What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(67)

“Then why aren’t I?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. I hadn’t been able to ask Caldris about it in the time we’d spent in Tar Mesa—about how he’d come to be bound.

“The magic of the binding is complex,” she said, pursing her lips as she studied me. “You have to be willing. Children are much easier to manipulate into accepting it. A few days without food will have them begging for scraps, more willing to accept anything I offer as payment for that food. But you, you would sooner die than bind yourself to me for eternity. I need you broken first.”

The creature in me recoiled, staring out through my eyes at the threat only Mab could pose. What would it take for me to bind myself?

The creature within me hissed her disdain, her voice a slither.

Never, it said.

My morals might not have mattered as she pounded against my chest, striking against the cage of my flesh. Mab looked at my chest, her head tilting to the side as if she could see the creature attempting to escape my body.

My good heart wouldn’t matter if she took over. I knew it as well as I knew my own name.

“Interesting,” Mab purred, her eyes lifting to mine once again. “Very interesting.”

I stood, silent, not daring to open my mouth. I wouldn’t risk the truth that could pour out, or that she would see my deception as I danced around it. Nobody, not even Caldris, knew the extent of the thing that paced within me. The way she occasionally made it known that she would claw through me to escape, if only she could.

“Get in the bath, Estrella,” Mab said, leaning back as she stared at me. I didn’t move, refusing to be naked with the female I wanted to be nothing like. “It is time to get you ready to be presented to the kings and queens of the courts.”

“Nila can see to that,” I answered, glancing toward my handmaid.

She gasped as Malachi grasped her by the hair, wrenching her head back so that he could touch the edge of his blade to her throat.

I stilled, turning back to Mab. “Call off your dog.”

“Get in the bath,” she repeated, eying my chest as if she could see my heart beating.

I grimaced, shucking off my robe and letting it drop to the stone floor. My silken nightgown followed, pooling on top of my robe as I stepped out of the fabric. My breasts tightened in the cold, and I attempted to ignore the way Mab’s gaze dragged over my body.

I stepped into the water, slowly descending the steps until I sat upon the edge of the seat on a side perpendicular to Mab.

She raised her gaze to my face. “We have our work cut out for us,” she said, the brutal words leaving no doubt that she found me lacking. “Do have a seat, Nila. We’ll be here a while.”

Four women stepped in from the anteroom as if they’d been waiting, baskets of soaps, lotions, and all manner of devices clutched in their hands. One moved to Mab, tending to her upkeep as the others all studied me and sighed.

I snarled, feeling more animal than Fae.

They got to work anyway.





21


Caldris


Azra whinnied as we led the group in the direction of Tar Mesa. He’d been unsettled since we’d left the morning before, not liking the distance between Estrella and me any more than I did. The gathering of Fae accompanying us from the other courts was far larger than it had been in previous years, and it had horrified me to discover how many of them came solely for the reason that Mab had refused to release their mates prior to the Solstice.

They had to hope they’d be permitted to leave with them, take them back to their home courts. Not for the first time, I wondered where Mab had tucked them. I’d searched in all her typical hiding places, not finding them in any of the dungeons or holding cells that were typically used. She took no chances with her possession of them, not daring to risk the fact that I might have tried to smuggle them out and scatter them to the wind.

Davorin was on the other side of the group, leaving the royals to lead the procession of their people on horseback behind us. By some horrific misfortune, the Summer and Autumn Courts had lined up next to one another, leaving their kings to a quiet standoff for the entirety of our return journey.

Aderyn had inserted herself between them, flanking her husband, Kahlo, as if she could be enough of a barrier between him and Rheaghan. For all the centuries I’d known them, they’d been at one another’s throats. I’d never dared to ask where their hatred for one another had begun, and I suspected they didn’t even remember.

“We’ll arrive before nightfall,” I said.

Rheaghan nodded in agreement. I didn’t dislike the male, despite the role he’d played in Mab’s rise to power—his tolerance for her antics allowing her to become too powerful to stop. He’d wanted to see the best in her, remember the sister who hadn’t been pure evil.

I couldn’t fault him for that, but I did place some of the responsibility for the carnage that followed upon his head. Even still, as much as I blamed him, I knew he blamed himself far more. He’d never step out of the shadow of his inaction—or forgive himself for what his love had brought upon Alfheimr.

So we rode on, seeking out the mate who I knew waited eagerly for my return. It thrummed down our bond, a steady, comforting beat to remind me that she was alive, at the very least.

There’d been no pain in the time since I’d left—only worry and rage. Both were emotions I could handle, neither indicating that she’d been harmed in my absence.