Page 19 of Lady of Ashes

She didn’t know how much time had passed before footsteps sounded outside the door, and the Assassin Lord came back into his dungeon study. He had a covered platter in his hands and when his eyes met hers, he pulled the lid back, revealing the chunk of roast meat smothered in gravy with potatoes, bread, and glazed carrots. Her stomach growled as the smell accosted her.

“As soon as you tell me your decision, this is yours, my dear.” He dragged a piece of meat through the potatoes and brought the forkful with him as he crouched before her, holding it in the air, poised at her lips. “Well?”

“I will take your consequences before I see harm come to Callan or any of the other people I love,” she sneered, her face a snide mask of cruelty.

Alaric heaved a sigh of disappointment. “I cannot say I am surprised. I was, of course, expecting some resistance, especially after how you held out the year after Juliette’s death.”

“Do not speak her name,” Scarlett spat, jerking against her restraints in an attempt to get to him. The action drew his attention to her wrists, though, and his eyes narrowed in annoyance at her left hand.

The Assassin Lord pursed his lips. “I was not planning on addressingthatissue until tomorrow, but it appears it needs to be discussed now.” He stood, tossing the fork on the plate forcefully before he leaned against his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “You do not belong to him, Death’s Maiden. I am the one who trained you. I am the one who raised you. I am the one who made sure you were fed and well and cared for. I did not invest all of that time and interest in you just to have you think you can give yourself to a fucking Fae Prince.”

“I am not some investment for you to order around and dictate,”she snarled in reply, holding his stare. “I have always resisted your cages, and I always will.”

“That’s where you are wrong, my dear,” he said, too quietly, as he rounded his desk. He sat and grabbed a quill, writing something onto a piece of parchment. He pulled his hood into place before summoning a servant into the room and sending him off with the paper.

When the servant had gone, he removed the hood once more, clearly no longer feeling the need to keep his face hidden from her, and poured himself a glass of liquor. He came to her again and raised the glass to her lips. Scarlett pressed them ?rmly together, refusing to let a drop of the liquid onto her tongue.

“Come now, my dear. I know you are thirsty,” he chided, taking a sip himself.

“For water, you ass. Not for liquor.”

The sting from the slap across her face was sharp, and she tasted blood in her mouth where she’d bitten the inside of her cheek at the impact.

“That godsdamn mouth,” Alaric muttered, sipping at his drink again. He reached out and gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him once more. “I do not know how to make things any clearer to you, Scarlett. You aremine. You have been mine since I took you in after Eliné was killed; before that even. I decide your future. I decide what you eat. I decide what you wear. I decide who you bed. I decide who’s future children you will grow in your womb. I decide who you will serve.”

“No,” she bit back through clenched teeth. “I am not a piece of property that you own.”

The ?ngers gripping her chin squeezed tight enough to bruise. “You are my property, Scarlett Monrhoe. I own you. No one else, and certainly not some Fae piece of shit. I do not care if he is your twin ?ame. I do not care if you have married him, as I suspect you have. None of that matters. You are still mine to do with as I please.” He shoved her head back against the wall as he pushed himself to his feet, knocking back the entire glass of remaining alcohol. “I was lenient with you after Juliette died. I let you get away with more than I should have, but I let you mourn. I let you throw your tantrum like a child.”

“You let her be murdered! You invested just as much in her,” Scarlett cried. It didn’t matter that she knew Juliette still lived.It didn’t matter that she knew she had a higher purpose and was now ful?lling it. That year had been utter hell. The things she had endured because of that death would haunt her for the rest of her immortal life.

Alaric snorted in disgust. “Juliette and Nuri were trained to make sure you were kept safe. You were never told. An enchantment was used to ensure they never breathed a word of it to you.EveryoneI brought into your life was for the sole purpose of making sure you survived.”

“You lie,” Scarlett seethed, but even as she said it, she knew he wasn’t lying. Everything he’d said made sense and was like puzzle pieces slotting into place. She’d been kept hidden and locked away from the world for nearly ten years. Only Cassius, Juliette, Nuri, and their personal guards interacted with her and knew who she was. Alaric had orchestrated it all. Almost everything in her life, he had planned as if he truly did decide her future. But if that were true …

Her eyes ?ew to his. “You. You arranged for my mother’s— For Eliné’s death.”

A cruel and cunning smile tilted up on his lips, and he cocked his head as he looked down at her. “She needed to be eliminated to keep you safe. I had thought the Fae princes had long since given up on her, but I was wrong. When I received word that the Fire Prince and his Court had tried to come for her, I knew it was only a matter of time before they got close enough to ?nd you. So, yes. I hired Dracon to kill her. In fact, I was in the alley with him when he did it. I later learned she was planning to take the three of you to the Fae lands when your magic became too much for your tonic. So really, it was something that would have had to be done eventually,” he said with a shrug.

“You fucking asshole,” Scarlett cried, a few tears running down her cheeks as he talked about her mother so cavalierly. She knew Eliné wasn’t her blood mother, but she was the woman who had raised her and cared for her. She was the woman who had loved her like a mother. She was someone else the Assassin Lord had taken from her so brutally.

There was a knock on the door, and Alaric crossed the room to answer it. When he pushed the door open, Mikale Lairwood walked in, a smug grin on his face. The Assassin Lord turned and came back to her. Crouching before her, he said, “I will do whateveris necessary to break you, Scarlett Monrhoe. I will do whatever it takes for you to learn that you are, in fact, my property. I own you. Every hair on your head and every drop of Avonleyan blood in your veins. And if I need to keep you in a cage to keep you under control, I will do so.”

Alaric stood and took a key from his pocket, unlocking the padlock that secured the chains of her wrist shackles to the bar above her head. Despite herself, Scarlett grimaced at the ache in her shoulders as he allowed her to lower her arms, keeping the chain ?rm in his grip. He tugged her to her feet by the chain, and when her legs gave out from being stationary for so long, he steadied her, looping his arm around her waist and holding her up.

Scarlett tried to jerk from his hold, but she was too weak from the sitting and lack of food and water to do much. “Don’t be idiotic,” Alaric scolded.

“What do you care?” she bit back, slowly rotating her ankles to get used to bearing her weight again.

“I care about my investments and take care of my property,” he said softly into her ear. “You are both, and while I need your spirit broken, I need your physical body intact.” He passed the chain over to Mikale before handing her body over to him as well. “Should you make a decision before morning, let Mikale know, and he will immediately bring you to me.”

Alaric turned his back on them and took a seat behind his desk, pulling some paperwork towards himself and beginning to read it over and make notes in the margins.

“Come, my pet,” Mikale purred, tucking her into his side and tightening his arm around her waist.

Scarlett said nothing as he pulled her to the door. But before they exited the room, Alaric spoke again.

“Oh, and Mikale?”

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