Page 46 of Vale of Dreams

“You asked me when I was last happy. What’s the answer for you?” I ask.

His dark hair looks rakishly tousled now. His eyes slide to me, molten bronze in the sun. “I don’t actually know. Maybe settling down with a nice, loving mistress will be the answer to that.”

He flashes me a mischievous smile, and I know that the time for honesty is over.

“I’ll have extra food sent to your father to make up for the loss of your labor and the chicken they’re killing for me.”

Oddly considerate for a monster. “Thank you. When will I join you in the palace?”

“We’ll ride all the way back to Corbinelle tonight. You will join me at court, and we will have you dressed in clothes fit for a queen.”

My breath catches. We’re leaving already?

My mind is a battleground...a young woman gasping beneath cold, barren branches, the fruit not yet ripe for the tasting…sacred vengeance against my enemies awaits me, blood sweeter than apples…

As I’m holding his hand, fragments of Talan’s thoughts ring in my mind, cryptic as ever, and goosebumps rise on my skin. I strengthen the veil in my thoughts, blotting it out.

I suspect that while we’re together, Talan and I will be playing a deadly game of hide and seek with each other.

CHAPTER 16

Getting whisked away by a prince to a castle should be every girl's fantasy. And in a way, this feels like a dream.

I lie back on the lush pillows of my bed, sipping tea, enjoying the views in my new place.

Last night, we rode on horseback to Castle Perillos, where servants immediately bustled around me, getting me anything I wanted. When we arrived, Talan left me with a small entourage of guards and servants who brought me to my room—a vast tower chamber with window views of the wild, moonlit forest beyond the castle walls.

White flowering plants climb the tall columns and stone walls, and the air smells faintly of jasmine. Outside, sunlight breaks through the iron gray clouds and streams over a rug threaded with turquoise and gold and the shelves crammed with Fey books.

A burnished mahogany table stands beneath the tall windows. After I arrived, I ate an amazing dinner there with a book of Fey history. A couple of obsequious servants brought me a lavish meal of salmon and wildflower salad, and it was possibly the best thing I’d ever eaten. And after days of eating nothing but onions and carrots, I was genuinely starving.

Breakfast this morning was fresh bread with chocolate, more mead, and a bowl of strawberries with cream. In my new chambers, I had the luxury of a hot bath in a room with a giant skylight. They even left out a bottle of champagne to drink in the steaming water.

Even my lungs feel better here. The air is free of the things that usually irritate them, like bleach or pollution—which is good, because taking out my plastic inhaler would give me away in a heartbeat.

As I sip my tea, a knock sounds on the door.

“Come in!” I swing my legs over the side of the bed.

The door opens, and a servant with braided black hair carries in a domed tray for me. She sets it on the table by the window, smiling. When she pulls off the dome, the scent of the food has my mouth watering. “Lunch is served, my lady.”

Before me lies a plate of roasted pheasant, a dandelion and violet salad, and a plate of bread and cheese. More mead, of course. Always mead.

“Enjoy, my lady!” the servant calls out behind her as she leaves me in the room.

So, like I said, this is every girl's dream—apart from the fact that I’m supposed to be the mistress of a nightmare. My beautiful Prince Charming is pathologically unable to form any kind of emotional connection with another person. He’d murder me if he knew what I really was.

I bite into the pheasant, and the tender meat, flavored delicately with rosemary and a hint of juniper berries, melts in my mouth. As I eat, I glance outside at the forest beyond the castle walls. I wonder how Raphael is doing out there, and thinking about him makes my heart ache.

I take a sip of the mead. He did tell me that he could look after himself. He doesn’t need me thinking of him.

I will also try not think about what I heard the servants whispering this morning: that when he met me in Lauron, Talan ordered me to hike up my skirt and get on my hands and knees, and then he fucked me on the forest floor in front of his soldiers— “like a common whore” who was now “rising above her station.”

As I swallow another bite of pheasant, a knock sounds at the door.

I cross the vast room and pull open the door. A man is standing in the hall in a crisp white shirt, partially unbuttoned in the front. He reminds me of a knock-off version of Talan, the way his hair looks tousled and long in the front and so many rings gleam on his fingers. It’s also the way he stands casually, one hand in his pocket, the other with a black box resting jauntily against his hip.

“Well.” He bends his arm and leans against the doorframe, his gaze sweeping all the way down to my hips, then my legs. He licks his lips.

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