Page 39 of To Catch A Rook

“You do not have the luxury to say no. Your duty is to this family, and your life debt is tome. Or is your life no longer of value?”

Mical grinned with vicious delight and Jonah's mask cracked just a fraction. No love was lost between us; my death would mean more power and attention for them.

“I am more valuable to you alive than dead.” I folded my arms across my broad chest and stared into the soulless black depths of his gaze. “The operation is too large for me to oversee and maintain my position. Do you prefer I spend my time eliminating your enemies or coddling yourputas? Which has more value to you?”

A tremulous silence fell over the space as my father held my glare. I didn’t miss the quiet click of the safety being released against a metal gun barrel behind me. His men waited for his signal for permission to put a bullet into my brain and be done with my insolence.

“This is why you will become king.” Antonio stood gracefully from his seat and pulled my cheeks between his palms.

“You are brave,mijo,but do not mistake stupidity for bravery again. You have until January. Then theputaswill very much be your concern.”

He signaled behind me; shuffling feet and the opening of the heavy wooden door broke through the heavy stillness as his cronies cleared the hallway for them to leave.

“Do not disappoint me, Kellan.” His hardened expression said everything his mouth wasn’t. January or death. No other option. He turned his attention to my brother. “Fix your face, Mical. You look like a Russian.”

Flames of fiery acid burned through my gut as my father casually walked away from handing me a death sentence.

“My money is on theputas.” Mical snickered as he and Jonah followed behind, leaving me alone to wrestle with my fate in peace.

Itumbled down the well in billowing skirts, my hair whipping around me on a strange, floaty breeze. I landed in the center of the earth; the land where my nightmares lived and forced me to play.

I hit the hard ground with a hard thump, but I didn’t feel any pain. The pain down here wasn’t physical—even when I was speared to death, or had my hair pulled out by its roots, I couldn’t actually sense it; this place was a mental torture chamber, a rolling display of all my past failures and those yet tocome.

The familiar resounding sound of horse hooves racing toward me reverberated in my bones, and I braced myself for him.

A disjointed laugh echoed all around me as the black stallion stopped in my path, its rider cloaked in shadows. The bronze skeleton mask molded to his face hiding his features, but I knew it was him. It was always him.

“Are you lost, little girl?”

The dark resonance of his voice was soothing; coaxing me into a false sense of calm. I wrinkled my brow in confusion, looking down at my appearance to see what he saw. Who I appeared to be this time.

I wore a baby pink nightgown with white teddy bears stitched across the front; pretty hand-darned laced cuffs covered the lengths of my forearms; an exact replica of the one my grandmother had gifted me when I was five.

I shook my head at the rider and cast my gaze downward, clutching the soft blue stuffed toy elephant in my fist. I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding it.

“Come.”

The rider beckoned me forward with a leather-gloved hand, and I felt an inexplicable pull toward him. He swiftly hopped down from his horse and placed two rough hands on my hips before lifting me onto the front of his saddle. I complied and said nothing, as if my ability to fight had somehow been taken from me.

I shivered, but not from cold. He pulled himself up and settled behind me. Grabbing the reins, he commanded the horse forward. Tears fell down my cheeks in a constant drip as we took off at a steady pace, traveling through a landscape of nothing but blackness.

The terrain changed; we hovered on the bank of a blood-red river, human-shaped shadows floating on top of the sluggish water. Wisps of hands reached for me, their anguished voices muffled by the burble and bubble of the liquid all around us.

His firm body loomed over me and his mouth hovered beside my ear. His gentle whisper was delivered softly, but the message hardened every vein in my body to ice.

“You see, little girl? It’s not so bad in the dark.”

I woke with a start, a sheen of sweat coating my limbs like a second skin. Tremors wracked through my body as I came down from the dream.

I wasn’t supposed to dream. The strong prescription sedative I took every night should knock out every thought from my exhausted brain, but every now and again, a slew of nightmares slipped through like trained warriors of terror.

Tonight’s dream had been different. I had never shown up as a child before—I was usually college age when the rider appeared to take me away. My visit with Alec was influencing me more than I thought.

I removed my eye mask and pulled out my noise-canceling ear plugs, using the sounds of my bedroom as a distraction to calm my heart rate.

The steady hum of the mechanical cooling system—breath—the faint beep of my security system at the elevator—breath—the drip of the faucet in my ensuite that I still hadn’t gotten fixed—breath.

Five minutes of sound meditation brought me back down to earth. I was in my bedroom, lying in my California King, under the softest duvet known to man, in the most secure building in the city.

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