That knife which rent skin so easily kissed the side of his throat beneath the root. A stinging pain heralded a tiny trickle of blood sliding down to stain his T-shirt. The pressure in Cillian’s lungs grew and grew until the root around his throat finally loosened. He drew in a ragged gasp, mouth and throat so terribly dry. Bran stared at him with wide eyes, still held in the Fae lord’s grip.
Ainmire finally let Bran go, his attention back on Cillian, where Cillian preferred it to be. On his knees, Cillian had no choice but to tilt his head back to meet the Fae lord’s eyes in that beautiful face. Unlike with Bran, Ainmire didn’t touch him. “You care for this witch.”
It was a statement, not a question. Cillian didn’t respond.
Ainmire studied him with an intensity he couldn’t turn from, not with the knife at his throat. “Such skin you wear.”
“My lord?” Damarus asked. “Your orders?”
“Take him to the cells. He’ll live for now.”
“And the witch?”
“The witch stays with me.”
“No,” Cillian snarled, pressing forward despite the knife at his throat. Surprisingly, Damarus shifted his grip and didn’t cut Cillian’s throat with it.
“If we’re prisoners, then I’m staying with him,” Bran said.
Ainmire laughed, sounding cruelly amused as he turned toward Bran. “You speak as if you have a say in what happens. You will stay, witch, and you will obey like a good little pet, or your companion will die on my say-so, at my whim, whatever it may be.”
The root drew tighter around Cillian’s throat, and he gagged. Bran stared at him with such a bleak expression that Cillian wanted to tell him it was okay, to not worry, but he couldn’t find breath to shape those words.
“Fine,” Bran said desperately. “Just don’t hurt him.”
“Pets don’t give orders. You will do well to learn that.” Ainmire approached Bran again, divesting him of the roots with casual touches that dragged over Bran’s body. Bran went rigid, and an icy knot of anger bloomed in Cillian’s chest. “I will show you where he will stay and what will happen if you disobey.”
Cillian didn’t like the sound of that, but he wasn’t in any position to protest. Damarus slid the knife away and hauled him back to his feet by way of the root wrapped around his throat. Cillian could do nothing but follow where it pulled, and it pulled him back through that eerily beautiful mansion and down into a circular underground room that smelled of blood.
Six cells surrounded a center space cluttered with all manner of instruments and devices Cillian refused to let his mind linger on. Damarus led him to the third cell, and while the first one was empty, the second one was not. Cillian only got a brief glimpse of someone huddled in the corner, tucked as small as their body would allow, before the root around his neck and wrists was sliced clean through by that dangerously sharp knife Damarus wielded. Then, he was shoved rather unceremoniously into the cell.
Alone.
He caught himself before he fell, turning around and throwing himself at the bars as the door clanged shut. Cillian banged his fist against one of the bars, hand aching from the blow. “Let me out.”
Ainmire only smiled at him. “I take no orders from you.”
Cillian wrenched his gaze to where Bran stood, hands clenched into fists and face far too pale beneath the dirt and grime from their passage through the wyrding. “Are you all right?”
Ainmire stepped between them before he could answer, blocking Bran from Cillian’s sight. He was apparently unconcerned with Cillian’s desire for murder right about then. “Truly, you are a sight to behold. Such joy it brings me to see you like this.”
Cillian wished the bars he was clutching so tightly were the Fae lord’s neck. “Don’t you dare hurt him.”
“He only comes to harm if you try anything. The same rules apply to the witch. You are each other’s salvation or damnation, so choose your path wisely, Cillian.”
Ainmire turned from him and left the way they’d come, Bran following after him at the point of Damarus’ knife. Bran looked back at Cillian with wild eyes as he was forced out of a room that was more in line with a dungeon.
“Hey!” Cillian shouted, trying to shake the cell bars loose in his fury, but they wouldn’t budge. “Hey! Bring him back!”
The door closed behind Damarus with a squeak of hinges, and Cillian swore, slamming his fist against the bar once more. He shoved himself away from the cell door and had to flail his arms as his feet suddenly skated over something smooth and slick, providing no traction to his hiking boots. He looked down at the dirt floor, staring at the patch of cracked blue-white ice that covered the ground where he stood, the jagged edges of it extending farther into the cell, some of it crawling up the walls.
His breath came out in soft white puffs, the air in the basement suddenly exponentially chillier. Cillian carefully stepped off the ice in favor of solid dirt, cold in a way he rarely was, as he realized that no one had told Ainmire his name upon their arrival.
But the Fae lord had known it.
Chapter Eleven
Bran’s fingers itched to draw a witchmark, but the memory of Cillian’s face behind a cell door was burned into his mind. He let his magic lie fallow in this place for Cillian’s sake. For now. He needed to find a way to free them both so they could locate Aisling, and the only way to do that would be to pry information out of the Fae lord. Bran wasn’t looking forward to that, not after the way Ainmire had looked at him.
