Page 33 of Blackwarden
He looked at his plate like he wasn’t so sure himself and set the fork down, letting the bite fall onto the table.
“I...don’t know.”
The look of confusion on his face made me smile, but I pressed my lips together in an effort to stop myself. He glanced up at me, brows furrowed. He stared for a long moment before a warm smile melted across his face.
“I must have been thinking about how many questions you’ve tortured me with, Ms. Greene.” He leaned on to his elbows, folding his hands in front of his face. “Do you have any for me this morning?”
The hungry look in his eyes sent me back in my chair in an attempt to escape. It didn’t work. My mind went completely blank; I couldn’t conjure a single question. Instead, all I could think of was when he kissed me, his hand holding my head in place, the simmering heat of him against me.
His pupils dilated and he sat up straighter. “Actually, I need to apologize for my conduct,” he said, sweeping his arms from the top of the table and tucking them into his lap, a very uncertain expression on his face. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s fine,” I squeaked. “I know you didn’t mean—”
“No. It’s not fine.” He swallowed hard, unable to hold my eye contact. “I’m...” He closed his eyes as if he needed a moment to collect himself.
“Really, it is.” I stood from my seat, suddenly sweaty, my heart racing. “I need to go.”
Now that I knew he was okay, the need to remove myself from his presence was intense. I very nearly slipped and fell as I fled and rounded the corner, where I came face to face with Keres as he stepped from his shadows.
“Ms. Greene,” he said, a sly smile tugging at his lips. Those fucking lips that had been so soft and perfect the evening before. “You look as if you’ve seen a monster.”
I swallowed and took a few steps back from him. His shadows unfurled from around him and crept across the floor toward me.
“Keres, I...” I blinked a few times, trying desperately to pry my eyes from him and failing.
“Can I show you something?”
The change in direction was jarring, and it took a moment for me to realize he was waiting for an answer. What could he possibly want to show me that he hadn’t already? I guess there were probably plenty of things in this mansion of his that remained behind locked doors. He held his hand out to me like he had when he’d first escorted me through the front doors. I remembered how his hand had felt warm and soft—welcoming when everything else had been strange. I’d been terrified, but somehow brave enough to reach for him. I could be brave again.
He tucked my hand under his arm, squeezing it against his side before leading me down the hall. When we stepped into a pitch-black room, the creeping suspicion I’d been there before rose the hair on the back of my neck. A brazier timidly illuminated along the far wall, and I stifled a gasp. It was the room I’d been locked in on my second day. The one full of frames, some with portraits, some with nothing but foreboding, dark silhouettes.
“This was where the Gatehouse brought you on your second day. The Gallery.” He refused to release my hand, instead keeping it tightly tucked against his chest. When I glanced at him his eyes were turned toward the countless frames. “There are ninety-nine of them.”
Ninety-nine? If I was right and these were portraits of the maidens that had been taken to the Hag Queen, I shivered wondering if he’d been the Dark Fae to take all of them? That would mean he’d been doing this for five hundred years. He’d been cursed to rip maidens from their families for five hundred years. He’d been protecting them with his shadows for five hundred years. I couldn’t craft a clever enough question. Now that I knew there were so many things he couldn’t say, I was too scared to askanything at all. Instead, I stood there dumbfounded looking at all the beautiful faces.
Ninety-nine maidens.
He glanced down at me, a strange sorrow in the curve of his brow. Almost as if he was waiting for me to ask him, but I couldn’t. A sickly-sweet sadness flooded through me. I stared back at him wishing I’d never asked a single question at all, that I was blissfully ignorant of all of this. That I’d kept my mouth shut, pulled my food from thin air then taken myself back to my suite where I could hide in peace. I didn’t want to know anymore. I didn’t want this side of the story. The side where a very lonely Keres was cursed and forced to do something he didn’t wish to do, over and over again.
I stiffened. He’d said he still needed to finishmyportrait. Was that the canvas on his easel? I looked to the nearest painting, mesmerized by the detail. The faces looked so lifelike, as if they could step from the canvas at any moment. If it was him who painted all of these, he was a remarkable artist.
“Didyoupaint all these?”
“There’s the questions.” He was smiling wide enough to show his elongated incisors.
He didn’t answer, he just stepped away, leaving me staring into the eyes of a woman I had a feeling I’d be meeting very soon.
Chapter 18 ~ The Portrait
Rosalin
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I refused to spend my last evening in the Gatehouse holed up in my suite. I’d seen everything in this place. The creepy mural, the room with all the portraits, the kitchen which served no purpose. I’d endured being surrounded by magic, the oppressive sense of being constantly watched, and having my emotions felt by someone else without my permission. There was nothing left to explore, nothing left to surprise me or scare me. So, when Keres bid me good evening, I wandered to the library and made myself comfortable on one of the settees. Part of me wished I’d see him, that I wouldn’t have to spend my last night here alone. Another part knew it was probably best if I didn’t.
I’d decided to read through the book he’d given me,The Demise of the Blackwarden.It was, as he’d confessed, horribly dry. And a good number of the pages listed nothing but conquests of what the Unseelie Court had considered one of the strongest and oldest families of the Dark Fae. They had been the guardians of the portals from the Fae realms to the human world for millennia, now they were all dead.
I felt him enter the library long before I saw him. His shadows seemed to curl around me possessively, and I didn’t entirely dislike it. Keres stood in front of me with his hands on his hips, a snide smirk on his face.
