Page 37 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 37

V ulcan’s manor isn’t like I expected.

I’d been picturing a castle, all grim stone and sharp turrets. Sharp and dangerous and gloomy.

Instead, the place women are taken to be abused is beautiful.

The manor towers in the center of downtown Kahlia, its edifice a canary yellow, bright even in the moonlight. Ivy weaves artfully up the front of the building, finding itself strategically framing stained glass window panes as it reaches for the heavens.

It’s vibrant enough to be seen a block down, the lively music giving away its festivities even before then.

“Now’s the time to put on a show, Darling,” says Astor, gesturing to his elbow. I place my hand in its crook, trying to ignore how his bicep flinches at my gloved touch. My grip is just as tense, my neck elongated as if a rod has been sutured into my spine. I’m trembling, but that works in our favor. Vulcan will assume I’m afraid of him. Or of Astor.

He’ll be partially correct.

As we walk down the streets, I have to lean into Astor for support. The Nomad had a set of red stilettos waiting for me in the carriage. The pointed heels make the walk down the cobblestone streets precarious, and I find myself focusing on not diving headlong onto the street.

“Dreadful inventions,” says Astor, glancing down at my feet, easily visible through the gaping slit in my dress as I walk. “It’s as if someone thought, now how can we sell foot shackles to the very prisoners who will be bound by them?”

“Only for those who can’t walk well in them,” I say, my ankles aching. I’m not sure why I’m defending the shoes that are actively strangling the blood flow in my feet, but something about the captain brings out the tiny part of me that’s contrary.

When I trip lightly as my heel jabs into the concrete, the captain is there to catch me, pulling me tighter into his side, his coat warm.

His green eyes flash. “Don’t make me carry you, Darling.”

“Don’t sound as if it would be your pleasure, Captain.”

Again, the captain’s mouth ticks. Just slightly.

Guests are already filing into the manor by the time we reach the doors. We’re ushered to the end of the line. When we reach the doors, the usher asks for our names.

“Don’t bother with that,” says Astor, gesturing toward the usher’s pad. “You won’t find us on the guest list.”

The usher gives us a bored stare. Like he’s already had this conversation a half dozen times tonight. “Then might I recommend the brothel down the street? The ale selection is lovely.”

“As much as I hate to miss out on a good ale,” says Astor, reaching into his pocket. He hands a note to the usher, who glances up at him through thick, heavy eyelids, then makes a show of groaning as he unrolls the note.

His eyes dart across the page, stop, then flick toward me.

“Very well,” he says, swallowing uncomfortably and ushering us through the doors.

If the exterior of the manor was bold, the interior is decadent. Naked cherubs swarm the walls, some painted, others taking the form of golden sconces. Where the cherubs disperse, wall-length mirrors take their place, giving the cherubs a sense of multiplying.

“Well, the man can’t be accused of having good taste, can he?” says Astor.

“Is this not how you would decorate your home, Captain?”

He opens his mouth, then glances at me, mischief flashing in his eyes. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be the one making those choices.”

“Yes, well, that woman fawning on you during the ball would likely love the opportunity to decorate your home for you,” I remark, if only to have something to say other than letting my jaw hit the floor.

“I’m afraid she’s not my type.”

“Ah, you mean because she’s not red-headed enough.”

Astor narrows his brow, just slightly, in question, but before he can interrogate me, we’re summoned down the hall and into the greeting parlor by a tall, curvaceous woman with deep-set, heavily painted eyes, porcelain skin, and a melodious voice as dark and intriguing as her black hair.

“Vulcan will see you in the parlor now,” she says, offering seductive grins at the guests as they file through the arched doorway and into the parlor.

When it’s Astor’s and my turn, she turns that beautiful, red-lipped smile on Astor, and my stomach twists. But then the woman glances at me, her gaze flitting to my jawline, where the imprint of my Mark is still visible even if the color is hidden by my paint, and her smile cinches ever so slightly.

The next time she turns her gaze on Astor, there’s ice in her sparking blue eyes. A shiver snakes down my spine, and as we stride into the parlor, we’re greeted by another half-dozen women, all varying in shape, coloring, and height, all wearing the same dove-white dress as the woman at the entryway. All bear feathered wings strapped to their backs.

Astor leans in, lending his ear, like he can tell by the way I’m tensing that I need to say something.

“He calls them his muses,” I whisper, my voice warbling.

Astor cuts his eyes toward me. “And your faerie friend? Is she among them?”

I survey the room, then turn back to him with a shake of my head.

“We can always abort. I never did like the idea of the part I’m to play in this.”

I shake my head. “My father collected wine, but even when he was seeking to show off his collection at dinner parties, he only brought out a select few. The ones he thought would most impress the guest list.” The vision of a cellar flashes through my mind. “My mother would track the guest list of their dinner parties to ensure no one ever witnessed her in the same dress twice. I doubt these Muses are the only ones.”

Astor nods. “So on, then?”

“You need my permission, now?”

Astor’s cheeks twitch.

We find ourselves a less-occupied corner of the room and keep to it.

“Is this strategic or are the two of us really this antisocial?” I ask.

“I see no reason we can’t claim both.”

We. A word as inconsequential as that shouldn’t make my heart skip. There is no we when it comes to me and Nolan Astor.

Eventually, the room hushes as a pair of muses, both dressed in wings that look to be made of eagle feathers, escort Vulcan through a side door, hanging on his arms.

He hasn’t changed at all since I last saw him, tucked into his lap in that cramped carriage. Even his hair, slicked back as it is, looks as if it hasn’t moved in the past two years.

My hands go clammy underneath my gloves.

Astor takes my hand and squeezes it. It shouldn’t, but his touch holds the panic in my chest at bay.

“Well, well. Who are all these people, my darlings?” Vulcan asks, turning to his muses in feigned surprise.

“Your muses wished to celebrate your birthday, my lord,” says the woman to his right, her deep brown skin painted gold at her cheekbones. She strokes his lapel with nails painted white.

“As a gesture of gratitude for rescuing us,” says the woman on his left, who happens to look more like a girl than a woman with her slender figure, wide eyes, and pale round cheeks.

Astor clenches his jaw next to me. “Remind me why the Nomad wishes to keep him alive, again.”

I bite my lip. “Apparently, Vulcan has postmortem contracts out on his life. If he’s murdered, the banks are obligated to pay out whoever catches the murderer and disposes of them.”

“So he’s preemptively placed a bounty on the head of any would-be killer.”

“That, and hired the entire world to do the task.”

Astor grunts, like he’s actually considering his odds.

On the stage, Vulcan continues, basking in faux surprise at what is obviously a staged birthday celebration he already knew about. No one wears tailcoats just strolling about one’s house; I don’t care how rich they are.

“Now, don’t scurry off yet,” says one of the girls at his side, stroking his shoulder when he makes a comment about needing to socialize with his guests. “Not before you get to see your presents.”

Vulcan’s eyes widen, and he plants a slimy kiss on the woman’s hand.

I recoil inwardly, but the girl seems unfazed. She gestures to the crowd with a well-practiced flourish. “Who wants to go first?” she calls in a girlish voice.

One by one, the guests line up with their gifts. The first presents a pair of elephant tusks, the second a russet-colored pearl the size of my fist.

While Vulcan is pretending to be shocked over a pair of faerie wings that make my stomach turn over, Astor takes me by the arm and maneuvers us into the line. As the line ebbs us ever closer to Vulcan and his greedy hands, the room begins to swim around me, and I’m back in his carriage, his arm wrapped around me like I’m a possession, his lips chewing on my neck.

“Darling.” Astor’s voice is an anchor. A tether, keeping me in my head instead of floating outside of it. His eyes pierce my soul as he says, “Nothing bad happens to you tonight.”

“What? Have you looked into my future?” It comes out more caustically than I mean it.

Astor’s face shutters, but he doesn’t retract his promise. “You getting hurt again simply isn’t a scenario I’ll allow for.”

Again. My mind snags on that word and that word alone.

“Well then, who do we have here?” Vulcan’s preening voice rips me out of my fixation. I shouldn’t, but I jerk my chin up to face him. Astor flinches next to me, and I instantly recognize my mistake.

I was supposed to keep my face to the ground until the last possible moment.

Recognition flashes in Vulcan’s eyes, but that’s the only place on his body he shows it. His spine remains straight, his shoulders simultaneously relaxed, as well as his easy smile.

“Well, well,” he says, turning a smile that’s all teeth toward Astor. “Trying to outdo all the other guests, are we?”

“What can I say? I’m the competitive sort,” says Astor, returning Vulcan’s unfriendly smile with equal potency.

“Lost this one a year—or was it two?—ago. I was beginning to think she’d never turn back up.”

A shiver snakes my spine at his implication. It seems that while Astor wasn’t busy looking for me, Vulcan was.

“Don’t worry, my love,” says Vulcan, stepping down onto the steps of the stage, yet refraining from meeting us on the floor. The result is that he towers over me, looming like an unwanted storm cloud on a town having just survived a hurricane. “I haven’t forgotten you. In fact, I’ve dreamed of you more nights than not.”

On stage, the two muses exchange a fleeting look.

There was a time where looks like Vulcan’s, the undressing sort, would have kept me still, pinned in place. But I’ve been locked up in my own body for so long under Peter’s bargain, I can’t help but stretch my limbs. Just a little.

“That’s a shame, because I haven’t thought of you at all.”

The corner of Astor’s mouth tilts upward.

Vulcan’s doesn’t.

“Welcome home, my precious one,” he says to me, then flicks his neck to the woman on his right. “Phoenix, show our newest muse to her quarters.”

Phoenix steps toward me, but Astor holds a hand up. “Just a moment. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding.” He addresses Vulcan. “I didn’t bring the girl as a gift. I’m not exactly the generous sort.”

Vulcan smiles, and his eyes don’t participate. “You’re correct, for one cannot gift something that is already the possession of the other. I purchased my muse two years ago…”

“From a man named Zane. I know,” says Astor. “Except Zane had no right to sell the girl, seeing as how she belongs to me.”

“I fail to see how it’s my fault that you failed to keep your hands on what was yours.”

“The same could be said about you, don’t you think?” asks Astor.

Vulcan pauses. “Fine. Let’s talk payment.”

Phoenix leads me toward the nearest doorway, the one she, the other woman, and Vulcan entered the parlor through. Now that I look more closely, I realize it’s a hidden door, a bookcase swiveled perpendicular to the wall.

It snaps closed behind us, leaving us alone in a dark hallway, hardly lit with sporadic lanterns.

“He doesn’t like for us to be seen entering and exiting a room,” she says, then adds with a slightly shriller note. “Says he doesn’t want guests thinking of us like we’re on par with servants.”

When a few seconds go by and I don’t answer, Phoenix spins to face me, then places both of her hands on my shoulders, her long nails tapping against the fabric of my dress. “Listen, you’re the one Vulcan tried to buy a couple of years ago, right? The girl with the Mating Mark?”

I nod. Feigning fright isn’t all that difficult. Not when my mind is whirring with all the possibilities of what could be happening to Astor back in the parlor.

All the things that will happen to me should he fail.

“Then I’m sure he’s already given you his little speech about how life as one of his muses is better than anything you could have asked for.”

“Yes, I seem to remember him saying pets had better lives than wives in most scenarios.”

Phoenix ticks her heavily lined brow. “Wives?” She lets out a measured breath, puts her hands on her hips, then turns her face away. In the dim faerie dust lamplight, it highlights her rich brown skin, the smooth lines of her jaw, her angular cheekbones. Just slightly, her cheek bulges, like she’s biting on the inside of it.

“Did I say something wrong?”

She offers me a pitying look. “It’s just that most of the girls here were never going to be anyone’s wife. Most of us were working the streets from the time we reached maturity. And for those that weren’t, their mothers were. So, for most, not all, Vulcan has been an improvement. If you?—”

“I grew up in the aristocracy, but my family was killed and I was…taken a few years ago. I don’t claim to have gone through what you and the other muses have, but…”

Phoenix almost appears relieved. “So I don’t need to give you a talk to explain how this works?”

I shake my head, though I don’t tell her I’d known my fair share far before I ever left the corners of my parents’ manor.

“Well, I hate to say that’s good, but we try to find the bright side where we can around here,” she says, beckoning me to follow her down the hallway. We wind through curving hallways and a set of spiraling stairs before we reach what Phoenix calls the muses’ suite.

It’s an enormous room in the shape of an oval. Beds line the walls, each draped in lightly dyed sheer curtains, each a distinct hue from the rest. Pale yellows and baby blues and blush pinks circle the room. There’s something eerily soft about the coloring. Eerily innocent.

“Is Pheonix your real name?” I ask.

She offers me a pitying smile. “Do you know your new name yet?”

“Nova,” I say, because that’s what he called me the night he bought me from the traffickers.

“I know,” she says, leading me across the push rug in the center of the room and pointing to the name plaque on the foot of the bed.

Nova.

Not for the first time tonight, the hairs on my arms stand on end.

“Was there another girl named Nova?” I ask.

Phoenix shakes her head. “No. He had that one marked for you after you were taken from him.”

I must blanch, because Phoenix puts her hand on my shoulder. “You’re new, so he’ll be more, well, obsessed with you, but don’t let that worry you. The novelty will wear off. Vulcan has a child’s attention span. He’ll start to lose interest in about a month, two if you’re particularly unlucky. Once his attentions are set elsewhere, you’ll know you’ve made it through the worst of it. And he doesn’t offer us to any of his guests, even the overnight ones. He pays an escort service whenever he has traveling guests in town, so you won’t have to worry about keeping the beds of strangers. They leer at the parties, but they know better than to touch you. And if they do, Vulcan will take your word over theirs, and they won’t live to see another party.”

“You’d think that would encourage guests to keep their hands to themselves,” I say.

“You’d think. And it does for most. But there’s no accounting for the occasional pea-brained imbecile.

“I’ve got to get back to the party,” she says. “I’m Vulcan’s favorite this week, so he won’t like it if I’m gone for too long.” The resignation in her voice is evident. There’s a weariness in her expression. Just a wrinkle of her brow, the slightest slump of her shoulders.

“Wait,” I say, grabbing her instinctively by the shoulder as she turns to leave.

She turns a raised brow at me.

“I…” I struggle for something to say that won’t sound suspicious. “You’re sure his fixation with me won’t last long?”

Her face softens. “I’m sure. Venus was the last one, and he got tired of her after three weeks.”

“Does he bring new muses in often?”

“As often as he finds one that meets his standards of beauty, exoticism, and price.”

“Are all the muses human?”

She almost turns her nose up at me. “Why do you ask?”

My throat constricts. She’s right. It’s a strange question. As far as I could tell, there were no faerie muses at the party and we didn’t pass any in the hall. There’s no reason for me to be inquiring about them.

Since I don’t have a good logical reason, I turn to fear for aid, letting my hands tremble. “My old master used to keep one. A faerie—I mean. She was the jealous sort.” I pull my shawl over my shoulders. “She attacked me on occasion,” I say, making a point to let my eyes go glassy.

A knowing look overcomes Phoenix’s face. “Even if there was a faerie here, it wouldn’t be her you should be afraid of.”

“You mean I should fear Vulcan,” I say.

“No. No, if you can handle his bed, he won’t hurt you. Not like other masters might have.”

“Then what should I be afraid of?”

“Leaving,” she says.

A chill overcomes my entire body.

Her lips curve into a pitying smile. “It’s not all that bad. We’re a tight-knit bunch, the muses. You’ll have friends here. Life could be worse.”

“Does it make you sad?” I ask. “When a new muse comes along?”

She narrows her brow slightly, staring at the tapestry on the far side of the wall. “Yes, and no. It usually depends on where she’s coming from. But we’re almost always better off with Vulcan.”

“Even if it’s not the best things could be.”

“Ah. I forget you’re from the aristocracy. For some of us, this is the best things could be.” She watches me carefully, then adds. “But you’re right. I always feel a twinge of pain. Right here.” She points to her sternum. “When they’re brought in. But that’s happening less and less. Vulcan’s had his eyes homed in on a specific girl for the past year now. He won’t rest until he gets a hold of her.”

Curiosity spikes within me. “Her master won’t sell her?”

She laughs, but it’s a sad sound. “This one doesn’t have a master. She’s just elusive. Scratched Vulcan up when he tried to snatch her himself. That’s why I was suspicious when you asked about a faerie. He’s been after this one, and I thought… Well, I don’t know what I thought. Just that it was too much of a coincidence.”

“Oh,” I say, glad for once that my presence tends to come across as meek and non-threatening.

I don’t want to ask more. For now, I’ve confirmed that Tink isn’t here. Meaning the Nomad is no closer to her than he was an hour ago.

But my bargain betrays me. “Do you know her name?”

When again, suspicion flickers on Phoenix’s face, I scramble for a good reason to be asking. “My master’s faerie…she escaped about a year ago. I just…”

The girl whistles. “You really are afraid of her, aren’t you?”

“My master always kept her from going too far,” I explain. “He’s not around to protect me here.”

“Tink,” says the muse. “Her name is Tink.”

My stomach falls out of my gut. “It’s not her,” I say. “Thank you.” Before I can stop myself, I’m adding, “Do you think he’ll catch her?”

“He always catches them. Even the runners. Even the ones who know how to hide in the streets. Besides, those wings of hers will be difficult to hide, and he has a bounty out. We’ve had several sources report sightings in Shrinedale. It won’t be long before that bed over there”—she nods toward the bed with the pale yellow canopy—“is taken.”