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Chapter twenty-three

Nerys

“ W ake up,” Vine hissed in Nerys’s ear.

“Wha—” Nerys shot up and called her stone eyes. “What the, what—”

“Quiet,” Vine said. “They can’t hear me. But they can hear you.”

“How come I was able to hear you? I was sleeping.” Her bravado hid the fact that Nerys was well and truly terrified. She wasn’t going to show the demon fear—he’d just thrive on it.

“We’re bound.” Vine smiled, revealing his fanged teeth. Blood dripped from his wounds and onto the bedclothes, soaking the white fabric like raspberry jelly on cake. Wounds that included the spiked manacles that now bound his wrists, a sign of what he had agreed to with her.

Then Nerys noticed the sounds beneath her. Arguing. Fina and Idris?

“What’s going on?” Nerys asked.

“There’s a conversation occurring below you may want to hear.” The demon grinned, moving off the bed and offering a clawed hand to Nerys. Nerys did not take it, but she moved to get up anyway.

“Why?”

“I’m not spoiling this surprise, Sweet One.” The last part was not a term of endearment coming from Vine—he said it like he was discussing how she’d taste.

Nerys grimaced. “Are we going to court tomorrow after all? The plan changed—” The weather was turning fast and travel would soon be dangerous. Snow could arrive and cover the roads within a week.

“Better than that. I don’t stir for travel plans.”

For one moment, Nerys paused, staring at the pale, peeled demon. “Fine.” She rose out of bed, wrapped a shawl around her, and then crept out of the room, knocking the salt barrier out of the way as she did so. Damn. No matter, that could be fixed later.

Slowly, she made her way to the stairs, pausing at the top. Vine stood behind her, watching. Leering, some would say. The voices were now clearer, though she couldn’t hear everything. She placed a foot on the top step, testing it for sound, and rested her weight on the handrail.

Silence.

She moved down another step. Then another.

“I’d stop there,” Vine said. “The next step creaks.”

Nerys glared at him. This had better be worth it.

It wasn’t. For a few minutes she stood there, listening to Fina and Idris bicker over their mother. Neither sibling sounded overly fond of the woman—one generally did not call their mother “the queen”—yet she elicited some rather strong reactions. Something about duty, obeying orders, and—

“Just fuck her already,” Fina said, “and abandon this.”

“That’s not why—” the rest of Idris’s voice was muffled. Then Fina’s was. Were they arguing about her? Nerys reddened and gripped the rail.

“I’m not staying to watch this,” Fina said.

“No one asked you to.”

“Idris, I know you. You and I both—” Shit, they faded out again.

That was enough. She wasn’t going to listen to anymore.

Fina was angry about Idris going to court—understandably.

Idris wasn’t happy Fina was challenging him—also understandably.

What was she to gain by listening to another argument?

She turned and looked at Vine, who watched her expectantly, like a child waiting for a toy to dance.

“Done so soon?” Vine asked. “You might miss the best part.”

Nerys narrowed her eyes and gripped the rail harder in response as she slid it back up the stairs.

“Fuck!” she gasped, clutching her hand as a sharp, burning pain erupted. An exposed nail had gashed her skin. She couldn’t see the cut that well in the dim hall, but it began to feel wet. Blood. Great. Just great. Wait—did they hear ?

Nerys hurried up the stairs and scurried back to her room, gently shutting the door behind her. Vine reappeared next to her 133 watching her frantically light a candle and inspect the damage.

“That looks inconvenient,” Vine said.

Nerys bit back a curse and looked at her bloody hand, which now bore a two-inch wound along the palm. “Fuck.”

“You’re bleeding.” Vine stepped closer to her.

“No, I’m oozing fairy shit. Of course, I’m bleeding.” She wrapped her hand around the wound attempting to staunch it.

“Here.” Vine held out his hand, reaching for hers.

“What for?”

“Let me see.”

Why…? Vine was a demon. Her demon, but still a demon. Did he have some unknown healing powers?

Vine huffed. “I’m not going to eat you. Let me look.”

Slowly, Nerys held out her hand. What did he want to do?

“You know,” a new male voice said, “demons can do quite a bit with blood.” Nerys whipped her head to find Sitri, who was in the form of an old man.

Qiana’s demon. The one who tried to trick her.

He was in her room. She snatched her hand back and tucked it against her nightgown, not caring that she was staining it.

“Blood is so useful, especially when it is…offered up.” Sitri smirked. “It lets us bend so many rules…”

“What are you doing here?” Nerys asked. “Get out.”

“ You can’t make me do anything,” Sitri said, striding over to her.

“I can,” Vine said, stepping between the two of them.

Sitri paused, his gaze darting back and forth. “Would that be before or after you betrayed her? Hmmm?”

Nerys’s breath quickened. Betrayed? How?

“Silence,” Vine said. Nerys could only see the back of his head, but she could imagine the fury rippling over his features.

“Admit it, Vine, you were going to—”

Vine let out a growl, cutting off Sitri’s next words.

“Growl” was an understatement—a shudder went through the room, followed by a cold wind, and even the walls seemed to shake.

Trembling, Nerys jumped back and rammed into the wall, away from the demons.

What was happening? Was he going to hurt her? Would both of them?

In an instant, Sitri disappeared, slinking under the door as a wisp of smoke. The room’s atmosphere quieted, and heat rushed into the room once more. Vine faced where Sitri had disappeared, breathing heavily. Slowly, Vine turned to face her, his horrific face lit with concern.

Concern for whom?

“Nerys—”

“Leave.” Nerys shook and clutched her bloody hand to her.

“He lied, he—”

“Leave.” What was Vine going to do? It didn’t matter. She’d just have to be very careful with him—he was as cunning and ruthless as the rumors about demons said.

Vine’s features turned expressionless. “Very well,” he said, and then he disappeared in a whisp of smoke after Sitri, leaving Nerys to tend to her bloody hand alone.

The next morning, Nerys surveyed her breakfast of porridge, sausage, decadent eggs with a yellow sauce and—for once—couldn’t stomach any of it.

“What’s wrong?” Qiana asked, watching Nerys pick at a slice of toasted white bread.

Idris and Fina had declined to join them for breakfast, leaving the table unusually empty.

Qiana wore yet another silky robe, this one a pale blue and embroidered with black roses.

Her hair was pinned casually to the top of her head, yet another sign of how informal she acted in her own home.

“Nothing.”

Qiana sighed. “Not you too.”

Nerys raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

For a moment Qiana paused, and then her shoulders drooped, and Nerys noted the darkening circles under her eyes. “I may as well tell you. Fina left last night.”

“Oh.”

“Idris is…not taking it well. ”

“I imagine not.” Nerys had questions. So many questions. She also had the sense that Qiana wouldn’t answer many of them. Besides, she had issues of her own. Like how to consume eggs the texture of nose discharge.

If Qiana was surprised at Nerys’s non-committal response, she didn’t show it, and merely went back to slicing her ham with a sculptor’s precision. “Now,” she said, “what happened to you?” Qiana nodded towards her. “Your hand.”

Should she say? Oh, why not. She told Qiana what transpired between her and Vine, leaving out that she had been eavesdropping and the subsequent encounter with Sitri. Nerys did not want to so much as utter that demon’s name, and so she ended up not telling Qiana much at all.

When she finished, Qiana said, “I warned you that he’d lie to you.”

“I know.”

Qiana shook her head and went back to slicing her meat. “He will still be useful, but you need to master him. He can’t attack you directly…but there are endless other ways he can ruin you.”

“I don’t know if I can. Master him, that is.” Despite everything, the word “master” left a bitter taste.

“You will. If you start by distrusting everything he says.” She took a long drink out of her teacup and set it down with a soft clang. “Take the day to rest, if you won’t use it to ensure your safety. We leave for court tomorrow.”

The following morning, the day they were to leave for court, Nerys awoke feeling…off. Not sick, necessarily, but rather a general sense of uneasiness, similar to that of walking through snake-infested grass.

Nerys frowned. She was alone in her room—each night she lined her doors and windows with salt, as required. After the encounter with Sitri—and Vine—she wasn’t taking any more chances. Still unable to shake the uneasy feeling, she lit the candle—and found a shadow on the bed. Right next to her.

Her breath caught in her throat and she switched to her stone eyes, which turned as large as chicken eggs as she took in what was lying before her.

Vine laid on the bedcover, spread out like a lordling on a divan.

His arm rested behind him, holding up his head, and his ineffective loincloth left nothing to the imagination.

If Nerys had hoped that demons were as sexless as tableware, she was sorely disappointed.

Unfortunately, that was one of the few areas of his body left intact.

Though, any effect that Vine’s indelicate state of indisposition may have had in normal circumstances was smashed due to the fact that Vine’s skin was sliced away from his body in various areas, revealing wet muscles and bone and sending blood dripping onto the bed.

Her bed.

“What…the…” Nerys’s mouth moved and only babbling emerged. All former thoughts of Vine vanished in front of…this.