Page 40 of Blackwarden

Keres

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I stood staring at the portal. The events at the last revel had been agony, and every waking moment since, my mind tumbled over any possible solution to get her back through.

It was obvious I wasn’t going to be able to keep Bevgyah from destroying Rosalin.

My Rosalin.

I closed my eyes, forced to relive the moments over and over again. Bevgyah’s hands as they roamed over Rosalin’s body. The shift in Rosalin’s emotions—from terror to anger.

“What an unusual place to hide.”

I straightened as the Hag’s voice shaved over my skin. I was hoping she wouldn’t bother looking for me quite yet. It usually took her a day before she grew interested in me again. The bruises from the shadows she’d shackled me with hadn’t healed yet.

“I’m curious to know why you seem so adamant I not enjoy my newest maiden.”

I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths, trying to keep my expression as innocuous as possible.

“Have you touched her without my permission?” she asked as she circled me.

I tried to force the fury that was burning in my chest deeper down where it could simmer until I had a moment to myself. Getting angry in her presence never served me well.

“I’ve only embraced Tesanna in your presence, my queen.” I couldn’t lie. But she wasn’t Tesanna until she’d come to this place.

“Have you met with her alone? Have you talked with her?”

I tightened. Bevgyah knew there was something different about Rosalin, and I knew I couldn’t hide it forever. She’d eventually ask the right questions.

“Is she intrigued by you?”

“Yes.”

“Is she attracted to you?”

I rolled my eyes. “They’re all attracted to me. You are attracted to me. Everyone is fucking attracted to me.”

She laughed, the sound grating against my growing anger.

“You poor, pathetic, beautiful monster.”

Her hands dragged down the length of my silk shirt, her fingers tucking into the low neckline so she could touch my skin.

Always my skin, because she owned me and could do whatever she wished with me.

She never failed to remind me, like she had the night before.

I wasn’t sure if I was angrier about the fact she’d fucked me in the harem, or that she’d drugged me and restrained me to do it.

“Tell me, Gatekeeper, did you fuck her in the human world?”

I couldn’t lie. No Fae could lie. I wasn’t supposed to touch these women, not in the human world, not in the Unseelie Court.

She would punish me and while I’d accepted that in the moment, I knew I’d regret my decision when the time came for me to actually receive my punishment.

I swallowed, hoping she’d ask another question before I had a chance to answer .

“I can taste your attraction to her. It’s thick and sweet.” She groped lower. “How many rules have you broken, my tantalizing Blackwarden?” she crooned in my ear. “How am I to punish you this time?”

She stepped around to face me with a sinister grin.

I had long since learned the beautiful face she wore was the greatest lie anyone could ever tell.

Uttering lies was impossible, but there were other ways to change the truth without using words.

For instance, her powers of glamour and shapeshifting, which were magnified by the lifeforce she siphoned from the human girls.

“Perhaps I should punish her—”

“Leave her—”

“Then tell me what is different!” she spat, her voice loud enough it echoed down the hall.

I squeezed my eyes shut. If I told her about imbuing the portraits I risked all of the maidens. When I opened my eyes, Bevgyah was waiting, her face a beautiful emotionless mask.

It didn’t matter. I’d be accepting death over another five hundred years as her consort. And there was nothing she could do to remove my shadows from the portraits tucked away at the Gatehouse. At least not until she found someone else to open the portal.

“I imbue the portraits of the maidens before I bring them here. It helps dampen their emotions and shields them from the worst of the pain when you siphon their life away.” I almost choked after I said it out loud.

“I...” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t finish her portrait.

I can’t imbue an unfinished portrait.” I took a deep breath, letting it out with a shudder.

“She’s unprotected from your cruelty, and her emotions are entirely her own. ”

Bevgyah glared at me with an unyielding fury simmering in her eyes. “So, you’ve shielded all of them?”

“Yes.”

“Since the very beginning?”

“After...Sara.” I swallowed the sound of the name on my tongue .

When the Blackwarden family had been caught helping the humans in the Fae Wars, the Hag Queen had given me a choice.

I could be put to death with my brethren for treason against the Unseelie Court, or I could submit as her consort until such time as she no longer desired me.

But I was a fool. I had a lover in the human world.

When she found out, the punishment was far crueler than I could have ever imagined.

She cursed me with my own magic, binding my shadows so I couldn’t use them against her.

She forced me to drag her human sacrifices through the portal every five years.

And as one last gleeful addition to her curse, she locked away my ability to speak about any of it.

Then, as though trapping me in an endless cycle of dragging innocent girls to be slaves to her deviant desires wasn’t bad enough, Bevgyah tortured my beloved Sara before siphoning her life all at once, killing her.

All while I was shackled, naked to a wall, bound by my own shadows to bear witness to what my mistakes could truly cause.

I’d vowed to myself never to let anyone into my heart again. And I’d succeeded for nearly five hundred years.

“And what kept you from finishing this girl’s portrait?”

I knew she’d come back to this. She knew the answer, but she would force me to say it. I shut my eyes a moment, letting the memory of Rosalin’s lips on mine, the whisper of her breath over my skin, clear my head.

“Because...” I swallowed hard, trying to maintain my composure as my magic gathered behind me where it would remain useless against her. Rage built in my chest and sat in my stomach like hot coals. “Because she spent the night in my bed.”

Bevgyah glared at me, and I glared back. If I was going to be punished for my indiscretion , I would make sure she felt every word of my confession like a spear through her chest.

“We made love. Slowly. Ravenously. Worshiping each other’s bodies. ”

She tipped her chin up, struggling to mask the anger oozing from her and muddling with my own. She knew she couldn’t hide her emotions from me. I felt all of her jealousy, rage, and disgusting joy at knowing she could justify torturing me.

“I didn’t fuck her; I made sure every inch of her body was well and truly satisfied and then we made love again... and again . She slept curled in my arms until the sun woke us, and then we made love again.”

Bevgyah’s anger pulsed from her in rivulets that seeped into my mind, spurring my words, ripping them from me until I’d said everything I’d ever wanted to say.

“ Love, Bevgyah. Something I will never give you. Not while I breathe. Not while I stand in the shadows. No matter how many times you try to take it from me, destroy me, tear me down, and lock me away. You will never have all of me.”

I’d dug my own grave before handing her the blade to cut out my heart.

A wicked smile cracked her flawless face. “I may not be able to take your love from you, but I can take away that which you do love, Gatekeeper.”

I’d known this would happen. In a way I begged for it. A merciful death that would end Rosalin’s pain rather than prolong it until she died broken and used up.

Bevgyah took a step toward me, wrapping her hand around my throat and squeezing.

Perhaps she’d kill me now instead. But she yanked me against her, bile rising in my throat at the touch of her skin.

I clenched my jaw so tightly my teeth ached as her lips crashed into mine.

I made a point not to reciprocate, my lips as immovable as the ice her crown was crafted from.

My shadows spread out around me and pooled at her feet—useless and pathetic.

“We aren’t done with this matter,” she said as she turned and left me standing alone at the portal, shaking with fury, and the most profound sadness I’d felt in centuries.