Page 9

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D aisy trudged back to Dusbury with her head ducked low, her trembling arms tightly folded over her chest.

What the hell. What the hell .

Had Filak collapsed that cave? Had he done it… on purpose?

Of course it wasn’t possible, of course — but then again, Daisy had watched him crush that diamond, too. Her diamond, her expensive valuable property, that she could have used to fund her escape back home. To help her run away from here, run away from Lew , forever.

But instead, Filak had just taken the ring, and destroyed it. Maybe just like he’d decided to take her, and destroy her, too.

The vision of that first tunnel’s sudden collapse swarmed again through Daisy’s thoughts, bright and clear and menacing. How that pale, marked, mysterious figure had appeared in the shadows, put his hand to the wall, and…

Crash .

Daisy shivered all over, wrapping her arms tighter around her chest. No . Filak couldn’t have done all that on purpose. He couldn’t have chosen to trap her with him like that. It was impossible. Magic wasn’t real . Right ?

Of course orcs don’t have magic, Daisy , Lew had said, rolling his eyes, when Daisy had mentioned all those tales to him. They only have overdeveloped auditory and olfactory processing, likely due to their extreme consanguinity. It’s a miracle they’re even still able to reproduce, let alone as excessively as they do.

Daisy shivered again, and gritted her teeth as she walked through Dusbury’s town gates, and headed for their apartment’s street. Because curse it, whatever the hell last night had been, it was over now. Finished . She’d been reckless and foolish, and she’d even gone and thoroughly humiliated herself, at the end. Asking an orc to come with her. An orc . An orc with a face like that, who’d behaved like that, and possibly trapped her like that. An orc who, for the horrible finishing touch, had carelessly ruined her ring, her one way to escape this disastrous mess for good.

And now? Now , Daisy was stuck. Stuck here in Dusbury , with no coin, no food, nowhere to stay, and no way home… except for Lew . She had no choice but to go back to Lew , who had lied to her, and let her believe she was special. Beautiful . Brilliant . My heart is forever yours.

Daisy groaned, and let out a shaky breath as she halted before their rented apartment’s door. On her way here, she’d at least found a stream to drink from and wash up in, and she’d emptied her bladder in a protective thicket, too. But she was still painfully hungry, her head badly aching, and she just wanted to curl up alone and sleep for days. Nei , Daisy . Nei . My heart is forever yours.

She yanked the door open with a trembling hand, and plodded down the narrow hallway toward the apartment. Maybe Lew wouldn’t even be here. Maybe he would be off with Sybil , or some other beautiful woman, working on the top-secret project. Maybe Daisy could eat and sleep in peace, and then sort out some kind of plan…

So of course, the instant she opened the door, there was Lew . Whirling around to stare at her, from where he’d been pacing back and forth across the room.

“Daisy!” he exclaimed, his voice something between relieved and furious. “ Where the hell have you been?”

Daisy’s stomach twisted — as if he had a right to ask, now? — and she shoved her ringless left hand into her pocket, and shut the door behind her. “ Out ,” she replied, as steadily as she could. “ Busy .”

Lew stared at her for a long, jolting moment, as strange red blotches rose on his handsome face. “ You could have said ,” he snapped. “ I was worried about you.”

Daisy blinked at him, because yes, he did look worried, and still even angry, too — but then his narrow eyes flicked, brief but unmistakable, over toward the table. Toward where Daisy had been working on inking pages for their next book, and one of them was still lying half-finished on top. The rare Aconitum napellus she’d spent days studying and sketching, until she’d been certain she’d captured every lobe, every hooded flower.

A sudden tightness spasmed in Daisy’s throat, and she clutched her hand to a fist in her pocket, and dropped her eyes. Gods , she couldn’t do this right now, she couldn’t handle a fight with him, she needed to eat, to think, nei, Daisy , nei…

“Well, I hope you feel vindicated, at least,” came Lew’s voice, a little flatter this time. “ Now that you’ve made your point?”

Daisy attempted a shrug, and choked down the sudden, irrational urge to laugh. Of course Lew would think she’d run off just to get back at him. And now that she’d finished her petty little tantrum, things could instantly return to normal, and she would go back to work at once.

“Though the marks are really a bit juvenile, don’t you think?” Lew added, his voice clipped. “ I hope to gods that’s not permanent.”

What? Daisy blinked at him, and followed his frowning eyes downward. Toward her chest, where her increasingly grubby dress was still pulled low, revealing her collarbone, and —

A mark. A sun .

It was inked in thick, vivid black, directly over Daisy’s heart. A circle, with long straight lines radiating out from its edges.

Sólin mín. Daisy mín.

Daisy’s heartbeat skipped, and then wrenched into a wild thundering drum, banging against her ribs. Filak had done that, last night. Filak had marked her. Tattooed her, to match himself.

But — when? How ? How had he possibly done such a thing, without her even noticing? Why had she not felt it? Surely she would have —

But then the vision swirled up, hard enough to sway her on her feet. During the night, when Filak had gotten up, gone away, and then come back. When she’d felt his claw gently drawing that sun on her, just there, again and again and again.

And it hadn’t hurt, had it? And real tattoos were supposed to hurt, supposed to prick their ink deep into the skin. Which meant it wasn’t permanent, it couldn’t be permanent, and Daisy certainly wouldn’t have ever wanted it to be… would she?

But she couldn’t seem to stop blinking down at it, and despite the weight of Lew’s watching judging eyes, she brought up a trembling finger to touch at it. To stroke her finger against that deep black sun, so strong and striking against her pale skin.

But it didn’t feel any different, and it didn’t smear, either. It just stayed there, solid and stubborn, as steady as Filak’s stroking hands, his unblinking black eyes. Sólin mín. Daisy mín.

Daisy fought down her convulsive shiver, and blinked back up at Lew’s face. “ No ,” she said, with surprising steadiness. “ It’s not permanent.”

Lew’s eyes flared with unmistakable relief, even as they flicked up to — to Daisy’s throat. “ Those bite-marks had better not scar, either,” he snapped. “ Gods , did you go find someone feral ?”

Someone feral . And gods curse her, but Daisy’s face suddenly flushed hot, and something tugged at her mouth. Because yes, Filak had been completely and utterly feral, like a vicious starved wildcat trapped alone in a cellar for too long. And that sharp twist in Daisy’s chest felt too much like longing, like loss, like… grief.

“Who was it, then?” Lew demanded, sharper than before. “ Anyone I should know about?”

Daisy swallowed hard, shook her head. “ No ,” she replied, hollow. “ I won’t be seeing him again.”

There was an instant’s silence, and then Lew harrumphed, and turned away. “ I’ve brought you a new specimen of Cascabela thevetia ,” he said, with a curt nod toward the table. “ It should give you more to work with than the last one, I hope.”

Daisy followed his eyes toward the new specimen, its root ball carefully wrapped in thick brown paper. The cascabela’s distinctive yellow flowers had been fairly straightforward to draw, but she’d been struggling with the dense, prickly lobed leaves, and she’d asked Lew if he could find another one. And of course he had, pretending as though nothing had happened at all, as though a wild orc hadn’t trapped and ravaged Daisy last night, and marked his sun on her skin.

Thankfully, Lew didn’t speak again, or demand a reply — and instead he stalked for the bedroom, and shut the door loudly behind him. Maybe expecting Daisy to follow him, to try to apologize, or even to caress and taste him, to make it up to him in all the ways she knew he liked best.

But even the thought of touching Lew churned up bile in Daisy’s empty stomach, and she sagged back against the nearest wall, and buried her face in her hands. Gods , what was she going to do? How could she get back home to the city? To where she at least still had some connections, contacts, clear paths toward finding other work?

But there were no answers, and she was so tired, so hungry, so muddled and overwhelmed. And finally she dug out some food from the icebox — bread and an apple — and staggered over to the table, and swiped for her pencils, her sketchbook…

But the sketchbook was gone. And Daisy stared at where it should have been for far too long, her thoughts bumping and floundering, because — she’d taken it to the cave. She’d left it there. Lost it.

She groaned aloud, dragging her hands down her face, because sketchbooks were expensive, and that one had not only included multiple studies and preliminary drawings for Lew’s next book, but it had also included her own work. Her own drawings of funny plants and insects, of cave flora and mushrooms, of fascinating people in striking outfits, whatever had caught her eye that day. And while most of the sketches were staunchly mediocre, there were a few she’d been rather proud of, and she would even flip back to look at them, drink them in like air, like hope.

But now — now they were gone forever, too. Just like her relationship, her pride, her diamond ring. And she was damned lucky Lew hadn’t thought to look for the ring, to ask for it, what was she going to do?

But there was still nothing, nothing, and finally Daisy scrounged up some loose paper, and sank down at the table. And then just started drawing the Cascabela thevetia, because it was there, and what the hell else was she supposed to do? What kinds of other clients would she find down here in this backwood? What kinds of jobs could she do? How could she prove her history and references? Where would she stay, how would she eat? Could she steal coin from Lew , and run? Or do it slowly, over the course of weeks? Grit her teeth and pretend until then, keep sharing his bed, try to forget Filak had ever existed?

It made for an endless, miserable day, and of course the cascabela still seemed impossible to draw, no matter how Daisy arranged it. And when Lew finally stalked out of the bedroom again, late in the afternoon, Daisy almost flinched at the sight of him, at the cold satisfaction in his eyes. Even if she wasn’t fawning over him in bed and begging for his forgiveness, she was at least still drawing. Doing exactly what he’d wanted her to do.

“It’s getting late,” he said, without preamble. “ You still haven’t finished that yet?”

Daisy couldn’t even bear to look at him, because of course he still expected her to perform on his schedule, too. “ No ,” she said, toward her hideous cascabela. “ I’m not feeling well.”

Lew didn’t even pretend to be sympathetic, and instead grasped for his coat, and muttered something about the club. And then he strode out, slamming the door behind him, leaving Daisy alone with the cascabela , and her grief.

The tears finally began squeezing from her eyes, streaking hot and shameful down her cheeks, and finally she went and curled up on the small couch, and sobbed into her hands. What was she going to do. What had she done.

She must have slept like that, because she twitched awake to the sound of the apartment door thudding closed, and Lew’s steps stomping off to the bedroom. And when she rubbed at her bleary eyes, the room was cool and quiet and dark, illuminated only by a faint, silvery stream of moonlight from the window.

And maybe it was the exhaustion, or the overwhelming mess this day had been, but something… prickled, on Daisy’s neck. Something … here. Strange . Wrong .

She shoved up on her hands, blinking into the darkness — but there were only shadows, looming silent and forbidding in the room’s corners. Only her imagination, surely, and…

The darkness moved . Slipped and swept and emptied, leaving something… white. Something pale and skeletal and menacing, rising up tall before her, as a strong slim hand stabbed toward her, and curled its sharp fingers around her throat.

And even as Daisy opened her mouth to scream, her heartbeat stuttered and swayed, hurling her full of something almost like… relief.

It was Filak .