Page 22 of Bound By the Wraith: Northern Realms

“Is there?”

“Don’t be coy and flippant with me.” His mother rose off the dais and floated down to him. “You’ve been playing with time, all for a human.”

“You forget, I’m part human too. You had a penchant for your great, great, great-niece’s mate. Remember? So, I suppose, like mother, like son.”

His mother sneered, baring her fangs. “Be careful with the power it yields. You may lose her yet.”

“Is that a threat?” Cillian snarled.

His mother smiled, cold and calculating. “No. Just a warning. You don’t ken what you are playing with, Cillian.” With that final warning, she vanished, turning into vapors and drifting away.

He cursed under his breath. She knew Cali was here and how she was connected to him. His mother’s words were absolutely a threat and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was Gootch or Elodi who had betrayed him?

Either way, it mattered not. He’d seek his revenge and in the end they’d all pay, but for now, he had to protect Cali. He couldn’t lose her again.

Cali was sad,just a for a moment, when Cillian left, and then she was annoyed, because he was so stubborn. Any time she questioned him, just a little too much, he would take off. The conversation would be over. He was so closed-minded.

Of course, the last time a conversation had abruptly ended had been one of the most pleasurable moments of her life. Just thinking about his tongue licking her made her body tingle with anticipation, because she didn’t know how soul-shattering amazing it could be to have that done to her. And then she’d watched him stroking himself, and it had made her throb with need. He said that he wouldn’t claim her unless she asked, and seeing him this morning in the bath and his naked body, it made her want to beg him for it.

Stop thinking about it.

As much as she wished she could lie in this bathwater, that didn’t seem to cool, she was going to turn into a wrinkly prune,and she had decided when she woke, she was going to explore more of this realm. Even on her own.

The little creatures or goblins or whatever scurrying around here seemed to cow to to her just as much as they did Cillian. She actually felt safe in this realm. Although, she wouldn’t go far and she wouldn’t go beyond the stone maze, but she wanted to keep busy. She wasn’t going to spend a year locked away in Cillian’s bedchamber, waiting for her freedom.

She wasn’t one for sitting still for long.

Cali got out of the bath, dried herself off and tied back her long hair. Then she pulled on her clothes and walked to the door to do some exploring. The moment the door opened, one of the little goblins jumped from the shadows, causing her to startle.

“My apologies, mistress,” it said. “I am here to serve you.”

“You’re Honk, right?” Cali remembered them from before.

“Yes, mistress. What do you require?”

“I would like to go for a walk. Would you like to show me how to get to your…to the gardens?” Although, she really wouldn’t call a bunch of dead brown bushes a garden, but at least it was outside.

“Yes, mistress.” Honk nodded vehemently. “Follow. Please.”

Honk scurried along the corridor of the bleak stone castle that Cillian called home. It was hard to keep up with them. It wasn’t long before she was practically jogging to keep the pace Honk liked to operate at.

“Here, mistress. The gardens.” Honk bowed with a flourish as she stepped under an archway to the place where she and Cillian walked around before. The horrible topiaries of anguished mythical monsters, but she guessed in reality they weren’t really mythical beings at all.

They were very much real.

Honk kept a pace behind her. She could hear them scuttling along. They were actually kind of cute.

“Honk, did you create one of these topiaries?” She was curious and she also wanted to talk to someone.

“I did,” Honk replied, scurrying up beside her. “This one in fact, mistress.”

It wasn’t one she had seen before. It was a unicorn and didn’t look like it was in too much agony. It was one of the less grotesque ones.

“Oh, the unicorn. You did that?”

Honk beamed at it with pride. “My mother was a unicorn, my father is the same as the master’s, but blood did not mix well and Honk would’ve died had it not been for the master.”

Cali blinked a couple of times. “You were a unicorn human hybrid?”

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