Page 13

TAELYN

I let out a gasp and clutch my hand to my mouth. Now the door is open, it seems the key has released its hold on me. But I’m not going to turn and run.

In the middle of the room, though it is more like a stone cave carved out of the bedrock, stands a huge silver cage. It reminds me of a far larger version of the kind one might keep a brightly colored parrot in, or perhaps several budgerigars.

But it’s not a bird that sits in the middle of the cage, but a man.

He is naked.

He sits on the floor of the cage, curled into himself, so all that is visible is the top of his dark head, his shoulders, and his shins and feet.

Slowly, he raises his head. Dark eyes—eyes I’ve looked into before—lock with mine.

“Hello, Princess.”

I blink, almost unable to believe what I’m seeing. “P-Prince Ruarok? ”

“I wondered when someone would find me. If someone would find me. I’ve had times I’ve believed this would be the end of me.”

Moving cautiously, as though he hasn’t used his limbs in some time, he unfurls and gets to his feet.

The cage is large enough for him to stand straight.

He makes no move to cover himself, and I find my gaze landing on his semi-erect cock and the thatch of black curls around it.

I wonder if he has no modesty at all, but then I realize he can’t cover himself, even if he’d wanted. His hands are cuffed behind his back.

“I thought you’d been banished,” I blurt.

My cheeks are hot at the sight of my naked stepbrother. Really, it should be the least of my concerns, but, despite my age, I’ve never been with a man. Seeing one completely naked at such proximity has affected me.

He takes a couple of paces closer and stops to press his forehead against the bars. “I guess this was a kind of banishment.”

“How long have you been down here?”

“Ten years, I believe, though it’s been difficult to mark the passage of time.”

I gape. “Ten years? That’s not possible.”

That’s the same length he’s been banished. Surely, he can’t have been down here all this time? From the moment he was escorted from the Great Hall. I don’t want to believe it.

I picture us all living our lives above him, eating good food, and dancing, and listening to music, when all the while he was down here, wasting away.

And my stepfather knew about this? He gave me no indication that he had any idea this was where his son resided now.

What about my mother—surely, she didn’t know as well?

No, I’m sure she couldn’t have. My mother was a good, kindhearted woman.

I find it impossible to imagine her being all right with Ruarok locked away down here while we continued as though nothing was wrong.

“Who has been looking after you?” I ask. “Who has been feeding you?”

“No one. You’re the first face I’ve seen in all this time.”

“Impossible. You’d be dead.”

He lifts his chin to gesture around the cage. “Magic. You are Fae, are you not? I don’t have to explain that to you.”

I try to imagine how it must have been for him to spend ten years trapped inside a cage with no one to speak to and nothing to do. His hands cuffed behind his back. It must have been utter torture.

I take in the sharp planes of his face, the angular cheekbones.

The full lips and dark eyes. The thick, dark brows, and messy, almost-black hair.

It hits me that my stepbrother is beautiful, enough to steal my breath.

His skin is pale from the lack of sunshine, but it doesn’t detract from his beauty.

If anything, it only makes him more striking.

I try to coax my memory of the dance with him into the forefront of my mind. Had I been aware of his looks back then? I had only been young, but yes, I had. Wasn’t that the reason I’d thought of him so often over the years?

There’s something else. Ruarok doesn’t know about his father’s death.

Is that why I’ve been able to find him? Assuming his father was the one responsible for imprisoning the prince, is his magic waning now that he’s dead? Does Ruarok know this? Can he sense it?

He nods down at the key in my hand. “Are you going to release me?”

I glance down at it. I’d forgotten I was even holding it. I twist to look back over my shoulder at the door I’ve just come through.

“But isn’t this the key to the door? How will it open the cage as well?”

He smiles at me. “Princess, you are Fae, but yet you seem clueless as to the ways of magic.”

His words stab me. Does he know of my failures? No, that’s impossible.

Of course, the key is magic. I suspect it will open any door I need it to.

Still, I hesitate. The king locked Ruarok away for all these years for a reason.

Ruarok wanted both me and my mother dead.

Now, he has at least one of those wishes.

My mother is no longer with us. I blink back tears at the thought.

What if he decides to finish the job that landed him behind these bars in the first place?

“I should go and talk to my people—” I say.

He cuts me off. “Who? Cirrus Planetree? Assuming he’s still alive. Is that who rules the kingdom now?”

“No, of course not, but I’m allowed to take counsel. A king or queen who listens to no one else is a dangerous person.” I flash with anger.

“Of course, Princess Taelyn. I didn’t mean anything by it. Please, forgive me.”

I soften slightly. I already know what Cirrus will say.

He’ll tell me to walk away, to forget I ever saw Ruarok.

He’ll say that Ruarok is getting what he deserves, and to free him now would be to go against the dead king’s wishes.

Is that what I want to hear? I don’t think it is.

I want someone by my side right now. Ruarok would be my equal.

He would understand the pressure on my shoulders, perhaps even help to alleviate it.

But I know those thoughts are dangerous. He was locked down here because my stepfather had believed him capable of murdering me and my mother. Surely, the king wouldn’t have made a decision like that without believing it to be one hundred percent true.

This was his son. A bastard, yes, but still his flesh and blood.

Ruarok faces me again, pressed against the silver bars of the cage. “Will you free me, Princess? Or will you leave me here to suffer?”

I take a step back. “I-I’m not sure.”

“Don’t you think ten years is enough punishment for something I never even did?”

“You were imprisoned because you planned to have me and my mother killed,” I say.

He shakes his head. “No. I had no such plan. Did I entertain the thought? Yes, in passing, but then I saw you, and I saw your mother. I’d rather have had you for myself than for you to be killed.”

“Had me?” It takes me a moment to understand exactly what he means by that. When it dawns on me, my cheeks warm with embarrassment.

“What do you know of me, Princess?” he asks.

I recover myself. “That you are a bad person. That you wanted the throne, no matter who you had to kill to get it.”

“Do you believe I am that person? ”

I blink. “I don’t know what to believe. I’m still not sure I can believe you’ve spent ten years in a cage beneath the castle with nothing to eat or drink, and without seeing another living soul.”

“But I have, and it was my own father who put me here.”

The king had never been fond of Ruarok. Everyone knew Ruarok wasn’t full Fae.

Rumor was that Ruarok’s mother had been a Succubus, and not only that, but a whore.

That was why Ruarok had never been accepted by his father.

That seemed wholly unfair to me, though.

After all, the king had been the one to sleep with Ruarok’s mother.

It wasn’t as though she’d created him alone.

Wasn’t it possible that the king had created this situation in order to rid himself of his son? With a new wife, in the form of my mother, and even a new daughter, in the form of me, his line was secure.

Perhaps he had no need for his bastard son anymore.

A claim that Ruarok was planning the murder of the new queen and her daughter was a convenient way of ridding himself of the inconvenience of his half Incubus son.

I don’t want to believe it. I’ve come to love the king as a father over the years. But it’s enough to plant a seed of doubt in my mind. It’s enough doubt for me to not want to leave this man trapped inside a magic cage for the rest of eternity.

I can’t imagine having lived this way for so long and still having my sanity intact. Surely, he’d have been better off dead.

“If you leave me down here,” Ruarok continues, “do you really believe you’ll be able to just carry on with your life? You’re a good person. I can see that. Knowing I’m down here, suffering, will torture you. You’ll dream of me at night, and I’ll haunt your thoughts in the day.”

I lift my head, and my eyes lock with his dark gaze. The truth is, he’s right. Hasn’t he already been haunting my dreams? Hasn’t he already been on my mind? This man, with whom I spent only one dance, has been in my thoughts since the first moment I met him.

“Very well.” I nod. “I will release you.”