6. Caspian

She's waiting for me tonight, my little fae. I can smell her full of hope and innocent glee. She thinks she got something from me the other night.

She didn't. Her quest is meaningless, her curiosity pointless. The other realms hold no interest. No interest.

It's Cassius who tells me that—who insists it. Over and over, he inserts himself, growing louder the closer I come to her. Ignore. Stay away. Remember, Caspian. Usually, his anger toward me is minor amusement at my resistance. He enjoys it.

But when I kissed that little fae…

He grew enraged then. He hated me.

Good, because I will always hate him.

You don't,he tells me as I spy the fae lurking on her rooftop. You love me. You are loyal. My Caspian—Mine!

Not by choice.

But she is mine, all mine, and oh, how he hates it. He can't touch her, but I can. He can only force me to kiss him and the others—others who need to be lured to him and placated with false fantasies of what immortal life will be like. Lies upon lies. Shielding himself from their regret is why he never collects new toys himself.

Except once. You, he murmurs at the back of my skull, the lurking snake. Only you, my Caspian. You were special enough to draw my eye as no one else has before or since...

Bullshit. He took me, and ruined me, and broke me. The same way I'm going to break her.

"Niamh," I call to her, watching her throat jerk around a swallow. She doesn't like the way I say her fake little name, I've caught onto it. I love to say it wrong. I repeat it louder and watch her squirm.

Then she counters me with a soft, "Caspian," and my joy is snuffed out. She says my name like it's a dirty thing. A creature that will bite her if mishandled.

Just like I will. Yet something comes back to me when I hear that hollow voice. Almost. Another name… Another feeling other than hate.

What is it?

"Come," I snap, impatient.

She hesitates and bites her lip. Despite her plain features, I catch myself staring. Damn, her mouth is beautiful. It's not like Cassius' and his harem of pretty dolls: perfectly pink, plump, reddened from the previous drink. Hers are pale, and chapped by the wind and the lower is fuller than the other. It's ugly and lopsided.

I need to feel it again.

"Jump," I goad her.

With one last glance downward, she throws herself into the air and I watch her fall. So slender and delicate, she is. I consider letting her hit the ground and ruin more of that pretty skin.

You can't,Cassius warns.

But I've already lunged to catch her—he never told me to.

I sit her down and push her back against the wall, face upturned, eyes wide and innocent. Perhaps a different kind of innocence than the kind Cassius claims. Makes us mutilate. The mortals he craves are so very hopeful. They believe our bite will cure their ills and make them happy.

It does, he claims.

It doesn't. It makes us bitter, distorted angels just like him. He prefers us that way. Little shattered mirrors he doesn't have to see his own reflection in. Hateful, vicious things.

However, I can see myself reflected in her eyes. A pale creature with an unholy red gaze. Cassius' sadist. He wants to swallow her whole, she can see that. Even so, she doesn't shy away. She'll let him engorge himself on her—for a price.

"Ask your question," I snarl, cutting to the chase. She couldn't hide her intentions if she tried. Such a greedy one when it comes to knowledge. I wonder how she'd react in Cassius' library. The one he keeps locked up tight and warns us away from.

He doesn't remark on that. So, I'm left to imagine it. The little fae might wet herself with glee. Would I give it to her? Maybe.

For a price.

"Tell me how to get to the other realm," she demands. This is the one aspect of her I dislike. She isn't haughty like other fae, with their holier-than-thou demeanor and noses upturned to the sky. Her arrogance isn't an act. She demands and expects her quarry in return. There is no game with her. No chase.

Whatever I ask, she'll give. Except blood.

She even says it as if reading the intention that crosses my mind. "No blood?—"

I silence her with a kiss that makes her wince. I slice her mouth on my teeth. Yum. I taste her blood after all. A hint. A glimpse. It's so…

Fucking good.

My blood surges with need and desire. I'd rip her open if I could. Tear her to pieces. Drink and drink and drink.

You can't, Cassius warns.

I don't need him to hold me back. If I break her now there won't be anything left to play with. No pretty little limbs to touch and feel with squeezing handfuls. No tiny throat to gasp and no living body to flinch as I ram my tongue inside that wet, warm mouth. She is a broken puppet at my disposal.

Unlike Cassius, I can't break her mind on a whim. I can't smother her urge to resist. I've got to make her want it—want me. I've got to coax this lamb into letting me slaughter her piece by piece.

So, I step back and let her breathe. She pants, struggling for air, her hands clutching her chest. I've ripped her robes open. Pale flesh lurks beneath the heavy fabric, out of my reach. She struggles to pin the material together. I grab the edges from her. Pull them apart. Stare.

It's hard to tell whether she's ugly or beautiful. Her body is gaunt, sickly thin. Nothing like the plump little beauties Cassius likes to hunt. He picks them out like a butcher would the primest rib. Those lazy, spoiled mortals, drunk on life and power and prestige. He especially likes the kind whose wealth has seasoned them like fine wine. He can taste the aristocracy as he drinks them up. Perhaps he believes it makes him wealthy as well. Poor Cassius.

He would never want her. Never ever want to shove himself into that delicate, tiny body and see if he'd fit. Make himself fit. He'd never crave what he could easily have.

But I do. My cock stirs to life with a searing, alien emotion. Lust. I want her.

You can't,he warns. This time, his concern isn't about the blood. This time, he isn't asking. I feel his will slam into me, a weighted battering ram. No sex. No touching. No more kissing.

But why? He makes me do it to the others. Makes me lure and seduce his chosen few. He lets me fuck them, and suck them, and package them prettily for him. For him, he lets me have them.

Not her. She isn't for him or anyone else. Locked in her tower, she'll never be touched again. Never be seen. And when I kill her—when not if—that poor little body won't be in pieces large enough to be felt.

She's mine at this moment. I can fuck her body and Cassius will never know the feeling. I can make her unlock this caged memory and usher new words into my fractured mind. A million seem to explode from nowhere, here and now. Gracile. Docile. Impeccable creature of ivory and ebony. Mine to take and ruin. All mine?—

I said no, Caspian!

I wince and pull back. My skull is on fire, his anger a rancid poison. Stupid motherfucker. He can do that when it suits him—hurt me when it suits him. I'm a dog on his leash.

"Are you alright?"

Her voice. The concern in it makes me recoil. It isn't forced or faked. How dare she? I whip around and find her pressed to the wall, hands trembling, robe open, body on display. I look at her and forget the rest. Even Cassius. For a moment, he is a quiet, angry voice in the back of my skull and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Defying him hurts—excruciatingly. But when I kiss her again, the agony evaporates. The glee feels better. Rebellion feels incredible. I take my tongue and shove it deep. Hard. I'd shove my way through her throat if I could.

In her, I discover even more words. Sensations. Thoughts. The warmth of sun on my skin. Charcoal-coated fingers. Acrid smoke…

She sputters and presses on my chest. When I let her free, she gasps for air, her cheeks flushed pink.

I can hear Cassius again, gnawing away. Stop. I said stop!

"Name your price, little fae," I croak to her. She knows what I want. She can already see. For the first time, those black eyes are wide and afraid. Good. Good. Good. Good.

"Tell me how to get into the other realm," she says but her voice doesn't break. It's steady and stern in a way Cassius' could never be. How the hell can she do that? She shouldn't be able to…

Still, I'm captivated, sucked in. His voice is even quieter now, a whisper. Caspian! If I please this little fae, maybe he'll go silent permanently. Forever. Blissfully fucking quiet.

"Don't know," I admit, but that isn't the answer she wants. She'll pull away and Cassius will return. So I look at her, and I lie. "But I can find out. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Her hope. Fuck, it's brief. It glimmers in her eyes like a shooting star, gone in the next breath. She smothers it deep down where I can't see. But it's too late. I know what she wants and she craves it so badly.

Boy, will this be fun.

"Be a good little fae and maybe I'll tell you how," I suggest, twisting the knife. Hope is like that, painful and deep, too deep to pull out.

Maybe I'll discover the real answer. It can't be hard, but it must be a secret. Cassius knows but he hoards the answer. I can feel him tugging it out of reach, tucking it beyond my view.

Stop and I'll tell you, Caspian. Stop this. Stop! Or I'll change my mind…

I wrench away from her. The bastard. He'll take my fun away.

Her startled gasp is intoxicating, however, tempting me to ask…

"Why do you care?" When I turn back, she's watching me, still half-naked, wringing her delicate fingers together. She's doing it on purpose—with every twitch of her hands, the opening of her robe widens, until the sleeve of it threatens to slip off a slim shoulder entirely. Damn her. "Cover yourself!"

She blinks and then does, wrapping the torn halves of her robe tight, pretending they're whole again. Cassius is even louder. Caspian! Come?—

"I want… I want to see a museum," she blurts out. "It's where mortals store their paintings. Their art." She assumes I don't know the term.

But I do. Somewhere deep in my thoughts—mine, not Cassius'—that word triggers a bell.Words. Color. Pigment. Linseed oil. I curl my fingers, remembering something. A sensation. Wet. Soft… I just don't know what any of it fucking means. So I smile and lie. "I've seen one. I can take you there."

It's a building. A place in the mortal realm, I know that much. A place where they horde things—old things. A stupid place I'd never visit.

Unless she asked me to with those wide eyes. Begged me to, bloody and bleeding. Maybe I'd give in. It could be the last sight she ever saw.

The thought has barely crossed my mind when that hope begins to swell in her again. She can't even contain it. So full of fucking hope and wonder and the disgusting things that Cassius craves in his prey. It almost makes her pretty, almost. That look in her eye is almost enough.

"You have? What was it like? Did you see the—" She says something. A forbidden word that Cassius blocks out. He's clawing his control back bit by bit.

Caspian, he growls. I'll make you pay. Make you suffer. Ungrateful wretch— I'd shrug him off like any time before, but... This time feels different. Angrier. Oh, I've made him very angry.

Good.

"I could take you there one day," I lie, and she eats it up with a startled gasp. Her longing is disgusting. It creeps over me, drawing me closer to her, shutting Cassius out again. The bastard will make me pay for this—oh yes, how you will pay. But lying to her is a game too delicious to resist. It tastes almost better than her blood, so damn sweet. I need it. Just one more drop. "What would you give me in return?"

She swallows hard, her throat trembling. Then she says, "I know what you want. I don't care. I'd give you anything."

A laugh rips out of me, but inside I'm irritated beyond all belief. Anything. As if that word means a damn thing. But to her, it does. Anything means anything. I'll have her little soul in the palm of my hand. Mine to break. Shatter. Twist and morph. She's mine. All mine.

You are mine, Caspian,Cassius growls. Come home to me. Now! That is an order?—

"Prove it," I spit out to her.

She flinches, wrinkling her button nose. I'm sure she'll refuse. Renege on her previous offer. Good little fae don't promise their bodies to vamryre after all.

She juts her chin instead and runs a pink tongue along that awkward upper lip. Then she tilts her head as if to offer her throat to me—she doesn't. No, that would be a step too far. Instead, she issues the next most dangerous taunt: a twitching, trembling hand inches toward the front of her robes. She fingers a carefully hemmed collar.

My vision flashes red. Cassius's rage, not my own. Come, he growls. Now!

All I can see is a slender patch of pale skin shielding a racing pulse. The thrum of it floods my eardrums, a siren song. She'll give me anything? Only a fool would spurn such a bargain. Cassius can't punish me for that—it's what he taught me to do, isn't it? Prey.

"Tomorrow," I bite out to the fae. Cassius is raging, and his summons devolve into shooting stabs of pain ripping through my skull. I ignore him, focused only on her.

She should shiver with gratitude, thankful for my merciful acceptance.

Instead, she shakes her head. "No-No. I…" She sucks in a breath and bites her lip.

Ah, I see. I'm not the only snake to visit this fragile, little bird. The thought is unwelcome. It itches. Who else has touched her but me? Who? Who? I sniff her, pulling her scent into my lungs. Interpreting every little nuance. Next time, I'll test her. See who else's scent has tainted her.

"Tomorrow," I tell her. Then I turn and give in. My body moves of its own accord, back to the mansion. He will punish me for this, old Cassius. Maybe even take my toy away.

As if he could. It's too late.

I'll scratch my name into her flesh if I have to. I'll take her life for him—that is a given. But in the meantime…

In the meantime, I won't let anyone stop my fun.

Only I can end this game.