Page 59 of What Lurks Between the Fates

Mab walked toward me, ascending the shallow staircase within her bath until water sluiced off her skin. Rose petals glided against the fairness of her flesh, dropping back into the bath as her body was revealed. Mab was unbothered by her nudity, moving slowly as she approached me. I kept my eyes on her face, refusing to so much as glance at the unblemished body I wanted to maim.

“You will wear what you are told, be where you are told, and behave as I dictate.”

I swallowed. That sounded like I wouldn’t be allowed to remain in the confines of my room. Sounded as if I would need to be an active participant in something I wanted nothing to do with.

I opened my mouth, my smart reply dying in my throat when she raised a hand to silence me. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from cursing her out.

“For every moment you disobey me, I will pick a random Fae Marked from my keep, and I will make you choose between their life and your mate’s. We both know what choice you will make, and all the courts will watch as I slaughter them. Most Fae Marked, I imagine, will have their Fae using the solstice as an opportunity to get within the walls of Tar Mesa to plead for their mate to return home with them. You will be responsible for the severing of souls, and for the fact that they will watch it happenhelplessly.”

My jaw clenched as the threat struck me in the chest, sinking inside that hollow part of me that rose in fury. To sever a mate bond was unforgivable, whether the Fae Marked desiredthe bond or not. There’d been a time when I would have wanted to be freed; where I would have welcomed that death rather than be taken.

I’d been a fool, refusing to recognize the completion that waited for me if I only let it consume me.

“You’ll lose your leverage over the Fae if you kill their mates,” I argued, swallowing down my anger.

I couldn’t fight, not with Nila so close and so vulnerable. Malachi, as if he could sense the coming tension, had moved closer to her. He took up position at her side as I watched, his shoulder bumping against hers as she gulped.

Her eyes connected with mine, a plea in them that I couldn’t ignore. My poor behavior wouldn’t lead to my own suffering, buthers.

“I warned you that your heart is your greatest weakness,” Mab said, a cunning smile transforming her face. She touched a single nail to the Fae Mark where it swirled over my heart. The ink retracted and writhed away from her touch as if it hated her as much as I did.

“No matter how I hurt you physically, you’ve not broken,” she said, turning and striding back into the bath. She resumed her position, staring at me as I gaped down at her. “Let’s see what guilt does to thatgoodnessin your heart, Little Mouse. Perhaps that is the path to breaking you.”

“What do you want from me?” I asked, my control snapping as I glared down at her. “I don’tknowwhat I am. I cannot give you what I don’t have.”

She studied me, her lips spreading to reveal gleaming white teeth as she leaned forward in the water. She radiated calmness, grasping a flower petal in her hand. She crushed it within her grip.

“I want you bound,” she said, the words striking me in the chest.

I pursed my lips, having considered and wondered why she hadn’t just bound me in the way she had Caldris.

“Then why aren’t I?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. I hadn’t been able to ask Caldris about it in the time we’d spent in Tar Mesa—about how he’d come to be bound.

“The magic of the binding is complex,” she said, pursing her lips as she studied me. “You have to be willing. Children are much easier to manipulate into accepting it. A few days without food will have them begging for scraps, more willing to accept anything I offer as payment for that food. But you, you would sooner die than bind yourself to me for eternity. I need youbrokenfirst.”

The creature in me recoiled, staring out through my eyes at the threat only Mab could pose. What would it take for me to bind myself?

The creature within me hissed her disdain, her voice a slither.

Never,it said.

My morals might not have mattered as she pounded against my chest, striking against the cage of my flesh. Mab looked at my chest, her head tilting to the side as if she could see the creature attempting to escape my body.

My good heart wouldn’t matter if she took over. I knew it as well as I knew my own name.

“Interesting,” Mab purred, her eyes lifting to mine once again. “Very interesting.”

I stood, silent, not daring to open my mouth. I wouldn’t risk the truth that could pour out, or that she would see my deception as I danced around it. Nobody, not even Caldris,knew the extent of the thing that paced within me. The way she occasionally made it known that she would claw through me to escape, if only she could.

“Get in the bath, Estrella,” Mab said, leaning back as she stared at me. I didn’t move, refusing to be naked with the female I wanted to be nothing like. “It is time to get you ready to be presented to the kings and queens of the courts.”

“Nila can see to that,” I answered, glancing toward my handmaid.

She gasped as Malachi grasped her by the hair, wrenching her head back so that he could touch the edge of his blade to her throat.

I stilled, turning back to Mab. “Call off your dog.”

“Get in the bath,” she repeated, eying my chest as if she could see my heart beating.

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