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He was never some gentle, understood beast that needed someone to come and show him and the rest of the world, that he could be good after all. No ... he was evil through and through.
If he could do this to a fae, to any of her people, then there was no redemption for him.
Aelwen had to free them and run before she got pregnant and it was too late.
Shaking, she came up to the first cage, trying to yank the door open. It was locked tight, so she looked around for something to help break it down. She spotted a large rock nearby and grabbed it, striking the metal lock with all her strength.
But as soon as the stone struck, a spark of magic shot out from the lock and zapped her hand. Aelwen gasped in pain, recoiling away from the cage.
She'd heard tales about magical locks that only opened through magical means, but she hadn't expected that a vampire king would use them to lock away his prisoners.
Aelwen tried to shake off the sudden pain in her arm and looked around again for something else she could use to open the locks. But nothing seemed to work—not rocks, not sticks or even trying to pick at them with a rusty dagger she found on the ground.
She wasn't going to be able to unlock these gates through mundane means. She needed to use magic.
But the only magic Aelwen had to her name was the power to shift into a fox—a mostly useless ability that she used to escape the notice of other people when she was outdoors. It was how she'd avoided her wedding to Vinir for so long.
She should have kept running.
Tears burned Aelwen's eyes as she backed away from the cage. "I'm so sorry," she murmured to the captive fae. "I'll come back for you. I'm so sorry."
She choked on a sob as she left, trying to stay as quiet as possible as she slunk back to the secret tunnel she came through in case there were any guards. Once she was deep enough into the passage that she was sure she was safe, that was where she broke down.
How could she have ever thought that Vinir was anything but a monster?
She had to confront him about this. Whatever he did to her, whatever indignities he would inflict upon her for sneaking around, she had to go to him and make this stop. She would do whatever it took to free her people.
Chapter 8 - Vinir
Two armed guards dragged the fae with the glowing red stitches out onto the stone slab, locking his wrists in place so that he would be restrained for this procedure as well. Vinir watched from a distance, a worm of guilt burrowing in his gut and trying to make him change his mind about this.
Roland had told him time and time again, that magic wouldn't work to fix his curse. The only magic that would work was the kind that couldn't be commanded.
Love.
Was Vinir a fool for dismissing his friend's advice?
Or was Vinir a fool for even considering it an option?
He had come so far. Months of preparations and failed experiments to get to this one fae who had finally survived the trials. If Vinir harvested him now, they should have more than enough magic to cure him of his curse. Assuming it was possible at all.
What if it wasn't?
Vinir growled in the back of his throat. Damn Aelwen for swooping into his life and making him doubt everything. He was supposed to be the cruel heartless king who would do whatever he wanted and whatever needed to be done to win, to succeed. Instead, she sowed all of these doubts in his head, forcing him to believe that maybe there was another option.
Maybe she was that option.
She was the only one he'd touched and hadn't burned. Did that mean something or ... was he reading too much into it?
He wanted to make amends with Aelwen, but he didn't know how. She'd been avoiding him and for good reason.
But he knew if he went forward with this experiment on one of her people, if she found out about the fae he captured and tortured down here—or had, before her arrival and she changed him—then she would be lost to him.
Could he risk that?
Everything about this damn woman was so fucking confusing. But he knew he wanted to try and that ... that had to be enough.
"Stop," Vinir commanded. The guards ceased buckling the fae man to the table, glancing at him with questioning stares. "Free him. Free him and all the fae prisoners."
