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Iris tried to stay awake. She didn’t want to be asleep and vulnerable when Micah returned. But she had to close her eyes to hear the whispers better, and the next thing she knew, she heard a scratching sound. The sound of someone writing.
Of him writing.
She lay still for a moment, steeling her nerves before she opened her eyes and sat upright. A flurry of soft golden lights lifted from the blanket and flitted around to prop up the pillows behind her, and she thanked them in a quiet, raspy voice. She could move again, but she was stiff and sore, the burning pain replaced by a dull, generalized ache.
And he was sitting on the other end of the sofa.
His frigid blue eyes met hers. He smirked.
She pulled her legs up toward herself, putting a little more distance between them. “I thought you had research to do.”
“You are my research. How do you feel now?”
“Stiff and sore. The same as I did after I woke up the first time.”
He returned his gaze to the study materials on his lap. The tip of his pencil left an open book and shifted to a loose sheet of paper, scratching out his muttered observation. “Twenty-four hours to recover functionality.”
She watched him for a few minutes as he continued to work. He shuffled the papers around, found something he wanted, marked it out, and then resumed writing in the book, and after a while, he returned to the papers, repeating the process. She realized he took notes as they came to him and organized them when he transcribed them into the book.
There were several sheets of paper, and the book was rather thick, open to about the halfway point. She guessed the papers were about her, but she didn’t think he could have enough material on her to make up an entire book. Not yet.
How many victims were documented in that book?
How many books were there?
She swallowed down bile. She needed to get him talking if she wanted to learn anything. “You’re very thorough.”
“Knowledge is power. Even more powerful than magic. And you are uncharted territory. I’ve never kept a subject alive after two sessions before. I may need to get a few more to do some tests—”
“No!”
He kept his head bowed over the book, but he turned his face toward her, a slow smirk crawling across his lips. “‘No’?”
Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she forced herself to speak again. “No. Please don’t do this to somebody else.”
He sat up straight and shuffled the papers into an even stack, then closed the book over them. “You are too valuable for me to risk making a foolish mistake.”
“B-but you said I’m healing myself, a-and—please, just… don’t.”
“Come here.”
She swallowed again, but she swung her shaky legs to the floor and stood, taking the few tortuous steps closer to him. He watched her come, his smirk growing, and when she perched on the edge of the sofa beside him, his arm snaked out to grab her around the waist and jerk her back against him.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Sweet little Iris.” He chuckled into her ear and kissed her cheek. “So concerned with the safety of others. Did your little dragon friend tell you how negotiations went?”
She shook her head.
“No? Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t want to upset you, after all. But you should know the truth. They were going to give you up, Iris.”
“No, they…”
“You have no allies, Iris. Not among the humans, and not among the dragons. All of your kindness means nothing when somebody thinks they can save their life by destroying yours.”
She clenched her fingers in her skirt. He was lying. He had to be lying. She knew this was part of his manipulation and deceit, part of his game to isolate her and make her believe she was alone.
It still hurt.
She felt his fingers under her chin, turning her face toward his, and she forced her eyes open. There was no life in his cold blue eyes. Just the cold, hard cruelty of death.
“The question of right and wrong doesn’t matter in the end. It’s all about give and take. What you can give, what you can take. What I can give, what I can take.” He released her chin and picked up the amulet, holding the clear glass stone between them. “Except I already own you. There is nothing you can give me I can’t already take for myself. But I’m feeling generous.”
He brought the amulet to his lips and kissed it, and then he held it up to her lips. Her eyes flicked down to it and back at him, knowing what he wanted her to do, sickened at the thought of going along with anything he asked of her.
“Every second you waste is another fairy dead.”
She kissed it without hesitation.
He chuckled and pressed the amulet to her chest, and then he leaned in and kissed her. She held still, wanting to recoil, unable to reciprocate, flinching when his hand came up to cup her cheek.
This was another lie.
It was all lies.
“Did you believe the story I told you about the amulet’s origin, Iris? About it being cut from a giant magical crystal?”
She nodded.
He smirked, brushing his thumb across her lips. “If it really existed, don’t you think I would have found it already?”
The spark of hope in her chest felt foreign when he kissed her again. Knowledge was power, and he thought the crystal didn’t exist, but she knew better. That gave her an advantage, slight though it was.
She still wanted to vomit when his tongue slid inside her mouth.
It didn’t hurt this time. Not physically. But in her mind, every gentle caress was a sharp strike, every soft kiss a spat insult. This was just another part of his torture, another way to break her down from the inside out, piece by piece, until all that remained was a frightened girl who would do as he said without question.
He didn’t know the fear was turning to anger in her chest. He didn’t know every violation reinforced her resolve.
Let him think he was winning. He would never conquer her.
He finally pulled back, a smirk on his lips, his eyes as cold and lifeless as ever. No trace of the desire that darkened Char’s eyes. No flush to his cheeks. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“You don’t feel anything when you do that, do you?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
He laughed. “Not even lust. But you feel something, and you’re mine to do with as I please. Tell me, Iris. When he kisses you, do you think of me? When he touches you, do you feel me?”
She couldn’t answer that, but she didn’t have to. He knew.
And he laughed again.
“It must be so hard for you to lie to him. But if you want him to keep living, then you’ll be a good girl while I’m gone and make him believe you are happy and safe under the protection of your adopted older brother, Jonah. You will do that for me, won’t you, Iris?”
She squeaked the whispered word through her lips. “Yes.”
“And if you don’t…”
He kissed her again, but this time, his fingers dug into her side to the point of pain. She gasped, and he bit her bottom lip hard, then shoved his tongue into her mouth. He pushed her down to the sofa, grabbing her wrists and pinning them above her head. She was afraid to fight him, afraid to let him continue, afraid to move—
And then, as suddenly as his show of aggression began, it ended.
His kiss softened. His tongue brushed over the throbbing bite mark on the inside of her lip, and his bruising grip on her wrists loosened.
He pulled back, hovering over her with that horrible smug smirk while she gasped for air.
“I’ll take what’s mine instead of asking you to give, and I’ll kill a few fairies for fun, too. Do we understand each other?”
She nodded, afraid to even speak.
“Sweet little Iris. So obliging.” His lips brushed against hers again in a soft kiss. “The war calls. Behave yourself until I return, hm?”
The moment the door closed behind him, she rolled onto her stomach and burst into tears. Little bursts of warmth wrapped her in a comforting embrace, and for a few minutes, she just cried. She just felt helpless and afraid.
And then she sat up. She wiped her face dry, and she took a deep, shuddering breath.
“He thinks the crystal doesn’t exist, but it does. He thinks I’m helpless, but I’m not. I will get us out of here. I will.” She clenched her fists at her sides. “Can you get to Char, even if he isn’t here? Can you find him? I’m not sending you away right now,” she reassured the hesitant fairies. “But I can’t let Char keep coming here, and if something happens, I need to know you’re safe.”
One zipped up and down in a nod.
“Good.“ She nodded and took another deep breath. “Tonight, after I'm sure Micah is gone, I have a little magic of my own to do.”
The afternoon passed, and night came, with no further appearance from Micah. She had no way of knowing if he’s really left, but she couldn’t wait any longer.
As she lay in bed, she took a deep breath in and out, closed her eyes, and took the amulet in her right hand. “Where are you?”
The whispers were more audible than when she was being tortured, but they were somehow harder to reach. They were all around her, not in one location, and she didn’t know which direction to take. Their words were nonsense. She tried following one, and then another, only to find that the voice she chased became louder while the rest faded away.
This wasn’t working. She needed all of them.
She took a deep breath and went straight up, away from the whispers, out of her body, up above the tower.
Follow me.
To her delighted surprise, they came, surrounding her the way they did when they pulled her out of Micah’s torture sessions.
Show me where the crystal is.
They led her east, as they had before, flying through the darkness of night. There was no moon; there were no stars. Clouds hid them all from view.
The forest below was silent, devoid even of the occasional rustling of nocturnal creatures through the leaves, and the plains were as still and lifeless as the forest. Brown, lifeless pastures gave way to fields of withered crops on the outskirts of a village.
All the lights were out. Nobody roamed the streets.
A castle came into view in the distance. Iris followed the whispers past more fields of death, over a city, to a stone wall that separated the castle from the commoners..
Why are we stopping?
This is enough for now. You must rest, Iris.
I don’t have time—
They were already leading her back. The scenery below vanished in a blur, and then she was back in her own body, in her own bed, breathless and exhausted.
She released the amulet and let her hand fall to her side as the darkness took her.
She was still tired the next morning, but she repeated the exercise again that night. This time, she made it past the castle wall to the massive front doors before the whispers brought her back.
Every night, a little further.
She was making good progress, but the days were ticking by too fast. Char would return, or Micah would return, and she would have to deal with them. She didn’t know enough to face Micah yet. She couldn’t bear the thought of what she had to say to Char.
It hadn’t quite been a week since Micah left when she heard the knock at the door.
He didn’t knock. Char did.
She had been dreading this.
“Just a minute.” She scrambled to get out of her nightgown and into a dress, and then she took a deep breath and opened the door. “Hello, Char.”
“Hello, Iris.”
His soft smile and tender gaze made her heart twist. He reached out for her, and she flinched back, feeling another stab of pain in her heart at the hurt in his green eyes.
“Iris?”
She swallowed hard and stepped aside for him to enter. “Come in.”
His stride lacked its usual confidence. He scanned the room, and those sharp green eyes landed back on her, seeing right through her. “It isn’t your magic lessons. Something’s wrong, and you need to tell me what it is.”
“You’re right.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, clenching her fists at her side. “I didn’t want to tell you last time because I wasn’t sure, but…” She forced her eyes up to his, forced the words that tasted like acid out of her mouth. “I thought I loved you, Char. I really did. But I know now that I only loved what you did for me, and… not you.”
The shock and hurt on his face were almost more than she could bear. He looked as though she’d struck him, and she felt as though she’d taken a blow, too.
But she couldn’t stop now.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I think you should stop coming to visit me.”
“Iris.”
There was so much desperation and pain in that one little word.
She couldn’t look at him anymore. She turned away from him, swallowing down the lump in her throat and whispering, “Please go.”
“No.” He grabbed her shoulder and spun her into his arms. “You don’t mean that.”
“Let me go,” she begged, pushing back on his chest, but he wouldn’t budge. He felt warm, and solid, and secure, and she hated herself so much.
“I love you, Iris.”
She looked up at him in shock. His lips met hers, but all she could feel was Micah’s kiss, and she shoved him away, tears springing to her eyes. They blurred Char’s anguished face and made her mouth feel thick.
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel that way,” she choked out.
“Iris…”
“Just go!”
He stood frozen for a moment, and then he turned and left without a word.
She threw herself down on her bed, sobbing, her heart breaking into a million pieces. Telling herself it was better this way didn’t ease the pain. She knew he was safer away from her. She knew she had to do it.
But she’d never forgive herself.
He loved her.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmsgtqwIP7f
