Page 101 of Savage Blooms
Adam shoved past Finley through the library doors, walking so quickly down the hallway it bordered on a run. He headed for the kitchen, to the closest exit, where his muddy boots had been drying out by the door.
He would come back for Nicola soon, and they would figure something out. They could leave together, or they could tie Eileen to a chair and waterboard her until she released all her secrets. He would think of something,anything. But for now, the bone-deep urge to run was too strong to ignore. It had been building for a week inside him, kept at bay only by the strange companionship he had found with his loves and friends. But now, all the goodwill was gone and Adam felttrapped, trapped in a way so total and so crushing that he didn’t even have the words to express it, and he needed to getout.
Fuck Eileen, and every kind word she had ever given him, every lingering kiss or tight hug or insistence that he was worthy of this legacy, that he deserved to be here, to enjoy the privileges of a life of leisure. And Finley,fuckFinley. Finley who had made him feel like perhaps they could be true friends, who had earned Adam’s respect a dozen times over with his practicality and humor, who handled him with rough, calloused hands and smiled at him in a way that made Adam feel like he was on fire.
None of it was real. Nicola hadn’t been kidding when she called this place a spiderweb. Eileen was the black widow at the heart of it all, wrapping them up in silks and sweetness as she prepared to devour them, and Finley was just her servant, a spider wearing the colors of a friendlier insect to trick passerby into getting stuck.
They had trapped him in a fantasy, one that was only growing darker and more sordid with every passing day.
Nicola had been right. He wasn’t the prince in this story. He was the human sacrifice.
Adam yanked on his shoes and burst through the kitchen doors, ignoring Finley barking his name behindhim. Eileen, hot on both their heels, yelled from the doorway as he stalked across the grass, pleading for him to come back inside. He even ignored Nicola stumbling out behind him into the yard and shouting something about his ring. He needed to be alone, and he couldn’t face her right now, not when he was drowning in the guilt he felt about bringing her out here and involving her in this brutality. He should have left her in America, or put her right back in the car and driven them both to safety the moment he laid eyes on Eileen. He should have known better.
Adam strode out across the green, swallowing down the lump in his throat as the lashing wind brought tears to his eyes. The manor house loomed behind him, ever-present and unescapable, no matter how far he walked.
Craigmar had its roots in him now, and he could feel them burrowing deeper, wrapping tighter around his organs as they called him home. If there had ever been a point where he could return unscathed to his normal life, he had passed it. Maybe the moment he kissed Eileen, or the day he agreed to help her search for their shared family history. Or maybe it had been when he had first set foot on Craigmar soil. The play had been set in motion with his arrival, and now Adam was trapped on stage under the hot lights, doomed to either recite his assigned lines or fall into ruin.
Adam kept walking, with nothing but the rustling tree branches to break the silence, not even sure of where hewas going. But then he heard a voice, high and urgent, cutting through the wind. He slowed and turned to see three specks moving from the house towards him. Eileen waving frantically, trying to call him back, and Finley and Nicola running at top speed out front. It was Nicola who was shouting, over and over again, as though trying to warn him of something.
Adam was never able to make out what she was saying, because the ground opened up beneath him, and a sinkhole stinking of bitter herbs and rot and ancient mineral water swallowed him whole.
Epilogue
The earth wrapped the boy in a loving embrace, cushioning his descent with lichen and loam. Craigmar’s secret subterranean passages opened wide as they pulled him down into the dark and damp. It had been so long since there was a Kirkfoyle beneath the earth, so long since that hot, noble blood had enriched the soil. When the boy ripped his forearm open on a sharp stone as he tumbled into the deepest chambers of the earth, the mycelium and microscopic bugs and filaments of roots from the trees above lapped greedily at his offering, all the sweeter for his suffering.
The boy lay a long while in darkness, still as though in a slumber with his cheek pillowed on moss. Then he groaned, like his body was one big bruise, and cracked open an eye.
The packed earth beneath his feet held steady as he pressed his palms against the dirt, trying to get his bearings. It was dark down here, that unspoiled dark of caverns where no light had reached for centuries, and he was human yet. His eyes weren’t strong enough for the dark, nor glamoured to pierce the shadows.
The bioluminescent mushrooms did their best to glow valiantly for him, pulsing blue light softly through the chamber at the intervals of their shared heartbeat. The boy moved his limbs tentatively, like he was checking for broken bones.
Then, just as the boy was beginning to hyperventilate, taking shallow panicked breaths in the dark, footsteps approached.
Craigmar would know that sound anywhere, the leisurely click of the gleaming boots of their beloved keeper.
The boy heaved in a breath, ready to pull himself to his feet and fight, but suddenly there was a boot on his shoulder, holding him down.
The boy craned his chin up as far as it would go.
The king underground stood over him, all sinuous grace with skin the color of burnished bronze and hair spilling over his shoulders in a cascade of jet. He wore an ankle-skimming black oilcloth cloak, battered from the weather and splattered with mud, and the hunting attire that had been the height of fashion the last time he had ventured aboveground. It could have been ten years ago, or ahundred. Craigmar was too old to keep track of such minuscule increments.
The king gave the boy a thin-lipped smile, his almond-shaped eyes glittering like shards of onyx. They were black all the way through, black as a night without stars.
“Eileen’s eyes,” the boy gasped, only loud enough for the earth to hear.
“Easy, little knight,” the king said, in that voice like icy water, clear and crisp and entirely devoid of human warmth. “No need to draw your blade just yet.”
“Who are you?” the boy demanded.
“I’m the oldest friend your family has,” the king replied.
“I’ve never seen you before,” the boy blustered. He was trying to buy time.
“You might not have seen me,” the king went on, unhurried. This was his domain, after all. He had more time to fritter away than any mortal man could dream of. He could wait until the boy acquiesced, if that was what it took. The boy would get hungry eventually, after all. Thirsty. Starving for warmth and a gentle touch. “But I’ve certainly seen you.”
“When?”
“At night, when you sleep. And during the day, when you were playing your little game of pain with the Kirkfoyle girl by my mushroom ring.”
