Page 17 of What Lurks Between the Fates

The walls were crafted in that same blue-tinted stone as the rest of the palace, and heavy brown curtains hung over what I presumed was the sole window in the room. They’d been drawn closed, keeping out any light that might have drifted into the room. To the left of the door sat a single bath. Small side tables carved from heavy, cherry-hued wood were placed sporadically around it. The bed frame was carved from the same wood and had four pillars which jutted toward the ceiling with pointed spikes meant for murder rather than functionality or practicality. A lone fireplace with light limestone lining the mantle waited just beside the bed as a fire blazed in the hearth.

“How are we to have a civilized meal with her smelling like death itself?” a woman asked.

I spun to look at the long table set up in the alcove to the other side of the door. The guard closed the door as I stared at the table, allowing my gaze to travel up from the female’s feet to the dangerous beauty of her face. Mab’s dark eyes snaggedmine. Her lips twisted into a disgusting snarl, as if she hadn’t been the very cause of my appearance.

“I would hate to inconvenience you,” I said with a droll smile, glancing over my shoulder at where Malachi lurked. “Return me to my cell and I’ll gladly fit right in with the smell of decay you’ve provided in such lovely accommodations.”

“That mouth will be your downfall one of these days,” Mab said, her voice quiet. While others may have mumbled these words, Mab whispered them threateningly. She didn’t need to speak loudly in order for her message to be heard, not when she was the epitome of evil in the world. To mumble would be beneath her.

She raised her hand, plucking a ripe berry from a bowl on the table and pinching it between two long, black nails. “Bathe her,” she instructed, placing the berry on her tongue as Malachi’s hands grabbed my shoulders. He turned me away from where Mab sat, heading for a water basin with hot steam billowing up over the edge.

I shrugged his hands off me, swatting them away as he stopped beside the basin and waited. With the iron shackles on my wrists, I was limited in how much I could fight. My magic wouldn’t answer my call, hovering just out of reach like a bitter torment.

Mab sighed behind me, as if my obstinance was futile. It didn’t matter if I ended up bathed, I’d take a part of Malachi with me in the process.

“It doesn’t need to be this way. You must long for a nice bath after your week in the dungeon. Get in, and we’ll allow you to wash yourself at your leisure.”

I swallowed, warring with my pride. I knew what the right choice would be for my health and my desire to not betouched. “I can’t remove my dress,” I said, raising my shackled hands in the hopes that I could gain even the slightest bit more power in this situation. Whatever game Mab was playing, whatever fool she thought me to be, this would never be a civilized meal.

She wanted something, and I very much wanted to keep it from her.

“Malachi,” Mab said, waving her hand passively.

Malachi approached my side, removing a dagger from the sheath at his waist. The fabric of my dress tore down over my ass and thighs, leaving my undergarments exposed.

“Hold still, Pet. I would hate to cut you when I don’t intend to,” he said, the cruel twist of his lips displaying the truth to his words. He would cut me later on. He would bleed me. He would do everything in his power to break me.

I raised my wrists cooperatively, holding his gaze as I held my head high. I wouldn’t show signs of bending as he stripped me from my clothes and did his best to humiliate me.

His dagger slid beneath the hem of my sleeve, cutting the fabric as he slid it up my forearm with painful slowness. The edge of the blade glided against my skin. His eyes held mine, making it very clear just how much damage he could do with a single flick of his wrist. He cut all the way to my shoulder, watching as that half of the dress fell to my waist.

I turned my gaze away, refusing to think of his stare upon my flesh and what Caldris would feel through our bond. Malachi stepped around my back, not touching me until he came to my other arm and repeated the process. When he cut through the final threads of the fabric, it fell to my feet.

I slipped out of my underwear, shoving them down my thighs and stepping into the scalding water of the basin. Ifthe intent was to burn me alive to make sure I wouldn’t carry a disease to the Queen of Air and Darkness, they’d met that goal. I lowered myself into the water, ignoring the way my flesh burned and grew pink beneath the heat. Malachi stood beside the basin, watching every move I made as I took the soap in hand and scrubbed the dirt from my body. The water changed color, becoming murky as I sank lower and scrubbed my hair.

“I was told Alfheimr had special products for washing hair that would make it sparkle with life,” I said, glancing toward where Mab eyed me with disdain.

“You’ll earn such luxuries in time if you behave,” she said, continuing to eat the berries from the bowl on the table.

“I’ve never been very good at doing what I’m told,” I said, dragging my fingers through the snarls in my hair as it floated on the surface of the water.

“Malachi,” Mab said softly, and I barely had time to begin to scramble out of the water before his hands were pressing into the front of my shoulders. He shoved me down until water covered my face, then held me there, keeping me trapped beneath the surface. I stared up into the warped sight of his features as the water sloshed against the sides of the basin while I struggled.

My lungs burned with the need to breathe. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold it for any longer, Malachi lifted me out of the water. I sputtered, desperately sucking back a deep lungful of air. He shoved me back down the moment I’d stolen that lone breath, forcing me beneath the surface so harshly that my head clattered against the metal of the basin.

I struggled, grasping his wrists with my chained hands and trying to escape his grip. But my body was weakened bythe lack of nutrients in the food they’d given me in the dungeon, weighed down by the iron stealing what remained of my energy.

In one last bid for freedom, I shoved a single leg off the foot of the basin. Angling my body up and lowering my head deeper in the water, I watched Malachi’s moment of confusion before my knee hooked around his throat. I used his surprise to pull him back, to shove him toward the opposite end of the bath until his hands left my shoulders and I was able to rise to the surface.

I pulled him lower until his spine struck the edge of the tub, his body twisting with the force of my leg. Air filled my lungs as I took greedy breaths, watching as Malachi crumpled to the floor. He got to his feet only a moment later, his expression murderous as he lunged for me.

“Enough,” Mab said, raising a hand. I turned my eyes to her. “I believe you’ve made my point, Malachi.”

“But my Queen…” Malachi trailed off, the implication obvious.

“What fun would it be if she just took your punishment lying down and begged for mercy? How dreadfully boring it would be to have my new plaything behave the same way everyone else in this forsaken court does,” she said, smiling at me. Something lurked in her gaze that I knew I would come to dread.

“Set them free, and I’m sure a great many of your servants would be more than willing to give you the entertainment you seek,” I said, dancing around the truth. If she wanted people to stand against her, then she shouldn’t have bound them to her will.

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