Page 34 of Bartered by the Shadow Prince (Bargain with the Shadow Prince #3)

Pet

ELOISE

I ’ve sat on the small step at Adril’s feet for so long that I must have fallen asleep. I wake to my head being snapped back by him yanking my braid. “Time for bed, pet.”

Confused, I look around the ballroom to find the few remaining guests are gathering their things and striding toward the exits.

Through the enormous window overlooking the twisting forest beyond, I see the first light of moonrise on the horizon.

A raven watches me from a coiling branch near the window.

The bird’s eyes are so intelligent, I can’t help but stare.

It turns its head and winks at me, then flaps its wings and takes off toward the moon.

I stumble to my feet, feeling disoriented. But then, who wouldn’t when someone is actively trying to drag you somewhere by the neck. I hurry after the king, thinking he’ll take me back to my cell in the dungeon. But I have no such luck. He guides me down a hallway, two guards flanking us.

Goddess, please don’t let him take me to his bedroom, as Ferida suggested he would. If he attempts to touch me in any way, I will kill him. I will tear out his pointy-eared heart with my bare hands before I’ll ever have sex with him.

Adril unlocks a door with a gold key and ushers me into a room brightly lit by hundreds of candles.

And I realize my mistake. Adril isn’t taking me to bed; he’s taking me somewhere far, far worse.

This isn’t a bedroom, it’s a torture chamber.

Shelves of canes and whips line the walls, and at the center awaits an archway, the ornately carved wood the type of thing you might find at the entrance to an old church or cemetery.

Leather cuffs are bolted at regular intervals to the inside of the arch.

My skin crawls and I lurch away from Adril, struggling for the door. But two guards enter the room and wrestle me toward the arch.

“No!” I turn into a wildcat, fighting with all my strength.

Only, that strength falls short. I’m hit with a strange vertigo, the same dizzying feeling I felt when I stood from my seat in the ballroom.

Instantly, I regret eating the food. I thought it was safe because Adril wanted me alive, but the way I fell asleep almost instantly when I was done?

The way I can barely stand up now? My plate was drugged. It had to be.

The guards cuff me, spread-eagled at the center of the room, and leave me at the mercy of Adril. Once they’re gone, his steps fall heavy behind me. I hear rather than see him toying with his choice of cane, the bamboo-like rods clattering together with his inspection.

“I see that what my daughter said about you is true. You are not a shade. A shade would have shifted into shadow and been out of those cuffs by now.”

“Let me go, Adril,” I warn in my most threatening voice. “Let me go, or I swear to the goddess Thanesia herself that I will kill you.”

He laughs, low and breathy, almost sensual, and I hear the wood-on-wood scrape of a cane being pulled from the rack. “How will you kill me, pet? Tell me. Don’t leave out any detail.”

Fuck . A chill crawls along my spine. I remember the way he stared at me and gave me that sinister smile during Nevina’s meeting. He wants me to threaten him. He gets off on it. Hell if I’m going to supply this creepy asshole with any fantasies.

I hang my head and say nothing.

“No longer wish to kill me?” he teases. He circles the archway, coming into my field of vision.

Some time between us entering this room and now, he’s removed his shirt and stands before me in nothing but a pair of cream-colored breeches and tall black boots.

I’m still fully dressed, thank the gods, but it is little comfort, restrained as I am.

His elven body is truly disgusting, with what appear to be extra joints and ribs, long and bony.

He reminds me of an insect, a gelatinous thing in an exoskeleton.

I shiver at the sight and dry heave.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Not feeling well? I’m afraid the herbs we put in your food to weaken you sometimes have that effect.”

“You poisoned me.”

“I did.” He laughs and places the tip of the cane under my sagging chin. He lifts my head with it until I’m looking him in the eye. “Does that make you want to kill me?”

He repulses me. I do want to kill him. But I say nothing. I go inside myself. I pretend he’s not even in the room. My shallow breaths are silent as I hang my head again.

“Hmm. Maybe you ate too much tonight,” he says in a low, husky voice. “Have I doused your fire? Can’t find your voice, pet? Don’t worry. We’ll find it together.”

His boots thump slowly, heavily on the floor behind me.

The way he walks is meant to unnerve me, and it’s working.

A tear runs down my cheek as cold fingers grip the zipper between my shoulder blades, and he slides it down, exposing my bare back.

“I’ve never seen a tattoo like this before.

Such an odd choice. You know, the War of Plagues and Arrows started as a fight over a dragon and her egg.

While we were killing one another for her magic, the dragon took her egg and hid deep inside Mount Damocles.

Most believe she died there. She was never seen again.

Damned beast likely starved to death protecting her young. What a waste.”

He releases his hold on my dress. His boots tromp on the floor behind me again, this time to my left as my dress slowly falls off my body.

My only warning is the whistle of the cane flying through the air before it slices into my back with a resounding smack.

Despite myself, I hiss, but I refuse to scream. I refuse to give him the satisfaction.

“You bleed red like them,” he says.

What color do elves bleed? I try to remember the color of Ferida’s blood in the bottom of the goblet, but I’d been starving and disoriented. I didn’t notice the color before I drank it. I’m curious, but I keep my face impassive. I don’t say a word.

“Are you ready to kneel before me and swear your unending loyalty to me, pet?”

I lift my head and look at him over my shoulder, allowing all the murderous rage I’m feeling to show in my eyes. “You can go fuck yourself.”

The cane whistles again. This time, I scream.