Page 15 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

Another scream ripped out of me, this one short, frustrated. The fucking doors wouldn’t open and the one time I wanted to rely on that magic to help me, it wouldn’t come. It was like I’d been spent, near empty, like a car with a near empty tank.

“Never mind, ” I whispered to my own self, my eyes on those windows. I could get up there, break one, and climb out. I would, and it didn’t even matter that the ceiling here was as high as the one in the palace in the Seelie Court. Nothing was going to keep me locked in here for long.

So, taking in a deep breath, I forced my heartbeat to slow down, and I looked around for real this time and assessed every little thing that was in this room with me.

Furniture, three different sets of loveseats and couches and armchairs made of dark blues and purples, decorated with silver-colored metal.

Tables everywhere, two made of wood, three painted silver, full of books and scrolls and pieces of paper—and chairs as well.

No ladder that I could see, but if I could move all those tables somehow, put one on top of the other, I could reach the windows. I could actually get out of here.

I went for a long wooden table with a single empty vase over it, and a thick layer of dust on the surface.

It was smaller than the rest, and I figured it would be easier to drag closer to the wall.

I’d need to make an actual plan, I knew that, but first I was going to gather everything close to the wall.

Until I grabbed the table by the edges and pulled—and it refused to fucking budge.

The panic was already there, simmering right underneath the surface of this fake calm I was forcing myself to be in. But the harder I tried to pull the tables and the other furniture, the more I realized they each weighed a ton. I couldn’t move any of them a single inch, and the panic only grew.

Three minutes later, I was ready to scream my guts out all over again.

Instead, I bit my tongue and tried the armchairs, the sofas, tried to grab the wooden torches from their hooks on the walls, but they didn’t move a single inch. It was like this entire place was frozen , and no amount of strength was going to make anything move.

Except the books.

There were books on the tables, and I grabbed one to open it, by then convinced I wouldn’t be able to even pick it up, but I did. The book moved, light as a feather, and the thick brown cover opened.

The problem was every single page inside it was empty. Completely empty—just like all the other books and scrolls at its sides.

Fuck, I was losing my mind here. I was suffocating on thin air, convinced I was dying even though I could feel myself breathing as I ran from one end of the room to the other, searching for a weapon or a hole in the fucking wall—or anything else other than empty books .

So panicked, so frustrated, so utterly mad at everything that I completely missed the creature lying underneath one of the silver-painted tables close to the middle of the room, with its chin over its paws and its tail wrapped around its hind legs as it watched me.

I completely missed it until I was slamming my fists against the wall across from it, trying to find a weak point—on the fucking stone wall because I’d lost my damned mind—desperate for some light or to just hear a sound, a kick, a footstep— something!

Anything at all that would get the noise in my head to shut up.

Yes, I missed an entire being lying there on the floor—until it spoke.

“You cannot force your way out of this room, I’m afraid. You are only wasting energy.”

Of course, my first instinct was to think that I’d made it up—not only because I’d truly believed I was alone in there all this time, but because the voice.

My voice.

It was my voice that said those words, and when I turned around, my eyes finally locked on the blue ones of the white-furred creature.

I saw it lying there under the table. Hiding in the shadows—which wasn’t hard to do considering the amount of light that slipped through the colored glass of those windows.

My God, it was right there. I stopped, my hands still in fists, my legs shaking, my eyes refusing to blink. It was that same creature with the same eyes and fur, the same muzzle, the same body. It was the creature that had dragged me along the shore, away from that forest in the Mercove.

The very creature that had most likely locked me in here somehow .

That my legs didn’t let go of me was a miracle—again, not just because I was alone with this animal, but because it had spoken in my voice.

My fucking voice.

“No.”

It just wasn’t possible. Whatever state I was in, whatever dream this was, it wasn’t real. This whole thing was a fabrication, an illusion—and I’d seen very well how powerful they could be, how real they could appear. That’s all this was—an illusion made by some sick, twisted fae. Possibly Lyall.

So, I ignored the creature completely and I ran again, to the doors, to the walls, slamming my fists anywhere I could, screaming, let me out! Let me out!

Nobody did.

Eventually, every bit of energy I’d had left in my body was drained.

Eventually, I slid down the wall and sat on the ground again near one of the doors, though I couldn’t even tell you which.

At that point everything had become a blur, but I did see the silhouette of the creature still sitting underneath that table now that I knew it was there.

It just sat there and watched me, eyes blue and tail moving slightly.

Like it was real.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” I urged myself, squeezing my eyes shut, willing reality to change once more, as if I had any hope left. The thought that Rune was out there somewhere alone, hurt or bleeding, made me want to pull my own hair out of my skull.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, damn it. The soldiers weren’t supposed to find us. We were supposed to stick together no matter what.

We were supposed to stick together !

And now all I could do was pray that he was okay, that someone would come and tell me that he was on his way, that someone would wake me the fuck up.

Then…

“It’s useless to speak commands when your intentions are unclear. The palace knows.”

Again, that voice.

Again, my voice.

Slowly my eyes opened and locked on the icy blue ones of the creature.

He’d stood up, had come to the table’s side as he watched me, thick tail swooshing to the sides calmly.

Every instinct in my body told me to run, even though he wasn’t big.

Possibly Maera’s size when I first found her wolf locked in that cage, if that.

Even so, I had no doubt that this creature could tear me apart with those sharp teeth limb by limb, and there was nowhere to go now. Nowhere to run.

I was stuck in this stone room with it, and death was laughing in my face with each new step it took toward me.