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Disgust roiled through me, and I had to force down an almost unstoppable need within me to light the dark ink on fire. Its mere presence in this place felt like an unforgivable offense. The sight of it made me feel nearly as violated as I had when Kieran’s apostle, Maria, had broken into my childhood home in Toronto. As I wrestled with my internal desire to ignite the very air around me, Kieran came to a stop in front of a large iron door.
“Your chambers, Prince Amon,” Kieran bowed, once again, ignoring Kasha and I. The iron door opened of its own accord, and we moved to enter, when Kieran held out a hand to stop us. Amon turned his head minutely, raising one eyebrow. The look he gave the wizard could have woken the dead.
“The chameleon has her own accommodations,” Kieran said, an evil smile curling on his face. I felt Kasha freeze behind me. A quick shock of her terror scorched across my aura before she slammed down her metaphysical barriers. This was enough to break my very thin layer of control.
“Kasha stays with us,” it was not a question. It was an order, and I said it with the same cool disdain that I had seen Amon use when he spoke to the widowmaker at the entrance of the castle. Kieran, to my utter fury, pretended that he had not heard me speak.
“Come, chameleon,” he gestured for her to follow him and moved to walk away. Something inside me snapped. I gathered the matter that surrounded him and before I even knew what I was doing I had him suspended in the air. With a twitch of my wrist, I cracked his entire body against the slimy stone wall. I was before him in an instant. His eyes were wider than they should have been, though he did an exceptionally good job of keeping his expression calm.
“Kasha. Stays. With. Us.” I hissed. I was inches from his face, and the fingers in my right hand were twitching. It did not matter that he was Ash Nevra’s bonded and killing him here and now would likely ruin all our plans. I wanted so badly to close my fist and force the air around his throat. I wanted to crush his neck until he died. I had never wanted anything more.
“Prince Amon. Control your slave.” Kieran said calmly. I snarled. Slave. I would make him eat that fucking word. Amon, however, much more practiced in these games than I was, spoke from behind me. He sounded almost bored.
“As amusing as it would be to watch Raven kill you, it will likely distract Ash Nevra from some of the more poignant points I would like to make in our negotiations,” he drawled. Taking the hint, I forced myself to release Kieran from my metaphysical grip. The wizard attempted to right himself smoothly as his feet hit the ground. I took great pleasure in the fact that despite his efforts, he stumbled slightly as he regained his balance.
“Leave us, Kieran. Kasha stays with us,” Amon reinforced my earlier order, and I felt my anger grow even more, as Kieran finally nodded. Accepting this demand, now that it had come from Amon, and not me.
“As you wish,” he said, “Ash Nevra eagerly awaits your audience in the Great Hall. I will send The Siren to collect you once you have had a chance to… settle in.” Kieran smirked, looking at me for the first time, before slinking off down the hallway. I glanced back at Amon and Kasha and frowned. ‘Settle in’ seemed to be a strange choice of words, considering we had not come with any baggage or clothing. As I followed Amon into the room beyond the iron door, I suddenly understood.
We entered a large medieval bedroom. The four-poster bed was much grander than the beds that Amon had in the Court of Pride. Naked bodies had been carved into the wood, and they twined together, faces contorted in silent screams that looked as if they could have been born from either pleasure or pain.
Beneath the bed metal bars bore vertically into the floor, creating a large cage with a locked gate beneath it. I realized, with horror, that was where Kieran expected me to stay. The thought of it turned my blood to ice. Understanding the type of treatment that had been intended for me, I was suddenly sorry I had not done more damage to Kieran when he had dropped us at the door. If this was what they had intended for me, I did not even want to entertain ideas of where they had planned to send Kasha.
Amon came behind me, and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close and kissing the side of me head, as Kasha closed the door behind us.
“We are not staying the night,” he reminded me. He could feel my revulsion. I knew he would never have allowed anyone to put me in that cage, let alone done so himself. But the mere sight of it made me feel sick to my stomach. I would not have been able to sleep in this room.
Remembering my earlier idea, of coming here under the pretense of being his prisoner, I understood Amon’s desperation to get me to understand what that plan would have entailed. Looking at that cage underneath the large bed I knew I would not have been able to pretend. I doubted anyone needed to be able to read my aura, to feel the rage that dripped through each one of my pores.
I turned in Amon’s arms and our eyes met. I had made the promise to Kasha days before, but now I made it to Amon as well, though I didn’t need to speak it out loud. I knew he understood me, just through my gaze.
I was going to kill Ash Nevra, and I was going to enjoy every moment of her death.
60
With the door closed and Kieran gone, we got to work.
‘Mind to mind, as much as possible. The walls can hear.’ Amon told me. Kasha pulled me into a fierce hug. I felt her shoulders shake and understood her silent ‘thank you’. She pulled away and nodded at me before her brandy-colored eyes shifted into cold grey ones. I watched in a mix of horror and awe as she changed.
Her shift was nothing like when Rycon shifted. When Rycon changed forms, it was brutal and almost violent. Bones popped, and sinew tore. When Kasha shifted, it was almost as if your mind and eyes couldn’t quite follow the change. One moment she was Kasha, then an insurmountable number of tiny adjustments happened so swiftly and smoothly to sculpt her into Kieran that it almost seemed like it was natural.
The Kasha-Kieran dipped her head and slipped out of the room without a word, and I was left alone with Amon.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered across his mind. He rose an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side.
‘For what?’ He asked, ‘Throwing Kieran against the wall? That was mild compared to what I had been about to do to him. He’s lucky that you beat me to it.’ Despite the extreme stress of our situation, I bit back a laugh.
‘I lost my temper,’ I admitted, ‘You were right. I would have never been able to pretend here. I’m so angry I can barely see.’ Amon’s eyes softened, and he gripped my shoulders, pulling me close and planting a kiss on my forehead.
‘I wish I could tell you that it will get easier, but it will only get worse from here,’ He pulled back and met my eyes. He allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch up, just as we heard a knock at the door. ‘If the worst thing you do is murder Kieran between now and the time we leave, I’ll consider ourselves lucky.’ For the second time in this miserable room, I bit back a laugh. I wasn’t sure how he always did that. Made me feel comfortable and strong in situations where I should have felt alone and weak.
“Enter,” Amon said out loud, putting distance between him and myself as he turned to face the door. A gorgeous daemon with midnight skin and long dreadlocked hair strode into the room. Her body was coated in skin-tight leather, her cheekbones were sharp enough to cut glass, and a long deadly rapier was saddled to her hip.
‘I will send The Siren to collect you,’ Kieran had said. This must be The Siren.
“Prince Amon,” she said by way of greeting. Like Kieran, she did not greet me, but unlike Kieran, she did allow her gaze to flick in my direction. We studied each other briefly in silence, and I allowed my aura to inspect hers. This daemon was made of ice and deep, deep water. Her power was lung-crushing, and as heavy as ten thousand leagues.
She was made of the type of seas that covered entire planets in rolling tidal waves and tsunamis. I swam through her mighty waves of power, and paused as I came to a bond. The bond wrapped around her, like the rings of Saturn. It was a different kind of bond than the one I had observed in Kieran’s aura. This one was sickly and heavy. It was made up of ropey, iron strings and bound this incredibly powerful daemon’s aura to a tether, like an anchored shackle.
