Page 50 of These Eternal Bones

Plans of Great Deception

Molly

A few days later, when the poor doctor showed up again, hoping for an audience since their last meeting was cut short by my impromptu breakdown, it took me no small amount of convincing to get the man to leave my side.

Although the lack of windows and the way my legs ached to take a long walk, what we had now wasn’t too different from what we’d had before.

Spending most of our time holed up, anyway.

I had given myself something to cling onto, a bright side.

Like the little black rock that sits on the edge of my desk in my room.

It took a great deal of thinking to finally understand the bars weren’t meant for me.

If this is what it takes to ease his mind, it is something I can stomach for now .

I wait, my fists gripping the bars as I watch him descend the steps out of sight. When the door opens, I call out. “Will you call for my selkie, please?”

He hesitates, and I take a deep breath, hoping to keep most of my negativity out of the bond. “I just…I’m feeling a bit lonely.” It’s a low blow but so is locking your mate in a cage.

“I will see that she heads straight up,” he offers reluctantly before leaving, locking the door behind him. My lips quirk, not quite a smile, but close as I lean my back against the bars and wait.

Despite the jarring monotony over what I now know to be a month in here, it’s been excellent for things.

I’ve been paying attention, a lot of attention.

Aside from Elric, only Tien holds a key for the door below, but much to my vampire’s rage if he knew, Tien often passed that key to Péal during the day.

So that she may tend to me without his constant locking and unlocking.

The only one with a key to the cage itself is Elric, but that’s a problem for a different day.

“Good afternoon mistress!” Péal calls out as she bounds up the stairs, her steps slowing as she reaches the bars. Anyone is ever only allowed inside when Elric is present.

“Péal–”

She cuts me off, her lips pooling into a wide grin. “We’re about to get into trouble, aren’t we?”

My smile rivals hers as we both press ourselves to the bars. “You have a key to this room, right?”

She nods. “But not the cage.”

I wave her off, already knowing that, my brows knotting together. “I simply need you to lose track of it for a little while, somewhere where Cartiel might find it. Perhaps tell him to come.”

“Mistress…things have been tense with him lately.”

My frown deepens. “What do you mean? Isn’t it always? ”

She gives me an incredulous look. “Tien seems to think he’s not doing what he’s meant to.

” She leans closer, her gray hair dusting my fingers as they wrap around the bar.

My palms are already growing sweaty. “You know I would never eavesdrop…” Yes she would .

”but I believe they fought, the golden man–”

“He has a name, and he’s more of a bronze, really,” I correct softly. Something about reading Imogen’s old diary, the stories of him and me…I can’t help but to miss him, in a way. To pity him as well.

She just rolls her eyes. “He’s been spending a lot of time in town with that older woman. I suspect he’s pleasuring her, but Tien seems…nervous about it. I have known the chimera for many long years, and he rarely seems worried by much.”

A memory pops into my head. Her smirk as he left the front entrance. How Elric had pulled me away from the window, all snarls and fang. “She visited a while ago. Why?”

Péal eyes me, nibbling her bottom lip.

“Don’t clam up now.”

She frowns. “I am a seal when I shift, not a clam!”

When she what?

My mouth pops open, staring at her for a moment before shaking my head, no longer surprised by anything here. “What I meant was don’t suddenly decide to be secretive. You no longer serve Elric, right? You serve his mate.”

Her eyes widen, as if she’d forgotten. “It was something about a boat on the way to port. Master didn’t want it here and then the older woman spewed some stuff about remembering blood in the soil. She had an odd feel to her, uncomfortable, like sucking on a tart berry.”

“She and Cartiel are friends?”

Why would Cartiel be friends with someone Elric used to feed on, or is he sleeping with the elderly woman? Not to sound prude but he’s…beautiful, I’d imagine he has his pick if he truly wanted a someone to warm his bed. It seems an odd choice, but I suppose most manners of the heart are.

“I wouldn’t say friends, I don’t think the gold- bronze man has an aptitude for them. When she showed up, he got skittish, made himself scarce.”

I lean back, worrying my lip before an idea pops in my head. “What are the chances of getting the fox up here?”

Péal lets loose a guffawing laugh at that. “On a scale between he simply trots inside, to master kills everyone in the castle?”

I level her with feigned annoyance; it sounded like a longshot, even to me.

If I can’t see Rummes, can I call him?

Can we still talk the way he did in the woods?

We’re connected, right? Elric said we formed a soul connection.

Much to my shame, I’d called out for him, mentally, in those first days locked in this cage. I wouldn’t dare do it out loud. My mate's brain would’ve imploded. He hadn’t answered.

Péal reaches through, brushing her hands through my hair in a comforting gesture when I sigh, letting my head thud against the bars of the cage. “If we’re going to get Cartiel up here, we’ll need to distract master, to get him away from you.”

A needle of worry fills me for the small woman. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She shakes her head. “I will be fine, but I have conditions.”

My brow quirks.

“You must explain to me what you’re doing. Why do you need to speak with him? ”

I heave a sigh as I go through the past few months, the way he’s watched and longed. How he’d helped me find the diary, and by the time I’m done with it, she only seems more unsettled.

“How did you fall, mistress?”

I rear back slightly, taking in her expression. She couldn’t possibly–

“I-I was…” I stop, huffing in frustration. “I must’ve leaned too far over. Cartiel said the upper rungs were weak.”

“They aren’t.”

I shrug, feeling oddly defensive of the constant hate Cartiel seems to earn from everyone else. Granted, he’s far from pleasant to be around. He’s done nothing but be exactly that.

“Were you alone?” she asks carefully, and my irritation spikes.

“Enough Péal. We were friends . According to the diary, we were incredibly close.”

She nods. “You were, but…people change, mistress. The grief, it…he blamed himself. I believe it made him ugly on the inside.”

I dismiss her with a wave, but there’s something I’m missing from the fall, something that isn’t sitting right. I had done something before I fell, right? “I need answers. What if he’s my closest bet to stopping this?”

“Stopping…the curse?” The look of pity in her eyes slams into my chest in the most unpleasant way.

“He knows something more, I can tell. He spends all his time sneaking books in and out of the library. It’s not much, but it’s something, Péal. I need something, some hope, even if it’s a wisp.”

She takes a deep breath before her head snaps around toward the stairs, moments before the lock turns. She simply nods, offering me a smile. “You’ll just have to be patient, mistress; I can handle it.”

Elric blurs into the room, glaring down at the tiny woman. “Handle what? ”

“The staining in her teal skirts; they are her favorite.”

He smiles at me, but the veins are edging onto his lips. He’s unsettled again, be it by something external or his own mind, I’m rarely sure. “I can buy you another. You’re dismissed, selkie.”

She remains peeking around my mate to get my approval. I nearly laugh, but my heart pounding in my chest keeps it at bay as I wave bye to her.

No sooner than the lower door locks, mine breezes open and shut in a flurry of speed. Elric regarding me with a predatory glint in his eyes. “Your pulse is racing.”

It’s not a question. I wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt, simply raising my brows in response.

He gathers me in his arms, depositing me on the bed.

My body wants to let loose a sigh of relief, but I know better.

I know this man better than I know myself, and I know I haven’t won.

Not yet. He lowers his head to my neck, teasing me with his fangs before he kisses me there.

My core heats, suddenly wishing to be free from my bodice so that his chest can drag around my peaked nipples.

I moan as he dips lower, pricking the skin on the top of my breast with a sharpened canine.

He watches the blood well there with no small amount of reverence.

His eyes capture mine as he leans in to lap at it, dragging his cool tongue over and over until the bleeding stops, as if we’ve got all the time in the world.

“The two of you were whispering, my love. What about?”

My body trembles, at war with my flushed skin and throbbing center and the lethal edge to his voice. “Perhaps it is nice to speak to another woman about womanly things without a man leering menacingly in the corner,” I snap, but it lacks any real venom.

He pulls back, and I refuse to shrink under his perusal .

It lasts an eternity, and I can’t tell if my chest is heaving from the lie or the arousal.

I nearly wilt when he pulls me from the bed. “Come my sweet Molly, let's seat you upon my cock.”