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And undid it.
The memories of that night spilled out and all those dangling threads of unease rearranged to form images, full color and fleshed in despair.
We were back in the high-ceilinged bedroom at Castle Brightness, in that bed of spiraling gold vines, drunk on lovemaking and liquor. Rogue lay beneath me, tied with the green ribbons he’d promised not to undo until dawn, letting me have my way with him. Putting himself at my mercy.
And Titania is there. Standing by the bed, watching me milk Rogue with my mouth, raking his body with my nails. He’s calling my name, but I don’t listen. She has a hand in my hair and I’m her willing puppet. He thrashes beneath me, but I mount him easily, riding him though he tries to buck me off. Titania and I laugh at his protests. It’s me, taunting him, stealing his seed.
She passes a hand over my forehead and I fall asleep, giggling to myself, as she unties him and takes him away.
Rogue watched me with anguished eyes staring out of the cruel set to his face, seeing me live it again. I groaned, shaking away the agony of the memory. I almost wished I didn’t remember now.
Almost.
I clenched my fists, digging the sharp claws into my palms, clinging to the pain as an anchor of the here and now. In some ways, I hated her most for planting that false memory of lying in Rogue’s arms, feeling sweetly safe and cared for. When I had raped and destroyed him.
“Rogue,” I choked out. Asking for something. Forgiveness. Understanding. Solace.
Titania looked between the two of us, yellow eyes glittering. “So charming. There’s nothing so sweet as a dog’s love for her master and his sense of responsibility for her. Of course he knows her life is a brief flicker compared to his. That’s why he breeds her.” Titania traced the shape of my womb. “Too bad this puppy won’t survive the night.”
Something cool tapped against my thigh, penetrating the roiling haze. Before I formed the thought to wonder what it was, I knew. The vial of dragon’s blood. Immune to magic and not vanished. My only weapon. And as out of my reach as my home world.
What had Rogue said?This is the aftermath.Somehow I’d lost without ever fighting.
Fuck that.
I took all the agony, emotional and physical, and hurled it behind the walls of my mind. The cold silence left behind calmed me. I took a deep mental breath.
“You won’t kill me. You want this baby.” I threw the words at her. A challenge. Rogue flinched but I had nothing left to lose at this point. I intended to fight as the cornered animal I was.
It caught her a little by surprise. Then her eyes narrowed, burning magic rising in tangible threat. “Why would you think that?”
“I saw what you did to Fafnir and Cecily’s baby. What made it inadequate? What are you searching for?”
Titania’s eyes blazed like noonday suns. She grabbed one of my nipples and twisted hard.
I screamed.
She leaned down and placed her mouth over mine, drinking it in, all my trapped magic and life force pouring into her.
I bit down.
Now she shrieked, releasing me and stumbling back, pink blood pouring out of her mouth, the same sticky sweet stuff choking me. I spit it out as best I could. Rogue stood still at the foot of the bed, a statue of himself.
“Rogue, help me!” I screamed at him.
He didn’t move, his mind thick with ropy blackness. But Titania came back at me, power boiling out of her.
And a fluffy white cat leaped on her back, raking her with Herculean claws. The sight tore through me—exhilaration that Darling Hercules had come to my rescue, and utter terror that I’d suffer through his death on top of everything else. My heart froze waiting for Titania to shatter him.
But she wailed, fighting him off with her hands, never quite connecting as he moved in a blur of speed and feline flexibility, never quite there by the time she reached him, snarling in her long hair and scratching like a dervish. Why she didn’t use magic on him immediately, I didn’t know, but I yanked in desperation on the silver cuffs, hoping against hope that I might wrench myself free.
“Hold still!” Starling hissed, brandishing a set of keys. With smooth efficiency, she tried them one by one, as if she had all the time in the world while Titania struggled with Darling.
“Hurry,” I urged her.
“Not helpful,” she snapped back, crawling over me to unlock my ankles.
The final cuff clicked open just as Titania hurled Darling across the room, rage contorting her features. She spun to me.
