19. Chapter 17 Arden

Chapter nineteen

Chapter 17: Arden

S tanding within the battlement of the tallest tower of Feldorn castle, I suck in a breath of fresh air and admire the gardens. The view from here is beautiful. This is the only place on the grounds where you can see the front and side gardens, the courtyard, the training field, and the forest. It's breathtaking.

A shadow passes overhead and my gaze shifts upwards, landing on Zorvan's massive dragon form as he soars through the sky. The golden underbelly shimmers in the setting sun, and he emits a stream of fire into the sky. He's showing off—preening.

Once he's passed, I expect the sunshine to fall on my skin once more, warming it. But it never comes. A cold, black dark settles in, and I can no longer see the grounds. Small blobs of red-orange weave their way toward the castle, coming from the direction of the trees. There should be a wall there, but it doesn't stop them.

The orbs increase in size, and number until there are so many that I can finally make out what's happening. People are approaching the castle, using torches for light. It's hard for me to make out their faces from up here, but I know something is wrong. I can feel it in my bones.

A fine mist begins to rise from the ground, shrouding the people. Soon the entire ground is aglow with the blazing hues of their torches refracting through the fog and blending together.

I can hear them calling out to me, but I'm too far away to make out their words. I lean forward over the wall, hoping to hear what they're saying but it's just a cacophony of the same cry over and over again.

"I can't hear you!" I call out. "One at a time!"

Spinning in a circle I search for a way down, but there's nothing. How did I even get up here ?

"I'm coming! Just give me a moment! Just..."

I crane my neck over the side one more time, desperate for their words to make it clearly to my ears. The cries grow louder and louder. Before long it's deafening. I cover my ears with my hands in a feeble attempt to drown it out, but it doesn't matter.

"Please! One at a time! I can't understand you! PLEASE!"

The sound stops.

There is nothing; no birds, no animals, no crying fae. Just like I had never heard such a sound, I've never heard such silence.

I peer down over the edge of the battlement. A sea of fae are standing below, staring up at me. From what I can make out, they're filthy and starved. They have sores and wounds. Some are in casts and wrapped in bandages.

I have to help. I whip around to search for a way down and shriek when I come face to face with a horrifying humanoid creature with crepey grey skin and holes where its eyes should be.

"Save...them..." It croaks out in a hoarse whisper, its dry vocal chords rubbing together like sandpaper. "Or...join...them."

I'm about to ask what the fuck that means when the creature emits a horrifying screech, and the force of it pushes me back until I topple over the edge of the castle.

I'm falling.

And falling.

And falling.

The creature stares down at me as I speed toward the earth. I try to pull for my magic, my animal, anything that could save me.

Rotating my body in the air so I'm facing the ground, I scream again. All of the fae are dead. Body after body litters the once beautiful gardens, and pools of blood seep into the ground around them. Their beautiful faces are marred and stuck in a state of shock.

There's no time left. I'm going to hit the ground. I panic and scramble, and let out one more scream...

Then I bolt upright on my cot. My hair is plastered to my forehead coated in sweat. I suck in deep breaths as my eyes shift around the cell. Something is wrong. The hair on my arms stands to attention as I become painfully aware of a presence in the cell that shouldn't be there. But they're not really there—not in the flesh. What I can't discern is if they're friend or foe.

The dungeon door clangs creaks open, and Camus shuffles in. He looks half asleep. He's dressed impeccably despite the dopey, sleepy look on his face. Our eyes meet, and he moves faster. He throws the door to the cell open and pulls me into his arms.

"I thought I dreamed your distress, but it seems it was real. What's wrong."

"I just had a bad dream," I say and laugh, trying to brush it off.

It wasn't just a dream. I know it as soon as the words leave my mouth. The stars are trying to communicate with me. Bad things are about to happen. But that was the most unclear warning I think I could have asked for. Obviously the people of Feldorn are most at risk, but from what? Cyndair? Or something worse. It's hard to imagine something worse than her, but I have to suspect that it exists.

"Tell me about it," he says, brushing a strand of sweaty hair away from my face.

"Not here," I whisper.

There's only a couple more hours until we can be alone. I can tell him about it then. But with listening ears, I can't risk someone overhearing and telling Cyndair that the stars are attempting to communicate with me.

Cam studies me and nods. "Come on, love. Let's get some rest. We only have about an hour until we need to get up and get you ready for your classes." He presses his lips to my forehead which is still damp, and I'm sure clammy in the cool dungeon air.

He lays down with me on my cot and draws lazy circles on the exposed flesh at the small of my back. It's soothing and takes no time at all before I'm drifting back to sleep, wrapped up in his strong arms. The last thought I recall before sleep consumes me is that I was an idiot for ever thinking I could resist this man once he had me in his sights.

***

"Sir Camus!"

The gravelly voice of the guard rips me from my sleep. My eyes flutter open and I find Camus scowling before he pushes himself up off the cot.

"Sir Camus, you asked me to wake you just before sun-up. Well, the cockatrice just crowed, so I reckon it's time."

Camus groans and lays back down on the cot. "I swear that these early mornings are just one more of Grandmother's plans to fuck with my plans. No time to waste. We need to get upstairs and get you bathed, and get you into something suitable for your classes."

"Why the fuck does she even have to do this, again?" Dira snaps.

I'm not sure if she's mad that she was woken up, or if it's Camus' presence, but she's pissed. She's become more and more ornery toward me over the last week or so, and I think it's jealousy that Camus is putting in effort and Gormon can't be bothered.

"Because, little sister, I want her to be by my side in every instance; not just as a mother to my children. And this is the only way that Grandmother would agree." He turns back to me and brushes a thumb over my bottom lip. "We need to tame this feral beast who was raised among humans. How primitive."

I snort. " Humans are primitive? You don't even have electricity here."

"Who needs electricity when you have magic, you silly girl. Besides, some fae can create electricity, so your assessment of us is incorrect. You clearly have much to learn. Let's not waste any more time."

I sigh and follow him out of the cell, casting a glance at Dira as the door to the cell closes. If she continues with this attitude she's never going to make it out of here alive. I make a mental note to ask Camus to talk to Gormon about being more proactive than he's currently being.

We walk up the several flights of stairs to Camus' room and he unlocks the door and ushers me inside. The second the door shuts behind us, he pounces on me, kissing me like he's been touch starved for days.

I allow him to feel me up and kiss me for a moment before I push him back, gently. "You said we didn't have any time to waste."

"This isn't wasting time, and I accounted for this when I planned our morning." He tugs my shirt over my head and discards it before doing the same with his. "We have," he glances at the clock on the wall, "seven minutes, which is all I need to make you come for me."

He shoves his pants to the floor and steps out of them. He pushes me backward toward the bed, and once the backs of my knees graze the mattress, he yanks my pants down to the floor. After he pushes me back on the bed, I expect him to climb on top of me, but instead he drops to his knees in front of me.

I prop myself up on my elbow and watch as he puts my right leg over his left shoulder and pushes my left leg to the side. The pure unbridled need in his gaze sets my body on fire. He presses his mouth to my aching flesh and kisses me before sliding his tongue along my most sensitive parts.

I drop my head back on the bed and whimper. I'm just as needy for him as he is for me, and it's embarrassing. I shouldn't like this as much as I do.

He slips two fingers inside of me and laps at my clit while his fingers work their magic deep inside of me. He wasn't exaggerating. He knows my body almost as well as he knows his own. It's both irritating and intoxicating. It takes him less than three minutes, with his fingers and his tongue working in orchestration before I'm coming around him.

I push back up onto my elbows and stare at him as he wipes the back of his hand over his stubbled face and sets his predatory gaze on me, and climbs up my body.

Glancing at the clock once more he says, "Four minutes to spare."

The way he's looking down at me makes my heart skip. The predator is still inside of him, but his eyes are full of something else, that one might mistake for love. He kisses me again, and I can taste my arousal on his lips. Then without warning, he pulls away and moves to get dressed.

My eyes trail his movements as he pulls on his pants and shirt, and I wonder why he even bothered taking them off in the first place. He's still rock hard and straining against the fabric of his perfectly tailored trousers.

"What about you? Why are you getting dressed?" I ask, and my own questions surprise me. At some point I started caring whether or not he got off while we were together.

"I intended to fuck you good and hard, but I decided that I would rather savor our time together. We'll make sure I'm taken care of before the end of the day," he promises.

He approaches his closet, and pulls out a dress and hands it to me. It's made of a flowy green fabric that's nearly black, and has a beautiful silver and crystal embellishments stitched up the cleavage and arching over the top of each breast.

My fingers graze the gem encrusted gown and I whisper, "It's beautiful."

"I had it made just for you."

He holds up the single shoulder strap and there's a thin flowing capelet attached with a stunning broach. There are two pieces—a star and a crescent moon—pinned to either side of the strap, and they're connected by three chains. Both the star and the moon are made of the same crystals that encrust the top of the dress. At the center of each of them is a larger gem. The one set in the moon is turquoise, while the one set in the star is lilac in color.

When I move to take it from him, he pulls it away. "Not for today. This dress is a reward for completing your training. This," he gestures to the broach on the strap, "will tell everyone that you belong to me—officially. I will keep this hung up in here where you can see it every single day, because you're going to need to set your sights on the end goal.

"Grandmother will have instructed your trainers to go hard on you; harder than they've ever gone on anyone else. She wants you gone. She wants me to mate with a suitable Solardinite and pretend to live happily ever after."

"Why do I need to play along? Aren't we working on getting out of here before any of that is a necessity?"

He lays the dress on the bed with care and takes my face in his impossibly large hands. "We just need to play along enough that she doesn't suspect anything until I can figure out how to get us out of here. I know that will be near impossible for you. You have such a fire inside of that beautiful heart of yours, but I believe in you."

I nod, and find myself wishing we had more time. The fact that we didn't have time for a proper fuck is criminal, and now he's saying all the right words to make me want to submit to his every desire.

"You sure like it when I praise you," he says with a knowing smirk. "Later, love. I promise. Wait here."

He returns to his closet and when he comes back, he has a much simpler dress for me to wear. This one is pitch black and floor length, but just as flowy as the other one.

"Why do you pick such dark colors for me?" I ask, taking the dress and pulling it over my head.

There's a knock at the door and he heads toward it as he says over his shoulder, "Because there's a darkness in you, too. And you need to be reminded that it can be an asset."

He pulls the door open and three fae women come in, pulling a cart behind them. I frown as my gaze settles on the make up and hair tools taking residence on the cart.

"Really?" I ask in exasperation.

I've seen the way the female fae of this kindom wear their make up, and it's beautiful, but far more than the winged liner and light mascara that I'm used to doing for myself.

"It's far easier to become the person you want to be if you look the part. At least that's what my grandfather always said. And he always looked the part."

He sets a chair in the center of the room and takes a seat on the bed, watching me closely with a cheshire grin. He knows I hate this.

"You can't give up already, babe. You've got a long way to go. This will be every morning for the foreseeable future, so let's get used to it." He gestures to the seat.

Letting out a frustrated growl, I plop down in the chair. The three vampire women swarm me and begin pulling and twisting my hair, and slathering make up on my face.

"Will you be with me the whole day?" I ask.

"No. Unfortunately it'll be you and two other Solardinites who also need their training. Grandmother said that I couldn't be there. I'm assuming it's because she intends to break you so severely that she knows I wouldn't be able to stop myself from stepping in."

My stomach churns. Whatever 'breaking me' looks like, I'm not sure that I'm cut out for it.

"Great," I mutter.

One of the fae women working on my hair clears her throat and says, "We all had to go through it. It's really not so bad. Just follow the instructions, and you'll be fine."

"What did they do?"

The girls exchange worried glances, then look over at Camus. Then the second one speaks up, "It's not really appropriate for us to talk about it in front of present company."

"I know the gist of it. Serve the males, keep your mouths shut, that kind of thing," Camus says. "Plus learning the rules of court, sitting in on some of Grandmother's meetings with the subjects, basic manners course."

The girl directly in front of me casts her gaze down at the floor. "Something like that."

"What are you not telling me?" I ask, softly, tipping her chin up with my finger so her eyes meet mine.

"It's not just serving the men," she says and glances at Camus. Then she leans in and whispers so he can't hear, "You have to learn how to please them, too."

My eyes go wide, and Camus crosses the room.

"What?" he demands.

"Your grandmother is just fucking determined to perpetuate the patriarchy from her position of power."

"That's ridiculous!" he says and looks at the girls who have all stopped working on my appearance. "She would never whore out the more wealthy females of our kingdom like that."

"Yes, because she's clearly so concerned about the virtue of the girls around here," I deadpan.

"How have I never heard about this?" Camus demands of the girls.

"Because we're sworn to secrecy. And if any of the males talk then they lose their position within the training circle. It's essentially a super discrete brothel."

"None of this makes sense," Camus says dismissively. "You're just trying to scare her." He gestures aggressively at me when he says 'her'.

"It actually makes perfect sense," I say with a laugh. "I've met a lot of male fae in positions of power, and one thing holds true for all of them. The more satisfied they are, the more pliable they are. It's a method of control.

"It's not the patriarchy she's upholding. She's doing it because it's keeps them from getting too grumpy and asking too many questions. If she can train the younger females to keep the males properly sated, then she doesn't have to do it herself."

"You're making a lot of generalizations here. We're not all a bunch of buffoons thinking with our cocks."

I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Okay they're not all a bunch of buffoons thinking with their cocks," he corrects himself.

A laugh escapes me, and the girls giggle. Once the laughter subsides, I sigh. "They're not completely inept. But your grandmother knows how to read people. She knows which of the males it'll work on and which of the males will need other persuasion—whether it be gold, or land, or power. She's forever playing the ultimate game of chess and is constantly ten steps ahead of every single person."

"Well I'm not letting you go in there if she's going to make you suck the dicks of half the males in the castle." He places one hand on his hip and scratches his forehead with the other.

"I've made such a big deal about this that I don't know how to get you out of it." He turns to the girls doing my hair and make up. "Where do they have the girls...perform these...favors?" He doesn't wait for an answer before he tips his head to the ceiling and says, "Why the fuck did I not know about this? Why was I not included?"

"To answer your first question, it's in the smoking chambers that are hidden off the great hall. And to answer your second, it's because most of the females they take in there are far too timid for your liking," she says dropping her eyes to the floor again, then she finishes with, "Sir."

"Right," Camus says, but he's unconvinced.

Despite our non-consensual first encounters, I suspect he usually likes females to be at least somewhat willing. Plus she's been having him and the rest of her brood try to put hybrids in the other females in the dungeons. The thought that he may have some offspring running around the city has crossed my mind multiple times, but I always push it away. I'm not ready to face that, assuming it's true.

"How soon into training does it start?"

"The end of the first week," one of the girls working on my hair says. "It's a full seven days of manners classes, and walking in heels, and reciting the laws of Solardin. You have to cook and clean and scavenge. Then once you're worn out and already at a breaking point she takes you into the room with the males. You're required to make at least three of them come before you can leave.

"Since there's only seven men, and there's frequently two to four girls, it takes forever because the men need to regain their stamina before they can orgasm again. The men are all masked so we don't even know who they are."

"Fucking Stars above," Camus says, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. "You three can go. We won't be needing you," he says and waves his hand.

The girls begin gathering their things, and I grab two of them by the hands. "No. Stay. Cam, you can't send them away. I have to do this. We've talked about it a million times and this is the best way to proceed."

"I will not be having some other man's cock down your throat under any circumstances."

I raise my eyebrow at him.

"Okay under most circumstances. Fuck! "

"Finish what you were doing," I say to the girls, and they glance at Camus.

When he doesn't say anything else, they go back to what they were doing. I reach for Camus' hand and he takes it, standing awkwardly close to the girl on my right doing my hair. She looks like she would rather be anywhere else.

"We'll figure something out. We don't have a lot of time, but we are smart enough to find a work around," I say and give him a reassuring smile between brush strokes of make up.

"You're right. I know you're right. We can't give up on this thing, yet. I'm just fucking pissed that I didn't know about this, and now we have a whole giant wrench in our plan."

"I'm good at improvising," I say, and give his hand one last squeeze before I release it.

The girl doing my hair looks extremely nervous having Camus this close to her. I'm not wanting to have her burn off a piece of my hair while she's trying to put a curl in.

It takes them another ten minutes of tense, silent makeover time and then they're on their way out the door. I thank them for everything they did as I shut the door behind them.

I rest my back against the door, and Camus pins me to it, placing a gentle hand around my throat and forcing me to look at him.

"I need to make myself very clear, Arden. If you so much as look at another naked man while we're still in this castle, I will punish you day in and day out until you can't function without my cock. Do you understand?"

"You really shouldn't make it sound so appealing. Because now I want to test your patience," I say smirking up at him.

He presses his forehead to mine. "If I handled you the way I want to right now, I would ruin all the hard work those ladies just put in to making you look like a whore. But I need you to understand the restraint I have to not bend you over the bed and mark you right this second."

"I look forward to you following through on your threats later."

"I've got a plan. I'll fix this."

"Care to enlighten me?"

"I think I'll let you sweat a little." He presses a soft kiss to my temple. "You'll be my undoing, love. One way or another."