Page 224 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
A knock sounded, the Fae nursemaid Valter had brought with them at the door to collect Priya to prepare for dinner. She skipped from the room with her plant, her face alight with a joy Eviana was sure she’d never felt in her decades of existence.
The door clicking shut behind her was loud in the ensuing silence, and her eyes fell closed as she waited for Valter to speak.
“She will hate you some day,” her Master mused. “She will grow up knowing that to be a Source is the greatest honor she could ever hope to achieve, and she will love me. She will hate you because you are my Source, which means she cannot be.”
She heard him stand, felt him stop in front of her. He cupped her face gently, waiting. And when she opened her eyes, she found his hazel ones on her with a cruel smile on his lips.
“She will blame you for everything she cannot have. Everything that goes wrong in her life, every hurt and treachery, I will make sure she can trace it back to you.” A tear slipped free, and he leaned in, pressing his lips to the wetness. “She will hate you, and she will love me,” he murmured against her skin. “She will want me and blame you for not being able to have me. It will not be me who ends your life one day, my flower. I will be many of her firsts, but you will be her first kill.”
Eviana stared up at the ceiling, listening to Valter’s steady breathing beside her. She’d had to sit through another dinner of him doting on Priya. Coaxing her to trust him more and more while she watched on, unable to do anything. A part of her wondered what he’d do if she suddenly shared his secret. Not that she could. She was still bound by the vows and bargains she’d been forced to take over the years, including keeping his secrets. But the more she observed them, the more she watched Priya stare at him and hang on to his every word, doing everything in her power to keep his attention and earn his praise, the more Eviana realized she couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t sit back and watch this. She had to do something. Maybe Corbin and Lange would come. Maybe they’d bring help, but she couldn’t depend on them. She’d never been able to depend on anyone. Plans needed backup plans, and she’d been putting one together these last weeks.
She waited another fifteen minutes before she carefully slipped from the bed. If she waited any longer, she risked waking him. He always slept deepest the first hours of the night. Pulling a dress over her head, because that was all she had here to wear, she silently opened the door of Valter’s bedroom and stepped into the hall.
This place was as familiar as Arius House. They came here often, and Valter preferred it to the penthouse in the Charter District. A decent-sized manor house built into the depths of the mountains, just like the Shifter home. This house was just on the other side of the Charter District border, and there were so many wards and enchantments around it, it was only possible to discover if you already knew it was there. Even the Shifter Alpha and Beta didn’t know its exact location. Valter kept his secrets here, and she was on her way to perhaps his greatest secret of all.
The hall ended with nothing but the rocky wall, but on the left side was a small closet door. She winced when it creaked, holding her breath to see if Valter heard it. When everything remained silent, she entered, finding not a closet, but a narrow stairwell leading up. Her steps were fast and light, knowing she had little time to waste, and when she reached the top, she used her own teeth to bite hard enough to draw blood. Then she drew a symbol on the wall, the stone pulsing with a faint glow before it dissolved, and she stepped through.
The female sat on the bed, shifting to face her fully and her emerald eyes settling onto hers.
If only Devram knew how deep the corruption ran between the Achaz and Arius Lords.
“Caris,” Eviana greeted in a flat tone.
“It has been some time since you accompanied him,” the female replied, her voice hauntingly beautiful. “And never alone.”
Her black hair was dark as midnight and was longer than the last time Eviana had seen her, reaching halfway down her back. She sat on the bed in a simple black gown with off the shoulder sleeves that hit right above her elbows. The dress allowed room for the two onyx cuffs that were around her biceps and showed off the Marks across her collarbone.
An empty tray was on a small table with two chairs, the dinner dishes empty. A small stack of old leather-bound books were on the bedside table, the room lit only by candles. No windows to even give the illusion of an outside. The rug on the floor was the only source of warmth outside the heavy fur blankets at the foot of the bed. A small chamber off to the left held a washroom, and while the room itself wasn’t tiny, it certainly wasn’t spacious.
It certainly wasn’t large enough to spend the last two decades in.
She should have brought her something.
That was all Eviana could think as she stared at the female. How stupid of her. That was what Tessa had done. Brought her small things to build trust. She didn’t have anything to give Caris, and it probably wouldn’t have helped in the end. Not when she’d had a hand in why she was here to begin with. Not when she was the reason those cuffs were on her arms.
“My mind has not changed. I will not do what he wishes,” Caris finally said, her hands in her lap. “I will spend the next millenniums in this room and not change my mind.”
Eviana believed every word.
Caris Emersyn. Once, she was to be a Lady of Arius Kingdom. Then she became the caretaker of the Heirs, and now she was locked away until Valter needed her bloodline.
“That’s not why I’m here,” Eviana said, clasping her hands in front of her out of habit. “I came to make a deal.”
Caris’s brow arched, her head tilting. “With me? On his behalf?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t know I’m here, and my time is short.”
“No,” she said simply.
“You haven’t heard what I have to offer.”
“Is it returning me to Penelope? Because if it is not, I do not care,” Caris said dismissively, reaching for a book on the nightstand. She had to have read that book thousands of times by now.
“What if it is your son?” Eviana countered.
Caris didn’t look up from the pages, but her breath stalled.
