Page 117 of Ballad of Nightmares

His dark eyes traveled over her, deliberately up and down, making her shift as if she were remembering how his eyes had once devoured her existence.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she warned.

“Like what?”

“Like you ever loved me,” she hissed.

Nausea swept over him. It spiked his forehead with a chilling sweat, and he clamped his arms around his chest as his shadows navigated over the floor to the dead bodies.

Within seconds, the bodies were gone, along with the blood, including that on Ana’s shirt and body. And when it was cleaned up, he watched as she sank to the floor on the opposite side of the cage.

“Do you remember the day you took me to the sunset?” she asked, now picking at the blood beneath her nails.

But Sam couldn’t let her under his skin yet. “Don’t do this, Ana,” he said.

“How did you make it feel so real?” she ignored him. “The day Rolfe gave me this tattoo… the day I marked you… I nearly gave up everything.”

“So why didn’t you?” And he knew he might be walking into a trap.

“I wasn’t ready,” she admitted. “I wasn’t ready to give up the life I’d always been running towards just for a stupid boy.”

Sam’s eyes locked onto hers, feeling the pain in his heart of her admission, wary of its truth.

“You never had to,” he finally said.

He backed away before she could say more, knowing any words from her might be the ones he wanted to hear.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

ANA LET HER head sag on her neck as she held in the quietness, with only the drips of water and thunder rumbling every now and then sounding around her. She’d tried to go to sleep, but all she could see on the now clean cot was how it had been covered in blood earlier, and the thought nauseated her so that she couldn’t bring herself to curl up in it.

So she’d sat on the floor, knees pulled into her chest, and stared at the ceiling.

The hollow sound of music seemed to beat against the stone walls like it were a person pounding on a door to be let free. Sometimes heavy metal, sometimes haunting classical music. The classical… the shrieking violins and organs… She hated and loved Sam all over again for playing it. It shattered her heart with the memory of the night of the symphony. And yet… every time she heard it, her entire body broke out with goosebumps.

The door up the stairs opened, and the melody blared down the stairs. Free of its cage as she only wished to be. Whomever it was started to close the door, but Ana desperately wanted to hear the music, even with the pain it caused her.

“Leave it open,” she called out loudly.

The hinges creaked, but the music didn’t lessen behind a wall this time, and quiet footsteps carried down the stairs.

Ana closed her eyes and tried to drown herself beneath the wailing trombones, the screeching violins, the pounding of the drums… She didn’t bother looking to see if it was Millie, Rolfe, or another one of Sam’s demons descending toward her. All that existed was the chill of that room and the sound carrying over her flesh.

“It’s from his favorite drama,” came Millie’s voice. “Beautiful, really. We were there on opening night.”

“That was eighty-seven years ago,” Ana said. She rolled her head in Millie’s direction, finding the blonde in casual street clothes as she stood on the other side of the cage, arms crossed over her chest. “People say Death was last seen publicly during the riots that night.”

“It’s true,” Millie said. “I remember the painting that was done after. Beautiful oil on canvas. Dark colors, although she did capture the colors of the witch fires. One of them was a violent shade of green.” She looked down to Ana’s sitting figure. “I think you would appreciate it. I’ll have to show you.”

Ana didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure she was ever getting out of there, and if she did, why would Sam allow her to walk the halls or learn anything about his kingdom?

Millie crossed her arms over her chest after sitting in the chair.

“You knew who I was the entire time,” Ana said, smiling upwards. “Why didn’t you just kill me?”

Millie considered her. “I liked you too much,” she admitted. “And I don’t play with my King’s things.”

“I’m not histhing.”