Page 28 of A Bond in Blood

I’d been in Ulrich’s bed for days. How many? I didn’t know.

It had been a fever dream. Laying there, jolting every now and then by the rough, callused hands rubbing freezing salve over my wounds. Hands I wasn’t sure were his or Olen’s.

Making me hate both of them even more.

Ulrich had been the one to mark me, to shame me publicly, and Olen had been his willing accomplice. Yet one of them believed they could care for me? Tend to my wounds?

What kind of monsters was I imprisoned with?

To my relief, Ulrich hadn’t demanded to stay in the room when he ordered me to bathe. Claiming Ismelled like death.

Part of me had wanted to refuse. Because the thought of sickening him with my stench gave me disgusting satisfaction, but he’d picked up on my intentions. That had resulted in him quietly informing me I could bathe willingly, or he would carry me to the tub himself and force me to bathe with him.

Nude.

Horrified, I relented and allowed him to call the attendant.

I cursed him and his vile nature while the attendant, a quiet young woman, lowered me onto the stool in the bathing room. I watched her, taking note of her bronzed skin, the freckles across her cheeks, her elongated ears, and the twisting braids running down her back.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She jumped, her head jerking from her attention on the tub. Nervously, she glanced through the bathing room doors.

I laughed, followed by a loud wince at the pain shooting down my back from the movement. The girl scrambled to her feet, rushing to me, but I held up my hand.

“Don’t fuss over me. Would you tell me your name?”

“Adalie,” she whispered.

I nodded my head. “That’s a beautiful name. Are you Seelie or Unseelie Fae?”

Adalie startled, her eyes widening before she shook her head. “I—”

A booming laugh cut off the girl’s words and my head turned to the sound. The lights in the room vanished with the movement but I was able to catch Ulrich’s frame leaning against the doorway before the dark took over the space.

“Stop asking my people personal questions,” he said coldly.

I leaned back, using my hands to feel for the wall behind me. “I’m just trying to get to know people. Do you expect me to live in solitude for my remaining twelve months?”

“Thirteen,” he replied.

I cried out. “Not this again. Please! I have completed my first month.”

Ulrich’s commanding presence filled the room, but due to the lack of light, I could only assume he’d crossed the threshold. My pulse quickened while my hands gripped the thin nightgown I wore.

“Are you scared?” his voice whispered above me.

I swallowed, not sure how I hadn’t felt him approach so closely. But now that he was before me in the dark, it was hard to ignore the cold, sickening power coming from him. Like a darkness, determined to pull life from any living thing near him.

“To answer your plea,” he said calmly, “I’ve already told you the other evening that your time has added an additional month. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t misbehaved.”

Tears lined my eyes while I calculated the time that gave me. “That means my time ends when the blood moon ends.”

“What?” Ulrich’s cold grew more frigid.

“My…” I snapped my mouth shut. “Nothing.”

The room grew silent before his voice echoed around me again. “Technically you are right. Your service will end on thelast day of the blood moon. Did you have plans, Brenna? A blood moon rite you were hoping to make it to?”

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