Page 91 of A Dance of Water

She blinked up at the white, fluttering canopy around her bed, feeling something cold trickle down her cheek. Pressing a hand to her skin, Luella felt tears on her skin.

Luella couldn’t bring herself to go into the bathing pool.

The water rippled softly, the room smelling faintly of lavender and roses. It was warm and inviting; she was cold and lonely.

Yet, she could not find it in herself to enter the water.

Nude, she shivered, her white hair falling in frizzed curls.

After she had fallen asleep next to Bastian, she had slept through the night and the whole day, time slipping through her fingers like sand.

Once more, whatever strangeness she had dreamed escaped her.

All except for a name that lingered like smoke—Caliban.

And feelings that left her more cold than the memory of drowning beneath snowy ocean waves.

The dark water of the bathing pool made her chest seize… She wrapped her arms around her middle, hugging herself in the privacy of her bathing chambers.

Her throat ached, lingering effects of her attacker’s crushing grip. But that didn’t stop her from whispering a soft secret into the dimly lit space…

"I’m broken."

28

VENGEANCE

AZ

Blood sprayed on Azgorath’s skin as his fist hit against the captive’s jaw. A tooth clinked against the stone floor as it was forced from the fae’s mouth.

"Fuck, yes. Good hit," Tharen commented as he lounged by the side of the room. Az waited for the mage to start clapping as his amber eyes shot to the Prima, a sardonic snarl curving on his lips.

Graves wiped his blade on the edge of his cloak, uncaring that he was dirtying himself with enemy blood. "The King should arrive shortly."

Az wiped the sweat from his brow, leaving streaks of red on his tanned cheeks. He sighed heavily as he viewed his handiwork.

The fae male was drenched in water, shivering and broken, and cut in a litany of scars. Skin hung from his torso in strips. Fingers broken and twisted and smashed. A knife stuck out of his thigh, crusted blood stuck to the hilt where Graves had forced the male to swallow it down before stabbing him in the leg. A large smile was carved into his mouth.

With the slower healing of the fae, he was left to hang in a state of near death, at the mercy of them to mete out his fate whenever they so wished.

"Fun’s over then, beast." Tharen walked forward and slapped a hand on Az’s chest.

"I still get the killing blow?" the demon asked.

Tharen rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yes, I assume so."

Graves began straightening his cart of sadistic instruments. "If the King allows it." His words were low under his cowl.

"You told me I would," Az snarled.

"Idid," Graves responded. "The King must give his permission."

Blood-soaked, his muscles straining with violent exertion, Az turned his fury on the male. He eyed the amulet that glinted on Graves’s chest. Then, he surged forward, gripping the stone.

His breaths were warm between them, and Graves’s deep blue eyes didn’t falter—even as Az felt his breath stutter when he wrapped his hand around the stone, tugging until the chain cut into his neck.

"What would you do without this?" Az hissed. "Without your protection?"

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