Page 9 of Blackwarden

“Help!” I squeaked out, knowing full well there was only one person here to help me.

If I was lucky enough for him to hear, would he bother?

I hadn’t exactly been the most pleasant at our last interaction.

Not to mention, I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be even though I didn’t know how I’d actually gotten there.

“Please, help!”

After a few moments of enduring the absolute darkness I pulled myself up from the floor, my heart still racing.

Keres wasn’t coming. I needed to figure out how to get out of here myself.

I frantically jiggled the locked handle and pulled at the door again.

Desperation grabbed hold of me as I realized I might very well be stuck in this room with these creepy portraits for the foreseeable future.

I jerked on the handle with every scrap of strength until I lost my balance and fell backward, sprawling out on the cold floor when it still didn’t budge.

I didn’t have the strength of will to get up.

“I’m sorry! I don’t know how I got here,” I whimpered, hoping the Gatehouse would hear me and understand. I assumed if it could hear my thoughts, it could hear my voice. “I promise, I didn’t mean to,” I whispered, as I curled into a ball, tears wetting the corners of my eyes.

Maybe this was my punishment? To be stuck here in the darkness until Keres bothered to come searching for me.

The door flew open, shadows solidifying into the form of a man, but it was too dark to make out any of his features.

I flinched back from him as he stooped to my level, all the fear I’d just felt at being trapped in this room shifting into absolute terror of what this monster would do to me now that he’d found me where I wasn’t supposed to be.

Instead, he scooped me up, cradling me against his solid chest and stepped out of the room into a pitch-black hall.

The magic braziers didn’t seem to be working. It didn’t matter, I knew who he was .

I squeezed my eyes closed as I pressed my cheek against his neck and took a fist full of his doublet. The oakmoss and earthy scent of him wrapped around me, familiar, like a fading dream. The panic was still there, but something inside me cracked open. My fear wasn’t gone; it had just made room.

“That’s new,” he said. “The Gatehouse has never trapped someone in before.” His voice was low and seemed to resonate deep in his chest and into mine.

I risked glancing up at the shadowy face of Keres, my heart still racing.

“Are you okay? You’re trembling.” He tipped his face toward me, and it was at that moment I realized how close his lips were to mine, his soft, even breaths brushing across my nose.

“I’m...I...” I swallowed hard, trying to snuff out the warmth creeping into my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I...I didn’t mean to.”

He was silent as he carried me further down the hall, kicking a door open with his foot.

This room was just as murky as the other, but at least there was enough light to see him more clearly.

I tried to ignore how delicious the curve of his jaw looked from this angle. It was close enough I could bite it.

What madness had come over me?

How was I even having these thoughts? I had just been frozen with terror and now I was thinking of sinking my teeth into a secretive, frankly frustrating, Dark Fae? A Dark Fae like the one who’d killed my husband.

He set me down on a settee in what looked like a library before he knelt in front of me. I squeezed my eyes closed trying to figure out how I was going to explain myself as he tipped my chin up to his face. His fingers hot against my skin. Too hot. Deliciously hot.

“How exactly did you get in there?”

He didn’t sound angry at least. I risked looking at him and my throat caught.

His eyes were glowing .

It was faint but unmistakable, a pale white light like a fading lantern.

It made his face look even more terrifying, even more beautiful.

His unyielding glare watched me with more scrutiny than I cared for.

I wanted to melt into the cushion beneath me.

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want all this magic and strangeness.

Why had I thought I could handle any of this?

I took a couple of deep breaths, squeezing my hands together to stop them from shaking.

If I wasn’t here, Renee would be. I channeled my conviction to save my sister, taking slow deep breaths to calm my racing heart.

When I looked up at Keres again, the glow in his eyes was gone, his lips parted like a question lingered between them.

“I...I don’t know.” I tried to hold his eye contact and failed, letting my gaze fall to the center of his chest. He was wearing a gold pendant I hadn’t noticed before.

It was as good a distraction as any. I needed to push away how severely he was glaring and how that glare wasn’t anger but rather something far more concerning.

Without thinking, I reached, and he didn’t pull away.

Instead, he lifted his chin to allow me to see the strange symbol etched into the surface. “What’s this?”

“My family name.”

“The one that’s not important right now?”

He smirked. “The same.” When he leaned back the pendant slipped from my fingers. “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked as he swept a stubborn lock of my hair behind my ear, his fingers pulling away quickly as if just remembering he shouldn’t touch me.

My stomach bottomed out. Those dark eyes of his bore into me as he waited for an answer.

“I was...just trying to make it back to my room.” I closed my eyes to try and rid myself of the distraction of his face and pull the memories forward.

They were cloudy with panic and adrenaline.

“But I was looking at the mural in the hall. There’s a woman that looks like.

..” My face grew hot. “I’m sure you’re well enough acquainted with the mural to know what’s there. ”

He stood in front of me without stepping back.

“You have no idea how acquainted I am.” He stared at me for a long moment, his expression a strange mix of kindness and humor.

Not the usual Keres expression, and I was lost in this Dark Fae, so different than the one I’d met the day before.

He finally eased away, holding a hand down to help me up.

“Let me take you back to your suite. You can rest a bit before dinner.”

But I didn’t want to rest. I had so many more questions.

What was the room I’d been in? Were those portraits of the other maidens?

Would a portrait of my face soon hang in that room?

I took a breath to ask, but I knew he wouldn’t answer.

Instead, I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet before he tucked my arm under his, the warmth of his body bleeding into my skin.

“I’m still not sure why the Gatehouse would have locked you in somewhere. That’s never happened before.”

“How many... befores have there been?”

He was silent as we walked. When I glanced in his direction his eyebrows were drawn together in frustration.

“That room...” I started.

He paused for only a split second but long enough for me to notice the fault in his gait. I stopped, pulling my arm free from his. His eyes widened with surprise as he turned toward me.

“What is that room? Why is it full of portraits?”

His lips parted as if to speak but he stopped, frozen in place. He seemed to struggle for a moment before he let a breath out fast and hard, taking a step back.

“Are they the other girls? The others that have been taken to the Unseelie Court for this crazy arrangement with the Hag Queen?” I was speaking so fast I wasn’t sure he’d understood me.

Again, he took a breath to speak but again he said nothing. Instead, he tucked my arm back beneath his and continued to lead me down the hall to my room .

“The fact you refuse to answer my questions makes this all a bit more ominous.”

“Perhaps I’m going for ominous.”

I glared at him, and I might have tried to yank my hand away again, but there was something so comforting about having it tucked against him that I needed in that moment. I was craving any kind of physical contact that would prove to me this was real and not some trick of shadow and magic.

We walked in silence until he stopped in front of my door.

He stared straight ahead with concentration written across his face.

I watched, wondering what he was thinking but certain he’d never answer if I asked.

He was entirely lost in thought when I slipped my hand from his arm.

He took a sharp breath, glancing down at me.

“Ah. Yes. Your suite.” He took a generous step back and bowed stiffly. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

I wasn’t ready to answer, but I couldn’t think of a sassy retort. Instead, I nodded and without risking looking at him again, I pushed into my suite and slammed the door behind me.

For several seconds I stood with my back against that door.

The adrenaline melted away all at once and left me with a weariness deep in my bones.

I sank to the floor, curling my knees up to my chest and burst into tears.

What exactly had just happened? I’d been trapped by the Gatehouse, terrified beyond belief.

He’d rescued me from the darkness. Keres, a Dark Fae, a monster , had been.

..kind. There had been concern in his words, in his actions, where I’d been certain he’d be furious with me for breaking his rules.

Instead, he’d saved me.