Page 108 of Mama Si's Paradise

Sirens—like Sedelis, the siren who’d held me in the water and had manipulated me with her magic to see on her what wasn’t there—shiny, glowing skin and lively eyes and beautiful hair, when in fact she looked like a fucking corpse.

“Tell me your story, Sunshine,” Valentine said what must have been minutes later, and my heart tripped all over itself.

But there was no point in telling my story, was there? Not just because it was a short pathetic story of me following anyone who bothered totryto convince me that they were decent because it was all I knew and the best I had. No, not just because of that, but because it wasmystory and he was a stranger and this washis world,not mine.

So, I leaned back on the bench and said, “I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”

Valentine didn’t like it. He held back a flinch, and I thought for sure he’d insist.

Instead, all he said was, “As you wish.”

Twenty-Six

I laidon the bed fully clothed just to rest for a bit, to get my thoughts in order, tobreathebefore I went back out there and tried my luck at finding an exit from this damn castle.

Sleep took me instantly.

When I woke up, I felt like I’d been out of it for a whole day, and I could have sworn someone was watching me through the window, even though I didn’t see anything in the dark.

Had Grey and his dragon returned? Were they out there, flying in front of my window?

No idea, but at that point I didn’t even want to find out.

Panic had me reaching for the door right away. My clothes and my boots were still on, so I was good to go. Memory after memory of the past two days flashed before my eyes as if my own mind wanted to get me as scared as possible, my instincts fired up, so that I didn’t spend another second in this place without running.

The hallway was empty, the stairs were empty, and all thefloors below mine in the tower were blissfully empty, too. My heart was racing, and I knew that Valentine could hear it if he was close enough. I knew his brothers would hear it, too, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t control how fast it beat when I was expecting to be stopped with every step I took down the maze of hallways and corridors of the castle.

It must have been at least twenty minutes before I stumbled into a round hall with two large doors to the right, doors that were bigger than the others I’d gone through until now. Their design was different, though they were black as well.

Outside.Those doors had to lead outside, and I wasn’t going to hesitate. No clue what time it was because the few windows I’d passed by had showed me nothing but the dark sky, but it didn’t matter. I made my way to those doors as fast as I could without making noise, and I stopped in front of them with my eyes squeezed shut, waiting for someone to shout my name or just grab me and pull me back.

Nobody did.

All I heard was the faint sound of wings beating I’d come to recognize, and sure enough, when I turned around, I found the tiny black dragon landing on top of a painting across the hall, watching me.

Tiny.He was small enough that I could grab him and throw him off me with my bare hands. He was so small that there was no way he could carry me from or to anywhere. No, he couldn’t stop me, even if he insisted on playing my shadow.

So, I ignored him and I pulled one of the doors open.

By some miracle, it gave. It was so big and heavy that I managed to only open it a slit, just enough so I could fit through—and get outside.

Those doors really led out of this castle, and the colder air filling my nostrils and the sounds of nature filling my ears provedit.

Before the second was over, I was looking up at the black sky and the large surrounding wall in the distance, and the trees in between it and the castle, starting ten feet away from the doors.

The two torches mounted on the sides of them gave off little light. Leaves rustled. Owls hooted nearby. No footsteps and no sign of anyone anywhere that I could see, though I couldn’t really see much. But the trees had opened into a tunnel ahead of me, like they’d twisted and turned to make space for people to pass through, then meet again higher up to create a thick canopy overhead.

I went for it—what was the worst that could happen?Death?

Yeah, I’d already come to terms with that. Death was better than living under the same roof as creatures of myth and folklore that shouldn’t even exist, with a bunch of women who adored them, hoping one day one of them didn’t suck me completely dry.

So, I made for the trees, praying they would take me all the way to the surrounding wall, and from there I could either climb it, or I could search for the gates I’d seen through the balcony. That was the plan, and I was going to see it through no matter what.

But the second I stepped onto the wet soil and was about to start running, something moved fast to my right—something that looked an awful lot like a snake.

Impossible,my mind insisted, despite what my eyes were telling me. I was stunned, completely paralyzed to watch the way it slithered away from the tree trunk—it had been wrapped around the base of it, its color a deep dark brown almost identical to the bark, impossible to tell if you weren’t looking for a difference.

And now the snake, its body easily twice as thick as my head, was hissing and unwrapping itself from around thetrunk, opening its square jaws and showing me fangs as big as my fucking pinkie—and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch it coming to eat me whole.

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