Page 14 of A Bond in Blood (Blood Bound Duet #1)

Chapter 14

M y arms cut through the freezing waters, slicing it like my fingertips were the tips of the glaciers I longed to see again. My feet kicked ahead of me, and I stared up at the late-afternoon sun.

I’d been out in the water for the entirety of the day, swimming and lounging on the sand. Soaking in the small reminders of who I was.

Because I’d quickly been forgetting everything that made me—me.

The small habits that kept me grounded. Kept me tethered to that mortal side of myself. The side I preferred.

Not the wild beast I was becoming.

The sun continued to set, and I knew I had to leave. I had to get inside. Even with my suit, made to cover my body from the tops of my toes to the tips of my fingers, my exhaustion would soon surprise me. I chose to ignore my mind’s warning though, continuing while my arms and hands moved me through the water, and I smiled. Likely too soon when my head hit a solid, yet soft surface.

Flailing, I jumped up, moving my feet under the water to keep me afloat. The sun finished its descent, and I glanced up.

“Fuck,” I muttered, finding Ulrich. I laughed, covering my mouth at the black mask on his face.

“Even out here?” I chuckled. “In a hidden cove?”

He blinked at me then smiled. “Your rules, Brenna.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s fascinating you’re keeping it up. The commitment is impressive.”

I moved my arms behind me, shoving myself away, but his hand went under the water, wrapping around the top of my covered foot.

“Let go!” I yelled, kicking out.

His hand released me, and I scowled.

“I was going to come back.”

“When?” he asked.

“When I felt like it.”

“You would have frozen to death.”

I laid on my back once more. “Wouldn’t that be convenient for you? We would have made it three months. Likely your shortest deal to have failed.”

“Actually,” his voice was muffled now with my ears under the water, “the shortest deal lasted one hour.”

I propped myself back up, kicking my legs underneath me. “An hour?”

He laughed and I held in my gasp when I realized he had no suit to keep his body warm.

“You’re going to freeze to death!”

His bare shoulders shrugged. “I like the cold.”

“You’re insane,” I replied.

“But yes, to answer your question. It was only an hour. They wanted to be able to bed anyone they wanted for the rest of their life. A stupid request, but my only rule was that their bedmates would be willing.” His eyes glanced at me from behind his mask. “They attempted to rape their second bedmate, and I cut them right in half as punishment.”

“When you say…?” My eyes widened with disgust.

“I lifted their cock and sliced upward until they were split in half,” he replied blankly.

I shook my head. “Fuck the Gods that’s disgusting.”

“So is assault,” he replied.

“You’ve assaulted me,” I replied, shoving further from him, heading toward the shore.

He followed me. “When?”

My hands hit the sand while the shore grew closer and I flipped onto my stomach, slowly crawling through the water.

“Is that a jest?”

“No,” his voice was blank, emotionless.

I twisted back, my brow tight. “Ulrich, are you serious?”

He leaned back while we reached the water’s edge.

“Will I admit that I was responsible for the scars now lining your back? Yes.”

“You—” I interrupted.

His hand rose. “I am not done speaking.”

My mouth closed.

“Was I too brash in inviting myself into your bath? Yes.”

A cold hit my lungs while his gaze went out to the blue water before us. “Did I allow a part of myself that I fight to keep caged out this morning?” He turned back to face me, and I startled at the regret in his eyes. “Yes. But I have never forced myself into you. I would never.”

I stood, holding up my own hand. “Stop. Now.”

“Brenna.”

My angry tears fell while I turned away from him, scooping my trousers and cloak into my arms.

“Brenna!” he yelled after me, but I picked up my pace, heading down the path that had led me to what I’d thought could have become my oasis.

His hand grabbed the back of my arm, but I screamed causing him to stumble backward.

“You have done nothing but assault my head, heart, and mind!” I cried. My clothes dropped while I slammed my fist against my chest. “You killed him. You took my only chance of freedom. For what? A fucking deal! A deal I did not even make!”

My anguish tumbled from me, a storm I could not stop. Words that had been building in my heart. Hate that was changing everything that had once been good about me.

“I have never wanted to kill until that day on the dock,” I admitted, my voice shaking. “But I saw his lifeless eyes and there was nothing more that I wanted.”

I pulled my gaze from the sand beneath my feet, finding Ulrich unmoving.

“I’ve been a pawn in your game, Ulrich, and the insult to know you don’t believe you’ve assaulted me might just push me over the edge.”

“Brenna,” he reached for me, and I laughed.

“You hate me, remember? Do not ever forget that I hate you too.”

Bending, I picked up my trousers and wrapped my cloak around my shoulders. I left the Unseelie King speechless at the opening of the frigid passage I was now forced to forget existed.

Dried and dressed, I ran my fingers along the lines of maps in the corner of the library. The table before me was littered with my project. The red of the blood moon came through the one expansive window facing toward the water in the distance.

I stood, groaning with my hand on my back, gazing out at the water. The sounds of the nightly party boomed the floors beneath me.

Ulrich hadn’t followed me back to the palace. He hadn’t interrupted my bath or barged in when Adalie had braided my hair back for me.

I had worried at first, hesitant over when he would bring down that hand of punishment.

But when he hadn’t even sent Olen to fetch me for that evening’s festivities, I determined that I’d made the feared Unseelie King tuck his tail between his legs.

Proving me the current victor of our battle.

I moved from the table, settling onto the ottoman leaned against the back wall. I observed the library. The dusty books, the barely available seating.

The room needed a desperate redecoration. Some places to sit and read, to fill one's mind and heart with unending knowledge.

It was evident in the smell and the color of the majority of the books I’d found that this room held Millennia of history. Stories and tales most of our world likely didn’t know exist. Pages filled with names of people long forgotten.

I leaned against the jagged wall of the mountain, my fingers tapping on my knee.

The music floors below me was irritating, beating in repetition. Mocking me in my silence and solitude.

I turned my head, staring out at the water turned red under the moon.

The hours I’d spent out in that frigid blue had been the most restful hours I’d had since leaving my home. With the water cascading over me while my body moved through it. Weightless. Carefree.

Only to have it ripped away in moments by an ignorant tyrant’s proclamations of innocence.

Did he really believe it? That he’d done nothing wrong? That no harm had come to me throughout the last three months?

I rubbed my fingers against my temple. I wasn’t innocent, I knew this. I was acting out of character. A beast in his palace, screeching and demanding freedom. While acting like a wild animal determined to rip his soul from his body.

I was also not innocent, but I knew this. He, however, did not appear to be aware enough to realize his crimes as well.

I sighed. I needed the months to grow quicker. I needed the time to fly faster.

My eyes turned to the parchment and ink on the table.

I hadn’t done it yet… Penning my request.

But the rage in my heart—how it pestered me to pick up the quill. To write like I’d never written before.

I stood, hands slick with sweat, seating myself on the creaking chair at the table.

My dearest queen,

I write, begging for your aid. . .

Despite my initial hesitancy, the words moved onto the parchment, the ink like my own work of spells. Magic by a hand lacking that very gift.

By the time I’d finished transcribing my plea, my hands were stained in black liquid with crumpled paper sitting to the side of the table. Each of them a draft of the request I was determined to send out.

When that day came.

The library door slammed open, and I jolted in my seat, my hands shoving the crumpled paper in one pocket and the completed letter in the other.

Footsteps echoed across the expansive room, and I began scribbling on the blank parchment before me. Pretending I was working on my own map.

“Your highness?”

I pulled my head up as Adalie came from around one of the towering bookshelves.

“Yes?” I asked, clearing my throat and wiping my stained hands on my lap.

“Your dress!” she exclaimed, rushing to me.

“Adalie, I’m fine.” I motioned her away. “You called for me?”

“Uncle sent me,” she whispered.

“What does your charming uncle want?” I asked with a wink.

Adalie laughed, covering her lips.

“I want you to pull your ass out of your head and come join the party,” Olen’s rough, beastly voice came from behind the shelves.

I groaned, standing from my seat. “I’d rather retire to bed.”

Olen grinned, his slick dark lips moving along his monstrous face. “I’ll tell his grace.”

“Stop!” I held up my hands. “Why are you determined to bring me irritation?”

Adalie gasped beside me.

“I’ve been told I’m rather amusing.”

“Annoying,” I countered.

I walked forward, heading toward the exit when Olen stepped in front of me.

“You threatened Bjorn today.”

My stomach sank. I stared into Olen’s dark eyes.

“I did.”

Olen grinned. “He reported you.”

“I should have reported him,” I snapped.

“Yes.” Olen stepped out of my way, his wide beast form barely giving me room to move past him. “You should have. Instead, you disappeared for hours. Ulrich thought you’d run away.”

I scoffed. “Running means I put the very people I’m trying to get back to in danger.”

“Attempting to kill the king didn’t do that?”

I paused my steps. “Fair point.”

Olen appeared beside me, keeping a casual pace while I made my way through the library. He yelled back at Adalie to get into her rooms and bed before we exited the room. When we arrived in the hall, I turned right, heading toward the looking glass instead of straight to the stairs leading to the bedrooms below.

“How well do you know Oberon, his court, and his wives?” Olen asked.

“Why does that matter?” I asked, meeting his gaze.

Olen’s fur stood slightly before his shoulders shrugged. “It matters because you’re residing in the home of Oberon’s most notorious rival.”

My hands went to my pocket, protectively grasping the letter. I kept a blank expression on my face until we’d reached my hall of windows.

The light of the blood moon came through the glass. The red—brilliant, sensual, dark. Tempting and dangerous.

I sank onto a bench, propping my feet out before me. Olen grunted then lowered himself by my feet.

“To answer your previous question,” I said, “my family is distantly related to Oberon. I knew our island had been a gift. One that required there to always be a full-blooded fae on our throne.” I turned to meet Olen’s gaze. “I just wasn’t aware of the underlying conditions behind that gift.”

Olen remained quiet, his fur-lined body moving with the breaths he took. I held in my laugh. The beast appeared as though he were listening intently.

I leaned back against the stone wall. “I’ve lived over a century and for as long as I can remember, we have done our duty to visit our homeland during the harvest moon. Titania—”

I bit my lip, unsure if I could continue opening up. My eyes drifted to the beast, still silent and staring at me.

“She and Oberon had no children. Not like he did with Mab. She saw me, a motherless half-fae with no magic in her bones and took an interest in me.”

“Is she a motherly figure?” Olen asked.

“Yes and no,” I replied. “More of a friend. Someone whose face was familiar and kind in a world I barely knew.”

Olen let out a loud sigh. “Were you hoping to be in Aesir this harvest moon?”

I stared out the windows, my heart pulling at the red giant in the sky.

“I wanted to be in one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen the night I saw the dark blue night sky for the first time.”

“Muspell is beautiful,” Olen yawned.

I laughed. “I’ve barely seen it. I didn’t even get the chance to see its beauty on the shore when we sailed in.”

Olen laughed, his paws stretched out before him. “You were sick in a cabin. That’s no one’s fault but your own.”

I shook my head with a smile while silence filled the hall. Eventually, I settled onto the floor beside Olen, using his body as a cushion for warmth with the cold coming from the mountain walls.

Then I fell asleep, unsure how I’d become so comfortable with a beast.