Heat flooded Maeve’s body. Her eyes burned, becoming wet. But she would not let tears fall. Not in front of this man who already had so much to hold over her. She turned and left him, fighting off tears until she reached Maxius. She leaned over the cool crystals encasing him, placed her forehead against her forearm, and let herself mourn.
Even if she managed to save Mal, would such an act be a mercy or a punishment?
Chapter 31
A package arrived just as Maeve finished her breakfast the morning of Mal’s visit. A long, rectangular, thick black box sat on the table between her and Reeve. Maeve knew what it was at once. Something that should, and did once upon a time, thrill her. But as she suspected, the gown that lay in the dress box was just a punishment wrapped up like a gift. She found no joy in a new garment.
She rolled a new crystal siphon, a larger one Reeve gave her to replace the first one she shattered, beneath her palm on the table, pushing and pulling a small amount of electricity through the smooth ball with her eyes locked on the dress box.
Reeve sat across the table from her, a table that somehow got smaller with each meal they shared, forcing them closer, with one foot propped in his chair, hiking his knee up as he finished an apple.
He watched Maeve reluctantly stand and glide her fingers beneath the lid. With a sigh, she pulled up, revealing just a part of the glittering green gown nestled on white satin. She closed the box at once, shielding it from view, and looked at Reeve.
“It’s a dress for this evening,” she said rigidly.
“I can see that,” was his casual reply.
Maeve rolled her neck. The crystal siphon, still gripped in her palm, shot a few small static bursts of lightning across her knuckles.
“I don’t want to wear green,” she whispered, stepping back from the box and retaking her seat. “I don’t want to wear anything.”
Reeve grinned. “Thank the heavens.”
She frowned at him. At his carefree position. Unconcerned and unworried that in just a few hours, Mal would be at the Celestian Palace. He’d have her cornered again. Would he torture her further? Or would he not even glance her way?
She wasn’t sure which was worse. His cruel attention or his apathy.
Mal’s Magic seeped from the box on the table, and her throat turned to ice. The message was clear. She would wear the dress he desired to see her in, or there would be consequences.
The sound of her bones snapping, then Zimsy’s bones snapping, popped in her ears.
Her disobedience. Her defiance.
Consequences.
Her arrogance released Shadow. It was her fault Mal had fallen.
She was the catalyst for all the horrible things that happened that night in the Throne Room. What if she had just given him the spell? Could she have spared Zimsy the torture she’d endured? Her life, which Maeve was still uncertain of—
Her heart kicked, no, shot into a race, as though she was suddenly being hunted for sport. Her palms turned slick, and her mouth dried. She shook her head. Then shook it harder, as though she could simply whip out the feeling of his lethal hands on her by squeezing her eyes shut.
They’d be back on her tonight, relishing in breaking more of her bones.
You think I’d stand by and let him hurt you?
Reeve’s voice didn’t sound out in the room. He spoke directly into her mind, something he had not done since she arrived. His words, the velvety smooth way they caressed her scattered mind, were like a dousing of warm water. The thread of Magic connecting them swelled to life, calming her heart with flowing wafts of assurance, drowning out the snapping of bones.
I am weak. If he managed to break me before, when I had my Magic, imagine what he could do now.
Maeve opened her eyes, her gaze cast down at the table, as tears streaked her cheeks.
“Look at me.”
She raised her palm to wipe the proof of her weakness from her skin, but a second command from Reeve stopped her.
“Leave them, and look at me.”
She faced him and lifted her chin, clinging to the warmth the bond between them offered, allowing it to bloom in her chest.Reeve’s face was set in stone. Before her was the wartime High Lord she’d seen on rare occasions.
