Page 29 of A Bond in Blood (Blood Bound Duet #1)

Chapter 29

T here was a new kind of respect following me now. The eyes of Ulrich’s court no longer looked at me with disdain. No longer pointed with sneering comments or mocked my presence.

No, the Unseelie fae were just as superstitious as their hated brethren on the Northern Island. Bowing to Ulrich’s mysterious princess when I walked beside him or joined Olen’s deal claiming.

Every one of them silently acknowledging the princess now regularly warming their king’s bed.

I would be deceiving if I did not admit it thrilled me.

My eyes caught the bowing heads while Ulrich and I walked down the docks under the red moon. My easel was strung around my neck, but I had not noted or drawn a thing in hours. Even the weight of it did not bother me while we walked silently.

This change was not one of romance or love. Not of a desire and need to learn everything about him and become enamored with his presence. If anything, it was a change in our war. Each side lifting their flags in defeat. Pausing the bloodshed.

“It’s been another month,” Ulrich spoke, breaking our silence.

I craned my neck to meet his eyes. “Yes.”

“Bjorn still sits in my dungeons.”

My stomach dropped. “He does.”

“You have mere weeks to make your decision, Brenna.”

“You do it.” I turned my gaze away, staring out at the water.

He stopped and stood before me, his eyes hot with an emotion I couldn’t interpret.

“There are laws and customs of my people. Millennia-long rules I cannot cast aside for the woman warming my bed.”

“Stop it,” I demanded while heat rose on my cheeks.

“You must make a decision. Does the traitor die or is he banished?”

“What happens if he is banished?”

“I reclaim his title and gift it to the one he tried to betray, and he is sent out to sea on a boat where he can only pray to your silent Gods that he makes it through my mist.”

I stepped back.

“There is so much you just said that I can hardly fathom.”

Ulrich stepped closer. “You become a lady of my court and remain a princess of yours.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I do not want that.”

“Which one?” He smiled.

“Enough,” I demanded, avoiding his outstretched hand. “You’re alluding that he will not make it past the mist. Meaning I would be sending him to his death even with banishment.”

“He will make it if you desire,” Ulrich replied blankly, his eyes behind his mask emotionless.

“Why?”

“Because you wish it.”

“What are you gaining?” I questioned, stepping back again.

“A woman still willing to warm my bed.” His smile crept across his lips.

I threw the koal in my hand right at his head.

A quiet gasp came from behind me, and I glanced to find a young child staring with their eyes wide. Ulrich took advantage of my distraction, grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward him.

“Do not frighten the poor being,” he sneered.

“I am not the only one doing the frightening,” I replied, yanking my arm to loosen his grip.

“You terrify them. The princess who has their king leashed by her—”

My knee went right into his groin, and he fell to the ground.

My fists clenched together while I glared at him and the child behind me let out an amused yell, running away from us.

Ulrich’s shadows appeared around him as he leaned up on his hands.

“What the fuck was that?” he spit out.

“You will not humiliate me.” I stood over him, glaring. “I can choose to stop your access to my body at any point. You will not treat me like a conquest you have control over.”

His hair fell across his mask, and he smiled at me. “I apologize.”

He groaned as he stood, the sound filling me with victory. The smile on his face was still bright and teasing, but it dropped as quickly as it had appeared.

His shoulders went rigid, and his body turned from me, facing the sea beyond the dock.

“Ulrich?” I questioned.

He held up his hand, not twisting to meet my gaze. “Quiet,” he sneered.

A hum filled the air. Hot and breathtaking. Terrifying.

Familiar.

“Ulrich,” I begged.

“Silence, princess.”

I startled, twisting to find Olen at my side. With his hands on two curved blades.

“When in the Gods did you get here?” I questioned, my brow scrunching with confusion.

Olen only shook his head, lifting one of those curved blades toward his face while he held one finger to his lips.

“Olen,” Ulrich said quietly, snapping his fingers at his side.

Olen left me, joining Ulrich. Both men kept their backs to me. Almost as though they were protecting me.

“What the fuck, Ulrich?” Olen whispered, just loud enough for me to hear.

“You grab her and run if I give the sign. Do you understand?” Ulrich turned to his right hand, but his eyes glanced at me.

Olen nodded once.

The current in the air grew thicker. Gods, I knew what that was. The warmth.

I’d felt it.

I’d bowed to it.

I stepped to the side, my eyes wide when I watched the mist part for the brilliant white ship cutting across the water.

“Oberon,” I whispered. My hands moved without my control, pulling my easel from my neck. Throwing it and my supplies onto the dock with a loud clatter .

Ulrich’s body rotated to me, and he gripped my shoulders. “Brenna, I need you to be silent. Do you understand?”

“They’ve come for me,” I muttered.

Ulrich’s expression dropped. “We do not know that.”

I shook my head, hope rising in my chest. “Oh my Gods, they’ve come for me.”

“Brenna,” Ulrich’s voice sent a chill through my body. “If they take you it is an act of war. One that I will take seriously.”

My gaze held his while silence enveloped the dock.

“You can’t.”

He gripped my chin, tilting it upward. “I will, Ursa . You. Are. Mine. ”

His hand removed his hold while my blood ignited with hate once more. I had been so foolish. Allowing nights of naked embrace to cloud my judgement.

Olen stepped back, his arm out as though he intended to grab hold of me. I pulled my arms to my chest, refusing him.

“Don’t move,” he demanded.

The ship moved so much slower than Ulrich’s black vessel docked below the palace. But it was just as much of a statement in the water. Bright and a beacon of hope.

Ulrich’s fists were shaking at his side by the time the ship arrived at the dock, throwing down pure white ropes while Seelie fae slid down them, tying the ship in place.

One young one, a female, met my eyes and a look of genuine confusion went across her face. She glanced at Ulrich and Olen then back at me, but the slammed gangplank pulled her gaze from mine and she clamored back up before glancing in my direction once more.

“Don’t move,” Olen repeated.

“I’m not a child,” I sneered. “Or an animal to be kept in place.”

“You are right now.”

I held my tongue when a tall fae came into view. His copper hair was combed to the side while his turquoise blue uniform of Oberon’s guard caught my eye.

“Your grace,” the fae addressed Ulrich, bowing low but with a mocking grin in his eyes.

Ulrich’s power unleashed, filling the air with cold and shadows.

A look of disgust went across the fae’s face before he was snapping his fingers.

My eyes glanced around the dock for just a moment, finding every single surface filled with people. Possibly every citizen of Muspell was watching their king.

Part of me had expected Oberon to step on the gangplank. Or possibly one of his wives.

Nothing in me, however, expected the heads that hit the dock or the shrieks of rage that rang out behind me.

“Your spies, King ,” the fae sneered.

“Oh my Gods,” I whispered.

“Do not look away,” Olen whispered. “Look at the truth, Brenna. Watch.”

Ulrich stepped forward with shadows licking at his fingertips. I bit my lip, noticing his skin becoming translucent.

“What is this?” he demanded.

The fae grinned again. “Did you not hear me? Are you too clouded by all of that fucking you and your monsters do?”

Ulrich was on him, pulling the fool up by the throat, lifting him for us all to see. Fear filled the arrogant fae’s eyes. The expression brought me sickening delight.

“The king found them all!” the invader squeaked. “Removed each of their heads when he was presented with them.”

“He had no right,” Ulrich snarled.

“He is the king,” the fae spat.

“He is as much of a pawn in this game as you are.”

A scream of agony rang down my spine and I twisted, watching an older Unseelie fae woman with grey skin and horns on her head pick up the head before her.

“No,” she sobbed. “No. She was only to be a handmaid. Only to listen to the whisperings. No.”

More people began to bend, picking up their heads. More screams echoed around me. Families finding their loved ones. Lovers discovering their partners.

It was horrifying.

“Olen,” I whispered.

“Quiet, princess,” he replied, grasping his palm around my hand.

I held his grip, my knees trembling while more heads came from the deck of the ship. My eyes moved to Ulrich and my heart clenched with fear.

“Death,” Olen whispered beside me.

I was frozen in my terror at the image before me. A creature of shadows, bone, and wrath had replaced the king. His hand still gripped the fae, but it was a hand of only bone with wisps of shadows wrapping around his limb.

“These were my people,” the king’s voice rumbled.

Another head hit the dock.

The fae laughed despite the feral fear in his eyes. His head turned to me. “Why do you have that in your presence?”

Ulrich gripped the man’s neck. “You do not look at her.”

“Oh, she will not be pleased to learn you have a guest,” the fae let out a shrill laugh. The nearly identical sound all Seelie fae made.

The sound unleashed the beast.

Ulrich’s hand barely twitched and the fae’s head exploded, bursting from the strength of his grip.

My responding scream was muffled by Olen’s palm. But the other screams—the Unseelie Fae on the dock—those sounds could not be silenced.

Ulrich moved like a ghost in the wind, his shadows propelling him to the deck of the ship. The magic created an outer skin on the king, masking him from the continued splattering of blood. Blood, so much blood, seeped from the wood of the ship as though the vessel itself were losing the iron substance and not the crew Ulrich was slaughtering.

I didn’t think I could handle it. Despite how my eyes could not pull away, my heart was freezing. The sight making me realize he truly was a monster.

Uncontrollable.

Ready to enact death and violence at any moment.

More screams hit my ears. Terror—Gods, they were all full of fear.

I stepped back, bumping into Olen.

“Please get me away,” I begged.

Olen’s arms gripped mine. “Watch, princess.”

My tears fell while headless bodies hit the earth and blood continued to run down the white ship. The liquid staining the wood and pooling into the water lit by the blood moon above us.

I held my hand to my heart.

Everything, every reason why I was here was because of that moon. Because of blood . A substance I was seemingly baptized in. The Gods themselves dunking my soul in its waters.

A loud bird cry came from high above and I glanced up, finding a white dove in the air, flying away from the vessel. An oddly comforting image with so much bloodshed; the stench of it now filling the air.

I turned my eyes, finding Ulrich approaching, his shadows alive and wrapping around him.

The darkness opened, and his translucent hand grasped mine, pulling me into his magic. I screamed while he enveloped me in it all, sure he would punish me for my hope of rescue.

“They did not come for you,” the beast snarled at me.

I stared into his eyes, now as black as his very soul.

“You. Are. Mine,” he whispered.

My tears fell. My fear gripped my heart. My words, they became unreachable in my mind. I let out a breath and gave the only response I could think of—a nod.

As he was prone to do.