He could never understand my pain or experience. No one could. Not that I’ve ever heard of.

  Deciding the talk is over, I make to move around Gerard for the tent. I really need a minute to myself, need a moment to let the tears spill without all these eyes shifting to me.

  Gerard steps in my way, staggering back a bit, and lands his wild eyes on me. “No, no,” he says, rushed. “We all have to do chores. No one gets to rest just yet.”

  “Oh.” I turn a look over my shoulder, as though I’ll see Cliff at the washing line and he’ll come save me from all of this. But I stare at drying armour instead, and he doesn’t come to my rescue.

  “Hey, what’s in this?”

  I blink, bringing my attention back to Gerard. His finger is hooked around the strap of my shoulder bag and he inspects it with a particular fascination—and I’m certain that’s not because it’s Prada.

  “Just … stuff.” I pull the strap out of his hold.

  He smiles up at me, all genuine and sincere and too good for this new dark world. “We’re not allowed to carry stuff with us.”

  “Well no one took it off me, so…” I trail off with a huffy shrug. “Besides, it’s just for my time of the month.”

  Unconvinced, he glances at the bag before he peels away from me and gestures for me to follow him. “We’ll put you on deliveries,” he says, and I haven’t the slightest idea what he means.

  He marches over to a fire pit. I shadow him, sticking close to his heels, a new protective clutch of the hands gripped tight around the straps of my bag.

  We merge into a circle of three other kuris. They keep their gazes down as I approach, as though each of them fights the furious urge to gawk at me.

  On the fire pit, a tall grey pot boils a peculiar-looking soup; something of an orange-tinted red.

  “We mix what we have,” Gerard answers my puzzled face.

  My nose crinkles at the thought of tomato and pumpkin soup all blended together. But then my stomach gurgles and I realise, I’d eat just about anything right now. All that vomiting that Cliff made me do really emptied my tummy.

  Gerard delivers a deflating blow, “And we eat last … if there’s anything left.”

  A craving hits me, hard. If I can’t eat, I need a cigarette. If I can’t see Cliff, I need to get away from this camp, sit on my own, and wallow in a cloud of smoke.

  “What about the loo?” I ask.

  Gerard gestures to the grassy hill behind the beige tent. “Don’t wander off,” he warns me. “Guards are up there, and they are always watching.”

  With that threat hanging over me, I leave the kuris behind and hike uphill. I don’t pass anyone on my way—everyone is too busy down there to be bothered about relieving themselves or stealing away a few quiet moments.

  But that’s just what I do. I park myself just beyond the edge of the thick blackness, feeling foreign stares prickle into the back of my head. Guards, watching me. But I don’t care.

  I fish into my shoulder bag and draw out a cigarette. No one stops me as I light it and slump over, bringing my chin to rest on my knees. At my huddled, odd angle, I smoke and watch the camp below.

  My gaze is quick to find Cliff.

  He is in the same spot as earlier. Only now, he sits with his back to me, in a growing circle of other dark fae. Apparently his return is creating some buzz among his people as more wander over to join his group.

  He doesn’t know I’m watching him. Or if he does, he avoids it. His back faces me all the way down to the butt of the cigarette.

  I flick it away from myself before I push up from the grassy hill. The gnawing feeling of sobs rises in my chest before I can leave the dark. So I spare a few more moments for the tears.

  After that, I brush myself off and come down the hill. The wooden bowls are being filled with soup and Gerard did say I was on delivery duty. I plan on taking up that duty—because it will lead me right to Cliff.

  45

  “Ok, you take these up to the head of camp, and you work your way down from there, until they have all received their meals,” Gerard says, pushing two wooden bowls of steamy soup into my hands. “Don’t worry about the tents,” he adds. “Michel delivers to those.”

  I trace his gesture to the long, blond-haired guy expertly balancing four bowls on his arms and two in his palms. Either he’s been here a long while now, or he was a waiter in his previous life.

  Gerard told me to go up to the head of the camp, but that isn’t where Cliff is. So I snub his order and as I march up to the dark fae side, I angle to the right and move around the campfires with more confidence than the rest of the kuris carry with them.

  I reach his circle in a few moments and, instantly, the fae sense my nearing presence. A ripple of intrigue runs over them and, one-by-one, they each look up at me.

  Cliff is the only one to not look at me as I approach.

  Distractedly, I hand off a bowl to the fae sitting nearest to him. Then I stand beside him, clutching his bowl in my sweaty hands, waiting for him to look at me.

  Sitting on a boulder, he keeps his gaze down and focused on the knife he sharpens.

  Taking my chances, I scoot myself into the wedge between Cliff and his neighbour fae.

  I hand him the bowl—and he stills.

  Hunched over his knife, those familiar shadows cut into his jawline. His amber eyes shift, restless, to the bowl I hold out for him.

  “Look at me,” I hiss at him, my voice a venomous hush.

  But the dark fae in the circle hear me just fine. A ribbon of tension unravels around me and, as I glance around at them, I see narrowed eyes and curling lips and stiff muscles.

  I turn back to Cliff. “Here.” I push the bowl into his hands. “I’m your slave now—I’ll bring you meals, clean up after you, serve you. Just like you wanted, right?”

  He says nothing and silently sets the bowl on the ground beside his boot. Still, he won’t look at me.

  “Cliff.” I push his arm. It tenses under my touch. “You forced me to live and you won’t talk to me? What the hell is that?”

  “It has changed now,” he says quietly, looking down at his knife. He resumes his work, running the sharpener over its edge. “It is hollow.”

  “Hollow?” I choke, disbelief clinging to my slack face. “We both know that’s not true—”

  Finally, he does look at me, and the anger blazing in his ember eyes startles me silent. “How many ways must a human be put right?” he asks, all ice and hatred. “I do not want you, Cora. You are nothing but another kuri to me.”

  A fierce blush climbs over my cheekbones. “You kissed me.”

  He scoffs something cruel. “I am no litalf,” he tells me. “I can lie. And that lie was an easy one.”

  I boot out before I can even think about what I’m doing, and his soup bowl goes splattering all over the place.

  “Eat dirt, Cliff,” I spit at him and push up from the rock.

  I storm off, unfeeling to the gazes glued to me—

  And utterly unaware of the dark fae guards coming for me.

  46

  A meaty hand lands on my shoulder. Suddenly, the grip yanks me back and I stumble my spine into something solid.

  Stunned, I push forward and spin around, my hand coming out on instinct.

  Fuck you, Cliff.

  That’s all that’s on my mind before I strike him clean across the cheek.

  Then my wild eyes land on—my heart sinks—a snarling dark fae stranger. One of the kuri guards, I suspect since he wears lesser armour than the others of his kind.

  But no matter his status, it is well above mine in this camp, and I just done fucked up. I hit him. I slapped a fucking dark fae in his own camp.

  Oh, fucking, no.

  Cliff and I aren’t alone anymore. It isn't just the two of us to fuck and fight—and kiss, and embrace...

  Now, we are with his people. Might as well be in his world.

  And what I just did, by the looks on the faces all turned towards me, was a huggeeeee no-no.

  “I’m sor—” I start, but never get the full half-assed apology out.

  Without warning, the dark fae guard moves for me and, in a blink, I’m heaved over his shoulder. For a beat, I am limp, just hanging there. Bootsteps snake into my line of sight—dark fae following us.

  And then I register what’s happening. It really sinks in; the guard is taking me to the post.

  Fight kicks in. Suddenly, I’m flailing.

  Hands bunch into fists and I beat the guard’s back with as much power I can muster. And it’s more than I expected. Surely these beatings will leave bruises all over him, because I’m not just fighting for my life here—I’m fighting not to be whipped to death.

  Before I can try a different strategy and flip myself out of his solid steel arm around my waist, I’m thrown from his shoulder. I land, hard, on the packed dirt.

  Pushing to my knees, my heart races so fast that I can feel it lunging up into my throat, and I throw a wild look around me.

  It’s too much to take in. I’m not sure I even really see the crowd of dark fae gathered near the post beside me—as though they have all come to watch my demise. I barely register the guard reaching for a razored whip from the table in my peripherals.

  What I do see though is him.

  Cliff pushes his way to the front of the crowd. And my heart sinks down from my throat and instead writhes around in my chest.

  He looks utterly indifferent. There is no hint of panic or bewilderment or even pity to be found on the stone-cold face he wears. Once again, he is a caramel-toned statue; cold, hard, impenetrable and utterly inhuman.

  Movement out the corner of my eye snares my whole attention. A second dark fae strides towards me, a mean look on his scarred face. He snatches me by the frail wrists and, in a heartbeat, chains me to the post.

  Slowly, I turn my terrified eyes on the guard by the table. Holding the whip, he lets it unravel until the sharp tail hits the dirt with a thud.

  He’s going to whip me... but not just whip me. He’s going to throw lashes onto my flesh with that razored thing. There will be nothing left of me, just scarred bone and blood, maybe lumps of meat.

  Bile is starting to crawl up in my throat. It comes with a gurgling burp that I can’t stop.

  Distantly, I’m aware of a chuckle from the audience.

  I pay it no mind. My whole focus is on that whip, the sharp metal edges to it, and the guard who holds it wandering towards me, a menacing gleam to his white eyes.

  Stepping forward, Cliff separates himself from the audience. He advances on us, his steps wandering yet confident. But I notice his hand flex at his side, a tell that he’s more ill at ease than perhaps he wants his people—or me—to know.

  Twisting around to watch him, I fumble onto my bum and keep my wide eyes glued on his stony profile.

  In his thick, intangible tongue he speaks two mere words to the fae guard and, holding the whip, he falters, lowering it some inches.

  Turning on me, Cliff lands his ice-cold black eyes on my huddled up body by the post. Wrapped in a thick accent, he speaks English, “I will be the one to do it.”

  My heart drops to my churning gut. Don’t know whether I want to be sick or rush to the loo. What I do know is that with those simple words, that one sentence that was perhaps meant to be merciful, he has carved out every organ inside of me, and I’m left an aching hollow pit of anguish.

  Fresh tears spill down my cheeks. Each time I blink stupidly at him, my mouth parted like a stunned goldfish, more tears are freed.

  He turns to face my fully, standing tall and broad, his beautiful face completely impassive. He’s as unreadable as a book written in his language.

  With a moody look at me, the guard drops the whip to the table and takes a short pace backwards. Now it’s just Cliff and me by the post.

  For a beat, as he takes a step closer to me, I manage to fight the silence lodged in my throat and whisper, “Why?”

  His arm bends back as he reaches for the hilt of his sword. It sings as he draws it out and lets it hang at his side. “This is what you have pleaded for countless times, Cora-lee. Death on swift wings. Has your mind changed?”

  There’s an edge of curiosity to his tone, maybe even an amber glean of something in his eyes. But like I said, I can hardly read him at all, let alone through my rising panic. It’s like a fog, a thick heavy cloud of smoke, swallowing me from the ground up.

  Heart lodged in my throat, I throw a panicked look around the motionless audience—who don’t look nearly as captivated as they do when they burn down villages and slaughter people—before turning my wide and wet eyes up at Cliff and his marble mask.

  “I...” No words string together in my tangled mind. It’s all shifting and turning into something worse—emotion. “I...”

  I am gutted.

  That’s it. He has gutted me entirely. There’s nothing left within me but pain and horror that my death will come at his hand.

  Plenty of times, I begged him for this moment to come. I begged for a quick and painless end at his hand, or raced into a cloud of critters, or risked poisoning him only to plan on my own suicide right after.

  Death is what I wanted. Maybe it’s still what I want.

  But by his hand...?

  No. No, I don’t want that. The mere thought of it wrenches something ugly inside of me, twisting my face with a wave of fresh pain and sobs.

  “Will—will-w....” I pause my sputtering to suck in a shaky breath, trying to steady the sobs rolling over me like waves over a shore. “Will y-you m-m-make ittt qqqu-ick?”

  Flexing his grip on the hilt, he takes a slow step closer to me, and his boots land on the dirt at my crouched legs. Looking down on me with this obsidian eyes, he merely blinks long lashes and keeps his secrets.

  I flinch as he lifts the sword and brings it’s winking-sharp edge to the side of my neck. Cringing against the post, I pull back as far as the chains will allow. That’s not very far, since the cool kiss of the sword follows me easily.

  “It will not be painless,” he tells me, his voice glacier like jagged and sharp icebergs.

  My face twists and I turn, tucking my head into my forearms as though they will somehow shield me.

  He goes on, “It will not be quick. Your suffering will carry with you until your final breath.”

  The sword glides over my skin like dangerous silk, finding its way to the underside of my chin. It tips, flat-side up, and forces me to turn back and look up at him through wet eyes.

  My dark, hateful, avenging angel from the pits of hell.

  His mouth twitches, as though he fights off a smirk, as though he can read my mind. “I told you once,” he starts, “I am selfish, Cora.”

  Stepping back suddenly, he draws away the sword, grabbing it with both hands, and raises it high above.

  My scream comes before I see the silver wink cut through the air—

  47

  The cool kiss of the sword’s edge presses against my skin like a sharpened dagger prepared to glide through warm butter. My flesh is nicked and I feel three beads of blood roll down the exposed side of my neck.

  These black metal chains bound to my wrists are all that prevent me from pulling away, though they don’t stop me from trying.

  I’m strained all the way back, my arched spine hovering diagonally above air, my jaw tilted, and my wild eyes fixed on the executioner towering over me.

  Now an executioner, once a lover.

  Familiar black eyes gleam down at me like pools of wet tar, bottomless abysses. There is no pity to be found in his bleak gaze. He looks at me as though I’m just any human to him, one plucked from the mass down the bottom of camp. He looks at me as though I mean absolutely nothing to him. And yet, a part of me hopes—no, believes—that isn’t true.

  Hasn’t he confessed to me that I make him feel things he shouldn’t? So surely there is more beneath the stony mask he wears, emotions begging to break free, lash out into freedom and reveal themselves.

  I wish…

  I hope…

  I’m a fool.

  Cliff shatters the moment between us, his grip tightening on the sword’s hilt. My lashes flutter with a bout of panic as he swings it back—

  A scream traps in my throat. I cringe back, fearing the slice of the sword through my neck.

  But it doesn’t come.

  Cliff spins around instead, taking the cut of the sword behind him—and severing the neck of the guard who dragged me up here. His throat flies through the air.

  Faintly, I’m aware of the whip falling to the dirt a moment before his entire body crumples like a puppet cut from strings.

  A pool of black blood spreads over the dark dirt.

  I can’t bring myself to move away from it. I can only stare up at Cliff’s back with a stunned expression slackening my face, and let loose a tight breath from my chest.

  Facing away from me, he keeps his sword held firm in his hand and he slides a boot back across the bloody dirt. He moves in a ready stance, prepared to fight—to fight his own kind.

  And for what?

  For me?

  No matter the warrior he is, however great and royal, he cannot possibly take on the hundred or so dark fae in this camp. So either way, I’m dead. He’s just taking himself down with me.

  It shouldn’t, but my heart skips at the thought and I suddenly feel dampness spread under my blurring eyes.

  Blinking away the tears, I graze a look around the dark fae. Utter stillness has its clutches in all of them. No one moves, breathes even. They just stand, as stunned as I feel, watching Cliff in his stance, ready to take on any of them. Watching a royal dark fae (disgraced as he may be) protect a kuri.

  How twisted are we both?

  One unfortunate, brave fae guard takes the opportunity. He rushes at Cliff from the other side of the mapped table. As he twists around the table, he draws out a set of daggers from his belt and raises them up.