel on the inside.

There’s a giant chandelier hanging from the tallest part of the room, which must hold a thousand red diamonds, sparkling bright in silver moonlight, making this room surprisingly bright. The beauty of it distracts me. It distracts me from the nightmare that can’t be real; distracts me from memories threatening to swallow me whole and from everything that I need distracting from before the sun rises tomorrow.

Breathless, I push away from the door and walk over into the centre of the room. I spin around in circles, my head tilted to the ceiling, and let the moonlight bathe me. When I pull my gaze back down again, my eyes fall upon mirrors tucked between each of the old tapestries. I stop spinning and look at my reflection trying desperately hard to claw through the thick layers of dust.

I can only blink as one of the mirrors moves to the side. I assume maybe it’s an animal hiding in the shadows of the ballroom, but then Erax steps out, and my whole-body freezes. He lets the mirror door swing back and close firmly in place behind him. It must have been some kind of secret passageway.

“Why are you not in your room, Mist?”

That nickname again. I clench my hands into fists and watch him lean against the mirror. For once he is in casual clothes, which I have never seen him wear. Silky black shirt under a darker thick cloak, and soft dark grey trousers that hang low on his hips. Definitely not something I pictured him wearing. His dark hair is also unusually messy as if he just climbed out of his bed to chase me. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’d probably enjoy the chase.

“Another secret part of this castle?” I ask, clearing my throat.

“There are tunnels everywhere. My grandfather was very keen that we could escape in the event of an attack.” Like my parents didn’t manage to do, he doesn’t say, but the unspoken words are loud between us. His eyes widen slightly as they slowly roll down my body, making me hyper aware of any inch of my skin showing. My gold gown covers me from the neck down, but it stops at my upper thighs. “You should be in your room resting.”

He looks away from me and the heat I feel with his look goes with him.

“Why are you here? Is following princesses through castles a night job for you?” He chuckles low, blinking at me in surprise. I stop him before he can lie. “Let me guess, you have guards following me, told not to be seen—they were, by the way, every time. Not very good at hiding with all that armour on. You forget I grew up with guards following me. And nuns.” I cross my arms. “The guards told you I tried to escape?”

His eyes reveal nothing. “Perhaps.”

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