Page 387 of Flirting with Darkness

DARK COURT

JEWEL KILLIAN

1

The flax ropes at my wrists rub against deep calluses, thickened from so many nights of the same.

It’s worse in the dark, when the heat between my thighs threatens to split me in two.

In the light of day, I can pretend it’s not there. Pretend it doesn’t sing to my soul, tempting me with its forked and wicked tongue.

But at night…

The air in my bedchamber sours, curdling as it snuffs out the breeze from the window over my bed, and it seems to me it might sully the air the world over. Might blacken the skies forever.

But I know better.

Fear is only its second favorite weapon.

The first?

Pleasure with no release. No end.

My fingers travel over the looping knots that dot the corded distance between my wrists and sides of the bed frame, counting.

Thirteen. One for each side of the chest and one extra for good measure.

I tighten the last knot—a feat I’ve grown quite good at. Night after night I strap myself in, making the bindings tight enough I can’t break free, but not so uncomfortable I can’t sleep.

Then comes the stillness. Not just the quieting of the insects, the nightingale, the vixens in the nearby forest calling for mates. My thoughts hollow out as well, making room for it.

Little bird.

Little bird.

Come to me.

The smooth, rich voice sickens me. Tantalizes me. Turns my stomach to roiling acid and sets my core ablaze. I pray. It doesn’t help, but now and every night, I recite the psalms to the Mother, the Daughter, and the Wisened One for strength. For the steeled will needed to resist the evil echoes, the sweet, sultry call of the demon my family vowed to keep from the world.

The demon that’s lived in my family’s manor for generations, bound within a twelve-sided wooden chest.

I’ve only seen the chest once. One time was all it took to convince me I needed more than my own feeble human will to carry out my family’s duty.

One time, one near-catastrophic lapse in will has me lashing myself to my bed every night, sleeping between prayers and spells and linens tucked so tight there’s hardly room to move.

Come to me, sweet little bird. You are my only hope. My destiny.

I gnash my teeth against the siren song, into the thick length of leather between them. It helps. I don’t wake up with an aching jaw most mornings.

But I can’t help the soaked sheets. Each time it infiltrates my mind, my blood boils and my thighsacheto go to it, as much for its release as for mine.

Resisting is a physical feat, and my dampened sheets speak that truth every morning.

But I only have to make it until the new week.

Father returns Monday. Things are always better when he’s here.

My father is a great man, his very bones filled not with marrow but with the unshakable belief that our family is destined for greatness.

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