Page 12 of Bound in Violet Ink

My stare is blank for longer than I’d like.

It’s such an impossible suggestion. It’s not often my mind doesn’t work like how I want it to, everything overwhelming common sense when a desire to run overwhelms me as I shove at his chest, which might as well amount to pressing against a stone wall.

He catches my wrists mid-flight and presses me against the cold, unforgiving wall.

His hands are iron shackles around my bones.

The small bit of true force he just used is a massive indicator that as long as he’s within arm’s reach, I’m going nowhere.

He lowers his face into mine. “You have no idea the trouble you’re in by being here, Victoria. Do not take off.”

Oh that comment pisses me off, my inner battle for decorum forced upon my life clashes with the side of me that’s ready to fly .

“My life is nothing but trouble,” I snap, my voice splintering.

“I don’t want to hear about having it good.

Just because my cage was gilded, doesn’t mean I still wasn’t in a cage . Why does no one understand that?”

His gaze drags over me, slow and assessing, like he’s deciding exactly how broken I already am. “You are the daughter—adopted or not—of the man every Unseelie in here would love to see gutted and strung up like a pig. Only the Seelies would spare you, and there aren’t many of them here.”

“And what then?” I rasp, sagging against the wall.“What do I do, huh? I’ve been trying to figure out how to escape Silas for the latter half of my life, but it’s not as if it’s easy .”

“You will stay very close to me,” he states. “If it comes to it, I’ll bite your neck first, but you’re leaving this place untouched, unless by me . One way or another. Silas failed you miserably there, but I won’t.”

Those words are akin to gently stroking my hair while taking a perfectly warm bath, icing an ache so deep inside of me I don’t know if I’ve ever been truly treated right. “That starts the mating bond,” I reply, some part of my brain trying not to be too desperate.

He smiles. “And I plan to finish it. Preferably out of the Carrows, for your own dignity.”

He actually believes we’re mates. He smells divine, sure, but that could just be the lonely, neglected part of me steering. But I know Kane’s knowledge of the world is beyond mine, so I can trust he wouldn’t suggest this unless he was certain, right?

His voice sinks low, intimate and lethal. “We’re leaving this room. There's a female among my ranks, Freya. If— if —I ever have to leave you alone, it’ll only be with her.”

I lift only my gaze, glaring at him through my lashes. “We’re actually leaving? As in departing from the Carrows?”

He arches a brow. “The purpose for me being here has been served, and I want out of this shit hole as fast as possible. This attack was calculated, and it’s time to leave, now.”

He directs me with a nod to the door, his eyes hardening like Silas’s would when entering the public.

He leads the way into the cool, fetid air of the hall, positioning himself in front of me as the other man just assumes the position behind.

We walk down the corridor, Kane moving with the presence of a man who doesn’t need to shout to own a room.

The sneers from the other Unseelie feel like a distant, feral cousin’s greeting.

Nearing a larger door, we step into a wide room overflowing with more Unseelie, their few specks of weapons or armor catching the dim light like oil slicks against the few candles that are lit. Every head turns to judge me.

A woman approaches Kane as soon as we’re through the threshold, sharp-eyed and thin-lipped. Her dark blonde hair cut evenly at her shoulders and to form bangs. My eyes widen as no one I know has hair remotely like this. “My liege, Mockingbird is underway.”

Kane makes a sound of acknowledgement, looks off as if making a swift, final decision. “We need to speak in private, then,” he replies, cold and final.

Without a word, the room empties—chairs scraping, boots pounding, mutters dying to silence. Only the woman remains, her gaze flicking to me with open suspicion. Even the man who was walking behind me gave us privacy as he shut the door.“Why is she here?” the woman asks, careful but probing.

Kane slightly turns to face me, looking me over with heavy consideration. The silence grows thick enough to choke on until he replies, “Because she’s mine.”

Every hair on my body rises, gooseflesh rolling out like I’ve been drenched in something beyond my understanding. The woman blinks, but wisely keeps her mouth shut.

He squares his shoulders. “Victoria is never to be left alone, and will be beside me unless I’m pulled elsewhere, to which you will guard her. Which is unfortunately right now, as I need to see to something without anyone nearby. No one comes in here.”

Freya hesitates with a bobbing throat, not daring to glance up at him. “She belongs to Silas, sir.”

Kane’s eyes flash with a dangerous glint.

“I know this is not what’s expected, but if anyone ever says she belongs to him again, I will cut their tongue out.

” Both Freya’s and my eyes widened. “The sooner it’s understood that hurting her is akin to hurting me, the less we’ll have to fight off everyone who wants to return her to that tower. ”

“Sorry, my liege, I didn’t mean that. I just meant that she’s Seelie. This will not go over well.”

Well, fuck all of ? —

“No,” Kane says flatly. “She’s not.”

I jerk my head up. “ What ?”

Oh… shit. This explains everything. He has the wrong person. He has to think I’m someone else.

Before I can flinch away, Kane reaches out and brushes my hair aside, fingertips grazing the back of my lower neck, pushing my head to reveal the skin there. “This,” he says, voice grave, “is not a birthmark. It’s a shroud.”

My gaze moves all over the floor as if the understanding of what he said is written there, and every second counts. It’s true I have a birthmark there, but not being a Seelie? He has to have the wrong person.

Or…

Is that why he looked my neck? How did he know it was there?

He can’t do this. Break my identity like this. He could be lying with so much ease, and I have no means of proving him wrong. This is the largest fuckery of my mind I’ve experienced in?—

“If she’s Unseelie,” Freya begins, like a true general in someone’s militia who accepts what they’ve been told. “They’ll all want to claw at her to make her their mate. To take that from Silas?—”

“I’m aware,” Kane says darkly. I can hear the lethal promise buried beneath the calm. “I will take care of it if it becomes too much.”

I look up at him, almost nervous. I’ve never looked to someone like their sheer presence will save me, except for my adoptive mother.

I don’t even know Kane. But if, somehow, I’m not a Seelie, then this woman is right, and I’m not just fresh meat to the people here, I’m a delicate slice of marbled flesh.

Kane catches my gaze for a breathless second.

Something almost like regret flashes through his face, then shutters away.

Without waiting, he leaves—a storm of a man wrapped in chains he’s ready to break. Freya jerks her chin at me, but I can hardly process my surroundings as my heart pounds in my ears. I feel so cold, alone, and also more alive than I ever did under Silas’s rule.

All the while, I touch the back of my neck, staring blankly at the floor.

“Why did Silas send you here?” Freya asks, her tone cutting, but the way she looks me over, I can tell she’s far more curious.

Stumbling slightly to the nearest chair, my stomach feels as taut as ship rope.

“I, uh… I was instructed to heal Kane,” I say quietly, my eyes still gyrating in my skull like I’ve unlearned the ability to focus.

“Silas said I either come back broken, or I don’t return.

” My voice is as cold as these walls, realizing if I mate with Kane, it would enrage the Seelie High Master.

Even in this dead, crumbling place, where the walls bleed sorrowful tales, I finally feel the hollow ache of possibility clawing at my ribs.

Some part of my mind registers in many ways there has to be many hidden truths to my identity.

Or maybe it’s just the trauma of being confined that finds comfort in belonging to someone…

Does it matter? Mating Kane could be my ultimate revenge against Silas.

I’ll deal with my identity crisis later, a trauma I can’t begin to unfold right now.

Hope—that bittersweet bitch—is back.

Freya frowns, sitting down near me after locking the door with many bolts and a wooden barrier. “Why?”

“I’m not marriage material for High Lords. I’ve ruined five proposals and four arrangements.” My voice is a little stronger now.

“There will be jealousy, for your information,” she mutters through a quiet sigh. “Kane is highly sought after among the Unseelie.”

“Great, just what I need.”

She snickers. “I’m just warning you. It’s not my role to question him too much, but others will when he’s not around. Ignore it for now until we’re in a better setting where it can be properly addressed.”

It seems the world’s the same, no matter what side of the wall one finds themselves on. Everyone always hated me as soon as I was paired with desirable suitors, and then they were sickly sweet when those proposals fell through.

Sitting here is one of the most boring encounters as silence stretches while Freya moves to sit next to the door.

No one comes near, that much I can smell.

I can only stare at the same table for so long before the tension of everything presses against my chest with a reminder so firm it could be carved into stone—even if I’m free of Silas, I do not belong here.

Do I even belong anywhere ?

I can’t stop touching the back of my neck… it’s seriously not a birthmark?