Page 91 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

I stop at the cell with Archie, Cole, and Darian, the soldiers a half-step ahead pausing as they realize which cell I’d like to be put in.

They turn and unlock the creaky door, swing it open, and usher me in.

When they lock it, they look at me. I nod.

Then they disappear down the corridor, a door slamming shut before a key locks it.

“What are you doing here?” Cole whispers.

“She came for us!” Archie grins when I turn to face them.

Darian is sitting in the corner, calmly, like he’s done this one too many times. Our eyes connect for a split second before he looks down. I scan the cell and find Gavin and Nolan in the darkest corner.

Taking a seat next to Archie, I relay the information about Melaina’s intent to question everyone, with the possibility of torture.

Archie waves me off, claiming Melaina would never.

But I remind him of who her father was. Archie never witnessed how much he beat Darian when we first arrived, and I have a hard time trying not to glance Darian’s way.

“She won’t,” Archie whispers. “I know her. I love her because I know her.”

“You’ve known her for two seasons,” Nolan grumbles. “We’ve known her for years. So yes, I wouldn’t hold your breath on the thought she won’t.”

Gavin elbows him to quiet, then murmurs to me, “Did she send you down here, too? Why would she think you’d betray us?”

Heat prickles in my skin because there are three people in this cell who know the answer. Archie, me, and Darian. And that isn’t even the beginning of the secrets. They still don’t know Cole and I aren’t siblings.

“No. She didn’t,” I answer softly. Even though, based on my transgressions, maybe she should have.

“Then why did you come?” Darian rumbles, flicking his gaze up to me momentarily, before Cole answers.

“Because she didn’t want us to be here alone.”

The rest of the evening I toy with the idea of pulling the fire from one of the torchlights. Though, seeing as everything here is iron and stone, I’m not sure what I’d do with it. The minutes tick by more and more painfully. We all sit in silence. Waiting.

I manage to fall asleep on Archie’s shoulder, and wake when someone opens a door. We all edge up off the cold, damp floors as guards come in and unlock the cells. Shouting to form a line. When I glance back at our group, I’m met with confused looks.

Either Melaina’s changed her mind. Or…she already found something.

We’re all led out of the dungeons by the sounds of swinging chains and wet boots. Escorted back to the community hall where Melaina is standing at the pedestal platform, the upper half of her body rising above the heads of the prisoners.

“Have you heard any news?” I ask Daeja.

“No. But we’re right outside the community hall. Say the word, and we’ll burst in.”

As we get closer, my heart drops when I see her father’s sword in her hand. Unsheathed. Her face is stone cold. She flicks a look at me, then down at my shackled hands, before she looks away.

She calls out across our stilling crowd, “It is standard to send traitors to the prison in Millton to await a trial. But given I’m kin of the recent Vitalan leader, I am given the privilege to decide.”

But what if she’s wrong? My breath quickens, and I search for any hint of magic, as if I’ll be able to wield it and turn back time in the event of a mistake. I scan the room for all the familiar faces.

What if it is someone I know? What if…Gods, what if it is Darian?

Melaina lifts her sword and points it directly at someone in the center of the group. “In the name of my father, Sethan Silverstone, all of dragonkind, and the Gods above, I hereby sentence you to death.”

Everyone steps away from the center, leaving Nolan glaring back at her. He growls, “You have no proof.”

“We found your correspondence with the King’s Close Circle hidden within your bag. Come and kneel with any last scrap of honor you might have,” Melaina bites back.

Shock rolls over us all in waves, stilling our feet to the ground. A guard shoves Nolan forward, and he headbutts them before more guards swarm in and drag him up to the pedestal at Melaina’s feet.

Nolan spits at Melaina’s boots. “I am not the traitor here!” He pushes up onto his arms and turns, scanning the crowd. “You all are! You all turned your backs on Arterias and our King! On our homes and our people!”

I shut my eyes and bow my head, unable to witness another death as Melaina rears back her sword.

“You are responsible for my father’s death!” she roars.

“Fuck your—” Nolan’s voice is cut off by the deathly sound of metal through flesh.

I flinch when his body slumps to the ground.

When I walk back to my room and swing the door open, Darian is collecting his things at the farthest wall. He picks his manacles up off the floor and regards them before tossing them back to the floor with a precise callousness.

“Come to say goodbye?” He swings his gaze to me, his expression set in cool casualty. As if nothing changed between us two nights ago.

“Goodbye? What are you talking about?”

“Melaina’s granted me my own separate quarters, after proving my loyalty by saving Archie. That and…since Archie has made up with her, there’s a spare room.”

“What?” I’m glad Archie and Melaina have reconnected…but to give Darian his own room? To essentially let him walk free, after she was just giving me shit about him yesterday?

“Don’t look so disappointed,” Darian mutters and tosses his rucksack over his shoulder.

“Why did you look at me, then?” I blurt in a half-hearted demand.

“What do you mean, kitten? Do you prefer I look away when you walk into the same room as me?”

“ Stop calling me that.”

He snorts. “Why?”

“Because…” I swallow. Remembering my name on his lips two nights ago. How soft and tender it sounded, unlike anything I’d ever heard. It ruptured something in me—something I’m failing miserably at trying to stuff down. “Because I don’t like it.”

He smirks and walks toward the door. “Have you ever considered it’s exactly why I call you that?”

Doubt sneaks into the back of my mind. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps our last night together was only a figment of my imagination—an over-exaggeration of what really happened. It was always just sex with us…

I seriously need to stop before I get ahead of myself. Before I do something even more stupid than sleeping with him. Before I fall. And not just into his sheets.

But fall.

“Oh…one last thing before we bid our farewells.” He pulls a dagger out of his rucksack— my dagger—and places it in my hand. He wraps my fingers around the hilt and lifts my hand to position the tip of the blade right above his heart.

He whispers with a tone that aggravates me more than it does settle me, “I still need you alive, so next time you’re in an unforgiving scenario, this is the best angle. Three inches deep is all you need.”

I rip my hand away and out of his grasp, never taking my eyes off him as I chuck the dagger a few feet away from us. “Why are you acting like nothing happened between us?”

“Because nothing did happen. And it won’t happen again,” he responds coolly, patting my shoulder before taking a step toward the door.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it!” I snatch his bicep as he attempts to move past me.

He has the decency of not plowing through my grip and continuing on his way, his brows lowering down over his eyes as he locks into a rigid stance.

I tilt my head, searching his eyes for the man I saw that night. “Please…let me in.”

“There’s nothing I have to let you into.”

“I don’t believe you!”

He flicks his head to me. “There is nothing , Katerina?—”

“You’re lying!” My voice comes out angrier than I intend. Him using my full name is proof enough. “I saw it. I saw you?—”

“You saw nothing.” He pulls out of my grasp and continues his way to the door.

“That’s why you’re acting this way?” I laugh shakily at his back. “Because you’re scared?”

“I am not scared!” He whips around to face me, his eyes burning in fury. “I am not scared, kitten. You seem to think I’m someone who needs to be saved, someone hiding some better version of himself from you. But there is none.” He slams a fist into his chest. “This is me!”

I slap his fist away from his chest. “I refuse to believe that!”

He looms over me, his voice slipping into a whisper as he grinds the words through clenched teeth, “And why? Because I’m not good enough for you?”

“That’s not?—”

“Because you can’t possibly stomach the fact you’re wrong about me?”

“No—”

“Because you have this sick perversion of helping people?” he roars. “I don’t fucking want your help!”

I glare at him, not flinching underneath his hateful attitude as I warn, “You’re being an asshole?—”

“Good!” he grits out. “It’s better for the both of us if you remember that.

I’m not some cuddly man head-over-heels in love with you, dying for your hand in marriage, and begging at your fucking feet to simply look my way.

I don’t want to be with you. I don’t fucking want you.

Do you understand? So, before you start fantasizing about all of that and who you think I am, let me set you straight.

I have used you. For just about everything.

From fucking you back in Arterias to try and get the Blood Ring.

From getting out of that dungeon back in Midkeep.

To avoiding being beaten by Sethan and his henchmen and drinking myself silly with those bottles of liquor at night.

You’re nothing but a tool to me. You’re a shoddy fuck, and since I didn’t have better options, I settled for what’s between your legs so I might have a meager ounce of pleasure every once in a while?—”

I fucking slap him.

As soon as my hand connects with his stubbled cheek, my skin heats almost unbearably, triggered by the mix of anger, hurt, and shock. As soon as I realize what I’ve done, I take a step back, blinking the tears at bay as my entire body trembles with the anger it struggles to contain.

He drags his face back to me. His eyes round with shock before being drowned out by anger. We stare at each other, the godsawful silence filled with our heavy, exaggerated breaths.

He leans forward and spits at my feet. “Good.”

And then he’s out the door. When he slams it shut, the walls around me quiver from the sheer force.