“No,” he ground out, heart beating painfully fast, terror locking every joint in his body.
“That isn’t a word pets are allowed to say.” Ainmire turned his head, mouth moving to Bran’s ear, his deep voice a rumble that sent an unwanted shiver down Bran’s spine. “But it’s so much more satisfying when your kind yields because I made you want to rather than to simply take. A challenge, you see. Such things amuse me so, and I think you will amuse me greatly,pet, if only for the hurt you can impart.”
Bran wasn’t prepared to be shoved away with a strength that sent him sprawling to the floor. He rolled to one elbow, staring up at Ainmire, stomach roiling from the Fae lord’s words. Ainmire rubbed his fingers together, glancing down at whatever muck was on them now from touching Bran’s dirty face. “Damarus.”
“Yes, my lord?” the other Fae replied.
“See that he is washed and appropriately attired. He will have the evening meal with me.”
“I’d rather be put in a cell,” Bran said.
Ainmire laughed lightly, no amusement in his voice, in his eyes. “If you wish your friend to eat, then you will dine with me.”
And Bran could do nothing but obey as much as he didn’t want to. Cillian’s safety was worth picking himself up off that rug and leaving the office under Damarus’ sharp eyes. His fingers twitched with the need to cast a witchmark, but Bran didn’t think about any of the ones that could help him. He let the intent die in his thoughts so that Cillian might live as Damarus led him to a tiled bathing room with a clawed tub and several Fae servants waiting for them.
“His lordship wants the pet cleaned up for the evening meal,”Damarus said. The servants bowed their heads in understanding before bustling about the space to start the water. The room was lit by a glass globe overhead, sparkling light giving off illumination. Damarus turned toward Bran, arching an eyebrow. “Strip.”
“Are you going to watch?” Bran asked warily.
Damarus’ smile was a cruel curve. “Pets aren’t left alone until they are housebroken.”
Bran tried not to think about how mortals were treated in the Otherworld. Every use ofpetwas hinting at a life he wanted no part of and wasn’t going to stay in. More and more, his coven’s belief that the Fae were dangerous and cruel was hardening his heart with every second that passed. Bran turned his head and looked at the tub, now filling with warm water from a copper spigot, the servants eyeing him expectantly.
It’s like the gym.
If the gym was full of people who didn’t have the manners to look away.
Bran steeled himself and got undressed. He tried not to think about the eyes on him, focusing on a point on the blue-tiled walls instead. When his clothes were a pile next to his hiking boots, the servants gestured for him to get into the tub, and he went because he had no choice.
The water wasn’t scalding, but it definitely was warmer than he preferred, making him hiss a little. He thought he’d get to wash himself, but the servants approached with soap and oil and cloths. He jerked his arm away from the first servant who reached for him but froze as Damarus’ voice echoed in the bathing room.
“Let them wash you,” Damarus said.
He said nothing else, the command clear in his tone, in his gaze when Bran chanced meeting it for a second. The Fae leaned against the tiled wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the proceedings with a slightly bored expression. At least it didn’t look like he was getting off on the situation, but Bran would have preferred privacy over being made to feel like a child.
Or a pet.
He had no choice but to let the servants scrub him clean of the dirt and grime accumulated from trekking through a forest and dragginghimself through the wyrding. Every time a sponge ran over his sore ribs, he winced. Bran made sure his bracelet didn’t come into contact with any Fae’s skin. The water in the tub became dirty, and he was made to stand so clean water could be poured over him by copper pitchers filled from the spigot until the Fae were satisfied he was clean.
He stood there beneath Damarus’ gaze as the servants went about drying and clothing him in an outfit that was several centuries out of date from where he came from. The pants, buttoned-up shirt, and coat weren’t as elaborately embroidered as Damarus’, but neither were they the servants’ drab clothing.
When the servants finally stepped aside, Damarus came forward, circling Bran like one would circle an animal for sale. The Fae reached out and adjusted the way the coat sat on his shoulders, poking and prodding until he was satisfied with the job the servants had done.
“Acceptable,” Damarus said, turning on his heel. “For a pet. Follow me.”
Bran had no choice but to obey, not if he wanted to keep Cillian safe. Not knowing what was happening in the cells left him to fill in the horrors of it on his own, his stomach roiling into knots. A faint tug on his bond with Jupiter came away with a vast silence of a kind he’d never felt before in all the years she’d been his familiar. She wasn’t dead, only—far away. Bran didn’t know if it was this place messing with their connection or something else, but her absence left him adrift in his mind when he couldn’t afford to be distracted.
Damarus led him through the mansion with the expectation that Bran wouldn’t try to kill him by way of magic. Funny how Bran wore no chains and yet was so incredibly bound.
He was taken to a drawing room on the first floor, where Damarus left him under the watchful eyes of the surviving guard from the forest for several hours. Sitting in silence, with only his thoughts for company as he watched the late-afternoon sunlight darken to twilight through a window, left him feeling anxious and out of his depth.
Damarus returned for him when the sun had fully set, and Bran’s stomach felt as if it was trying to eat his spine. The Fae had changed clothes from the outfit he’d worn for his ride in theforest into a court suit of maroon satin. “Did the pet act out? Cast any magic? Soil the carpet?”
“I’m not a pet,” Bran snapped.
“No,” the guard replied, answering Damarus as if Bran hadn’t even spoken.
“A pity. I’d be well within my rights to cut him if he had.” Damarus gestured at Bran with a bored expression on his face. “My lord is ready for you now. But do tell me if you’ve decided to deny him your company.”
