Page 25 of A Bond in Blood (Blood Bound Duet #1)

Chapter 25

T he palace shook as I ran and echoing screams of rage filled the halls, seeping through every stone.

My feet moved me forward and to my relief, I found the hallway leading to a door that opened right beside the door Adie had directed me to. With the keys still laying on the ground.

I picked up the ring and ran to the door to Ulrich’s room. When I slammed it open, my hand went to my heart, touching something wet.

Blood—Bjorn’s blood was covering my sheer gown.

I shook when I lifted my hand, finding the black liquid staining my fingers.

My body trembled at the image while the palace continued to shake so violently I wondered if Ulrich would bring it down upon us all.

I made my way across the room, almost reaching the bathing room when the main doors slammed open and Ulrich stalked in. Blood dripped from his hands.

“Brenna .” His voice was cold and low.

I backed up, lifting my hands. “I didn’t know.”

My feet stumbled with the faerie wine still poisoning my blood. I’d almost fallen back, when his hands landed against my body, holding me up.

“You are foolish,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He pressed my body against the wall, his eyes scanning my face.

“Are you harmed?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not physically.”

“You fool,” he repeated. “You stupid, stupid fool.”

“What did you do to him?”

He shook his head. “We will not speak of him. Not now.”

My hands trembled while he held me against the wall, his chest heaving with my own. His hand rose and I flinched as he tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. His finger brushed my cheek, causing me to gasp at the sting of his skin touching the cut from his blade.

“This outfit,” he muttered.

“I made a mistake,” I replied, attempting to shuffle away from him.

His hand landed on the wall beside me as he ground his hips against mine. “Do not move,” he demanded.

I froze, unable to come up with the words to battle with him.

The loud swoosh of the curtains blocking out the moon startled me. The candles extinguished and the familiar sound of Ulrich’s mask dropping rang out across the room.

To my shock, he was lifting my hand, allowing me to brush it along his bearded jaw.

“There is a problem,” he whispered.

I continued to cup his face, wishing my eyes could see in the dark. Damning the wine for altering my senses in the most inconvenient ways.

“A problem?” I asked.

“I cannot rid myself of you,” he groaned, pressing his hips against me. “I cannot rid my senses of your skin, your voice, your smell.”

I gulped. “Smell?”

He pulled my hand away from his jaw.

“It’s a tempting scent. Like aged whiskey before the first sip. Like the smell of the earth right after rain. You smell like sin, Brenna."

“Like sin?” I whispered, wishing there was light in the room so I could see some of him, any part of him.

His voice dropped, sending shivers down my spine. “Yes, sin, Brenna, and I want a taste.”

My heart thundered in my chest. The promise in his tone was enough to send me over the edge. I swallowed nervously and placed my hand on his chest.

His hands slammed against the wall once more. The heat of his body pressed against mine had my senses running rampant. The low, near feral groan rumbling from the back of his throat caught my breath and my hand pulled at his bloodied shirt. One hand slowly moved from the wall, caressing the side of my cheek before stopping at my throat.

Breathing in, he leaned down, placing a soft kiss at the base of my neck. “I am fucking starving,” he whispered.

Words choked in my throat when his lips went higher, shocking me when his tongue ran up my cheek, lapping up the blood coming from the small cut.

It was all too much, making my hands shake, but my hold tightened on the fabric of his shirt. I had to hold onto something to keep myself from falling into the maddening oblivion he was tempting me with.

“I want to see you,” I whispered back, knowing what his response would be.

His fingers softly twirled against my skin and my eyes rolled at the touch. “You do not need to see me for what I’m hungry for.”

I lifted myself onto the tips of my toes and my hand rose again, reaching to brush his lips. But his hand stopped me, holding my wrist in the air.

“I did not get to complete the Rite,” he muttered.

I froze. “No, you did not.”

“I do not fuck women poisoned on faerie wine,” he whispered, pushing away from me.

The cold of the room was a shock to my senses when his body lifted away. Tears lined my eyes while I scanned the dark room.

I couldn’t feel him. His presence. That cold that was unexplainable.

Hands grasped mine and I yelled out, twisting around.

His laugh was like a tempting melody. “Clothing and bed.”

“Your Rite?” I asked.

“It is a long-standing tradition. Not one that will leave my island or kingdom in dire threat of the Gods. Besides—” his voice went low, “I found my traitor.”

Soft clothes were placed in my hand, and I blinked as the red light of the moon returned to the room and I found him with his mask secured on his face once more. The clothing however, he’d changed into loose trousers and an even looser, low-cut shirt. Revealing his inked skin to me.

“Stop staring and get out of that gown.” He pointed to me. “Even if I do appreciate every bare bit of your skin I can see.”

My skin went cold with his words and the piques of my breasts went rigid.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Get clothes on now before I regret my decisions.”

I left him sitting on the bed while I entered the bathing room. When I found my reflection in the mirror, I did not recognize myself. Instead of seeing the woman, powerful and in charge of her choices that I had seen earlier in the evening, I found a scared creature. A woman with smudged koal running down her face from her tears, and a dress—now torn at the back, revealing my scarred skin.

I looked as much as one of the monsters as I’d come to live amongst, and I wondered if I were turning into one of them?

I’d willingly walked into a court I knew ran on debauchery. I walked side-by-side with the Unseelie King each day. I ate across from him each night. I laid in his Godsdamn bed, stopping my attacks to end his life.

No—instead I’d taken the life of a man that was likely as innocent as I was the day Olen had ripped me from my home.

Was I any better than the rest of them?

I certainly wasn’t the woman who had left my isolated island. I was but a shell of her. A ghost walking the halls of the monster my world feared.

My hand went to the ink on my hip while my mind traveled to the gentle way he’d traced that ink. How he’d kept his eyes only on the secret I revealed to him.

How he refused to allow me to warm his bed just now because I was not sound of mind.

I turned, staring past the open doors of the bathing room, imagining him in the bed outside of my sight. Waiting for me like he did each night.

Then I remembered Adie’s words. The fondness in her voice. The smile that had cracked across her face when she’d spoken of her Uncle Ulrich.

The thought settled over me. Brief and a quiet ponder in my mind. I kept it inside while I washed my face and changed quickly. I left my tattered excuse of a gown in the corner of the bathing room.

When my foot hit the stone floors of the bedroom, the curtains snapped away the moonlight and the candles went out.

Without trouble, I made my way through the room, settling beside Ulrich.

I trembled while I moved my body closer, pulling away the wall of pillows he had placed down the middle of the bed.

“What are you—”

“Ssh,” I cut him off. “Quiet.”

I moved until my body was touching his, turning to settle on my side. As though it were a life-time long ritual, Ulrich turned as well, his body wrapping around mine.

I was a stupid fool for this. A stupid, unthinking fool.

His hand wrapped around me, pulling me closer to him.

“You should fear me,” he whispered against my neck.

My body went stiff with the words, but I shook my head. “I don’t.”

“You lie,” he muttered. “You are a very bad liar.”

“I don’t fear you,” I repeated, trying to force myself to believe my own words.

He pressed himself against me. “Why?” he asked.

My body shook with the fear he’d trained into me. A reaction I’d come to realize he wanted me to have.

“Because,” I breathed out.

I jumped when his fingers pressed into my thigh, lifting my chemise upward with his touch.

“Why?” he demanded.

“I believe you wear that mask for show. You hide who you are, wanting all of us to believe only a monster lives behind it. But there’s more. I’m sure there’s more.”

The pressure of his fingers on my thigh pulled away and he chuckled while he shifted from me, pulling his body from mine.

“The wine still has its grasp on you.”

Tension lingered in the air with the mattress groaning from his large frame settling in for the night.

“Goodnight,” he whispered before silence enveloped us once more.

“Get up,” a voice growled beside me.

I covered my eyes, shocked by the bright sunlight filling the bedroom. When I glanced down, I found Olen in beast form at the side of the bed.

“What is the urgency?” I groaned.

“Penance,” he snarled.

I sat up, shaking my head. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know what this Rite was!”

Olen’s shoulders shook with his unsettling laugh. “Not for you. Get up. Ulrich is waiting in the palace courtyard.”

I jumped from the bed, dressing quickly and not caring that Olen remained in the room. He was unmoving as I stripped my clothes from my body before redressing.

I grabbed my cloak from the closet and turned to the beast, huffing with heavy breaths.

“That was fast,” he laughed.

“Ulrich is waiting,” I replied.

Olen bumped my calves with his snout, nudging me through the door. My hands twisted around the clasp of my cloak. When my feet entered the hall, I glanced back at the bed.

I’d slept peacefully again, even after the chaos of the night before. The sound of Ulrich’s deep breathing had lulled me into rest rather than irritated my mind.

Was I truly going mad?

Olen grunted beside me, and we picked up our pace, silently making our way through the palace.

Even with my nerves, I could not ignore the air layering over everything. It was heavy and charged with warning. Raising the hair on my body in alarm.

Olen stood on his hind-legs, shoving the grand entrance doors open and I stopped in my tracks.

The courtyard was full of bodies. Every pair of eyes went to me while whispers and hisses filtered into the palace.

And in the middle of the courtyard was Ulrich, with Bjorn shackled on his knees.

I pulled my hand to my mouth. “What is this?” I whispered, shocked to find my assailant breathing.

Olen snarled.

“Traitors receive punishment from those they betrayed.”

Olen grabbed the hem of my gown, pulling me into the courtyard. His feet dragged through the gravel, but I could not fight him. Not when my legs shook beneath me, barely holding my body upright.

He dropped my gown when we arrived before Ulrich.

I stared at the king, my stomach twisting at the rage in his eyes and the same death mask he’d worn the night before tight across his face.

He smiled at me before pointing to the man on the ground.

“He betrayed your trust.”

I turned my gaze to Bjorn, finding the man staring at me with hate.

“What trust?” I asked.

Ulrich’s voice echoed across the courtyard. “The Rite is bloody. It is ancient. It is our tribute to never forget. But it is all based on trust .”

The king turned back to me. “This creature broke yours. He poisoned you for his own pleasure.”

Bjorn spat at the ground. “She’s a whore , cousin. Whores do not deserve anything more than a good humping.”

The sound of Ulrich’s fist connecting with Bjorn’s jaw echoed over the shocked gasps of those watching, myself included.

Bjorn’s black blood dripped from his mouth as his head lifted. His teeth dragged across his lips and his finger touched the blood.

“Interesting,” he muttered.

Ulrich’s shadows appeared, pulling Bjorn upward. The shackles rattled and Bjorn let out a groan while his arms stretched back behind him.

I stepped back, bumping into Olen while Ulrich whispered something into the man’s ear.

“Cousin,” I dropped my voice to Olen. “That is Ulrich’s kin?”

Olen snarled. “Distant. Very. Very distant.”

Bjorn let out a shrill laugh when Ulrich dropped him to the ground.

“Brenna, a decision,” the king snapped.

I startled, meeting his gaze. “I don’t understand.”

“Death,” voices chanted around us.

“Death.”

I watched while feet stomped the earth, creating a beat similar to the one that had started the Rite. The gravel lifted with the force of it all, shaking the very dirt of the earth.

“What do we do with him?” Ulrich asked, approaching me.

“I thought you killed the traitor?” I whispered.

Ulrich’s hand brushed my cheek, the touch drowned out the beastly chants filling the courtyard.

“The Rite requires a sacrifice. After a deal based on treason is uttered.” He turned back to the man staring at us. “This beast betrayed you .”

“He said he was going to claim your throne!”

My words came out in a shout and the chants stopped.

Ulrich’s jaw clenched, but he kept my gaze. “Decide his punishment.”

I pulled away from him, stepping back against the wall of fur that was Olen.

“I can’t.”

“Coward!” a loud voice yelled from the crowd.

My hands shook as I clasped them together and my tears fell. “I can’t.”

“Princess,” Olen growled.

I shook my head. “I can’t be responsible for another death.”

Ulrich’s eyes lit with amusement. “He would have killed you.”

I met Bjorn’s eyes, finding him grinning like a madman.

“But he did not.”

“Do you have no regard for your own well-being?” Ulrich inquired. “Not surprising to learn about a beast that has tried to end my own life with her bare hands.”

Hisses filled the courtyard, and I glanced briefly, finding burning eyes of hate all gazing back at me.

“You decide,” I pleaded.

Ulrich was silent. He turned on his heel, picking up his cousin by the bloodied shirt still on his body.

“She’s pathetic,” Bjorn laughed.

Ulrich’s fist slammed into Bjorn’s stomach, causing the man to cough up black blood.

“She’ll know. When the time is right.”

The king turned back to me, waving Bjorn’s sagging body as though he were merely a towel.

“You will choose between death or banishment, Brenna.”

“I—”

The sound of Bjorn’s body hitting the earth cut off my words and Ulrich raised his voice over the whispers of the crowd.

“The princess has two months to decide. If she does not—” he met my eyes, “then the punishment will be death, by her hands.”

“Ulrich!” I cried out.

Olen bit the sleeve of my gown, silencing me instantly.

Ulrich smiled.

“Traitors must always be punished. And you must learn how to be a queen.”

I fell to the ground, frozen in my shock while the courtyard emptied. Ulrich lifted Bjorn’s unconscious body, stalking past me while he returned to the palace. When he was but a few steps away he spoke, forcing my gaze to him.

“This beast will be in the dungeon. I suggest you start to behave, Brenna. I wouldn’t want to provide him with a cellmate.”

My wine-hazed thoughts that the king was more than a monster ran from my mind while I watched him walk away.

There could be no good intentions within a monster determined to break me.