What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(20)
I turned my gaze away, refusing to think of his stare upon my flesh and what Caldris would feel through our bond. Malachi stepped around my back, not touching me until he came to my other arm and repeated the process. When he cut through the final threads of the fabric, it fell to my feet.
I slipped out of my underwear, shoving them down my thighs and stepping into the scalding water of the basin. If the intent was to burn me alive to make sure I wouldn’t carry a disease to the Queen of Air and Darkness, they’d met that goal. I lowered myself into the water, ignoring the way my flesh burned and grew pink beneath the heat. Malachi stood beside the basin, watching every move I made as I took the soap in hand and scrubbed the dirt from my body. The water changed color, becoming murky as I sank lower and scrubbed my hair.
“I was told Alfheimr had special products for washing hair that would make it sparkle with life,” I said, glancing toward where Mab eyed me with disdain.
“You’ll earn such luxuries in time if you behave,” she said, continuing to eat the berries from the bowl on the table.
“I’ve never been very good at doing what I’m told,” I said, dragging my fingers through the snarls in my hair as it floated on the surface of the water.
“Malachi,” Mab said softly, and I barely had time to begin to scramble out of the water before his hands were pressing into the front of my shoulders. He shoved me down until water covered my face, then held me there, keeping me trapped beneath the surface. I stared up into the warped sight of his features as the water sloshed against the sides of the basin while I struggled.
My lungs burned with the need to breathe. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold it for any longer, Malachi lifted me out of the water. I sputtered, desperately sucking back a deep lungful of air. He shoved me back down the moment I’d stolen that lone breath, forcing me beneath the surface so harshly that my head clattered against the metal of the basin.
I struggled, grasping his wrists with my chained hands and trying to escape his grip. But my body was weakened by the lack of nutrients in the food they’d given me in the dungeon, weighed down by the iron stealing what remained of my energy.
In one last bid for freedom, I shoved a single leg off the foot of the basin. Angling my body up and lowering my head deeper in the water, I watched Malachi’s moment of confusion before my knee hooked around his throat. I used his surprise to pull him back, to shove him toward the opposite end of the bath until his hands left my shoulders and I was able to rise to the surface.
I pulled him lower until his spine struck the edge of the tub, his body twisting with the force of my leg. Air filled my lungs as I took greedy breaths, watching as Malachi crumpled to the floor. He got to his feet only a moment later, his expression murderous as he lunged for me.
“Enough,” Mab said, raising a hand. I turned my eyes to her. “I believe you’ve made my point, Malachi.”
“But my Queen…” Malachi trailed off, the implication obvious.
“What fun would it be if she just took your punishment lying down and begged for mercy? How dreadfully boring it would be to have my new plaything behave the same way everyone else in this forsaken court does,” she said, smiling at me. Something lurked in her gaze that I knew I would come to dread.
“Set them free, and I’m sure a great many of your servants would be more than willing to give you the entertainment you seek,” I said, dancing around the truth. If she wanted people to stand against her, then she shouldn’t have bound them to her will.
“There is a difference between a plaything and an uprising. Fear not, Little Mouse, you’ll be like them soon enough,” she said, tapping a nail against her chin. “Even the brightest of lights fails to remain entertaining for long.”
I swallowed, keeping my thoughts of the ferryman as far from any room Mab occupied as possible. I didn’t think she could hear my thoughts, didn’t know of any Fae who could do such a thing, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t exist.
What would she make of the Ferryman insinuating I was something creatures would use?
Malachi reached into the tub, forcefully pulling me from the water and dragging me out of the basin. He shoved a towel at me, and I hurriedly dried myself off as he grabbed a dress from the back of a nearby chair. I winced when he shoved it over my head, trying not to offer any physical sign of the comfort that came from no longer being nude. I wore no underwear beneath it, nothing to accompany it as he grabbed the two sides of the fabric that would make the sleeves and wrapped them around my arm. They secured around each one with ribbons, making my shackles irrelevant for the time being.
“Come and eat, Little Mouse,” Mab commanded.
I turned my back on Malachi in favor of the bigger threat in the room. She perked up as I turned toward her, walking to the table slowly and taking the chair she’d pulled out on the other side of the small round table. I lowered myself into it slowly, keeping a wary eye on her as she chewed.
“You must be hungry.”
“I’ll live,” I said, not daring to eat the food she offered. Even the food in the dungeon had been a great risk to eat, something I only indulged in when the hunger pangs in my stomach became too much to bear.
Everyone knew humans weren’t to eat the food of the Fae, that it was a way to trap us within Alfheimr for the rest of our days. Eating food provided by Mab herself seemed like an even greater folly, increasing the potential risk of poisoning.