Page 13 of Battle for the Shadow Prince (A Bargain with the Shadow Prince #2)

13

Flies to Honey

DAMIEN

O nce again, I’ve taken too much from Eloise. I wanted to stop, but as severely deprived as this body is, I could not resist what she so freely offered. I emerge from the dream, still curled in a ball as I was before, holding tight to the memory of the clock taking her home. She is alive. I did not kill her. I did not kill her.

I draw in a deep breath, her blood coursing through my veins like cool water.

Only then do I feel something in my hands. Soft fabric skims between my fingers. My wicked smart and resourceful little dragon has succeeded in passing a gift to me through the astral plane, a gift almost as valuable as her blood. A gift that could mean my salvation.

I use my claw to split the black cotton tunic, then sit back on my haunches, using my horns and my hands to shade myself. It’s not large enough to completely cover me, but it helps significantly. The color of the skin on my arms darkens. I rest, and I wait.

Hours pass. Maybe days. I grow hungry again, but I have no way of telling how long I’ve been here, baking in the sun. My mind plays tricks on me, alternating between sleep and waking on no particular schedule. When I dream, I dream of Eloise, but not like before. Not like the times she was truly in my arms. These dreams are replays of the moments we’ve already had together. Such a short time. Too few days have I been blessed to have her in my life. Still, I would sacrifice anything for more.

“What is that?” I hear Valeska’s shrill voice from a distance.

“I do not know, Your Majesty.” One of the Kims. “But if it is enchanted, it may interfere with our cuffing spell.”

“One of you must go and retrieve it.”

A faint mumble. Some sort of explanation from the Kims, too soft for me to hear. They don’t know what Eloise’s shirt is or how it got in here. I can only speculate that the witches are too smart to enter my cell, knowing that the cloth in my hands could shelter me from their magic. Valeska’s growl signifies she does not like their answer. “Bring me a human! A feeder. Anyone who can walk in the light.”

Minutes later, I hear a man’s voice. A human voice. One of Valeska’s human donors I assume.

“Just walk in and retrieve it?” he asks.

I gather myself beneath the shirt, channeling all my newfound strength into my legs. Footsteps. Human. A throat clearing. The corner of the black fabric lifts.

He screams as I snatch him by the waist and drag him to me, sinking my teeth into his neck and draining him dry as fast as I can swallow. More yelling to my left. More footsteps. I tear the dead man’s leg from his body and rip his femur from his flesh. Growing to my full height, I wear the shirt over my horns like a hood, protecting my eyes from the blinding light as I swing the bone like a club. The light burns my arms, my legs, my hands, but I swing at another’s head and watch his skull cave in. The door is open. I lock eyes with Valeska in the shadows on the other side, my legs chewing up the space between us even as the energy is sapped from my body by the ceaseless light.

Swing. Pop. Another human crumples to the stone.

“Now! Chain him now!”

One of the Kims, Lang, steps in front of the queen. The twins can’t get close enough to me to place the cuffs, but he forms a lasso of light and hurls it toward me. I dodge but it encircles my wrist, the one attached to the hand holding the bone. Once he has me, the lights in the walls go out. As I suspected, the twin’s magic isn’t strong enough to power both.

The cuff on my right wrist drains me, and the femur I’m wielding drops from my grip. But the light isn’t as strong as before, not as instant. I yank and twist, trying to free myself from the binding. The Kims are tired. This is my chance to free myself.

Tae circles his hands, focused on my free arm, his fingers contorted, stacked one on top of the other. I don’t give him the chance to finish his spell—I lunge for him, dragging Lang with me. My talons stab into his forehead and shred through half his face and then his chest and abdomen. Blood and entrails pour onto the ground between us. Tae’s screams turn to gurgles. I leap over his body.

Valeska’s shrill voice echoes in the silo. I can see she wants to take me down with her own two hands, but Lang’s lasso of light swings around me before she has the chance. Yeah, bitch, come for me. Lang’s little trick will cut you in half. When she hesitates, I rush her, using my remaining power to throw Lang forward, stretching the light out around her and then dropping low to pull the glowing cord like a snare.

I’m too slow. She dodges the light and appears behind me, knocking me flat with a kick that lands with a painful crunch. Her knee digs into my back, and in the next second, my wrists are bound.

I rage at my failure. My roar tears through the night.

Only then does Valeska flip me over. With her boot on my chest, her eyes scan the human carnage littering the stone cell. She grimaces when she sees Tae.

“Impressive.” She bends over to run her hand along my chest. I try to jerk away, but with my hands bound behind my injured back, I can’t move far. “I was especially enthralled by the way you mercilessly tore through three helpless humans to try to escape your bonds. Bludgeoned with their friend’s own femur. Goddess, Damien, you truly are the warrior I need at my side.”

A growl rumbles in my chest, and I bare my teeth at her. Never. I will never be hers.

“Yes,” she purrs, her gaze raking over me from above. She pulls an exaggerated pout. “You hate me. But what people don’t understand about hate, Damien, is that it is an equally strong emotion as love. Both are fueled by passion. Hate me long enough and you might find you can’t live without me.” She leans forward and licks a spray of blood from my chest.

I turn my head away in disgust but am helpless to stop her. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

She laughs and immediately drags her fingers down my chest again. “You don’t want me to touch you? Poor baby. You see, I think you’ve grown too comfortable in this frying pan, and frankly, I’m tired of having you where I can’t enjoy you.”

She grabs my nipple and squeezes. I grind my teeth against the pain but also the humiliation of it.

“There is a saying among humans that one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Her red lips come sickeningly close to my ear, and her palm flattens against my sternum. I refuse to look at her, but her breath skates across my cheek as she says, “I think you’ve had enough vinegar, Damien. From now on, you’ll have nothing but honey from me. Honey until you tell me her name. So much honey she may not want you anymore when I’m through with you.”

If I could break into shadow, I would. As it is, my skin wants to climb off my body to escape her touch.

Guards rush forward and pull me roughly to my feet.

“Take him to my chambers and bind him to the bed.”

I thought I was ready to die, but only now do I feel true terror. More than I’ve felt thinking I might burn or starve to death in this silo. More than I experienced telling Eloise to move on without me.

Death is simple.

I have a feeling what Valeska has in store for me now will be far from it.