Page 196 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

I try to move, only to realize all of my limbs are tied down. I thrash against the bonds, trying to find a weak spot, trying to find some give in the rope.Nothing.

“Be still.” Rahk’s low voice comes from somewhere above me. “You’ll rip open your stitches.”

I follow the sound of his voice until I find him leaning against the wall beside the bed, his empty gaze fixed on the far wall, his arms crossed over his chest. No one else is in the room.

This is . . . Rahk’s estate. Not mine.

I remember running through the Wood. I remember turning myself over to Rahk. Beyond that, I don’t remember anything. He must have brought me here. But why? Why not take me back to the Nothril Court or kill me outright?

I would have had hope about that turn of events . . . if he hadn’t tied me to this bed in a way that I cannot hope to escape.

“It all makes sense now.”

Rahk’s cold, emotionless rumble fills the quiet space with dreadful resignation.

I don’t speak. Shame and sorrow fill me with equal measures, and I wish I could go back to the black oblivion I just came out of.

“All of it makes sense. The way you disguised yourself as a boy and came here—and why you never confided in me. Why you were always afraid of me killing you. Why I could never assuage your fears and make you fully trust me. How, even in our best moments, you always seemed to hold back from me. I attributed it to your mother’s death. But your mother’s death didn’t hold you back from Faerieland; it propelled you into it. You became the Ivy Mask to ensure what happened to your mother never happened again.”

I give a fruitless tug on my bonds. The walls of this room close in around me, suffocating me in my own lies and deceptions and the inevitable doom that has finally tracked me down.

“You knew I was sent to hunt you,” Rahk continues, his voice growing quieter. “You knew the entire time—or most of it. You must have figured it out when I pursued you on that first raid. All my efforts to win your trust and affection, no matter how much you might have longed to give them, were for naught. None of it could change that I would someday catch you and kill you.”

I give a few painful coughs to clear my throat. My words are scratchy and weak. “Now you know my temperamental nature is actually much more rational.”

“I never thought you weretemperamental,” Rahk growls back. “I knew you had reasons. Tell me: did you already know how to play Fool’s Circle?”

I wince and nod, then try to push up on one elbow—and end up jerking my wounded arm. I hiss in pain. “I did know how to play, but not well. Gah, these ropes are biting into my skin. If I promise not to—”

Rahk plants two hands on the bed, leaning over me. My throat goes even drier than before. “But I cannot believe anything you say, Kat. You’ve lied to me. Countless times. I cannot allow you to run away again. I’m not untying you.”

“I hated lying to you!” I cry, trying again to shoot up and only earning myself more pain. The burn inside my lungs turns to a roar. “Why do you think I panicked when we married? Why do you think I kept pushing you away? Why do you think I told you to go back to Faerieland? It was because I cared about you, and it was ripping me to pieces to have to keep this secret from you!”

“Then why didn’t you leave?” Rahk demands, his voice shaking. “Why did you stay? In my house? As my servant? As my wife? Why did you wait so long?”

“Because I didn’t have the power to leave!” I shoot back. “When I was your servant, I couldn’t leave and work elsewhere without a reference!”

“I would have given you one!”

“But I still wouldn’t have been hirable! I only worked for you for three weeks. I needed to have held a position for six months to be hirable elsewhere. When you found me out, I had no say in that marriage arrangement. What did you expect me to do? Run away again, with nowhere to go, abandoning my fortune, all while knowing that you would pursue me anyway? What would you have had me do, Rahk?”

He drops into a nearby chair, his shoulders dejected, his hand covering the back of his neck. “I would have had you tell me the truth.”

That lights a fire inside me that sends words hurling out of my mouth. “You would have had meabandonthe people who needed me? You would have had me turn myself over to you and say,‘Please chop off my head now, dear Rahk, I have nothing in this world I want or need save death at your hand’?”

“I wanted you to tell me,” Rahk seethes, piercing me with his black eyes, “so I couldsaveyou.”

I stop. Then I bare my teeth at him. “You are berating me for lying to you, when you kept your own secret from me. You knew how deeply it would hurt me to know you were hunting for the Ivy Mask, so you refused to tell me. You admitted this—that you had no plans to ever tell me even though you gave me gifts and kisses and made me fall in love with you!”

He rakes his hands through his hair. “I know. I did not want to hurt you, just as you did not want to hurt me. What have we done, Kat? I am furious with you; I feel deeply betrayed and I hate being lied to, even though I know you have every right to feel the same things about me. There are just so many things I am confused about. How could you have gone after your mother into the Wood? How could you even have survived?”

I blink hard. “I did not go after my mother into the Wood. She went after me.”

Rahk visibly flinches. “What?”

I draw in a fortifying breath, turning my face away. My hands fist in their bonds. “The Wood swallowed me when it expanded. We were having a picnic, as I said. My parents said to stay close, but I disregarded them. I went up to the Wood because it had always drawn me. I could hear it calling to me. Then, all of a sudden, it expanded. I was caught inside.”

He waits in silence for the rest of the story.

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