Page 54 of Of Blood and Banes
On second thought…I strip the nightgown off, his eyes flashing in anticipation. I stalk over to him, drop onto a knee into the space between his legs, and lower myself face to face with him. Gripping his chin in one hand, I yank down and stuff as much of my nightgown into his mouth before closing it.
I pat his scratchy, stubbled cheek, meeting his narrowed eyes. “Much better.”
I slide into bed, reveling in the silence as I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.
A strangled gasp cuts through my watered down dreams. Flipping up off the mattress, I glance at Darian who is arching his back against the floor, his eyes wide and mouth gaping. My nightgown is crumpled on the floor near him. And the long, nine-foot chain connecting his wristlets to the wall clinks as he thrashes. He claws at his chest, the tendons in his throat bulging as he struggles to breathe.
Racing out of bed and nearly tripping over my own feet, I slide onto my knees beside him and assess his throat and chest. No puncture wounds, nothing constricting his airways. I brush my hand over his forehead, and his skin is clammy.Fuck…poison? Did someone poison his dinner?
“Don’t you die on me, you idiot?—”
In a smooth, quick motion, he lunges for me, snagging fistfuls of my hair before ripping my head down. A searing pain explodes in my scalp.
“Fuck!” I writhe. “Let go, you fucking asshole!”
Slapping and grabbing his hands, I attempt prying his fingers from my hair but can’t get him to let go. Gritting my teeth, I slam my forehead into his, ramming his head back into the ground. He grunts in pain and twists both of us to the left, throwing me over with his weight and smacking me straight down into the cold, hard floor. A new explosion of pain wrecks my back, shoulders, and skull. He’s over me in a flash, straddling me with his strong legs. With this new vantage point, he takes the chain between his manacles and pins my throat down.
If I wasn’t fucked before, I surely am now.I should have just let him die.
“You are far too easy,” he laughs. “Do you not remember what I told you back in Arterias? In the sparring circle? Control your emotions, or they’ll control you.”
His voice echoes in my head from all those months ago. “We have no room for deadly mistakes.”
I slowly slip my fingers under the chain trapping my throat, gasping for air. Attempting to knee him in the ass. “Get…off!”
He lowers his face to mine, staring at me eye to eye. “You have the key. Let me out.”
“No!” I gasp.
“Then I’ll just kill you,” he says rather plainly.
“You won’t,” I croak. “Yoursweet, tenderheartwouldn’t do that to me.”
Something dark flashes in his eyes, and his jaw twitches.
“You know I’m your best chance at being free,” I spit. “You help me, I help you. You kill me, you lose any chance of seeing your sister again.”
Not to mention, I imagine he knows what the ring might mean. If he kills me, he kills King Aaric. And while I’m not privy to his relationship with his grandfather, I imagine that domino effect isn’t something he’s hoping for.
He growls, and with his fist tangled in my hair, he wrenches my head to the left, pinning the side of my face against the floor. I stare at the blanket spilling over the bed onto the floorboards stretching out to meet me.
A small smile stretches across my lips after a few breaths—I’m right. “You won’t kill me, because you can’t…can you?”
I fight against the pain screaming in my scalp as I pull against his grip to look him in the eye with defiance, my lips trembling as I clench my teeth under the searing pain. My entire vision is filled with his raging, forest-green eyes excavating every fear from my body. A seething, breathing nightmare.
He pushes off me, recognizing the truth of my statement and deciding better of it. All at once, the pressure in my scalp and on my throat from his chain, disappears.
He snags the nightgown off the ground and chucks it at me. “Put your godsdamned clothes back on and get your fucking ass back in bed before I change my mind.”
“Pull a stunt like that one more time…” I rise to my feet, clearing my throat from the soreness wrapping around it. “...and I’ll stab you in the fucking chest.”
But at least now I know with absolute certainty Darian doesn’t want to kill me. Or, at least, he has reasons not to. Reasons that far outweigh whatever he feels toward me. I only need to figure out what those reasons specifically are, and how I can use them to my advantage.
I’ll break him.
I’ll find out the secrets of King Aaric and take him down.
Even if it’s the last thing I do.
