Page 80 of Spellbound
“You didn’t even want him,” I snapped but wished I hadn’t. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair.”
She lifted her hand as if to push me but stopped herself. “This is my room.” She blew out a tense breath. “You should leave it before I decide to throw you through the window.”
I gulped. “Thought you needed me.”
“Only alive.” Steady, cold rage guided her tone. “Alexander can heal you should you step out of line.”
I glanced from her to the window, not wanting to be told twice. I hightailed it out of the room and found myself standing behind the now-closed door to her bedroom. I ran straight for the front door, pushed it open, and found a hundred steps leading down to the meadow, among the forest crowned by mountains. Glancing behind me, I decided to brave it and pushed a foot outside, but I was forced right back in again.
“What the—” I tried again but was forced back inside as if an invisible barrier surrounded the house. I closed my eyes. Of course, that was exactly what it was. Alexander must’ve been one powerful warlock to be able to cast a barrier spell and heal my head earlier. It was probably why she kept him around. Although, it did show her threat of throwing me out of the window was empty, considering I couldn’t even step outside.
After closing the door, I stormed back inside. I kicked the corner of a rug that covered the polished floorboards of the living room. Skulls from various animals were hung decoratively on the wood-paneled walls. Dusty, yellow lamps emitted an orange glow from the two corner tables next to a four-seat cream sofa. A painting of Freya, shrouded in silk upon a horse, hung above the unlit fireplace. Her eyes seemed to follow me around the room as I paced.
I left the living area and ambled through a barely used kitchen with what appeared to be oak countertops and an old stove with an empty teapot on it. I continued out, moving through another door and down a narrow hallway until I reached a well-lit, windowed room, like Freya’s. In it, an easel stood in the center over a blue rug, and paintings of all different colors cluttered the walls. At the back, a twin, unmade bed sat under an erotic painting of Alexander and Freya.
I almost knocked into a box of open paints as I walked past a mahogany cabinet. Alexander was looking out the window but turned his dreamy gaze toward me. “The sun will set soon.”
My eyebrows knitted together. “Okay.”
“You should see it. It’s the best time to capture the beauty of the transition of day to night.”
“You know what else is beautiful?”
He turned on his heel, tilting his head. “What?”
“Freedom.”
“Ah.” He nodded in understanding. “I cannot let you out of here, I am afraid. It is up to Freya when you leave.”
“You’re just okay with her doing this?”
“I love her,” he said simply, as if it were the answer to everything.
I admired his many paintings of sunsets and mountains, of skulls, roses, gunshot wounds somehow painted to appear pretty, and a variety of poses of Freya. Some captured parts of her face under different lightings. “The wound.” I pointed at the painting of the hole in a shoulder, where blood-spattered paint dripped down into a rose. “Was that what I did?”
He nodded. “I paint all parts of my life. Even the ugly,” he explained. “Then I make it look beautiful.”
I stepped in front of his current piece on the easel. The paint was barely dry. “Is that me?” I could feel the blood drain from my face as I stared at an oil painting of myself lying on the ground outside the mansion, blood pooling from under my head. A shattered vase lay around me, its shards pointing inward. “Wait, you were the one who hit me.”
“Yes.” He hid nothing in his expression. Pain tore through his forced smile.
“Why?” I sighed. “Let me guess, love? Or revenge for shooting you?”
“Because Freya asked me to, but let’s call us even now.”
My anger bubbled under the surface. “I shot you because you were threatening my friend. You knocked me out to kidnap me. Those are two totally different scenarios,” I growled, then grabbed the painting he’d done of me. I ran my hand along the paint until the colors ran into each other. I waited for him to react, but he just stood, watching.
“You’re insane.”
I could have laughed if it wasn’t so damn ironic. “Me? You do realize you’re in love with a psycho who eats people.”
He placed a finger in the air as if to stop me. “She eats souls. Not them. Although, sometimes she will eat their hearts, but rarely.”
“You do hear yourself, right?” I laughed sardonically. “Am I trapped in an alternate reality where this is normal?”
He shook his head, shoving his hands into his deep pockets, and walked to the painting I ruined. “I can still fix it.”
“You.” I pointed at him with bulging eyes. “You are the insane one, for the record.”
