Page 82 of The Devil In Blue
“I have been here a long time,” he explained. “Although sovereigns don’t die, we do transform when there is a need. When we endure too much. When we grow tired. We are reborn in a way. But those past lives still exist. I knew I’d made a mistake when I assaulted you that first night. But I couldn’t stay away. Petris… he was someone I thought you’d talk to. Someone I thought you could trust.”
“So, you wore a mask.”
He paused a moment, putting his last two grapes back on the platter. “I could not be gentle with you, Biar,” he confessed. “I was angry. I have been spending my days hating you since I was fooled into thinking the worst of you. And I’ve been plotting the ways I would make you pay for years. But… I wanted to know. A part of me could not believe…”
His words tapered off and I felt my hands beginning to shake. I hid them under the table, pinning them between my thighs to warm the chill that had wrapped around them.
“I wanted to think the best and I ended up thinking the worst,” he continued. “I was weak. I could not face you as a king. I hurt you too much. I frightened you. Petris could be all that I was incapable of being. He could be kind. Understanding.” Another pause. He bent forward again, leaning on his elbows. “When you began to confide in him, it hurt, but I didn’t want to let that go.”
“Did you contemplate taking the mask off earlier? Did you consider telling the truth?”
His eyes met mine and I stilled, my breath catching in my throat.
“Yes,” he muttered. “The night you came to my room. The night you let me touch you. You showed bravery that night. I know what I did to you. I know how I made you feel when you first came here and yet you came to me. I wanted desperately to tell you then, but a part of me thought you’d still need Petris.”
I bobbed a shoulder. “Maybe I did. But I also need more truths than lies. Especially now.”
“And you will get them. You will know all sides of me, Briar. I swear it. And I will get to know all sides of you if you allow it.”
Rune and I polished off the whole platter of fruit and cheese when a loud storm began beating on the outer walls of the palace. I loved storms. Thunder and wind had always been a soothing sound to me on nights when silence was too unnerving to stand. I listened to the music of rain pelting the windows before Rune walked around to my side of the table and ushered me toward the door.
“Come,” he said. “There is a greenhouse across the courtyard that will have a better view of the waterfalls than anywhere else. They rage when it storms.”
“Outside?”
“Yes. Where else?”
Lucien despised rain. I didn’t want to say that to Rune considering his reaction every other time I mentioned the man whose tooth was around my neck, but I was thinking about it.
He led me up to his room and I memorized the path from the kitchen. The memory of our first kiss tickled my lips when I saw his chamber again and I felt a familiar heat pool between my thighs. It was alarming to feel so much hunger for a man. I was unfamiliar with the sensation, but I adored it nonetheless.
Leaving me near the bed, he disappeared into a giant walk-in closet. When he came out, he was holding a purple coat with a soft fur lining. Once he handed it to me, he disappeared again.
“Put it on,” he said. “It will be cold out.”
I slid off my robe, careless that I was still in my silk nightgown. Smiling, I slid my arms into the coat and pulled it over my shoulders. I was swimming in it. It hung on me like a blanket and dragged an inch or two on the floor. But for some reason, it made it warmer to know it was Rune’s. I hugged it around myself and caught my reflection in a large, wood-framed mirror standing by the bed. Turning one way and then the other, I mused over how childish I looked in the oversized coat.
But something else caught my attention in the mirror’s face. That other door. It was barely cracked open, but something about the door made me stiffen. It was made of thick wood with a sliding lock on it that reminded me of the ones in Southminster. That kind of door didn’t have a handle on the other side and it made my heart stop to remember how many doors like that I’d been locked behind.
I turned around to face it and slowly started toward it, too curious and suspicious to let it go uninvestigated. When I reached it, I gently pushed it open to find darkness beyond that smelled like roses and sage. It didn’t smell like a prison at all, but as the light from Rune’s bed chamber flooded the shadows, I saw a bed. A dresser. A window through which I could see the courtyard below and the raging storm outside. But the window was barred.
Beautiful red sheets laid neatly across the bed and intricately decorated pillows leaned against the headboard. It was a gorgeous room except for two very disturbing details.
Next to the window hung a dress, the hem of which was stained with dried blood. The gold gown brought back every memory in all their detail from the masquerade up until the point when the ravens slaughtered all the guests. It was the very dress I was wearing at the time and it was in that room as if that room was meant to be mine. And on the stone wall behind the carved, wooden headboard were chains with wool-lined iron cuffs locked to the ends.
That place was indeed meant to be a prison. One decorated and disguised as a beautiful, luxurious room. The room that was meant to keep me inside.
Fear, anger, and betrayal danced within me and made my stomach churn. My legs itched to run and my voice ached to burst free in a scream of rage and hurt. I could already feel the cold steel of the cuffs around my wrists, chafing my skin and keeping me immobile and trapped.
I felt sick. Panic licked its familiar rough tongue up my spine and I spun around, my body shouting at me to flee.
Rune stood in the doorway dressed in a fresh pair of black leather pants. He was barefoot and a dark blue tunic was draped in his hands as if he was about to put it on. His eyes were wide and his jaw was set tightly. He was upset.
“You…” I forced. “Was this meant to be for me?”
He slowly shook his head but said nothing. When he took a step toward me, I moved sideways, glaring. I silently warned him and pleaded with him at the same time.
“You were going to lock me away?” I said, my voice cracking.
