Page 71 of The Night Prince

My head fuzzy, I start to form a plan.

I pray to any goddess that will listen for the strength to survive.

I pray that Callum is okay, and Blake knows I’m gone.

I’m sure that both of them will try to find me. I only hope they get here before it’s too late.

***

Where is he?

The torchlight flickers. The hours bleed together. I shiver on the cot with my knees pulled up to my chest. Everything in the cell is damp—the walls, the sheets, my dress. I ache with the cold.

I have felt like a prisoner for most of my life, but my gilded cage was very different to this one. I want to feel the sun, and the tickle of pine-scented wind on my face. The hike to Dawn’s Craig, where the earth muddied my hands and the airwas so crisp I could taste it, feels like a lifetime ago. I’m not sure how much time passes by, only every drip seems to count down to the inevitable. I’m going to be sent to the Borderlands—a fate that may be worse than death. Or perhaps James merely means to execute me to antagonize Callum.

At one point, a man in a blue kilt, his fair hair tied into a knot atop his head, passes me a hard bread roll through the bars. I recognize him from Madadh-allaidh. Duncan, I think his name is. I ask him what’s happening, where James is, what James plans to do with me. He answers each question with a grim smile before turning his back and heading up the stairs.

I wait, my jaw clenched, for James to appear and seal my fate. I wait for Callum. I wait for Blake. Insecurities gnaw at my insides like the rats that scurry through the dungeons, their little feet tapping against the stone floor. Hunger hollows my stomach. My head thumps and I don’t know whether it’s dehydration or the onset of the short bursts of fever that keep washing over me.

Why hasn’t Callum come?

I see faces in the shadows—midnight hair and feral eyes and taunting smiles. Blake haunts me. The darkness shifts, and I think it’s him. Screams echo through the dungeons, even though I’m alone, and I hear the scrape of metal scalpels and Blake’s laughter. I wake, tangled in the sheets, whimpering. Darkness rages inside me, cold and endless, and it tastes like pine and poison.

I vow to myself, to the Goddesses of the Sun and the Moon, that I’ll survive this. Callum will end James and take his throne. I’ll break the bond with Blake, and never return home to the south. We will both be free.

Yet Callum is not here. I’m alone.

I don’t know whether it’s day or night when footsteps approach. For a moment, I let myself imagine it’s Callum and he has come for me.

There you are, Princess. You didn’t think I’d leave you alone, did you?I imagine his thick Northlands voice, warm and comforting. I imagine his arms around me, and the solid safety of his body.

Duncan shatters the illusion. He is flanked by two men in green kilts, who enter my cell, grab me under my arms, and drag me into the corridor. My legs barely support me as they escort me up a narrow stairway. I’m cold and sweating as something wild inside me tries to surface.

“Where are you taking me?” I gasp.

“Quiet.”

Noise hits me as soon as we reach the ground floor. Shouts infiltrate it from outside. I’m pulled past a window, and catch a glimpse of men guarding the building, their swords glinting in the moonlight. My heart beats faster.

I’m dragged around a corner, through some double doors, into what could have been a ballroom once. My heart almost stops. The room is vast and moonlit, and the wall is half torn down on one side. Cold wind blows through it and rocks the dusty chandelier. Six men sit around a long table.

James sits at one end. He leans back in his chair with his legs slightly parted in a display of dominance. His shirtsleeves are rolled to his elbows to display the floral tattoo on one of his arms.

Robert sits beside him—the alpha of the clan who wear green tartan. He’s a huge male with a shaved head who took on the role of the Wolf King when James was absent. He leanstoward James and whispers something as I’m pulled closer to them. James grins.

The other men who are facing me—no, the otheralphas—are familiar, too, though I can’t put names to their faces. Dread roils in my stomach. These are the alphas from Madadh-allaidh who support James’s claim to the throne.

I fight every instinct I have to struggle, and keep myself limp. Pliant. Unassuming.

I’m thrown to the floor at James’s feet, and I let myself crumple onto the chipped tiles, my dress pooling around me.

“I thought you wouldn’t kneel before a false king, Princess.” James’s gruff voice echoes around the space. The alphas jeer. One of them growls. “How things have changed.”

Adrenaline crashes through me. This is the male who bit me, who attacked me, who tried to force me to marry him. He’s going to send me to a man who will hurt me. Loathing mixes with my fear. I don’t think I can get away from all of these men, but I want him to know what it is to be afraid.

I take a couple of deep breaths to steel myself.

I launch myself at him like a rabid animal. I expect to knock him off his chair, but his feet are planted firmly on the ground. The chair merely rocks before he grabs my waist. A surprised sound escapes his lips.

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