Page 20 of Bartered by the Shadow Prince (Bargain with the Shadow Prince #3)

The Thrill of the Hunt

DAMIEN

I let out a sigh of relief when I find Eloise asleep in my father’s library.

She’s curled in one of the chairs with a book about our gods clutched to her chest. What the hell is she doing in here?

I’m surprised this place still exists, considering Brahm never had a love of the written word and I sincerely doubt his bride does either.

But then, the layer of dust would indicate it’s been a long time since anyone was in here. It’s all exactly as I remember it.

I’ve spent hours searching for Eloise, first the grounds and then the castle. It’s almost moonrise, and I haven’t slept at all. I half assumed that she’d left me. I thought maybe she figured out I’m not worthy of her sacrifice or her loyalty and returned to her world.

But of course, she can’t do that because her magic is gone. At least for now, she has no choice but to stay with me. I’m almost sad for her that we exist in that reality.

Eloise doesn’t wake as I carefully pull her and the book in her lap into my arms and carry her back to our room.

I tuck her into the bed of my childhood, in the room that was once mine and now is only a shrine to what I was and might have been.

Gently, I remove the book from her grasp.

Interesting she should pick this one. Our gods and the festivals that celebrate them are possibly the only thing that remains of the kingdom of my youth.

The Harvest Festival is only a week away.

If any event has the power to unite Stygarde, it’s this festival and our love of Thanesia.

I place the book on the table beside her.

There’s a knock on the door. I break into shadow and filter out into the hall so as not to wake Eloise. When I form, I find my brother standing in his sporting clothes, his hand poised to knock again. “Brother,” I say by way of greeting.

“Damien,” he straightens, smiling. “Glad to catch you before you left the castle.”

“It’s barely moonrise.”

“Yes, well, you’ve always been a morning person. I suspected I’d have to race the moon to your door in order to catch you.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I thought we could go hunting.” He thumps my shoulder, his face beaming with sibling camaraderie. “I bet you miss the morning fog of the black forest.”

I nod. “Give me a moment to change and tell Eloise.”

Brahm taps his chin. “While you’re at it, Nevina would like her in attendance today as she and the other ladies finalize the last details of the Harvest Festival. One of her maids will come to retrieve her midday.”

Fabulous. I inwardly groan. After the way the two clashed last night, Eloise is going to hate this. “I’ll let her know.”

I break apart and reenter the room to find Eloise sitting up in bed with her knees hugged to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” I say for her ears only. “I hoped not to wake you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she says even more softly.

“Brahm has asked me to accompany him on his morning hunt.”

Her brows lift. “What do you think that’s about? For some reason, after yesterday, a doubt it’s an attempt at bonding.”

“I’m not sure,” I say, our gazes holding. “But I’ll find out everything I can, anything we can use.” I quickly change into my old hunting gear. Before I leave, I approach Eloise cautiously, wanting to kiss her goodbye. “Are you still angry about last night?”

She frowns. “I’m not angry at you. I never was.

I’m just frustrated to be at the mercy of power-hungry assholes once again,” she whispers.

“We have to decide who we’re going to be in this world.

Are we going to be the couple that goes along to keep the peace?

Or are we going to try to fight the injustices?

But you’re right, there’s taking action and then there’s acting impulsively. We have to be smart about this.”

“About that…”

“Why do you look like you have bad news?”

“The queen has requested you join her for final Harvest Festival preparations today. She’ll send a maid. I know you don’t want to, but?—”

“No, I get it. The Harvest Festival will be a source of badly needed nourishment for Eudora’s people.

” She grunts. “Fantastic. I’ll do my best not to project my belief that Nevina’s an evil tyrant while balancing our need to do something for the people of this kingdom to show we haven’t completely forgotten about them. ”

The frustration wafting off her stings my skin. I don’t care nearly as much about the injustices in Stygarde as I do about her, and I never will. “I’ve asked too much of you.”

Her deep breath shudders. “No. I can do this. You were right last night. We need time to form a plan. Until then, this is an opportunity to make life better here.”

I press a kiss to her full lips. “You are a wise woman. We’ll talk tonight.”

“Tonight,” she whispers. She kisses me, long and deep enough to soothe the schism that opened between us last night.

She’s mine. Despite everything. Despite what was taken from me.

From us. A part of me wants to leave this room and slaughter my brother and his queen, take back my birthright, and give Eloise everything she deserves.

Another part of me remembers all too clearly fighting Valeska and losing.

That risk was worth taking. It was only my life on the line.

I won’t risk Eloise. Not now. Not when we are finally together.

I draw back. The way she looks at me almost breaks me. She believes in me. Will I ever be worthy of that unconditional faith?

“See you tonight,” she says.

I break apart and return to Brahm’s side.

“Just like old times,” he says jovially as we descend the stairs. His red beard is trimmed neatly to make his jaw look squarer, and his hair is coiffed short, the way our father once wore his.

I scoff. “If it were just like old times, you’d already have a glass of ale in your hand and you’d forgo the stairs for the window.”

He laughs. “Times have changed, brother. A king must appear a king, always. I have a staff and citizens to think about. Gone are the days of being the spare to the heir with nothing to worry about but my own hide.” His eyes crinkle at the corners with his laugh.

“I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for you to manage the many changes that have occurred in the kingdom. Father’s death, your marriage, carving out a lasting peace… It couldn’t have been easy.”

We slip out the door and stride toward the gardens and the forest beyond. “Nothing is free, you know? Our lives, as they were before, were hard-fought. And our lives now are paid for in blood. Peace requires sacrifice.”

“Is that the real reason you continue to starve Bolvet? To teach them a lesson?”

His smile holds but fades from his eyes as if his expression were replaced with a cardboard cutout of a smile. A mask. I’m no longer looking at my brother. I’m looking at the king. “You’ve been gone a long time, Damien. Don’t judge what you don’t understand.”

“Who’s judging?”

“Before the war ended, we were losing a hundred shades a day. When I married Nevina and signed the peace accord, concessions had to be made.”

“Making her queen wasn’t enough?”

“They were winning, Damien. You were gone.”

“Abducted.”

“We’d lost our three strongest warriors.

Nothing was left of the umbrae but a hundred battle-worn shades who were showing signs of starvation.

Everyone was. The elves had cut off our shipping routes through Aendor.

Every time we tried to grow anything, it would be trampled in battle.

The battles were on our lands and had frightened the herds of stags north into Dimhollow.

We were living on vespers. Barely living at all. ”

Something he says gives me pause, and I shuffle to a stop, kicking up dried leaves at the edge of the woods. Is he admitting his lie to me? “You told me that Father died of wasting disease.”

Brahm turns his face away and stares deep into the shadows between the trees.

“Is wasting disease another name for starvation, brother?”

“Starvation brought on by disease, caused by war.”

“Father, Mother, and Karyl. They starved to death?”

Brahm reaches for a low branch and toys with a moon-washed, bright-green leaf. “The condition was eventually irreversible. I wasn’t able to strike a deal fast enough to save them. I tried.”

“You tried by caving to what Willowgulch asked for.”

Brahm whirls on me, baring his teeth. “We had to give them something. In exchange for peace and retaining access to our lands and all neutral grounds, grounds we already lost, brother, Nevina would become a princess of Stygarde and the castle would adopt the dark elf tradition of the provincial blood tax. One child per generation would be sacrificed to public service.”

“You knew that the citizens of Stygarde would never agree to that, Brahm.” Shade children are few and are revered as a gift from the goddess. No one would willingly hand over a child.

He runs a hand down his face. “Many already have. The villages of the west are the last holdouts. I honestly don’t know how they’ve survived so long.”

I growl. “You’re the king. Change the law. Stand up to Blackspire and that evil shit who rules it, and free those slaves.”

“Watch your mouth.” Brahm shakes his head. “Willowgulch is now our closest ally. You don’t understand the cost of peace.”

“Then help me understand.”

“Nevina and I, we ended the war, but those bigots in the west will never accept her, simply because she is a dark elf. By having children from each of the territories work at the palace, we insulate ourselves from an attack. If any one of them storms the castle, they may find their own children guarding the gate.”

My stomach drops. “By forcing them to give you their young you make it impossible for them to challenge you.”

He tips his head, looking toward the woods. “We also need the labor. Without them, who would work the fields? Clean the castle? Cook in the kitchen? They are a divine gift from Thanesia”

“You can’t buy into that bullcrap about it being to the will of the gods.”

Brahm straightens, and I can practically see his heart turning to stone. His jaw locks down, and his eyes grow cold and distant.

“Damien, I’m done talking about it. It works.

The people in this kingdom who have any sense at all have already paid their blood tax and are living the lives of peace they deserve.

If Bolvet weren’t so damn pigheaded, they would have recognized our new government and done what they were told, and they wouldn’t be suffering now.

Stop thinking like a commoner. Leaders have to make sacrifices. ”

“Leaders make sacrifices. They don’t force others to sacrifice for them.”

His eyes become empty pits. “You judge me for what’s happening to Bolvet and what has happened to a few other villages, but these are the exceptions.

Visit Raketon to the north. They made their sacrifice early on and are reaping the benefits.

A few shade children may toil in the fields, but the rest of the population enjoys the fruits of their labor.

We start them early. It’s the only life they know.

I doubt you could find one who would voice any desire for a different life. ”

I think about the people we saw working the fields. “The ones I saw looked drugged out of their minds. I’m not sure they could speak at all.”

Brahm shrugs. “It’s an herb the master puts in their stew. Keeps them calm.”

“Then they are drugged.”

“Look at what we’ve gained! Fields overflowing. The largest herd of stags to ever run in our woods.”

I grit my teeth. “Tell me this, Brahm. Do any of the elf villages sacrifice children to work in Stygarde’s fields?”

“No. We service our own.”

“But they partake in our yields, don’t they? If the food isn’t going to the west villages, it must be going somewhere.”

He nods. “It goes to Willowgulch as an act of diplomacy.”

“Does Stygarde provide children to work Willowgulch land?”

“Only a few.”

“Because Willowgulch has little farmable land.” I shake my head. “This was no accord. It was a slaughter.”

He shoves my shoulder in a move that’s part playful and part itching for a fight.

But I know better than to fight the king.

“Father often said that no king could make everyone in his kingdom happy. I’ve done my best to create a Stygarde he would approve of, one that has orchestrated an enduring peace with our one-time enemies.

Some of the concessions I’ve had to make are less palatable than others, but in the grand scheme of things, they’ve saved lives. ”

And taken other lives . I can’t continue this conversation.

My instinct is to knock some sense into him, punish him for failing our family and the kingdom, but if I do that, there will be consequences I’m unwilling to pay.

“I see now that I’ve underestimated the complexity of this arrangement,” I grit out.

Brahm grins. “Imagine that. My big brother underestimating something or someone. I never thought I’d see the day you’d admit it.”

We’re no longer speaking about the kingdom. He’s talking about himself. Maybe I have underestimated him. I realize now he’s capable of much worse than I’d previously given him credit for.

Which means I’d be stupid to keep pressing him about this. I raise my finger to my lips and point at a red stag in the distance.

“One more thing, Damien,” he says softly but without a hint of humor, his eyes fixated on the stag. “If you or that vampire mate of yours pull anything again like you did yesterday, I will have you both executed for treason.”

He shifts into shadow and attacks.