Fearless (25 page)

I can do this.

I begin with tugging gently, imagining the bones aligning and knitting together. And with a gentle puff I inflate her lung.

Mela's sharp intake of breath rewards me more than anything else could right now. And it might be the excitement of accomplishing my first real healing, or the thought of how much more there is before Mela is well again, but I
start to tremble. My hands shake first, then all over.

‘It's your power surging through your veins,' Rachana says. ‘Don't be afraid. It's natural and will pass as you accept your discomfort.'

Knowing this helps me feel better right away. Conscious of too much time passing, I refocus on Mela, concentrating on drawing out the steaming, dark, pus-riddled infection from the beast's saliva, then rejoining torn muscles, ligaments, tendons and finally skin. Next I shift my focus to her shredded spleen.

I'm almost finished when Elijah returns. ‘My lady, the king is back at the palace and is presently stabling his horse.'

‘How much time do I have before he discovers I'm missing?'

‘From the stables he will want to shower in his rooms before joining you for the evening meal. We should leave now.'

‘Wait, that's not what I mean. I'm not going back to his apartment.'

Rachana lays a cool hand lightly on mine as I finish healing Mela's spleen. ‘If you do not return –'

I interrupt. ‘You don't understand, I can't return. Look what he did to Mela. I'm not inside the palace now, am I? You can't make me go back. There's a river above us and I'm betting if I follow it, it will take me out of this city.'

No one denies my theory.

‘But, my lady,' Elijah says, ‘there is nowhere you can hide in Skade that he won't find you, and if –'

‘No! You don't know what you're asking, what that monster does to me …' Images I can't stop flood my vision,
images of Luca's face so close I smell his skin while mine burns off like petals held too close to a fire, his eyes raking over my unclothed body, as our deal allows, and his lack of control as he tries but fails to stop his form from shifting in and out of the beast. And then of course the kiss that always follows, his mouth slamming into mine to feed his ravenous hunger to possess me.

Tears sting my eyes, trickle through my fingers. I lower my hands to my lap, and through a moist screen the faces of the three angels swim back into focus. Not one of them is willing to meet my eyes. I inhale sharply, dispersing the tears and, I hope, their pity. ‘I can't return to Luca's rooms and wait for him like a lost puppy, OK? So tell me, do you have a better plan, or do I run?'

Rachana strokes my hair with feather-light touches. ‘My lady, if you do not return, I will not blame you.'

But something's wrong. The air is too thick as it hangs between us. ‘Tell me,' I whisper, my voice sounding hoarse to my own ears, ‘what am I missing?'

Rachana sighs. ‘If you do not return, King Luca will behead Elijah and Lhiam in the palace square as an example to all who betray him. And when he learns Mela lives because you healed her, he will kill her with his own hands and enslave her soul for eternity to the darkest of Skade's penal colonies, perhaps even the demons' pit of perpetual fire.'

My eyes close. My breaths become shallow. She's right. I have to return even though it kills me to do so.
Oh, Nathaneal, where are you? I miss you so much.

‘I fear it is too late already,' Lhiam says sadly. ‘By now for
sure the king will be on his way to his rooms.'

‘No, there must be a shortcut. Are there any secret passageways left?'

Elijah's light eyes brighten with a glint of hope, ‘My lady, can you fly?'

‘No, my wings haven't emerged yet.' I jump to my feet in a panic. It's not fair that these two caring soldiers will lose their lives because of me.

They share a quick glance before Elijah stands before me with his hands held out. ‘I know that to touch you will bring me a judgement of death, but we have come this far.'

‘That we have, Elijah. If you can get me back by doing this, then you have my permission.'

He takes the cloak from my shoulders and hands it to Lhiam, then scoops me up. Lhiam wraps the cloak around Elijah's shoulders, concealing me beneath it. Behind us I hear Mela stir. I poke my eyes over the cloak edge to cast Rachana a pleading look. ‘Keep her safe.'

‘I will do my best,' she says.

‘Will I see her again?'

She hesitates, but only for a blink. ‘You will, my lady.'

29

Ebony

We get back to Luca's apartment with the soft echo of his footsteps ascending the stairs. The three of us look down the corridor at the same time and see Luca, trailed by two Throne guards, on the last of the stairs. I exchange a brief look of relief with Elijah and Lhiam even though I'm not entirely sure we made it without Luca noticing something.

He appears abruptly beside me, his look asking what I'm doing standing in the corridor.

Elijah freezes, a tick in his jaw twitching like crazy. I rub my own chin in sympathy. Lhiam is stoic-faced and silent, which is what he normally looks like, but his Adam's apple bobbing up and down is a dead giveaway.

Luca leans down to say something, his breath burning the tender skin behind my ear. But before he gets a word out, I pull away, turning on him with an angry, frustrated look on my face. ‘Your guards are dogs,' I complain with, I hope, enough attitude to draw his attention entirely to me. ‘I want to see Mela.' I notice Elijah still has my cloak and words dry up in my throat. I swallow and swallow to work up moisture quickly. ‘She should be in my apartment by
now, but these … these
bullies
, refuse to let me leave.'

Luca's eyes shift from one guard to the other. Somehow they manage to keep their steely expressions intact. The pair of guards accompanying Luca arrives and stands back to attention as if waiting for something.

‘Captain, why do you have my lady's cloak?'

‘I threw it at him when he refused my request for the third time,' I explain and, careful not to touch him, I snatch the cloak from Elijah's arm.

Finally Luca nods. ‘Good work, soldiers. Your replacements are behind you. Return to your barracks. You've earned a break.'

They both nod and thank him curtly. The new arrivals step forward and the two pairs exchange places. Watching Elijah and Lhiam leave brings a rush of relief that I'm careful to keep concealed.

Gripping my elbow, Luca walks me into his apartment, closing the doors behind us.

‘I'd like to return to my own room now.' I confront him right away, keeping up the pretence that I don't know what's happened to Mela.

‘Not just yet, Princess.'

‘But you said after three days –'

‘Things have changed.'

Nathaneal.

The thought brings his image. I dispel it as quickly as I can, pulling up barriers so Luca can't get into my head.

‘How?'

But he still notices the light in my eyes and inhales a sharp breath through his nostrils, straightens his shoulders
and moves to the window, yanking the curtains closed. When he turns around he has his temper under control. ‘Have you eaten yet?'

‘No,' I answer absently, my mind still whirling with thoughts of Mela, the lies Luca doesn't stop telling me, and the possibility that Nathaneal is somewhere close enough to bring the troubled look in this king's eyes.

We eat dinner in silence, with Luca watching my every move. I force the food down, one small mouthful after another.

A knock at the door distracts him, at least for now. A guard pops his head in. ‘The designers have arrived, my lord.'

Luca allows them entry and three girls walk in – souls in their late twenties – a brunette and two redheads. The redheads resemble each other and are probably sisters. One has shoulder-length hair; the other has short hair with blonde highlights.

The guard introduces them, reeling off their names, but by now I'm so exhausted they sound too similar, like Cherry, Berry or Kerry. They bring loads of stuff with them, laying rolls of fabric on a makeshift table – muslin, taffeta, tulle, black netting and a roll of sophisticated black lace, while the other guard wheels in a sewing machine.

Luca stokes the fire, then sinks into a leather armchair with his legs on an ottoman, feet crossed at the ankles. ‘The girls are here to prepare you,' he tells me.

‘For what? A fashion show?'

His voice tightens. ‘If you don't fight this, Ebony, you might actually enjoy the process.'

‘What are you talking about? What am I being prepared for?'

The girl whose name I think is Kerry, the short-haired redhead with highlights, rolls out metres of the muslin across the table.

‘Our wedding.' Luca watches me carefully as he announces this. ‘I thought that would be obvious for someone as astute as you are, Princess.'

My gut twists and drops.
Run! But with the secret tunnels destroyed, gates sealed and Mela unreachable, where can I run that he won't find me? Stop me? Punish me?

Think. Why prepare for our wedding now? Does this explain his troubled look?

Luca sinks deeper into the armchair and watches while the girls get started, first stripping me down to my underpants, then taking more measurements than I'm sure they need. They work judiciously, conscious of Luca watching while they cut and pin the muslin, try the garment on me, adjusting the pins where necessary to create the fit and look they're after.

The fabric is itchy and I can't help but move a bit. Kerry accidentally pins me and I wince. Luca pulls her aside and slaps her; the imprint of his palm shines red on her left cheek. I stare at it with my mouth open and spend the next part of the fitting standing stock still while she sticks me with pins repeatedly from having trembling hands. Each time she freezes and looks up at me with me wide eyes. When I don't react after the fourth, her shaking settles and she doesn't prick me again.

After the girls make the muslin dress perfect on me, they
rip out the seams and use it as the pattern to cut out the taffeta and lace. They take turns sewing, but it's still a lengthy process, while I'm standing for all this time in the middle of the room with just undies on and my arms folded across my bare chest.

The girls are not immune to my increasing discomfort. They flick little worried glances at me constantly, and while they too are growing tired, they speed up their work-rate, urging each other on, until at last they're putting a long flowing gown over my head.

It's a perfect fit, soft and silky, with a low, shapely bodice of black lace with tiny off-the-shoulder sleeves over taupe taffeta that flows out from my hips to the floor with a layer of sheer black tulle over the skirt. It's a beautiful dress. The girls smile at me, happy with the finished product.

But Luca's not. He orders the bodice lowered and the waist taken in. It takes three more changes while he stands back and watches, his lips sporadically twitching in amusement at my fruitless attempts to cover myself each time the girls remove the garment for alteration.

It's humiliating and degrading and I hate him more each time his eyes devour my bare skin. And even though Luca keeps the fire blazing, it's now about three in the morning and I start to shiver.

The shivering grows quickly worse. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and imagine Nathaneal walking up behind me, folding his arms around me, his solid chest warming my back, his skin on mine, his breath tickling my neck as he leans forward, wrapping me inside his loving embrace. And my soul purrs.

Caught up in my fantasy, I jump when Luca suddenly appears in front of me. He has a blue dressing gown in his hands and begins to put it around my shoulders, but I'm seething at how long he waited and I take the robe from his hands, spin my back to him and put it on myself.

One more fitting and the dress is finally finished. And just as I think it's over and I can get an hour's sleep or maybe two before the sun starts to rise, the girls take me to the bathroom, where Kerry runs a bath and Terry or Cherry washes my hair.

Luca is pouring himself a drink when the girls bring me back to the lounge room. The sewing machine and all the other dress-making paraphernalia are gone. He sees me, raises his glass and watches as the girls work on my hair, drying and curling and sticking it with glittering stones they tell me are real rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

A knock on the door turns out to be General Ithran coming for Luca. ‘I have to step out for a while,' Luca says.

Finally!

But he orders the girls not to stop working on me until I'm ‘complete', whatever that means.

He hands me a glass box with a sparkling tiara and matching necklace inside, all glittering pink diamonds. It's spectacular, and easily worth enough to feed a Developing Nation on Earth for a thousand years. I want to throw the box at him, shove the jewellery down his throat and run for my life.

When is this nightmare going to end?

Tears threaten and I lift my shoulders and breathe in deeply, blinking them back. I can't fall apart now, not when
I have to find my way out of this palace before this farce of a wedding takes place. And once I'm in the streets, I'll get out of the city and make my way to another province, somehow disguising my appearance and hiding where Luca won't be able to find me. If I can't return home to Earth, or be with Nathaneal on Avena, then living alone, in a mud cabin or a cave deep inside a mountain, would be preferable to being Luca's wife.

The door is closing behind him when I call out, ‘When?'

He glances over his shoulder, his green eyes seizing mine and instantly bringing visions of the last few nights in his bedroom, in his bed, the heat from his body burning my skin, his insistent sensual mouth, his eyes devouring me, changing to yellow, his body morphing to and from the beast.