Page 74 of Thorns and Echoes

"Go! You can't be here!" He gasped out the words.

“Come with me. Castien–!”

From the hall, a shout: “Shadowed knight. Blind knife. Obey!”

His body froze. His head snapped up, and he stared at her with cold, blank eyes.

“Kill her!”

She ran.

Chapter 25

Castien

“Hold!”

His muscles locked. Rage burned just beneath his skin, hotter with each step that she took away from him.Faster.She was here.Run faster, Anais.She washere.

Tumultuous fury and frustration writhed against the command that held his will in an iron grip. She was real. Her beautiful green eyes had torn through the haze of the trance and yanked his consciousness to the forefront. The sudden shift had slammed his head with pain, but pain was nothing compared to her presence. She was there in his arms, blood splattering her cheeks, the cold midnight of her voice softened to a warm dawn, and… he had held a blade to her face.

He longed to chase after her, to explain, to beg her forgiveness. She hadn't tried to kill him. He had no delusions that he had won their fight. An unvoiced scream ravaged his throat. She washere.

She shouldn’t be.

He should have stabbed her. He should have tried harder to convince her that he couldn’t be saved.

The mindless anger eased as Anais disappeared down the hall. She wouldn't be caught. Couldn’t be. Guards streamed past him. His arm flexed, but there was no point. He couldn't make himself move.

Until he was commanded.

“Follow,” Frances snapped from the top of the stairs.

As his mind grappled with awareness, memories began to flow, first in a trickle, then a stream. He had a sense of what had been done to him. The command words forced his obedience. When he had been rescued half a year ago, the words only turned him into a puppet with just enough reason left to enact a few scenarios. Like a performance, he had been forced to repeat and rehearse the same actions again and again. As he turned back to the stairs, he saw flashes of green-eyed women drinking wine. How many girls had he poisoned? Ten? Twenty? He had stopped counting after thirty.

Darius’ comment about making the nobles respect him cropped up to the front of his mind. How much respect did thirty dead bodies earn?

His hands weren’t clean. Nausea stirred at the edges of the trance. Right then, he was grateful for the distance between his mind and body.

Castien sheathed his dagger and went up the stairs. The thin man stared into his eyes. An excited gleam lit his gaze.

“Good pup,” Frances said with a sneer.

Castien would kill this man. If the alchemist turned his back without the trance to protect him, he was dead. The courtesan found his ability to hate the man curious. When he thought of the Queen – Queen Yelena, his Mistress – he was hit with a crippling sense of loyalty and the need to please. She had been the one to pour the brew down his throat. She had spent quite a lot of time by his bed, saying his words over and over again. Touching him. With his memories came the faint feeling of her claws raking his skin. Hollow pleasure dropped to his groin.

He wrenched his mind to Frances. Curls of sensual heat slowly cooled to focused rage.

However the trance worked, he couldn't be trusted. Internally, he laughed. He had never belonged with Anais. Notas an Escort, not as a lover, and certainly not as her Consort. She would have no choice but to acknowledge that fact now.

“The Queen is not to be disturbed. If you haven't noticed, there's a fugitive in the castle.”

Frances had led him to the Queen's bedroom. Muffled moans and grunts filtered through the door. A guard stood in their way.

The alchemist scoffed, “Tell her it's me, you fool. Me, and her special toy.”

The guard sneered but stepped inside. Moments later, they were ushered inside.

The moans and grunts were no longer muffled. A naked man lay on his back, the Queen riding him while kissing a woman kneeling at her side. In the back of Castien’s mind was a running commentary on position, speed, and angle – the woman was going to twist her spine if she didn't shift soon – but the forefront was occupied by a strange sort of jealousy: intense, yet distant. He shouldn't have resented the poor man grimacing as the Queen’s claws dug into his chest. He shouldn't have cared who his Mistress kissed. His only purpose was to serve her. He belonged to her, not the other way around.