What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(14)
“I do it to protect you. Not to make you confess your secrets,” he said.
“Perhaps it is time for you to realize that I am not the one in need of protection,” I murmured, letting the words linger between us.
Silence met me in response, because neither of us had been willing to consider the fact that I may be something more.
More powerful than my mate.
3
Estrella
I woke slowly, the feel of unyielding stone beneath me far from the most comfortable of surfaces I’d ever experienced.
I couldn’t say it was the worst either, though.
My body ached as I stretched out my limbs, uncurling from where I’d twisted my body into the fetal position in an attempt to keep warm. I didn’t know where exactly Mab’s court was located, but the distinct chill in the air felt far too much like winter for my comfort.
Why did it always have to be fucking cold? I wanted a land of eternal summer and warm, balmy nights or, at the very least, a fire to read beside with a pile of blankets to keep me comfortable.
“Be warmer if pretty dress wasn’t torn,” a small voice said, the deep tone of it so at odds for how quiet it seemed. Even in the silence, it was barely murmur in the dungeon we now called home.
I sat up suddenly, glancing around the cell and heaving a sigh of relief when my eyes landed on the figures of two very different shades looming beside me. The one who had spoken was small enough to fit in my hand. His silver beard was pulled into two braids that went down to his feet. A purple hat rested above his head, slightly too large for him so that it appeared to be drooping down into his eyes. With his beard covering most of his mouth, all that I could truly see of his face was a bulbous nose.
The other shade was the spectral form of a woman. Her legs were bare, only small strips of cloth covering her breasts and intimate area. I glanced toward Caldris’s sleeping form, relieved to find his eyes still closed. The jealousy that pulsed through me wasn’t natural, but neither was it something that could be contained—even despite the fact that she was dead. Turning my attention back to her with guilt in my heart, I watched as her skin shimmered in the dim lighting. She shifted beneath my scrutiny, the lines of the scales of a fish covering her flesh.
“It’s rude to watch people sleep,” I mumbled, tearing my eyes from the unusual sight. I’d barely seen fish, what with them being inedible according to the laws of Nothrek because of the magic of Faerie coursing through the waters between realms.
“It’s rude to make yourself at home in someone’s favorite haunt, but you don’t see us calling you out for your lack of manners,” the small male figure said, the tone in his voice scolding.
He took a step toward me, bold and brave despite his size. I supposed a small stature hardly mattered after death, but there were those who lurked within the walls of the Court of Shadows that I suspected could make even the dead suffer.
“Trust me, you’d be welcome to your favorite haunt if I had my way,” I said, shifting and continuing to stretch out my aching back.
The scale-covered woman lingered behind him; her features carefully blank as she studied me. I watched as her attention drifted to the other cell, pausing on my mate where he slept. The low growl in my throat shocked both of us, drawing her eyes back to me as I curled my legs beneath me and glared at her.
The little creature shrugged, oblivious to the moment passing between the women inhabiting the cell. Such was the way of men, existing with their heads buried in the sand so much that they didn’t see the threats coming until it was too late.
“Human won’t be here long, anyway. They never are,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as if my life, and subsequent death, were inconsequential to him. Unsurprising, if he’d seen countless victims come and go in this very cell.
“Lozu!” the woman said, her eyes bulging wide. In spite of the moment that we’d shared before, her gaze softened as she refocused on me. Her pupils were unnaturally large, the color surrounding them a hazy white. “It is rude to discuss the impending death of a still living creature.”
“If it doesn’t have manners, why should I?” the male asked, his nose twitching with his irritation.
The part of me that had been tormented into having manners recoiled, immediately bowing forward as if I might apologize for my lack of decorum. I shook it off with a frustrated twist of my lips, wondering if those memories would ever fade—if the reaction they elicited within me would ever dampen.
“Ignore Lozu. He isn’t usually so brutish. Welcome to our cell. You are free to share it; though I am sure you do not desire such things,” she said, crossing her arms across her stomach. “My name is Monos.”
I held on to my name, knowing the games the Fae so often played. There’d been rumors when I was a girl, even if the whispers of them had been faint and overshadowed by the teachings of the New Gods and the priests who worshiped them above all.
“You can call me E,” I said.
Her brow rose, then she bowed her head, both a moment of respect and a challenge flashing between us. She turned to look toward Caldris in his cell, the shimmer of scales on the side of her head distracting me from the way she watched my mate.
“He is yours?” she asked, turning her attention back to me for a moment before she glided forward. Her legs moved as if she were walking, but her feet never seemed to touch the floor. She drifted through the bars holding me caged, fading into Caldris’s cell and lingering over him as she stared down at him.