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Chapter twenty-eight

ATALIIA

If this door could talk, it would’ve called me a coward. A coward for how long I sat in front of it, counting each of the grains in the wood. I should be running to Hyacinth. Begging, pleading that somehow she could forgive me for the things I said—the things I had done.

But I couldn’t force myself to move.

So I sat there—in the middle of the foyer—staring at the door with my legs crossed, my elbows propped up on my knees and my chin resting on my fist as the minutes ticked by.

Cyloe padded down the steps from the library, and I listened to each one as she approached me in cat form and slid her onyx body against my arm.

I buried my fingers into her fur before pulling her into my lap and refocusing on the door.

Cin had come home earlier than expected which meant it either went terribly wrong, or exactly the way they’d hoped.

I was choosing to believe the latter.

And, like always, I’d done nothing remotely helpful while she was away. But , I hadn’t caused any additional issues and I liked to think that was a win.

Though, it was probably due to the fact Andrues had followed me around like a second familiar the last day and a half, scaring away any fun to be had.

But now that he was gone . . .

I slapped my hands against my thighs, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceiling and making Cyloe jolt from my lap as I pushed myself from the floor.

Tonight, I was going to get a drink.

I would wear my own skin and stay as far away from even the slightest hint of trouble.

Tomorrow, I would talk to Hyacinth.

The sound of metal clanking against wood rang out, mixing with the lively energy filling Blackthorn Inn as I slapped two coins down on the bar and lowered my hood.

It wasn’t until the barkeep lifted an annoyed brow toward me as she scooped the coins into her hand that I realized—I had never been here in my own skin.

She didn’t recognize me.

“A pint of cider and a dram of brandy,” I requested, turning to face the activity bustling around the room as I leaned back onto my elbows, resting them on the bar’s surface.

The Blackthorn Inn was tucked into a corner of Drathbain Street and had quickly become my favorite tavern in Nethkar for many reasons, but mostly because of how it seemed to attract the most vile men of this realm.

It was my hunting ground. The barstools and tables were the trees in my forest that I prowled through, stalking my prey.

But not tonight.

Tonight, I would behave.

Tonight, I would not start a fight.

Andrues had asked only one thing of me when he left—not to go looking for trouble—and I was determined to prove to myself that I could do it.

Though, as I watched these grotesque men paw at the women serving them, their sweaty hands groping as the women tried to pull away, it became increasingly difficult not to sever those hands from their bodies and let them bleed out at my feet.

The women who worked for the Blackthorn were not employees, they were slaves to the men that owned the establishment— servants .

Most were forced into working off the debts their husbands had wracked up from bets they could not pay.

If a man couldn’t pay the coin owed to a bet lost at the Blackthorn, their wives paid the price.

Of course, this did not stop the men. No, they kept betting—kept adding more time onto their wives’ life sentence of servitude, while they continued to live free and untouched.

And that made me fucking livid .

My hand twitched, a manifestation of the rage that was beginning to flood my veins as I watched them and I clenched my fist in an effort to contain it.

I should have worn a different skin, so I could wrap my fingers around their necks and watch as my nails dug into their throats, puncturing their airways and letting them drown in their own blood before my eyes.

The scowl on my face deepened as I sucked in a sharp breath and turned toward the drink that had been set beside me.

Choosing to come to the Blackthorn when I was trying so hard to behave, was a stupid fucking idea.

I knew that when I made the decision.

But subconsciously, I was hoping that someone would give me a good enough reason to hit them, so when I had to explain myself to Andrues, he would agree that I had only done what was best.

Unfortunately, our reasonings for inciting violence did not align, and his tolerance to debauchery was much higher than mine.

Reaching for my drink, I watched as Cyloe skulked on the worn staircase that led to rooms that filled by the end of each night.

I’d spent my fair share of nights in those rooms. Sometimes because I was too drunk or beaten to show my face in the castle, but usually it was because I was taking care of men who didn’t understand that women’s bodies did not belong to them.

The look that crossed their face, the pure horror when they realized that “no” and “please” meant as little to me as it did them, should have been enough.

But it wasn’t.

I wouldn’t stop until I had wiped the foul, pathetic existence of these men from the face of Nimbria, or until I was dead.

Over the last nine months, I had managed to get five women out from the iron grip this life had on them.

I’d pulled them from Blackthorn wearing a man’s skin, so when I guided them into the back alley, no one even cared to wonder why.

All that was left in that dank space when their husbands came looking was sheep’s blood, and a tattered piece of their clothing.

There were hundreds of villages scattered across Locdragoon and I would fill them all with women who deserved a better life.

My fingers wrapped around the small copper cup as I lifted it to my lips and let the brandy slide down my throat. A cough worked its way out of my lungs against the burning sensation as I took a swig of my cider to mute the taste it had left in my mouth.

I had never tasted brandy so bitter.

It was nothing like the subtle sweet taste I was used to. I took a large gulp of cider to wash away the bitterness from the brandy as I turned back toward the room and my body swayed with the movement. My eyes darted to the cup in my hand, then to the cup sitting empty on the bar.

Something was wrong.

There was no way in hell one dram of brandy would get me drunk. Sure, I hadn’t drank in a few days, but this— this wasn’t right. Slowly, I turned back to the bar, setting the cup down and grabbing onto the ledge to stabilize legs that were losing their strength at a rapid pace.

Something was really fucking wrong .

The edges of my vision blurred, a fuzziness creeping over everything in my line of sight and I forced myself to focus.

Focus.

But it wasn’t working.

My eyes darted to the stairs as my tongue began to feel like a weight inside my mouth. Panic was setting in as I looked for Cyloe, but I couldn’t make her out.

I could barely make anything out as the world began to tilt around me.

It wasn’t until my head connected with the ground and a sharp pain flared down my neck that I realized the swirling—the room spinning around me—was a symptom of my body collapsing on the floor.

My eyes blinked against the pain but I couldn’t see past the red and black spots that had consumed my sight.

Every alarm in my head was screaming, ringing at a deafening volume as I tried and failed to push myself from the ground.

I was losing control of my senses.

Pain exploded through my head for a second time as a sharp object landed on the back of my skull, and just before consciousness fled my body, I understood what was happening.

I had been poisoned.

Footsteps shuffled around me.

Gravel crunching below boots echoed through the room as a heavy thrum of pain pulsed through my head. A groan escaped my lips as my eyes blinked halfway open to a dimly lit space.

The sting of flesh splitting bloomed across the left side of my face as knuckles collided against my jaw. My head snapped to the side as I hissed at the pain.

The tang of blood saturated my mouth, and it wasn’t until I tried to protect myself from the second blow coming for my other cheek, that I realized I was bound to the chair I sat in.

A snarl erupted from my throat as I thrashed against the rope pulled tight around my wrists.

This wasn’t happening.

This couldn’t be fucking happening.

“Now, now, gents. Let’s at least get acquainted with the lady before we have our fun,” a husky voice said, the sound coming from directly in front of me.

My head snapped toward it and I forced away the fireworks still exploding behind my eyes and focused on him, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

My gaze burned into him as he grinned at me.

“At last, I meet the Woman of Many Faces. Do you know who I am?” he asked casually, leaning back into his chair and draping an arm over the back of it.

He was important, or at least he thought he was.

That much I could tell by the smug look on his face and his freshly-pressed tunic that looked too expensive for any villager or tradesmen.

Five men stepped out of the shadows behind him, each watching me with malicious intent.

I steeled myself for what I already knew was coming.

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me regardless. You seem like the type of man that loves the sound of his own voice,” I answered, my eyes scanning the chair he sat in and his perfectly clean clothing.

A chuckle vibrated from his throat as he hiked up the fabric covering his left leg, then casually pulled his foot from the floor and rested his ankle on his right knee. “And what type of man would that be?”

“The kind that wears luxury fabrics while his henchmen haven’t washed themselves in weeks. The kind that makes those same men carry a velvet armchair into a crumbling shack so he doesn’t risk snagging his precious clothing,” I snapped as blood trickled from the corner of my lips.

He laughed this time, a sickening sound that reverberated through the room.

I needed to keep him talking.