“And your threads?”
Etain snapped her fingers, and Bran couldn’t stop himself from screaming as the threads tying his lips together were practically torn free, leaving numerous tiny bleeding holes in his lips. He cupped a hand over his mouth, blood smearing over his palm and chin, saliva welling up around his tongue.
Ainmire’s grip on his hair tightened, and Bran was dragged to his feet by the Fae lord. Head tipped back, pressed up close against a body he didn’t want to touch, all Bran could see was Ainmire’s eyes.
So he spat in them.
Whatever smirking triumph Ainmire hoped to have over him was reduced to a backhand punch that crashed into Bran’s face. Bran took itin the eye with a smile, pain spiderwebbing through his head from the blow. He collapsed to the floor, catching himself on his hands, spitting out blood around a hoarse laugh.
“Would you like me to sew its mouth shut again?” Etain asked with an amused little laugh.
Bran turned his head so he could look up out of the corners of his eyes at Ainmire, watching the Fae lord wipe the spit and blood off his face with a handkerchief. The fury in his gaze was worth the throbbing black eye Bran knew would swell up by morning.
“Damarus,” Ainmire snapped.
“My lord?” Damarus said.
“Take my pet to his room.”
Hands dragged Bran back to his feet and spun him around, the other Fae’s hold as bruising as Ainmire’s as Damarus escorted him out of the great chamber.
“That was quite stupid of you,” Damarus said flatly.
“Not housebroken, remember?” Bran rasped. Talking hurt, his lips still bleeding and swelling up, but he wasn’t going to take their words like barbs when he didn’t have to.
“You will be.”
The threat made Bran want to close his eyes, but he still needed to watch where he was going and what Damarus was doing. It was a matter of minutes for Damarus to bring him to the door of that horrible little room with its false sense of comfort. Bran couldn’t help the way he dug in his heels, just for a second, the weakness something he couldn’t help after everything.
But Damarus was stronger, and it was no great effort for the Fae to shove Bran through the doorway and slam the door behind him. Bran stumbled over his feet, and here, at last, he let himself sink to his knees on his own accord, pressing his forehead to the thin area rug, gasping for air and wishing betrayal didn’t hurt so badly.
Cillian was Fae.
Bran was a witch.
He couldn’t reconcile the two just then, not after a lifetime of knowing what he stood against, what he stoodfor.
Bran wanted to scream out his horror and shame and anger, but he refused to give the Fae the satisfaction of hearing him break down.
Sniffling through a swelling nose, Bran lifted his head and crawled across the floor to the bed. He leaned his back against it and stretched out his legs, shaking hands resting on his thighs. He stared blankly up at the wooden ceiling, aching and hurting, but his heart was the worst of everything.
After all these years, this wasn’t the answer Bran was looking for when it came to Cillian.
But even knowing what Cillian was, Bran couldn’t leave him behind.
Didn’t even want to.
He laughed, the sound ugly and bitter-tasting, before it turned into a choked sob. Bran scrubbed at his face, flinching when he pressed too hard on the wounds there.
He was losing everyone in his life who had ever mattered.
He might even lose himself.
“Mother, guide me true,” Bran whispered, praying to the deity his coven had followed and the one he hadn’t yet had a chance to bury.
Bran stayed there on the floor through the night, unable to sleep, staring out the window at the darkness that slowly lightened as day approached. For once, he didn’t want to see a sunrise, but it came anyway, inevitable in its breaking dawn.
Sometime later, when the light outside was clear and bright, the bedroom door was unlocked and opened. Damarus stood in the doorway, long hair falling loose to his elbows. He was dressed how he had been for the forest, the outfit meant for a day of riding.
