Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

" I lost my footing; I am fine." The pain was pulsing from my hand and I had to grit my teeth to get the words out. The others' words came back, reminding me of Tallon's true purpose here. I recoiled from his reach, pulling my injured arm tightly to my chest and pointedly keeping my eyes on his feet rather than on his wrist. "I apologize for any disturbance I caused."

He snorted, squatting down beside me and poking his index finger at the gaping wound on my palm before I could register his movements and pull away.

I cried out, biting down on my lip to cut off the sound abruptly.

"Yes, you are perfectly fine." He stood and nudged away the larger shards of glass with his boot. "You really should work on that footing. We can't have you tripping over everything all the time."

My cheeks heated. Cradling my throbbing hand to my chest, I managed to stand. "Again, I apologize for any disturbance." I hesitated a moment before bowing my head, clenching my jaw against the flood of pain. "And I apologize for my actions earlier tonight. I should not have spoken, and I thank you for not punishing me or the others for my mistake."

I kept my eyes on his boots, the black leather spotted with darker stains. Wine pooled around the soles.

He said nothing, but I felt his stare, heavy on my shoulders. Finally, after a long moment, he asked, "Why would I have punished you?"

"For bumping into you. For speaking. For touching you when I took the tray back." I could have continued, but I stopped, not wanting to give any other reason he might not have considered.

"That man pushed you into me. I would not have punished you for that, little wolf." His head tilted slightly. "Did someone tell you I would?"

"I—" I hesitated, unsure if this was a trick or if he really wanted an answer.

"Tell me; I promise no harm will come to you from my hand."

"Everyone seemed to be waiting for you to punish me. They seemed startled I touched you, more so than that I had spoken."

He hummed and continued looking at me, though the gaze was far less heavy than it had been at first.

I could not bring my eyes up from the ground, but I moved my focus from his boots to the spilled wine and broken glass mixed with my own blood. My stomach twisted as I realized the damage I'd truly caused here. It was more than just my physical injury; this wine was likely expensive, and I'd thrown it at a Soulshade. "Do you know who I need to report this to? I imagine the wine will need to be replaced and taken out of my pay."

"No one will miss it," he said. "You need to tend to your injuries."

"All respect intended, but I am fine," I said, fighting the urge to raise my head and snap at him. I tried to mimic Talyssa with my voice, soft and meek. "I must return to my duties."

"Stubborn little wolf, aren't you?" He bent and once more, I found myself frozen as his breath washed over my ear and neck. His whispered words were hot against my skin. The facade had fallen once more, and the voice this time was softer, though it still held a teasing lilt. "I know you did not trip. Tell me what happened and perhaps I will consider letting you tend to your wounds yourself."

Shivers exploded across the back of my neck, sending goosebumps down my spine. His marks… did that mean he could sense the Soulshades as well? I doubted someone of his obvious standing would be wandering the castle after the parties alone. Did I draw him here? Did they ?

I swallowed hard and again fought to keep my head bowed. I could not risk anyone finding out my secrets, my vulnerabilities. It'd just been proven that there was no such thing as trust inside this gilded prison, and it would be foolish of me to forget that so soon. "Truly, I merely lost my footing. I am still growing accustomed to the length of this dress."

He remained close to me, close enough that I could smell the wine still on his breath from the ball, and too close for him to be ignorant of the discomfort he was causing. "Liar. I heard your cries."

Fingernails dug into flesh as I struggled to keep my body from reacting to his words, his voice. It would only give him confirmation that I was lying, and though he certainly seemed confident he knew, I'd be damned if I handed it to him on a silver platter.

Finally he straightened, leaning away from my space. He nodded at my hand still clutched to my chest. "You need to get that taken care of."

"I can manage, but thank you." The words were pushed through gritted teeth as the firm flesh of my palm throbbed with each heartbeat. Pain was temporary, and I'd enough experience with it to know how to work through it. I would bandage it myself later in the privacy of my room, after I'd cleaned up the spilt wine and shattered glass.

"I insist, Odyssa." He crooned my name as his hand reached to cup the elbow of my injured arm. I wanted to protest, to yank my arm from his grasp and run the opposite direction, but I knew I couldn't. Not just because my hand was throbbing and still bleeding, but because of our roles in this castle. I could not refuse him, not without consequences. He hummed, looking at me with that same titled head and searching expression from the party, and then he dropped his hand. "I will not hurt you, little wolf, if that is what you're worried about."

I swallowed hard around the bitter taste of my pride. He would hurt me if he needed to, and more, he could hurt me, and I needed to remember that, despite whatever promises he'd made. I was lucky he hadn't so far for my refusal and disrespect. Lowering my eyes again, I replied, "I will go with you. I appreciate your offer of assistance."

He clicked his tongue, leaning back and crossing his arms over the silver brocade buttons lining his coat. "You do not have to do that, Odyssa. The offer is just that, an offer. It is not a demand. I do not own you."

"But the prince does." The words were out before I could stop them, hanging in the air of the halls. I raised my eyes to look at him. The words were spoken. What more could I do to condemn myself now? I continued, "The prince owns me, and if you are here, he owns you too. So pardon me, I may be new here, but I understand who holds the power in this castle, and, Tallon —" his eyes narrowed as I said his name— "I understand it is not me."

He watched me for a moment, and I tracked every twitch of his muscles, waiting for the abrupt strike I knew was coming. It never did. Instead, a broad smile crossed his face as he nodded. "You are not what I expected, little wolf."

The fight bled out of me, dripping from the cut on my palm and falling to the floor to join the puddle of wine and blood. "What?"

"It will be difficult to clean and bandage that properly with only one hand," he said. He offered out the crook of his elbow. "Let me help you and I'll escort you back to your room."

"I must go back to the kitchens and assist with cleaning the ballroom." I did not take his arm. The floor was sticky beneath my feet as I shifted my weight. "I should also clean this up before someone sees."

"Clean what up?" he asked.

I spun around. "The—" Nothing was there. I blinked rapidly, as if expecting the wine pool to suddenly reappear, but there was nothing. Lifting my feet revealed that even the stickiness of drying wine and blood had vanished as well. My head swam, feeling like it weighed twice what it should and would at any moment tip precariously to one side or the other. "The wine bottles. Where did they go? Did you do that?"

"Come now, Odyssa, before your hand gets infected."

His words pulled me out of my stupor. I'd survived the blood plague, but it did not make me invincible, and an infection—even here in the thrice-damned halls of whatever Castle Auretras was—could very well be a death sentence.

Looking down at me with his arm still proffered, he cocked an eyebrow. Against all better judgement screaming at me to do otherwise, I sighed and nodded down the hallway, still clutching my hand. "Lead the way, my lord."

He snorted but said nothing as he dropped his arm and began our path back into the belly of the castle. Zaharya had been right about that much, at least: the walls were hungry.

Following Tallon down the halls of the castle was an exercise in self-control. With each step we took, I wanted to both cry out in pain and run as far away as I could. But the memory of the stones ripping open like paper to let the Soulshades out sent a shiver down my spine. If they were afraid of him, or if he could control them in some way… Well, I was safer at his side, at least for the moment.

Perhaps only for the moment.

When our path began taking us up a set of stairs into one of the towers, I finally realized exactly where he was taking me. Only residential rooms filled the towers, not medical suites.

"I won't go to your room," I said, my voice bouncing off the walls as I drew to a stop, despite my words being barely more than a whisper. "I need to get back to the others and help. Can you please just take me back to them?"

"No."

"Why—" My words were cut off in a hiss as he picked up my injured hand, poking at the already inflamed skin around the torn flesh.

"That is why." He dropped my hand and turned, looking back over his shoulder at me. "Do not make me carry you, little wolf. I'm not above it. Put aside the needs of others for a godsdamned moment and let me help you tend to your own wounds."

I bit down hard on my tongue to keep back the retort. Swallowing the barbed words back, I tried again. "I appreciate it, but I am not comfortable going to your room alone. I don't know you, and I have work to attend to."

He turned back around to face me fully and stared, his strong brow furrowed. After a moment, he shrugged. And then I was in his arms, one of his arms behind my back beneath my shoulder blades and the other beneath my knees.

My body hummed, buzzing all the way down to my very bones. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, to get away from his touch. "Put me?—"

The walls spun, like I'd lost my balance and spun around too fast. My stomach crept up into my throat and my ears popped. I fought back the urge to vomit, squeezing my eyes shut. What was happening? Once it felt like the room had stopped spinning, I opened my eyes.

We hadn't moved—I was certain of that—and I hadn't felt any movement or heard his footsteps across the stone. Yet here we were, in front of a set of double doors that we had not been anywhere near before. Even the halls here were different than the ones we'd been in before, these stones dark with age and moisture. My head was still swimming, and my eyes had a difficult time focusing on one thing. I shook my head, hoping to clear it, only for Tallon's fingers to dig into the skin at my side and knee.

This tower hall was empty, and if he was as important as he seemed, no one else would be in these quarters. Anger boiled in my veins, throbbing in my forehead in time with the same throbbing of the pain in my hand. I balled my uninjured hand into a fist and punched at his chest. "Put. Me. Down."

With a quirk of his brow, he set me down. Rage built and built in the pit of my chest, climbing up my throat and wrapping around the base of my tongue like a serpent.

My fingers twitched, itching to reach out and slap the smirk off his face, but I knew that my indiscretion would not be forgiven twice. I should not have let my tongue out of its cage either, but even my self-control had limits. I stepped up close to him until my injured hand was trapped between us and looked up at him, staring into his stone-gray eyes. "If you ever touch me without my permission again, I swear on everything in this forsaken kingdom that I will hurt you. I do not care who you are."

He stared back, and I searched for any sign of humor in his face. But he took me seriously, and his eyes darkened. "I think I'd like to see that, little wolf."

My fury faded some, curling back up into the black pit in my center. Now that my anger was dissipating, the throbbing in my hand was taking back my attention. I squeezed my wrist with my other hand, trying to cut off the circulation and counter the pain.

"Shall we?" he asked, turning the handle and pushing the door open for me as he bowed at the waist slightly.

A whoosh of cold air met me, and I was staring through the doorway into my nightmares. Craggy rocks lined ice-cold black stone paths, slick with something that looked suspiciously like blood. In the distance, red-tinged midnight illuminated the terrifying mountain peaks that towered over the land. And then the screams began.

He snapped to attention, pursing his lips as he looked through the door for a moment before pulling it shut. A heavy sigh escaped his lips and he twisted the handle the opposite way as before, pushing the doors open once more. This time, he did not bow as they opened.

Normal, if even more obscenely opulent, rooms awaited this time. Regardless, the quick study was only enough for me to calm my racing heart and speak again.

"What was that?" I breathed, eyes still wide as I stared into his rooms, taking in the plush fabrics and gilded decor framing a large four-poster bed. This was twice now I had seen the fields of my nightmares when around him, and it was twice too many to be a coincidence.

"Can I see your hand?" He reached for my arm and I snatched it back. My body was nearly shaking with equal parts rage and fear, and I would sooner run headfirst into that hellscape than let him touch me without answers. He huffed and rolled his eyes, stepping into his room as he called over his shoulder. Thick, heavy curtains blocked any outside light except what came from the dozens of candelabras scattered about, the miniature gas lamps on his nightstands, and the fireplace. Based on the wealth dripping from the fireplace, I wasn't sure if it or the bed was supposed to be the focal point. Likely both. "Truly, Odyssa, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have by now. Please cooperate before you drip blood all over my room."

An icy cold brushed against my leg, and I knew without looking down that the cat was back. It looked up at me, its too-long tail curling around my calf beneath my dress, the touch burning cold like a snake of ice coiled around my skin. Releasing its hold, it sauntered into the room, looking back at me with too-wide eyes. It, too, seemed to prefer coming to me in Tallon's presence. Or leading me to him.

My hand throbbed, more painful than before, and I let out a gasp before I could catch it, tears burning at the back of my throat. It did need medical attention, and despite the feeling in my bones that something else was going on here, that I had eyes on my back, this was the only way I was going to get it. Tallon had ensured that.

"Do you even know how to clean a wound properly?" I pushed the words through gritted teeth as I joined him in the plush sitting area beside his fireplace. I did not sit.

His laugh was rich and warm yet it still sent shivers down my spine with the power it exuded. It didn't fit . He didn't fit, in this room or in this castle. There was something dark lurking beneath his skin, behind the gray of his eyes, and he was doing a poor job of hiding it.

"Who are you?" I murmured. The Soulshades had not reappeared, but something in my soul was reacting. There was no ash on my tongue, no smoke in my throat, but the heaviness wrapped around my ribs and squeezed. "Why are they all so afraid of you?"

"That's quite a pair of questions," he replied. His coat rustled as he removed it, draping it over the back of one of the chairs. The sleeves on his shirt were cuffed just beneath his elbows, displaying his powerful forearms and the Death marks that encircled both of them. "Ones I don't quite think you're ready to hear the answer to."

The cat brushed up against my leg again, seemingly nudging me towards the chair. He was likely right, but ignorance was a death sentence in Castle Auretras. "Tell me anyways."

"Why are you not afraid of me?"

I didn't reply. I was afraid of him; couldn't he see that?

"You act like you don't believe me. I know what fear looks like, Odyssa. I know what it tastes like in the air, how it bends the body to its will. It's unmistakable. And you, little wolf, do not fear me." He held his hand out. "For now, let me tend to your hand."

Carefully, I laid my hand in his, wincing as the torn flesh pulled. It was deep enough for me to see it would need stitching, even in the low light from the fire. "Do you know how to do stitches?" I pulled my hand back slightly, but his grip on it was firm. "I really should just go to the infirmary."

"Just sit here and get warm," he said, rubbing at the base of my thumb. It sent tingles down my wrist and arm, uncomfortable pinpricks of irritated nerves offset by the warmth of his skin against mine. "You are not an inconvenience to me. Let me help you."

It'd been so long since another person had touched me besides my mother. I locked my muscles to keep from leaning into the touch, to keep from chasing it as he set my hand gingerly back into my lap and stood.

I let my eyes watch the fire while he rummaged in the room behind me. Even the fire seemed wrong here, the flames too yellow and flickering like they were pretend. I wanted to thrust my hand into it to see if it was truly a flame, despite the wash of heat that breathed against my body.

"Here." Tallon's return pulled my focus back to him. The silk of his shirt rippled like waves of night when he moved to set down his supplies on the table in front of us. My eyes were stuck on his forearms still, tracing the twisting vines of black that adorned his hands, his wrists, covering more skin than they left bare. A clearing throat startled me, but he was again smirking at me, his face much closer than I'd realized. For a moment, I thought his eyes flicked down to my mouth, but then I blinked and his head was bowed, his attention on my hand. "Surely you know it's rude to stare, little wolf."

My face flushed and I ducked my head as I stuck my hand out to him, ignoring the sharp pain until it faded back into its dull throb. "Your marks…" I trailed off, not knowing how to finish the question without seeming invasive.

"What about them?" His stitches were neat, and though I could feel every pull of the needle and every slide of the thread through my flesh, I kept still and quiet as he worked. And I kept my eyes on my own skin, no matter how much they wanted to wander to look at him.

The marks on his skin were similar yet so different to mine, and I was desperate to see what they looked like. Mine were shapeless, meaningless lines like spilled ink across the pale expanse of skin. His were patterned, forming a larger shape with detailing. I had only seen a glimpse of his wrists and forearms, and based on the intricacies there, I could not imagine what lay beneath his shirt. My trail of thoughts caught up to me and I wanted to slump down and disappear into the chair. My cheeks burned hotter than the fire before us, and I struggled to overcome the urge to shift nervously in my seat. I did not need to see what was beneath his shirt, did not want to. The marks were what interested me, not him. "They look like mine."

"Do they?" His eyes flicked to my other arm. "Hmm, I suppose they do."

"How long ago were you sick?" I asked. The castle had been closed off for nearly a year now, and I was curious to know just when he'd joined the prince's collection. His needle hit a sensitive spot on my hand and I flinched.

"I apologize if it hurts," he said. He didn't raise his head from his work, and his breath was warm against my palm. "We're nearly finished."

I did not repeat my question.

He tied the last stitch with a neat knot and cleaned it before beginning to wind a bandage around my palm. It was far less neat than the stitches had been.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" I asked, trying to peer around his large hands to see just exactly what he was attempting to do with the bandage.

"I think I might like you, little wolf," he said, tying off the end of the bandage. "You are not at all what I thought you would be."

"What did you think I would be?"

The dark smirk was back on his face and he leaned in close. My heart hammered in my chest as he held my chin between his thumb and forefinger. "That hardly matters now, does it? You're exceeding those expectations, just trust that."

A faint scream flew in on the night wind through his open window, and it set my teeth on edge. I knew that scream, the pain in that voice that had drifted up from Jura. Someone had died.

With startling clarity that nearly made me dizzy, I realized just what I was doing. I was here, in the prince's castle, wearing clothes he'd supplied, in the room of one of his friends. All the while, my brothers were alone. They'd likely not started to starve yet, but they would soon if Emyl had not figured things out. And the cough I'd heard as I left… What if one of them was sick? And I was sitting here, imagining Tallon without his shirt.

It could not happen again.

It would not.

I would die before I let my mother down, before I left my brothers to die. I'd sworn to them before I left that I would do whatever it took to keep them alive. And not three days had passed and I'd forgotten my oath.

What a pitiful excuse for a daughter and a sister.

I pulled my hands into my lap, discretely digging my thumb into the flesh just above the stitches. The pain offered more clarity, and I knew without a doubt I needed to get out of this room.

I needed to find the treatment, get it back to my brothers before the faint cough became a bloody gag, and end the prince's reign of cruelty.

"The others must be asking after me," I said, standing abruptly. He leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. I swallowed hard and lifted my hand. "Thank you for your assistance, my lord."

I'd made it to the door before he responded.

"Odyssa?" he called.

I turned.

"I'm far from a lord."

Our stares were locked for another moment before I managed to pull away and turn my back to him.

Gods, what had I been thinking? Nothing good would come of this, and I was losing myself more and more to this place. Forgetting the reason I'd come here in the first place, forgetting why I had sacrificed myself to this castle.

It couldn't happen again. Wouldn't happen again.

A hand brushed my lower back. "Let me escort you. I would hate for you to get injured again on your way back."

The heat in his words washed over my neck, and I knew without a doubt that Tallon knew exactly what had happened in those halls. My heart could not decide if that reassured me or terrified me down to my very bones. I took a deep breath through my nose. Ultimately, it mattered little which one. I was here, and so was he, and if he could keep the Soulshades from attacking me, I needed to take advantage of it.

"That's very kind of you," I lied.