Page 17 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

A pparently, the fae king wasn’t the only one who thought I needed a bath.

The two females who had taken me from the cell and led me to a room on the third floor of the castle had immediately pushed me into a copper clawfoot tub of steaming water laced with rose petals and other dried flowers and scrubbed me raw.

My reddened skin still burned a little, but not as much as my scalp as the taller of the two dark-haired females pulled at my silver hair, yanking a comb through it and twisting the strands into an elaborate nest of curls at the back of my head.

The other female knelt beside me on the black marble floor, jabbing under my fingernails with a stick that looked disturbingly like a smooth piece of bone.

“Ouch!” I snatched my hand back and scowled at her. “Is all this prodding and poking really necessary? It’s only dinner.”

They both looked at me as if I had lost my mind, or perhaps my grasp of the situation I was in.

I locked eyes with the one attending my hair in the beautiful oval mirror on the dark red dressing table.

Her wide gaze and parted lips relayed her shock as much as the way her hands had stilled in my hair, a reprieve from her torture that I savoured.

“Our king rarely dines with others.” The one who had been attempting to pry my nails from their beds looked to her companion and then me. “It is a great honour.”

I scoffed at that.

An honour?

It wasn’t as if I had been invited to dine with him.

I had been ordered .

And if I didn’t comply with his demand, I would probably find myself back in my cell before I even had a chance to explore my new accommodations.

My gaze strayed to the enormous black-stone-walled room reflected in the mirror.

I didn’t know whether I had a view beyond the arched shuttered windows that flanked my bed or the one in the curved annex to my right that hinted at being part of a tower, close to the door to the bathroom, and I wanted to live here long enough to discover what lay beyond them.

So far, the only thing I had really noticed in the room behind me was the huge four-poster bed made of the same glittering lustrous cherry-coloured wood as the dresser before me.

Whenever I dared to look at that spacious bed with its black covers and pillows edged with fine gold embroidery, my mind raced forward to imagine what I might expect tonight from this dinner with the king, and in the coming days of my new servitude.

He had so easily agreed to my clause about not asking me for sex, and suspicion still lingered in my mind over that.

I wasn’t sure what I was to expect from him and these tasks he would set me, but I supposed I would find out tonight, or at the very least get a taste of things to come.

The two females continued their work, looking almost like twins with their dark brown hair pulled back in a severe bun that revealed fae really did have pointed ears and plain black fitted dresses covering them from neck to ankle and wrist. A thousand questions bubbled to the tip of my tongue, each bursting before I could voice it.

Neither seemed inclined to talk to me, and when I had tried asking them things while they had been scrubbing the skin from my flesh in the boiling bath, they hadn’t even acknowledged that I had spoken.

I drew down a steadying breath as they finished with my nails and my hair, staring into my own eyes in the mirror as my nerves slowly built.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the king or this dinner tonight, but I was beginning to feel I was meant to be some kind of object for him to admire while he ate, a form of entertainment to amuse him while he unwound after his work.

Like a doll.

Or a concubine.

I felt like one as one of the servants daubed crimson on my lips and added a sprinkle of pink to my too-pale cheeks, and the other female went to the bed and returned with the dress that had been laid out on it.

“Rise.” The one who had done my make-up took hold of my arm, pulling me onto my feet when I hesitated, and I tensed as she tugged the dark cloth robe off my back, exposing my bare body.

Before I could protest, I was being stuffed into a dark silver strapless dress with a corset studded with a swash of diamonds that swept from my right breast to my left hip and then curled around the back of the skirt, growing wider as it glided towards the hem.

The twinkling gems reminded me of the Milky Way and my view of it from home, a pang lancing my chest as I looked at them.

The dress was beautiful, but far too revealing for my liking as I tugged at the heart-shaped front of it, trying to pull it a little higher so I didn’t feel as if my breasts were about to fall out.

“Isn’t there something a little less… I don’t know what.” I went to look at the servants in the mirror as they selected matching silk slippers and placed a diamond diadem against the tangled knot of my hair on my crown and stilled as I caught my own reflection.

I wasn’t sure I had ever looked so beautiful.

I whispered, “I look like a princess.”

All the times Everlee had teasingly called me one came back to me in a rush and tears pricked my eyes as that hole in my heart opened up again, that emptiness at the other end of the bond I shared with my pack tearing at me.

Were they okay?

Had Lucas done anything to them?

I needed to know.

And I needed them to know I was fine, that I would find my way back to them.

Reluctance to attend the dinner and have the fae king staring at me as if I had been made to amuse and please his eye swiftly morphed into a burning need to see him and a determination to ask him about contacting my pack.

I didn’t protest as the servants slipped the shoes on my feet and led me from the room, down a series of fine black marble corridors lit by strangely glowing lanterns.

When we entered a grand vestibule with an elegant curving stone staircase that swept downwards, following the walls of what I felt was another tower illuminated by a large crystal chandelier, the female behind me lifted the skirt of my dress and I hitched up the front.

Not a chandelier, I noted as I descended the gold-threaded black marble stairs.

The glowing crystals weren’t attached to anything, and a similar one hung higher up the circular structure.

They bobbed and hung in the air, the crystals moving slightly and changing colour as I followed the staircase down and the angle between us altered.

Magic, I presumed.

Fascination gripped me as I watched the muted hues of a rainbow chase across their facets.

Incredible.

Perhaps Neve was right about this world I had found myself in, one so far from my home. It was beyond my imagination, and the part of me that longed for adventure wanted to bravely step out into it and discover all it had to offer.

While the part of me that longed for my pack wanted to beg the fae king to let me return to my world.

I settled on asking him to let me tell them that I was fine and about what had happened. He didn’t owe me anything, but I had to believe that beneath all those shadows he wore so well, there was some remnant of a heart.

I had to believe there was some shred of kindness within him that I could appeal to, some part of him that felt a bond with his own family and might understand my pain and fear over what might have happened to mine.

I was stuck with him after all.

The servant left the curving staircases at the second floor and led me along another fine corridor of black stone walls and a black marble floor.

Warm light glowed from the lamps set between the inset columns that supported the wooden ceiling, punching back the darkness and gloom.

I was so caught up in trying to discern if the lamps were magic too that I almost walked right into the servant as she stopped before a set of black wooden doors beautifully carved with vines and roses.

She looked from them to me as she pushed them open, revealing a long wooden table in an elegant marble-walled gothic dining room.

And Kaeleron.

Light from the large onyx fireplace on the left of the room warmed one side of his face and threw the other into shadow, making him look like light and dark melded into one far-too-handsome male.

Being stuck with him wasn’t difficult when he wasn’t a chore to look at and when I was teasing him, like I wanted to now as I stepped into the room, the sole object of his attention as the door closed behind me and I faced him.

For some reason, this fae made me feel confident and bold, even when I knew I should fear him and that he might hurt me.

Some reckless part of me believed he wouldn’t.

Even now, when his expression took on a dark edge and his lips thinned, as if the sight of me displeased him and he would rather I hadn’t interrupted whatever he had been looking for in the bottom of the glass he held in one hand.

He looked me over as he eased back to lounge in his high-backed chair, a sweep of his shrewd silver gaze from my head to my toes and back again.

“You look as if you don’t approve of my appearance,” I sniped, the way he was studying me raising my hackles and making me want to storm right out of the room regardless of how angry he might be with me for disobeying his order to dine with him.

Or shift and sink my fangs into him.

Just moments ago, I had felt more beautiful than I had in all my life, even when Lucas had called me it.

I had felt a strange kind of lightness and warmth unfurling within me when I had looked at my reflection.

And now Kaeleron was looking at me as if I was far from that, and gods, it rankled, even when I knew it shouldn’t because I didn’t want his approval or compliments.

I didn’t want him to find me beautiful and didn’t care if he did or didn’t.

“It was not what I was expecting,” he muttered and lowered his glass to dangle from his fingers at the end of the armrest.