Page 37 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

“Is that another threat?”

“I do not need to resort to threats,” Caryan answers too calmly, his eyes never leaving mine as he gets up. I can see him frown, not at me, but like he heard something. He briefly glances away, as if something has caught his attention.

“May I go?” I ask quietly, slowly sliding off the stool.

Caryan’s eyes dart back to me, refocused with new intensity. “I’m afraid you can’t.”

A shiver runs between my shoulder blades, and I stop dead in motion. For a moment, we look at each other, his eyes flickering with something unspoken.

Finally, he says, “I have to see about something. You’ll remain here until I return.”

My heart pounds at what that means. What that might imply. “No! Wait!”

He stops in his tracks, turning his face half to me, offering me his profile.

“Do not—please don’t lock me in.” The words tumble out of me, more desperate than I wish. “Please let me at least go to my room.”

“I cannot, after what happened.”

“I won’t run away again.” For now. Not tonight .

He retorts in a way that tells me he knows too well what I’m thinking, “I’ve not yet found who’s behind the incident. Until then, you’ll remain either in my presence or in one of the high lords’s.”

I startle at that. “So I’m downgraded from slave to prisoner?” I can’t help it, the scorn in my voice. Fuck that he just saved me. Fuck that I almost died. Fuck that I’m so drained and tired I can barely keep standing.

“As I said, it’s for your protection,” he answers coolly.

“Why am I so important that you seal the whole Fortress for me?” I ask his back, because he’s already turned away.

He pauses again, annoyance shining too clearly in his aura. I don’t care. “Do not flatter yourself. Maybe it’s not only for you,” he throws over a shoulder.

“No? But it must mean something that you, as the king, come to save a runaway slave,” I bite back. Pushing him. “Sealing the whole Fortress. Interrogating people.”

He turns to me fully then, and I wish he wouldn’t look as frightening as he did in the desert. To hell, or well, hells with it.

“I know I’m the last silver elf.”

His eyes gutter, shadows twirling from his shoulders and slowly coming for me. I realize he’s still furious, however he just seemed.

I don’t back off. I take a step towards him. “That’s why the Nefarians want me dead. Badly enough to kill themselves. So, what is it I can do other than reading old languages?”

“Such a familiar tone,” he purrs, but his eyes darken further at what I just revealed.

“I deserve to know, my king .” Damn me, the last word does sound like an insult.

His fangs flash, but he finally says, “I don’t yet know the full scope of what you can do. Yet breaking my wards as easily as tearing through a veil spun of sea silk seems to be yet another of your talents.”

“And others can’t do that?” I ask, surprised at his confession. At the fact that he told me something .

“Obviously not. ”

My heart staggers into an uneven beat as the reality of it catches up with me.

This is why he wanted me. Searched me. Keeps me. And what that means.

My eyes fall to the floor eventually. “So you’re planning on locking me up and—forcing me to serve you?” I cannot stand looking into his eyes as I say it. Just like Lyrian.

“I would not necessarily force you,” he retorts in a way that implies he would do exactly that.

My eyes fly back up to him; my anger winning out. “No? So I can just go? Seems to me that’s exactly what I can’t do.”

He bares his teeth, and his shadows start to move again. I glower at him, at them, hiding my inner terror.

“As I said, not letting you leave is for your protection as well. You might realize that in time.”

“Yeah? To me, it sounds a lot like a prison. Why not just put a collar around my neck.”

“Do you want one?” he seethes back. His shadows reach me, bristling along my skin. “Because it can easily be arranged if you ask for it.” He takes a step closer, and to my horror, as he turns the palm of his hands upwards, indeed a collar appears in it.

My eyes flare. He smiles then, truly smiles. It makes me want to run.

“Did it ever occur to you that others might treat you much worse than I?” he purrs softly.

“You torture people,” I manage to say, but it comes out breathlessly. My eyes are still locked on that collar.

“I haven’t tortured you, as far as I remember,” he says back. Not yet, his eyes seem to imply, his shadows ghosting over my skin like wreathing, deadly, undiluted midnight.

I hold very, very still as they wander upwards, brushing up against my collarbone, my neck, my chin. Like a touch. Like a leash. Or a noose. Whatever he wills them to be with half a thought.

I say, “Maybe I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”

He cocks his head at that, the movement pure predator. “ Interesting. Usually, people try to convince me that they’re useful to me in one way or the other.”

I shiver at the way his eyes dip to my face, my lips, and down over my sternum, snaring there before his face grows cold with sudden disdain.

I ignore the shame curling in my belly. Ignore my reflex to cover myself, my chest.

I say, as unfazed as I can, “How frustrating it must be to have everyone eager to comply with your desires. And boring, I imagine.”

His eyes briefly widen with surprise. Yet, as he straightens, his face shows nothing but cruel arrogance. “You’d be wise to cherish my protection.”

“And be locked away.”

“Be guarded and safe,” he snaps back. I can feel the last tether of his patience fraying.

“Hurting me when you feel like it is your idea of safety?”

“Careful, Melody.” He glances down at the collar, still in his hand.

Horror lurches through me when I—for a brief second—feel it around my neck, the cold metal of the chain so tight it bites into my skin. Terrifyingly real. But then, it vanishes into thin air. As if it had never been there. I refuse the need to touch my neck, to make sure it is gone. I swear I still feel its echo like a soft burn.

The way his eyes glow and his lips tear into that lazy smile, he knows too well what I’m feeling. Thinking. What it did to me.

I should be terrified. I should back off.

But that collar—that demonstration of power. It makes me snap.

“You know what—bite me.”

I think he will come for me. His eyes burning the color of his unholy magic. All black, drinking light, devastating in its force.

But all he does is snarl, “Then, by all means, leave. Saunter into your doom.”

Shadows explode and he is gone.