Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
No, I think. Only at yours.
I need to endure Arcus’s narcissistic, violent behavior until his death. I can endure it until then. And in the meantime, I can take my pleasure while pretending he’s in control.
There is something delicious about knowing a repugnant person’s death is close at hand.
I lift one leg to draw him closer, and he groans. “No, no, fair Cenere. I wouldn’t spoil you for the surprise.”
I mewl with feigned disappointment. “You would deny me your magnificent cock?”
He laughs, the sound of a well-stroked ego. “I have something you’ll find… not better, but more interesting, I think.”
Before I can sit up, I find myself standing, clinging to Arcus in a dank, windowless room. The walls are coated in damp, with algae dripping down from the cracks between the slime-blackened stones. In the center, only steps from us, is a pool of blue, illuminated like the water from the faery bath. It casts rippling shadows on the ceiling and walls, and across Arcus’s suddenly stern face.
“You made quite a spectacle of yourself in front of my court.” His voice is laced with venom. “Wantonly cavorting with mermaids.”
My brow crumples with confusion. There was no understanding between us then, and even if there were, isn’t wanton cavorting what this court is about? “I apologize, Your Majesty. I never thought—”
“You participated while my son rutted with your mate in the gardens,” Arcus goes on. “Do you think it appropriate to make yourself a whore to everyone in my court?”
I shake my head, open my mouth to protest. “Your Majesty—"
“It won’t happen again.” He grips my chin roughly and forces me to meet his furious glare. “And you will call me by my name. I don’t wish for you to fear a king. I wish for you to fear me.”
I do. I don’t have to pretend for him. In this moment, alone, in this dungeon-like room, I can do nothing but quake with fear. “I’m so sorry, Arcus.”
His touch turns gentle, petting my hair and smoothing a tear from my cheek that I didn’t know had fallen. “It’s all right. I know that it will never happen again.”
I exhale in relief.
“Because you’ll learn your lesson,” he adds, and I see the immense satisfaction he takes in my renewed fright.
Something brushes my ankle, then squeezes hard. I look down to see a thick, dark red tentacle snaking from the pool to wind around my leg. Instinctively, I try to shake it off, then wish I had not, for my terror will please the king greatly.
“Since you so enjoyed your time with the mermaids,” he says with a dark chuckle, “this seems a fitting punishment.”
“Arcus—” I begin to plead, but the tentacle jerks and pulls me into the water.
Chapter Twenty Seven
I am drowning.
My lungs burn as I try to stop myself from breathing, but all the air escaped me on a startled shout when my feet were ripped from beneath me. I try to shake loose from the tentacle’s grip, but it holds me firm. I can’t swim to the surface, anyway; my gown is too heavy now that it’s wet.
Through a haze of bubbles stirred up by my own futile thrashing, I see the creature that holds me. I cannot put a name to her, for I’ve never seen anything like her. Translucent white skin on a human-like upper body fades into a flush, throbbing purple-red that unspools into a jumble of the fearsome tentacles. She has no hair, but her head ends in a hanging sack of the same visceral crimson, and her face...
She would be beautiful, if her eyes did not glow like coals, if her smile was not a gaping maw of needle teeth. I cannot scream at the sight of her, and it is the worst kind of torment.
The tentacle she grips me with releases, and I flail to the surface, gasping. Arcus stands over me, no emotion on his handsome face. I open my mouth to plead with him, but I’m pulled down again.
This time, the creature reels me in to her, face to face, and scrapes my cheek with her terrible teeth in a crude imitation of a kiss. My blood fills the bright blue water in a muddy violet cloud, and she runs a forked tongue through it. Her human hands grip the front of my gown and she pulls with remarkable force and speed, considering the fact that we’re underwater. I am no match for her strength. I am in her element, totally at her mercy.
Surely, Arcus won’t let her kill me. He said I’m to learn a lesson. That what I did before won’t happen again.
Those words sound less like a guarantee of safety now that I reflect on them.
My body begs for air, and, as if the creature can sense my need, she pushes me back to the surface. The cold stings the cut on my cheek. And still, Arcus merely watches. He doesn’t seem pleased or aroused or even interested. He’s simply...watching.