Page 46 of Forged By Malice (Beasts of the Briar #3)

45

Farron

“P rince of Thorns, if you can hear me, answer this call.” My fingers tighten around the briars. I watch the thorns slither through the library of Castletree. Can you hear me?

Silence is the only response. A low growl rumbles in my throat. Using my necklace, I managed to slip out of the Spring jubilee with ease and quickly return to Castletree. But it won’t be long before my absence is noticed.

I fall to my knees in front of the thorns and place two hands on the vines, then with a sinking resignation, bow my head. “Please, Caspian. I need to speak to you. What do you want? I don’t have any sacrifices around, though one of the staff turns into a goat at night. I could persuade them to—”

The vines ripple and shadows curl around my feet. I look up to see Caspian lounging on a thorn above me. A smirk curls up the side of his mouth. “Really, Farron, a goat sacrifice? How barbaric.”

I shrug. “How am I to know what you dark princes like?”

“What I like is y ou , Autumn Prince. On your knees and begging for me.” Caspian leaps off the vine and prowls closer. “Has anyone ever told you you’re adorable? And so festive today. Don’t say you dressed up just for me?”

I stand and cross my arms. My outfit is a combination of a lime-green robe with pink flowers and tight gray pants that flare at the bottom. I wrap the robe tighter to cover my bare torso. “You actually came.”

“Why are you so surprised? It was you who called me. And I can’t resist a man on his knees.”

Heat burns in my core under the predatory nature of his gaze. Is this what Rosie felt when he came to her during the mating frenzy? The thought cuts through everything else and protective anger takes over. “I’m here to talk about Rosalina.”

Caspian raises a dark brow and steps back. “Not as timid as you used to be, Pup.”

We begin to circle each other. “You were in her room the other night.”

“You should have joined us.” He smirks.

“Tell me about your…” I pause. “About this connection with her.”

His smile only widens, and he grasps my robe, pulling me closer. “What is it you’re truly asking, Autumn Princeling?”

My teeth grind. I hate him. I knew I shouldn’t trust him, and yet fear drove me to make a bargain with him. A bargain with twisted words that he used to attack my realm and set loose my beast.

“Say it, Farron.”

A growl rises in my throat, and I push him away. “Are you Rosalina’s mate?”

He laughs and closes the distance again, rubbing a hand along my neck. “What do you think? Don’t you feel me there?” His thumb slides under my chin. “What else could connect us so?”

My eyes drift down to his wrist, to the twisting bracelet of frozen thorns. “Your bargain with Kel,” I breathe. “The remnants of our own bargain. Are you using those to corrupt Rosalina’s mind?”

Caspian steps back. A curtain of dark hair falls across his features, and he pouts his full lips. “They do call you the smart one.”

A strange wave of relief pours through me. Fae bargain magic is potent. I don’t know all the details of his deal with Kel, but I know it was one of the most powerful bargains one could make.

A giddy smile spreads over my lips, and I fall to a library chair. “You’re not her mate.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Farron sweetness.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll break your bargain with Kel.”

“Never.” Caspian turns away and shadows twist up his legs and feet. “But … There is a way for you to break it.”

The silence is loud between us, and I get the feeling this isn’t something he planned on telling me. “What do you mean?”

Caspian’s fists clench at his side. “There might be a way to break both my bargain with Kel and my connection with Rosalina.”

My heart hammers in my chest. Caspian’s voice is so low, it’s like he doesn’t even want the surrounding thorns to listen. “Is this another one of your tricks?”

“What tricks?” A strange smile crawls up his face. “You destroyed my book. I took one of yours. But your mate stole the book I wanted. And that’s where you’ll discover the answers I need.”

The book he’s looking for—the one Rosie trusted me with—is safely tucked in my bag back at Keep Hammergarden. It seemed innocent enough, mostly tales of the Queen, though I haven’t had a chance to give it a thorough read yet. What is the Prince of Thorns hoping to find inside? “You were always going to betray me, weren’t you? Take your goblins into my realm for that book?”

“Of course I was.”

I gnaw on my bottom lip; I don’t feel guilty about ripping the notebook Rosalina got him for his birthday. Not after he manipulated me, his games with Rosie … And in the past, he’d betrayed Kel. He’d betrayed us, too. There was a time I believed the man before me had been a friend.

I don’t feel guilty about it, but sometimes I remember the look on his face, the noise of anguish as he gathered the ruined papers. Like it had actually mattered to him.

“Admit something else,” I say lowly. “You wavered that night. It was why you were arguing with the Nightingale. You wanted to call off the attack.”

“I was only waiting for the opportune moment,” he says too quickly.

“You still have it.” I reach into the folds of his jacket and snag a tattered book, bound with a single ribbon.

Caspian gasps, and a strange expression flashes in his gaze, something akin to fear. But he relaxes as he realizes I’m not going to destroy it further. This present from my mate.

I nod for him to follow me through the stacks, weaving in and out of the patches of moonlight. I hadn’t lit a fire, as I didn’t want to alert the staff to my return. Finally, I stop at a workstation. It’s where Rosalina and I bind our notes and repair damaged books. Carefully, I untie the ribbon and lay the remains of his birthday gift before me. It was a clean rip right down the middle.

“It seems we may have a mutual goal then,” I say. “But I’ll make no more bargains with you.”

“This doesn’t have to be a bargain,” Caspian replies. “You could trust me.”

With great care, I throw away the tattered pages, keeping only the first one Rosalina wrote on. “Why do you think I’m doing this gesture of good faith? As I hope you did, by telling me the truth about your connection with Rosalina.”

“I didn’t lie to you, Autumn Prince.” His dark gaze tracks my every movement.

I grab a brush and dip it in sticky glue, carefully running a thin line along the torn leather, as well as the ripped pages, and gently smooth them down with my fingers. “Tell me how to break your bargain with Kel and why you can’t do it on your own.”

“It’s not so simple,” Caspian says, then, “And I’m not so scholarly as you. But I assume my bargain with Kel may break as a side effect of what I truly want.”

Heat grows on my palm, and I use it to quickly dry the glue before carefully reassembling the book. Lastly, I grab a thick needle and twine to bind the edges. “And what is that?”

“Something you need to find. Maybe it’s a spell, magic, a damned potion made of frog legs for all I care. As long as it does what I want.”

I close the book. There’s still a scar on the leather, but the notebook functions again. Rosalina’s writing is so clear on the cover: Caspian’s name and holly symbol beneath. Why had she made this for him? Was it simple kindness or something more? I hold the notebook out. “And what is it you truly want, Prince of Thorns?”

“To become a human.”

The notebook falls from my grasp and Caspian quickly grabs it, tucking it into his cloak.

“What?” I stammer.

“You heard me. Find a way to change me. Really change me. Not some illusion. And I suspect all my bargains and bonds will fade with my fae self.”

I can only gape in surprise at him. “You’re one of—if not—the most powerful fae in the Enchanted Vale. You would give that all up to be human? Why?”

Shadows and thorns swirl around him as he descends back to the Below. “Because a human can’t become what she wants.”