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I’ve done my best not to look directly at him since I realized he could understand my thoughts, but I chance a glance at the cold creature leading the way.
It wouldn’t do to let him find out that his beauty is so blinding it makes my brain stop for a heartbeat each time I catch a glimpse. But in the last ten minutes, I’d somehow hoped that I’d exaggerated it in my mind. He couldn’t have such an effect on me. Yet, for at least the third time, I’m struck anew by the sheer preposterousness of something like him existing.
Objectively, Valdred is as gorgeous, but there’s something more…approachable?…to the tanned, blond, golden-eyed prince. Maybe he’s younger. But mostly, he’s warmer.
“Use me?” I manage to say, at long last. “How?”
Those unbelievable eyes, so like the starry night overhead, set on me again.
“I’m not sure yet, queenling. But I won’t let your potential go to waste.”
I suppose that’s as close to I’ll keep you alive as I’m going to get with him.
Which only reiterates that he’s my best option.
“After you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
INTO THE WOLF’S DEN
Darina
Indubitable proof that Ryther is a threat: too lost in those pretty, treacherous eyes, I didn’t even notice that we’ve reached a building.
Not a tent, unlike all of the other makeshift accommodations littered around us, but an actual white, flat-roofed edifice, build in something smooth, a little like marble, with vines and thorns running through it.
Set over one story, it has no door or windows; just one high, arched entryway beyond which I can’t see anything but darkness. It’s beautiful, though there’s no denying the edge to it. Like everything here, it seems sinister. Dangerous.
Wild.
We’re several yards away from the other camps, and there are no lights save for the two torches to either side of the entrance.
Now that I’m here, I’m not entirely sure I want to go inside, alone with him. A rush of fear and anticipation runs through me at the thought. Because there’s very little doubt of what will happen the moment I’m left alone with that man. That thing. I glance back at Valdred, who stands at a distance, eyes narrowed in concentration.
His expression changes as I watch, cementing my first impression of him. He’s playing an angle. Once he knows I’m looking, he seems concerned, rather than calculating.
I bring my hand to the crook of Ryther’s elbow. The movement is instinctive; I don’t even decide to do it. But as I do, I start to see a pattern forming in my behavior towards both of these men.
Valdred wants something from me, and I inch closer to Ryther. Ryther wants something from me, and I want to run away, screaming. Valdred chimes in again. Rinse, repeat. But there’s no denying that I’m better off as a pawn between those two than alone, at the mercy of people like Junis, or the redcap with his filed, bloodstained teeth.
I shiver.
They’re my only two friends—of a sort—in this entire world, and I’m not deluded enough to believe that either of them is even remotely good. I’m stuck between two forces of nature. But only one of them proved willing to take advantage of me tonight. The other promised me a night of relative safety.
“Don’t gloat,” I mutter, though Ryther’s expression is as blank as the stone of his lair.
Maybe it’s the darkness, but lair seems more befitting than house.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he drawls, humor tinging each syllable.
“I’m only coming with you because you’re the lesser of two evils,” I make myself spell out, for the both of us.
“Oh, trust me, queenling. I’m the greater one.”
I take those words as the warning they are. Before I have a moment to think on my actions, he steps forward, bringing me with him as he crosses the threshold.
A wave of something thick and material, like water, passes through me, not unlike when Junis forced me through the portal, and on the other side, there was nothing.
