Chapter 2: His Crimson Eyes

Scarlett

The Nightshade carriage was constructed like a coffin.

Polished black wood, velvet-lined interior, no windows—just a thin bar of filtered moonlight spilling from the crescent blade and thorned crown symbol cut in silver along the ceiling. Crescent blade and thorned crown. The crest of the Nightshade Dynasty.

My new master's home.

I bound wrists still bound but now bound in silk cord rather than silver. A double deceit of mercy. Legs bound around me, arms bound over my chest, and yet still no manner how I bound myself up alone, still the air was too thick—too cold.

There stood Kael in front of me.

Prince of Night. He hadn't said a word since I signed the Blood Contract. Not even a look. Not necessarily. Just stared off into space in front of him, gloved hand resting on the hilt of the sword at his waist.

I sat in silence, attempting to learn more about the man I'd bonded myself to.

His face was smooth as well, blade-cold as the slickest of lies—splinter jawbones, glass-jawed jaw, jet-black as wild-haired over his forehead. His eyes, though, were the ones that murdered me. No longer indigo. No. When he glared at me, they darkened—inch by inch, unbileabingly—into red.

Sparkling.

Breezing.

Hunger-sunken.

"Do I scare you, little fire?" he drew close, whisper-thin voice low, steel-worn silk-smooth.

"No," I lied.

He smiled. Not quite. A curve of his lip.

"Good. Fear's sweeter when it comes a little slow."

A shiver ran down my spine. My teeth ground together. "Why on earth did you buy me?"

Amusement danced in those cursed eyes for a moment. His head shifted an infinitesimal amount. "You signed the contract. I owe you nothing."

"And yet you still go and buy presents for them," I snarled.

His smile fell.

The room grew cold.

I hardly had time to blink, he was sitting facing me in the carriage. Next, he was hunched forward on his hands at my knees, fist closed round my throat—neither closing off, nor strangling, but holding.

Mastering.

"You sound like you need punishing," he gasped, breathing as cold as an Arctic blast.

I didn't breathe.

I didn't move.

My heart deceived me, thumping in my ears. I could feel his power now—siphoning out of his body, encircling my form with shattered chains. He could snap my spine. Siphon me of life. Enslave me.

But he didn't.

He bridged the space between us instead, his breath on my lips, fangs inches from view.

"I bought you because your blood is the siren's call. Because there is something dark and ancient fermenting just below the surface of your skin, I would like to know if it is something that can be purchased. Or something that must be unraveled."

I growled.

"There is no love here," Kael growled, flaring blazing eyes into mine. "You are not my consort. You are not my queen. You are mine. And until I tell you otherwise, you will be at my mercy."

He stepped back from that, as quickly as he'd stepped forward.

As if nothing had occurred.

But something had.

And every inch of me recalled.

The carriage jerked to a stop.

With the sudden silence, I was attuned to the whisper of cloaks and muted, whispered prayers of slave supplicants far away. The door creaked on hinges to open onto a menacing stairway of black stone sloping away from a palace skyscraper that seemed carved from the very tip of the dark crystal.

Kael never glanced back.

"Go, flame," he said to me. "Your new life begins now."

***The Nightshade Palace was lovely. And ghastly.

Cold and thin, thick with silences that choked. Portraits lined the walls—vampires with lantern eyes aglow and painted mouths red mouth to lip by blood, featureless and smiling. Courtiers ran up and down the halls in silk gowns, their rolling eyes me full of contempt and awe and evil.

Kael was at the head. I came behind.

My feet glided silently across black marble floors. My bonds vanished, but the brand on my wrist—the one that aches with pain each time I sign the contract—sears with heat like an open blister.

The Mark of the Bound.

Each servant who passed by me bowed his head. Each noble regarded me as a booty. And I couldn't help but wonder if any of them might have wondered if I would live very long.

He drew up to an obsidian monolithic entrance in the East Wing.

"This is your bedroom," he said to me, not even looking at me. "You'll remain here until I summon you."

I swallowed. "And if I don't?"

His smile did not reach his eyes. "Then I'll ensure you never walk again."

My throat constricted.

"Tomorrow your work starts. You will smile in court, on my instruction, kneel on my instruction, and bleed on my instruction. Do you get it?"

I did not respond.

I could not.

He moved a little closer to me.

I could sense the heat from him, white-hot fury burning behind his perfection mask. And something else, beyond—a barrenness. Ice-glazed urgency I couldn't see.

Ruby's eyes were on mine.

"You are not a lover," he sneered. "You are a servant. An instrument. The sooner you get that through your head, the better this is going to proceed."

And with a sweeping motion of his cloak, he turned and disappeared down the corridor and out of view, leaving me standing there alone in my midst in an empty room where I, a prisoner, had no business being.

I trembled with rage.

With outrage.

With deceit.

From the stillness of something old that was waking within me, enveloping my rib cage like fog, clinging to things I didn't yet possess.

I was not his servant.

I was not his.

I was something else.

And one day. I'd have him on his knees.

To be continued.