Page 7 of Dare

Following a succession of revels to celebrate Reaper’s Fest, the insubordinate couple remained an enigma to me. I’d never understood the look between them at the public reading, nor the fervor of their dance during the night market. The intensity between them had nettled my thoughts, directing them each time to the little beast in her dungeon cell.

One level below. Alone. So fucking close.

Poet’s pace slowed, his features narrowing in awareness. Devilish green irises lanced in my direction and darkened. Most victims would shrink to a pinprick from that dangerous look. They would quail while their cocks and cunts did the opposite, hardening like stone or puddling on the floor. The man knew how to target people, coerce his enemies, render them insignificant and powerless.

As did I.

Unfazed, I met his destructive glare with my own degree of contempt. Our ruse was over. The fake alliance we’d fabricated to thwart Rhys had ended. The Summer King’s ruination had spared Autumn a war and Winter a headache.

Done. Finished.

Yet I had one breakable bone still to pick.

While stabbing his gaze my way, Poet tightened his hold on Briar. The fatigued princess leaned into him, unaware of the exchange. They kept going, heading to the Royal wing, likely to bathe and fuck their trauma away.

Happily ever after. Rubbish. Absurd. As if eternal bliss were truly possible.

The remaining days in Autumn came and went. The little beast had disappeared. I could not say what slithered under my skin more—that she had gotten away or escaped without a coat. Or at least a fucking pair of shoes. Madness. Foolishness. I could strangle her for both crimes.

Nonetheless, I suspected where she’d scurried off to. Her presence at the four-way creek implied only one path.

One Season.

Before leaving this formerly pious nation, I cloistered myself in a surgical room with Poet and Briar, then interrogated them while struggling to keep my voice even, to scale down the volume before it tore a hole through the castle. To that end, I omitted the episode in the forest, the better to purge information from them.

Poet and Briar had aided the beast’s flight. That much had been clear when I’d registered the jester’s embellished dagger in her possession. No one else had the nerve to carry a weapon that gaudy, the hilt ornamented with scarlet jewels. Not only reminiscent of the fucker’s obscene wardrobe but his entire persona.

Yet. The infernal jester and princess refused to budge.

An hour later, I left Autumn with flurries racing through my bloodstream. So be it. As I’d warned them, I would hunt for the abominable beast myself. Though, logic told me this wouldn’t be the last time I encountered Poet and Briar. Whatever that woman meant to them, the relentless couple planned to intercept, lest I should catch my prey.

Pity for them, they would not succeed.

I slipped into the black carriage harnessed by stags, their spiked antlers impaling the air. As the convoy sheared into motion, I reclined in my seat. Took a measured breath. Clamped my fingers around the vial hanging from my necklace. Gently, my thumb stroked the glass, a crack marring its surface.

Turbulent creature. Within seconds of our first encounter, she’d damaged the precious item. Within another second, all hell had broken loose inside me.

I should have walked away before then. I should not have stalled beside her cage, taken notice—recognized her.

We shared a history, however brief and indirect. This, she did not know.

Be that as it may, one detail didn’t make sense. The woman lacked a voice, which I’d confirmed by questioning the dungeon guards, in case I had misinterpreted things in the forest. Yet I’d heard her scream. Moreover, she hadn’t been mute years ago. So either I was missing a pertinent clue, or she was faking her condition.

Wheat and corn fields smothered the carriage windows. Along the forest thoroughfare, the pigmented colors of Autumn passed by in an overstimulating tableau of red and orange.

Also, gold. At the hue, my thoughts strayed to those inflammatory metallic eyes. With that exceptional hue burnishing her irises, she’d all but flung her emotions at me.

Such ferocity. So much heat.

I recalled the tattooed collar around her neck, which also hadn’t been there years ago.

Who marked you?

Which peon had done that to her?

When I’d asked, the insufferable female had kept the answer to herself. From that point on, every decision I made had been linked to the fool. Isolating her in a separate cell. Searching for her in the castle during the blackout. Prowling after her when the riot had ended. Thinking about her each moment in between, tossing and turning in my sheets, festering and panting with aggravation.

Beneath my coat, red imprints encircled my wrists from where she’d tied me. A low growl climbed up my throat. I released the vial before the pressure of my fingers pulverized it.

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