Page 22 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
The High King gave me a scornful look. “Don’t act like it then.”
“Oh,” I groaned. “Ihateyou.”
“Mmm.” He stepped over to me, and I bristled as he brushed his thumb across my lip, wiping the last and final traces of his kiss away. Then he rubbed it off on the hem of his shirt like he couldn’t stand to have any remnants of me left on his skin. “Ihate you, too, little beast,” Lucais murmured. “In fact, I think we should starthatingon each other more often, don’t you?” He cracked his neck. “Ease some of that tension…” Arching a brow suggestively, his eyes roamed down my body. “I’d certainly like to ease mine into you.”
My eyes widened when I caught his meaning, thinking back to the way his stone-hard cock had throbbed against my belly and imagining how he’d feel if he was permitted to work all of that pent-up frustration out on me and inside of me—and I shoved him backwards. “No.”
His laughter was the most beautiful sound in the world, echoing through the chamber of his ultimate demise as he turned and led me further into it like a fate-stricken lamb to the slaughter.
seven
The Mercy of a Taxpayer’s Money
My body was a traitorous vessel, its nerves singing from the lingering traces of the true High King of Faerie’s touch, but my mind—which, for arguably the first time in my adult life, had all of its wits fully intact without being chemically rebalanced by prescription medications—was spinning, falling, reeling.
Lucais had watched me smash priceless heirlooms into smithereens, and he didn’t try to stop me. He had witnessed my faerieslaughter of a member of his staff, but he didn’t reprimand me. He had kissed me, and then he wiped it off. He had watched his own body being brutally tortured inside of my mind, but then he propositioned me for sex.
Infuriating High Fae, High King bastard!
I was so enraged that I thought steam would start blowing out of my ears. As it was, however, only my breath clouded in front of me as Lucais opened the second door of the dank chamber and brought me into the real dungeon. The room rapidly dropped to subzero temperatures, causing me to lose all sensation in my fingertips, and the moisture-laden air made every breath feel small and heavy in my lungs.
An inane sense of fear invaded my nervous system, and I searched for Lucais’s hand at his side.
For a split second once our knuckles touched, I was convinced he was going to pull away, but Lucais flexed his fingers around my hand before he threaded them through mine. Warmth engulfed me from the inside out—a sensation he was providing using his magic to combat the bitter chill chipping away at my bones. I hadn’t realised that my teeth were chattering until they abruptly ceased under the command of his power, and then I squeezed his hand back.
Our footsteps were stiff but heavy against the damp, uneven cobblestone ground. The echoes were sharp, serenaded by an occasionalplopof water dripping from the iron bars of the empty cells on either side of us. There would have been no illumination if not for the orbs of Lucais’s faelight spinning around us as we moved because the cells had no windows. If not for that little detail, the dungeon would be identical to the one from my nightmares.
My neck twitched against the temptation of a shudder, and Lucais glanced down at me. His eyes were a startling contrast against the gloom and darkness—vivid gold, deep enough for me to climb into and hide from the monsters who lurked within the memories of the room.
We walked by rows upon rows of small, tight cages protected by thick, wrought-iron bars. All of them were empty, haunted, foreboding.
At the end of the path, the space opened up.
A long, worn bench sat in the middle of the floor beneath a wall with hooks and large nails hammered into a wooden beam at crooked angles. Weapons hung from them, though the shadows were especially dark and made them harder to discern, and Lucais’s faelight orbs remained obediently tethered to our sides.
Bravely, I took a step out into the open space and let his hand drop from my grasp. A single orb of faelight accompanied me, alongside the warm relief of his magic stretching out to soothe the distance. My gaze was trained on some kind of blade hanging from the rack. I thought it might be familiar, though I couldn’t be sure. One more step, and—
Clang.
My head whipped in the direction of the sound, its shallow echo sending a bolt of anxiety rolling down my sternum. The orb of faelight by my side hesitated, then eventually followed my line of sight. Its weak, yellow-tinged glow illuminated the corner of the dungeon in a watery light, and my gasp of shock became lodged in my throat like a stone.
Hands flying to brace themselves against my stomach and chest, I banished all the air from my lungs by trying to scream. For all of my efforts, the noise I made amounted to nothing more than a strangled cry, muffled by the inability of my own lips to fully come apart.
The mangled figure of a man, strung up by his hands in iron cuffs chained to the ceiling, barely flinched beneath the sudden onset of faelight. His skin was coated in dried blood, his wrists so raw the bone was exposed where the iron had burned his skin and flesh down to the remnants of a few loose flaps of ligaments and muscle. The chains clanked together as he attempted to lift his head, bloodshot eyes spearing straight into mine.
My stomach gurgled with gall and spiralled downwards. I recognised him as the sentry from the clearing in the Court of Light who had struck me. Face pale and drawn, his matted hair was plastered to a forehead smeared with blood and dirt. His eyes barely held the strength of a single blink before his head snapped forward with enough force to sprain the tendons in his neck.
“Hanson,” I whispered.
Lucais’s shoes scuffed against the ground as he came up beside me. I felt the warmth of his palm hovering within an inch of my lower back.
“What the fuck have you done?” I breathed, shaking my head as Hanson’s body finished swaying. My words were wisps of grey mist in the shadows between us.
The High King let out an agitated breath, mingling with mine. “This is not what I wanted to show you,” he muttered.
“Why did you do this?” I demanded softly, emphasising each word.
He shrugged in my peripheral vision. “He hit you.”
