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He was pushing a Fae woman into his bedroom, stalking her like it was all a game to him. He didn’t even spare me a glance as she tittered with coquettish laughter and fell across the bed.

I huddled in the corner, clutching his soiled clothing and frozen with fear, as he fell onto the lavish bedding and pinned her beneath him.

His kiss turned vicious, and I heard the soft plaintive whimpers of pain strangled by his lips. Her eyes connected with mine and widened before squeezing shut as his massive hand wrapped around her throat, and he used it to push off her.

“Please, Majesty . . .”

She was struggling to capture that seductive confidence she had when she burst into the room.

“Oh, yes, Lady White Dove, say that more.” He ripped her off the bed and slammed her face-first into the bed.

I winced at the force and began inching my way toward the still open doors of his bedroom, hoping he wouldn’t notice me.

A knife was produced from his leather belt, and he cut down the laces of her bodice. A red poppy of blood bloomed on her creamy back, where he had been a little careless. He bent over her to lick it from her, purring with delight, as he shoved the volume of her skirts up over her bare backside.

I had almost made it to freedom when he finally noticed me.

“Stay. Watch. You should learn how to please me, for when I deem you worthy to entertain me again.”

I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to run. I wanted to slip between the cracks of the stone mortar and fall through the stonework into whatever oubliette this palace had.

I was frozen in place, though. Pinned by his baleful glare as he thrust into. Every time her screams and moans were contorted with pain, I flinched. There was an unseen umbilical cord between this unknown Fae woman and me. And as if it were happening to me, I could feel her pain and misery as the forgotten knife sliding between my ribs.

Angry tears of futile frustration gathered at the edge of my lashes as he slipped free of her slick depths, tiny speckles of blood adorning his proud cock. His eyes never left me, as if challenging me to try and say something.

My chin tipped up, and I gathered every ember of that fiery rage, pulled them into a single inferno that burned through my gaze, and let him feel its full force as he stuffed himself into his breeches to the soundtrack of her soft sobs.

When he strode out of the bedchamber and left the two of us, I still could not move. I yelled at my rigid body to do something useful aside from standing there and tremble in a toxic soup of rage and fear.

I hated myself for letting him see the creamy, tinted, watery depths of my anguish. I hated myself for not taking the dagger he had discarded on the carpet and taking the opportunity to shove it straight through his spine. I hated that, through all of it, I had said nothing. I hadn’t tested The Raven’s promise to guard me. I hadn’t even pushed the edges of the tongue lock. I had just stood there and watched.

When movement returned to me, I went to her and dabbed her cut gently with the hem of my skirt. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to her.

I expected her to curl up against me. I expected her to sob harder. I expected her to go still and quiet. I did not expect her to turn over with hate in her eyes, not a single tear marring her ethereal face.

“Don’t touch me, you disgusting fucking daoire.”

The snap of the back of her hand across my cheek was almost as shocking as the lack of evidence of her plight on her face.

I fell to the bed, shock stealing any smart words from my tongue as she rose, adjusted her dress, fixed her hair, and let evil leak through her angelic face in the form of a sharp curling grin.

“And that’s how you fuck a King. Take notes, daoire girl. Or don’t. Suit yourself.” A false pout pulled at her beautiful face. “I do so hope the next time he decides to demean himself by fucking your throat, he’ll let me watch. Oooh, maybe this time he’ll kill you, and I’ll use your blood as lube while he fucks my ass.”

I blinked stupidly at her, holding the throbbing mark on my cheekbone as she sauntered out of the room. When the velvet bloodred train of her dress slipped out of the doorway, I stared at the emptiness. The silence around me felt heavy, oppressive, as if my confusion and incredulity had stepped from my back and was leaning on my shoulders whispering in strange tongues.

The sound of boots pounding on the wooden floorboards outside of the King’s apartments, stampeding toward me, ripped me from my stupor.

He was coming back. He was coming back for me. Panic, fear, and nausea wove itself into my blood and shot spears of adrenaline through me as I leapt from the bed. Frantic eyes darted around the room, hunting for an inconspicuous hiding place. He would not catch me again. He would not put his filthy hands on me again. I would not allow it.

The bed. The dagger. The floor.

It all happened so quickly. I didn’t register I was snatching the dagger from the lush pile of the carpet and diving under the bed until I was slamming my own hand over my mouth and clutching the blade in my trembling fist. This had worked last time. I had hidden just fine the last time. I could survive this. And if he came for me, I would turn his dagger against him or, if need be, myself. Either way, this would not go the same way.

Dark-brown boots thundered into view, paused at the doorway to the bedchamber, then left. But I could still hear them. They were running down the hallway on the opposite side of the sitting room. Searching. Searching for me.

The jet engine that was my heart roared its anger at the speed of the torrential flood of adrenaline it was being forced to pump through me.

The hand that had covered my mouth slithered down my body to root under my skirts. The Bandrui had said if he came for me again, if I had need, if I was in trouble, to call her with the favors at my side. The Ard Rí was hunting me through his apartments again. If there was ever a time I would need her, now was that time.