Chapter 5

CHAPTER5

Ihad locked myself in my room for two days. Mina was the only one who had been in or out, but I had told her that I wanted to be alone.

Sleep hadn’t cleared my head like I hoped it would. Instead, I felt more lost than ever.

I was haunted by the sound of Evren knocking on my door, of him pleading with me to let him in, when I was screaming at myself to force him out.

I held a warm cup of tea in my hands and pulled my knees to my chest as I stared out the window with a deep ache in my chest. I had a perfect view from my window, and as I opened it, I could hear the bustle of the lively city just beyond the palace walls.

Laughter rang out and met me along with the scent of delicious spices that made my stomach pang with hunger. I watched as a few people walked by, oblivious to me sitting quietly in the window, and I was so shocked by how normal it all seemed.

I was in the Blood Court, a court known for nothing but cruelty and fear, but I saw none of those things here. Not outside of the palace walls at least. The men and women who passed reminded me of home. Of people working and living, and I longed for a place I didn’t even know.

I wasn’t homesick because I had never loved my home. But I was yearning for a feeling I desperately wished for. I longed for that sentiment, for that nostalgia.

But it wouldn’t come.

There was a soft knock on my door, and I heard Mina humming outside, hovering like I had found her to do since I had been here. I didn’t know if it was due to her own motherly instincts or if Evren had asked her to do so since I had refused to allow him the task.

She walked inside before I could tell her to do so, and she came carrying another tray of food. I had only been here for two days, but already I had eaten more than I had in forever.

“I’m starting to think you’re trying to fatten me up for slaughter.” I laughed before looking back out the window.

“Well, right now you wouldn’t be very tasty. You’re nothing more than skin and bones.”

Mina set my tray on the small desk before moving to look out the window at my side. “Why don’t you get out of this room and go outside? Instead of trying to imagine what it’d be like from this dusty window.”

“I’m okay.” I shook my head. I didn’t want to leave the room because leaving these four walls meant that I had to face what was outside. I had to face the truth that Evren was leaving whether I wanted him to or not.

I had to face the fact that my bones ached with the desperation for him not to.

“Evren’s been by again. He wants to see you.”

“I don’t want to see him.” Gods, I was desperate to see him, to feel him.

“I told him as such, but I don’t think I can keep him away for much longer. That boy is as stubborn as you are.”

“I’m not stubborn.” I pulled my gaze from the window to look at her and took a long sip of my tea.

“And my tits don’t touch my belly button.”

My tea spewed from my mouth, and I sputtered at her words.

She simply grinned. “We can both lie to ourselves, but that doesn’t make the truth any less real.”

“Fine.” I wiped my tea from my chin and set my cup down on the ledge. “I am stubborn, but I still don’t want to see him. I know that you love your prince, but he used me. He tricked me and used me…”

“And I’d say he’d probably do it again if given the chance.”

I snapped my mouth shut as she moved back to my tray and uncovered my food.

“What he did was get you out of the Fae Court. I think you know what they would have done to you there. Did you get a look at Thalia when you arrived? You would’ve been worse. So much worse.”

I didn’t say a word because I didn’t know what to say. Thoughts of Thalia had flooded my mind since Evren left my room. Jealous, cruel thoughts.

Mina’s words confused me. Of course, she was right about Evren getting me out of Gavril’s hands, but what she said about Thalia? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“What do you mean about Thalia? What happened to her?”

Mina wiped her hands down her apron. “You should ask Evren or Thalia about that.” She glanced toward the doorway, and I hated that there was something she wasn’t telling me. But her loyalty didn’t lie with me.

“Do you care to run me a bath?” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked back out the window. “I’d like to clear my head.”

“Of course.” Mina nodded and pressed her hand to her mouth as her gaze bored into me.

She turned and walked away, and I could sense her magic just as the water began to run in the bath chamber. I looked down at the stewed meat and bread she had brought in, and I sat down before it and forced myself to eat.

The food was as delicious as it had been since I arrived, and I stuffed bite after bite in my mouth as the words Mina had said rolled through my mind.

The smell of whatever oils Mina dropped into the bath coated my room, and I relaxed almost instantly.

Evren had brought me here. He had tricked me into thinking we were something that we aren’t, but I couldn’t deny the fact that for the first time in a long time, I felt safer than I had in years.

I was supposed to be in a place that I had been taught to fear my entire life, yet I felt safe.

“It’s ready for you.” Mina wiped her hands on her long cream skirts before pushing her hair out of her face.

“Thank you, and thank you for lunch.” I nodded down to my empty plate. “It was delicious.”

“You’re welcome, child. Now I have other things to tend to, so get in that bath and clear your head.”

I smiled despite her gruff, demanding tone. I liked Mina. A lot. She was everything I had wished my own mother to be—kind and caring.

She was so many things that my mother wasn’t.

“Yes, ma’am.” I shoved the last bite of bread I still held into my mouth as I passed her, and she pulled the door closed behind me.

I tugged the shirt over my head before slowly lowering my trousers, and I stared at myself in the long, gilded mirror that sat in the corner of the room. Steam was clinging to its surface, but I could still see the scars that littered my body.

Rage consumed me as I was flooded with the memories of who had given them to me. Their venom, malice, and thirst for power were scarred along my body so carelessly.

Scars that were now marked with Evren’s magic. He had branded me, more than just physically, and I ran my fingers over my thigh as I remembered what it had felt like to have him cover their marks on my skin with his own.

My body responded to my own touch, but nothing like the memory of him could evoke. Every time he touched me, I became engulfed with everything that he was. He made me overwhelmed. He had me clinging to desperation.

He reduced me to a woman who would beg him for anything he was willing to give me.

I pressed my fingers into my scar, his black magic and my own starlight mixing against my skin, and I took in a shuddering breath as I slammed my eyes shut. His touch had been firm where mine was soft, his hands always so sure and skilled.

I imagined that my own were his. I envisioned the things he would say, the words he would whisper while I fell apart under his touch.

Evren didn’t need to lift a finger to cause my demise. It was his wicked tongue that would do me in.

I was haunted by the things he had said before he left my room only a couple days before, words that had tortured me ever since. I forced my eyes open, staring at myself and the way my hand was slowly snaking up my thighs.

I tried to imagine what Evren saw when he looked at me. If he were here now, what would he do? What would he demand of me?

My heart hammered in my chest, and I pressed my hand at the apex of my thighs as an ache began deep within me.

I stared into my eyes for a long moment, the two colors as at war with one another as the thoughts that were racing through my mind. I moved away from the mirror and pressed my fingers against the side of the large tub. The copper was warm from the water that waited inside, and I slowly dipped my toes in before sinking under fully.

The heat of the water caressed my skin, teasing me with memories of my mate doing the same, and I pressed my head back against the edge of the tub. I tried to think of anything. Of my mother, what Queen Kaida would do, of what my future held, but every thought slipped back to him effortlessly

So, I sank deeper into the water, and I allowed myself to think of nothing else.

Shame filled me as my fingers skated over my skin and down my stomach. I clamped my eyes closed and let myself to imagine that the magic-stained fingers that now touched me were his instead of my own.

My fingers trembled as I pushed them lower and slid two fingers through my sex. As soon as I touched my small aching nub, my stomach clenched in pleasure and a whimper passed through my lips.

Evren would have swallowed the sound with his mouth. He would have demanded that I give him more, that I begged him for what I wanted, and I knew that I would have given it to him.

If he was before me now, I would have given him anything he wanted to make him destroy this ache that constantly lived inside of me when I thought of him.

I slowly rolled my fingers over my nub, and I could feel the rise of pleasure building inside of me. I was so on edge that it didn’t take long. A few strokes of my fingers and constant thoughts of Evren were all I needed, and I found myself gripping the edge of the tub with my other hand as I pressed my head back and bit down on my bottom lip.

I thought of him and nothing else, and for a moment, it was as if I could feel his magic floating against my skin, caressing me and coaxing my pleasure from my body. I focused on that feeling and chased it with my own fingers against my sex, and I couldn’t stop myself as I cried out his name.

My pleasure had become his and his alone, and my body knew it even when he wasn’t there to command it.

My release hit me, and I clamped my legs down around my hand as it became too much.

I opened my eyes and gasped at the black magic that filled the room. My magic. I hadn’t even realized that I had allowed it to come to surface let alone slip through my fingers that were far too busy chasing thoughts of my mate to notice my own power.

My fingers trembled as I watched the magic move around me, and I took a deep breath and sank beneath the water. I counted slowly, but it didn’t matter how long I managed to stay beneath the surface. Shame ran through me, chasing away the aftershocks of my pleasure.