Page 39 of A Bond in Blood (Blood Bound Duet #1)

Chapter 39

S unlight and the smell of a smoking, extinguished fire woke me. I groaned, sitting up and holding a hand to the back of my head. My eyes scanned the room, and I tried to remember where I was and why I was naked.

It all flooded back.

Letters.

Lies.

Love making.

I stood quickly finding myself alone, but Ulrich’s clothes were still piled where he’d discarded them when we’d entered the cottage the night before. I turned in place, trying to decipher what could have happened when I found his mask laying on the table near the smoking fire.

Something was wrong.

I threw my gown on quickly. Metal clattered onto the ground with the movement, and I watched the gold coin roll toward the hearth. I did not know why I brought it. What prompted me to pull it from grandmother’s box, but it had come with the candle, and so it came with me.

For a moment I considered picking it up. Then a more cynical part of me stared with contempt. That damned candle had burned him. That damned candle had been tempting enough for me to be foolish.

I didn’t need the omen that would come with the coin.

I turned on my heel, leaving it by the hearth and I threw my cloak around my shoulders. When I ran out of the cottage, I found my mare no longer tied to her post. But a trail of blood led away from the cabin.

“Fuck the Gods,” I sobbed, running down the mud road where my village lay in the distance.

Where had he gone? What had happened?

His rage when we’d make eye contact—I thought he was going to kill me on the spot. His hand… Why had his hand snapped back so grotesquely?

I kept running until my sides ached and my lungs burned. When I made it up the hill the white bears usually crested, I let out a sigh when I saw it on the horizon: the tip of his ship, barely peeking past the neck of the fjord leading out to the sea. Hiding. Waiting for me.

A bird circled above me, squawking annoyingly but I threw my hands up, trying to shoo it away. The movement caused me to trip on my gown, sending me tumbling down the hill. Covering myself and my body in mud and debris.

“Princess!” a startled man yelled from his garden I had landed beside.

I popped to my feet, brushing him away. “I am fine,” I groaned.

I kept running. Perhaps he was with father. Perhaps everything was fine, and I had not ruined anything. His ship was still there. Still waiting for me. Never leaving me.

The bird followed me while I ran through town, even ducking so low I thought it would attempt to peck at my head.

“Get away!” I shouted at it again, picking up a pebble and throwing it, trying not to hit the animal but startle it.

It appeared to work. The pebble flew over the bird’s head, and it squawked angrily then flew off.

When I was almost to the palace, I noticed Oberon’s ship still in the harbor and my heart sank.

Ulrich would not be in the palace if Oberon were there. Or—

Hope rose in my chest. Would he?

Would he request both of my kings’ permission?

Not for my hand. I did not believe either of us were ready for that step, but for their approval for us to be—whatever we were.

I approached the palace doors, reaching for them but they flung open before I could grasp the handles. I stepped back, startled by the movement. Even more startled by who waited on the other side.

Titania stared at me with her eyes wild.

“Brenna,” she said sweetly.

I let out a breath of relief. Falling to my knees.

“My queen.” I lifted my hands, ready to plead for myself and Ulrich.

Titania bent to my level, lifting my chin with her hands. An action that suddenly made me weary. She stroked my knotted hair, then met my eyes.

“You smell of him ,” she sneered.

My eyes widened and I opened my mouth to protest when someone grasped my arms from behind me.

“Vengeance is sweet,” their voice whispered.

I snapped my head back, finding Bjorn with his arms wrapped around me.

“Unhand me!” I screamed.

He gripped tighter and that damned bird attacked, pecking at Bjorn’s head.

“Grab that beast!” Titania ordered and guards ran out past her, chasing the bird.

“Bring her,” the queen snapped.

Bjorn kept his arms on me, dragging me through the palace. An empty palace.

Where was everyone?

Titania threw the great-hall doors open, and I gasped at what I saw. My father was seated on his small throne with our entire staff behind them. His brown eyes were frantic, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. My heart raced and I stared at our staff, wondering why none of them moved. My eyes then found it, the thin layer of shadows, holding them all back. I turned my gaze back to my father, finding a thin band of shadows across his lips.

What was Ulrich doing?

I turned my head, trying to find him, but gasped again when I found Olen in the middle of the room in his beast-form.

Titania laughed again.

“This is not what I was expecting when I came to a funeral.” She approached Olen, stroking his fur gently.

The fur on his back rippled at her touch and his sorrowful eyes stared at me.

“Olen?” I asked.

Titania’s head snapped to the creature then back to me and she grinned. “My Gods, she does not know.”

“Know what?” I jerked in Bjorn’s hold, but he held firm.

Titania stroked Olen again and the beast snarled.

“Do not bite, king,” she purred. “You are mine now.”

King ?

Her guards clambered into the room, two of them holding the bird in their hands. I bit back my amusement that they struggled with such a small animal. Until they threw the bird, and I cried out at its broken wing when it landed at my feet.

“You monsters!” I yelled.

“We are not the monsters,” Titania laughed. “These two are the monsters.”

I didn’t understand who the second person she referred to was until the bird before me was shifting. Its bones transformed from wings and a body covered in feathers to elongating limbs.

I stepped back when the naked man stood before me with one arm dangling from the break Titania’s guards had caused.

His dark skin was one I knew too intimately.

His uninked skin.

Olen.

“This isn’t possible!” I shouted, staring at Olen in beast-form beside Titania.

The queen laughed again, slapping the beast on the back. “You are an expert in manipulation, Ulrich. I will give you that.”

“Brenna,” Olen’s voice before me was a warning. “Stay quiet.”

“No!” I refused

Bjorn released me, retreating away as I stepped around Olen and moved to the beast. I was almost beside him when Titania’s guards shoved me away, pressing their swords into my side. I pushed them away, trying to get to the beast. Its eyes were wide with me just an arm’s length from it, but the guard’s gripped me before I could touch that fur I’d grown to love.

“Let me tell you a story,” the queen began. Her guards continued to push me away from the beast staring at me with sorrow in its eyes.

“Millennia ago, a beast of shadows appeared in our world. Followed by a court of monsters. Creatures we had never seen before.” She stroked the black fur.

“He was terrifying and amazing. A being I had never encountered in my long life. And his inked skin—”

My stomach dropped.

“Gods did I want it.”

She gripped the fur on the beast’s neck. “He came with a group of them. Monsters and a few who could shift into anything they wanted.” She pointed to Olen.

“I was a lonely wife. He was a lonely man. Confiding in me that he had left a kingdom in ruin. In death, betrayal, and bloodshed. Only bringing those he could save. Allowing his own world to fall into the hands of a tyrant.”

The beast’s eyes dropped in shame.

“I fell for him so quickly, Brenna. Gods did I fall. He was the new breath of air that I needed. But when I confessed that love?” Her gaze turned hateful. “He refused. He refused me. He refused my plan to turn my terrifying lover into our world’s new king. Mocking me in every sense of the word.”

My stomach twisted; I was going to be sick.

She continued, “I of course told Oberon. Who in a fit of rage, banished Ulrich because we both know my sniveling husband holds no power compared to the man we both love.”

She smiled, pulling at the beast’s fur again.

“Only I cursed him under the blood moon. He hadn’t experienced one in our world yet. Having no idea how long they lasted or that my power was stronger under its light. I was determined to turn him into as much of a monster as I knew him to be.” She stroked his fur again. “He was terrifying, but lived with a mask of stoic royalty. Only, I saw the monster within. When he was lost in the faerie wine, it would unleash. Random outbursts of rage. Violence so delicious it made my body heat with need.”

My head swam the longer the queen talked, trying to piece together all that she said.

Titania glanced at the beast again. “With my curse, he would live life as a beast under the sunlight, shifting under the blood moon. Periods of one hundred and fifty years of beasthood. A creature of my own making that mirrored the creature that lived inside. I made sure to mark him with my blood blade as a reminder as well, branding his skin with my own hate.”

She lifted his chin, running her fingers over the red scar his fur did not cover.

My tears fell then. Tears of realization.

“To break the curse, he had to find a woman, any woman who would fall in love with him even after seeing everything horrible that he was. If he did not, then the beast would claim him fully, a deal of my own making. Turning him into my personal pet of rage and hate.”

“She was only required to follow one rule; never look upon his face before she told him she loved him.” Titania laughed. “You failed , Brenna. You professed your love to him while gazing upon the beautiful face that always got him what he wanted.”

“No,” I sobbed. “No.”

I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.

Titania’s hands gripped the beast’s fur and she sighed. “Ulrich, shift.”

My chest was heavy with shock. My stomach twisted in knots when the beast did as he was told. The fur disappeared around him, slowly, revealing his inked skin. My hands went to my lips as our gazes locked onto one another’s.

He towered over us all. The giant that was the Unseelie King, now standing in my childhood home.

Without his mask.

Ulrich’s green eyes were so full of sorrow and regret. An expression my heart could barely handle.

Titania whispered to him and his body went rigid.

“Now, Ulrich,” she demanded.

Ulrich stepped forward and his shadows wrapped around his skin. Creating a black wisping suit around his body.

He stepped forward, barely a fingers-length from me and I reached for him.

“Ulrich,” I pleaded.

He did not look me in the eyes. My tears fell and I was sure he would not acknowledge my presence when a small tendril of his shadows came toward me, licking between my outstretched fingers.

“Ulrich,” Titania cleared her throat. “Do not speak to her. Your deal was not honored. Claim your soul.”

My pulse froze and I stepped back, watching Ulrich continue his approach. Not to me—no—he was walking straight toward my father. The thin shadows masking him and the members of our household fell, and my cry echoed across the room.

Our staff, my family, they were dead. All of their bodies collapsed as Ulrich’s shadows dropped and their clotted blood covered the wood of the dais.

“Oh my Gods,” I cried, falling to my knees.

A rough hand grasped my arm, holding me up before I hit the floor, and I leaned into Olen. Unable to process what was happening. Why Ulrich was not fighting back.

“King Enok,” Titania said sweetly. “Your daughter took something from me.”

My head went to my father, and he let out a gasp. “Brenna,” he yelled. “Unhand her!”

His commanding voice did nothing for the queen before him. My chest grew heavy as I watched the fear grow in his eyes when his gaze met mine.

I’m sorry , he mouthed.

Ulrich was silent as he stood before my father. His shadows created shackles, holding my last family member to his throne.

“Ulrich,” I pleaded. I moved to shove Olen off me, but the giant kept me still.

“Brenna, I beg of you. Stop,” he whispered into my ear.

I fell to the floor with Olen’s arm around my waist, bringing my eyes up while Ulrich leaned over the throne.

I could not hear his words, his whispers. But I could see the hate in my father’s eyes. The determination of a king ready to go to war with an enemy.

My scream fractured through my body when Ulrich’s hand rose with a shadow sword in his grasp. Olen held me tighter, but it was no use. It was no comfort while I watched helplessly as Ulrich stabbed my father straight into his chest, nailing him to his throne.

“No!”

I kept screaming, sure everything inside of me had cracked to nothing. My heart—barely beating with the loss of my grandmother and the revelation of Ulrich’s letters—tightened in my chest.

I was going to explode. From either grief or rage.

Or both.

Ulrich’s body lit with silver light while he stayed leaning over my father, his shoulders heaving for several seconds before he stood.

And when he twisted back in my direction, I could not stop myself from emptying the contents of my stomach onto the ground. Not with his black eyes staring right through my soul.

He returned to Titania’s side, and she stroked his arm lovingly.

“We’re leaving,” Titania smiled at me.

Olen removed his arm from me and ran forward toward her. His unbroken limb was out, as though he intended to wrap his palm around the queen’s neck, but a guard stopped him, holding a sword at his throat.

Titania stared at the right hand.

“I could take you. I could leave this poor woman with questions she’ll never have answered, but I am not that cruel .” Titania laughed. “I can make you worthless though.”

Another guard approached and stabbed its sword into Olen’s side. Ulrich did nothing, not even a flinch or shift in emotion on his face.

Those soft feelings I had for him from before began to crumble. Was this all the point? To ruin me fully?

My body shook while they passed me. I could barely glance up at Ulrich with my tears running down my face. He passed where my feet were beneath me as I knelt against the marbled floor. A guard was at his heel almost like a protection for the unkillable Unseelie King.

The hate I had quelled in my heart returned and my rage unleashed. I was on my feet instantly, grabbing the sword of the guard behind Ulrich. The fae stared at me in shock, pulling his weapon back but I pulled harder. We struggled, both of us trying to get the sword. Titania let out an amused laugh, enough to distract the man I struggled with. I took my opportunity, kicking him in the thigh and knocking him to the ground.

Before the guard could reorient himself, I lifted the weapon, gripping it in my palm tightly.

“Ulrich!” I shouted.

Ulrich turned on his heel, his eyes burning with hate.

“Brenna,” he warned.

“Fight me!” I screamed, shaking while I held the heavy blade out. “You fucking coward! Fight me!”

Titania’s shrill laugh near the door brought instant irritation. I snapped my gaze to her, glaring. Making me distracted enough for Ulrich to attack. The blade cut into his palm and his blood spilled onto the marble. His unbelievable strength pulled on the blade, dragging me toward him.

“You think I’m the coward?” he seethed. The sword clattered to the ground while his hand gripped the neck of my gown. “You think I do not fucking know that, Brenna?”

His eyes burned while he held my gaze.

“I have never hated someone as much as I hate you ,” he whispered.

I stared into his black eyes. “I hate you,” I sobbed. “You killed him.”

Finally, the monster cracked. His expression shifted from nothing to actual pain. Real regret and he brought me closer. I stared at his unmasked face, blinking back my tears, hoping for something that would redeem him. Something to bring clarity to this insanity.

His beard brushed my neck, and his other hand grasped my palm gently. He dropped me, letting out the same laugh he’d done for months. One of amusement. One of mocking.

“Come, my pet,” Titania sang from the door. “We must go home .”

I moved to run after Ulrich, but more guards approached, holding me back.

“Get back here!” I cried, slamming my fists against them. “Face me!”

Ulrich and Titania walked away while I struggled with the guard before. He was stronger than me physically, but my rage had unlocked something inside of me. A feral hate overpowering even the strongest man.

I kicked his feet out from under him and his sword clattered in his surprise. I brought it high into the air, then brought it down, right through his chest. His choked gasp echoed with the sound of the front doors opening. Fueling my vengeance further.

More guards began to approach but Olen twisted, fighting them off. Snapping necks with one arm as though they were nothing more than dolls. Even with his black blood bleeding from his wound and a useless arm dangling at his side.

“Go!” Olen screamed.

I turned, running to Ulrich, determined to catch him. To get answers.

When I reached the palace doors, I slipped, glancing down and finding a trail of black blood.

His blood.

I ran faster, holding the sword in my palm, almost reaching the queen and the man she now called her pet when hands gripped the back of my hair, ripping me to the ground.

My head hit the earth, and my back slammed down. Stars formed in my vision and my breath stuck in my lungs. Then he was over me.

That damned monster who had poisoned me.

“Brenna,” Bjorn sang. “I love when fate allows destiny to do its job.”

His hand gripped my gown, pulling me to his face. “I will have his throne, Brenna. I will take his place in this world as the Unseelie King. Oberon and Titania have promised it.”

He dropped me and I cried out from the pain of my body hitting the ground once more.

“Titania loved to learn Ulrich had brought a woman home. That she was forced to sleep beside him. She especially loved your hate for him.”

My tears fell.

Bjorn held my shoulders down, keeping me in place. His smile was sick and knowing that he was keeping me from Ulrich. Keeping me from doing anything to catch him.

“Titania has agreed to make you my personal whore , Brenna.” Bjorn licked my neck. “I will give you everything that coward of a king has failed to give you.”

He pulled one hand away, running it down my ribs and I bit my lip.

“Oh yes,” he hissed. “You will do—”

His words were cut off and I laid in shock, staring when his head was ripped right off his shoulders. His black blood spewed from his head, covering my body in the gore.

I saw it, what Ulrich had mentioned, a sliver of silver in the sun, lifting upward. I was sure it would disappear in the wind when Olen’s head appeared, and he sucked it into his lungs.

What. The. Fuck.

Olen shoved the body down when he’d finished his demented meal and he bent down, offering me his uninjured hand.

I stood, letting out a sob when I found the gangplank lifting on Oberon’s ship.

“Olen, you better get me to that ship. Immediately.”

Olen threw me over his shoulder, like so many times before and he ran. Just as fast as Ulrich had run to the cottage the night before. I held his shirt, watching the blood from his injury trail alongside Ulrich’s black blood.

We reached the dock, and Olen dropped me. His breathing was heavy, his eyes full of pain.

I dove then, like a foolish mad woman, into the frigid water, pumping my arms through the waves. Believing I could catch them.

Oberon’s ship, while not nearly as fast as Ulrich's, moved through the water faster than any vessel I had at my disposal.

My arms began to burn with my movements. Begging me to stop. To relent my foolish attempt at catching up.

I stopped, kicking my feet beneath me while I slammed my arms against the surface of the water.

A hand gripped my gown, pulling me back while I screamed, watching the ship sail away. Olen deposited me onto the dock, sopping wet and heaving down my sobs.

He grunted behind me.

“What is happening?” I whispered

“Princess,” Olen groaned. “It was a ruse.”

The word, ruse , it turned me into the monster Ulrich’s court liked to claim I was. I jumped to my feet, whirling around and I slapped him.

“Tell me,” I demanded.

Olen was silent, for seconds too long. I slapped him again.

He grunted out in shock holding my challenging gaze. Both of us breathing heavily, knowing Ulrich was being taken further and further away.

Olen relented, telling me Ulrich’s plan. How he made an ancient deal. How he sent letters. How he unintentionally developed feelings for me. How he had forced Olen to be part of it all. Part of this game of manipulating me.

Turning me into a piece in their fucked up game.

I stopped the right hand, not understanding his words and what Titania had said in the palace.

“You were a beast with me!” I cried, keeping my eyes on the ship.

Olen shook his head, and I jumped when bright light blinded me and Ulrich was standing before me. Then more bright light and the beast I’d spent hours beside was before me. More light, another shifting, and Ulrich before me once more.

No mask, his long hair dangling, his green eyes staring at me with shame and guilt.

Only it wasn’t Ulrich. It was Olen.

Evident when he shifted again, back to the face of the man who I’d believed had been my protector this whole time. But he was without that damned scar I now realized was and always had been Ulrich’s.

The shock was too much. My mind could hardly fathom what I was being shown. Olen could shift. To anything and anyone he wished.

“Oh my Gods,” I sobbed. “What is this?”

“Think, Brenna.” Olen shook me. “Each time you were ever harmed by Ulrich, who was always at your side?”

I blinked.

“You as a beast.”

He shook his head. “Brenna he was the beast. The man sauntering around the dais? Murdering and hurting? It was me . Always me. The whipping? Me. Sigrun? Me. Harold…?”

My body went hot with hate. Realization rushed through me while Olen paused his words.

The man before me let out his breath, dropping his head in shame.

“Me, Brenna. Harold, claiming that life, I forced you to do that. Ulrich was the beast beside you the whole time.”

I fell to my knees. Ulrich had slept by my side when my wounds had healed. Ulrich stayed at my feet when I was lost in myself, drawing my maps.

Ulrich had swum in the sea with me laughing about white bears.

Ulrich had not whipped me.

He always, each time we laid together, paused at my scars, pressing them with rage.

“He didn’t leave me in the courtyard.”

Olen knelt beside me. “No, Brenna, that was me. He stayed with you on the ship the entire way. He said his goodbyes.”

I glanced up, finding Oberon’s ship crossing the fjord.

The image of my father’s bleeding body in the palace ran through my mind. “He killed him,” I gasped.

Olen knelt before me, gripping my face. “Brenna.” He shook me again. “That is not Ulrich. That is the curse. The one Titania mentioned. She has full control.”

I have never hated someone as much as I hate you .

Ulrich’s last words rang in my ears.

“He hates me,” I gasped out. “Olen, this was all just a game to him.”

Olen continued to hold my face. “No, princess, he hates that he loves you.”

Love .

The word—the foolish phrase I’d uttered that had ruined whatever this all ways. The words on the paper, confessing the same thing.

Was it true? Had he been trying to speak to me this entire time? How long? How long had the madman loved me?

I stared into Olen’s black eyes.

I wasn’t confident Ulrich knew what love was. But I also wasn’t confident that he was lost forever.

“We have to get him,” I sobbed.

“Princess,” Olen objected.

I stood, pointing to the water. “We have to get him!” I screamed.

Olen said nothing. He was silent while we watched Oberon’s ship pass Ulrich’s and I cried out when blasts of fire hit the vessel, igniting it in flames instantly. Preventing us from being able to catch up to the king’s ship.

“What have I done?” I whispered, falling to my knees, watching the man I hated and loved sail off.

The man who had done everything he could to ensure he would not cause me harm.

I had to get him back.

Even if it killed me.