CHAPTER 3
Without taking his eyes off of me, Commander Lothbrook turns slightly to call out to the person behind him. With the King of Monsters in front of me, I’d somehow forgotten the other man was still there, “How much of that sleeping draught did you give her Xavier?”
I hear the other man shuffle forward, “Only as much as the physician suggested,” the other voice says, still in shadow, “Why?”
“She seems a little out of it.”
“It’s probably just the irons weakening her. I suspect being disconnected from her magic is quite painful.”
The male in front of me hums low under his breath, considering that. I want to tell them not to talk about me like I’m not here, but I press my lips tightly together.
I can’t let them know that something else is wrong with me. If these monsters find out that I’m not actually Princess Lucia—that I’m not worth as much in leverage as she is— who’s to say what they’ll do to me? What do monsters do to prisoners who aren’t valuable? Torture at best, kill me at worst.
But my sickness…
If I don’t get back to the Palace Healers within twenty-four hours, my illness will take a turn for the worse. Without my medicine, my symptoms will increase until the sickness takes care of the inconvenience of murdering me for them. But there’s no way that I can divulge that information to them. Showing these monsters any weakness is out of the question. Too many tales have made their way from the northern mountains and into the Seelie palace of these nightmares that plague the cliffside. Whispers of how the shifters bring chaos and darkness in their wake.
Their cruelty and ruthlessness are well known. The only way I’ll survive this is by keeping my weaknesses to myself. Feigning power is what’s going to keep me alive. Strength is what will help me survive.
I tilt up my chin, forcing myself to meet his black gaze head-on, “You need to return me home.” I tell him, voice cold.
His deadly-looking canines glint in the firelight as he smiles his amusement, pulling himself back up into a standing position. He’s more smooth, more graceful on his feet than should be possible with his size and his monstrous appearance, “All in good time, darling. As long as your father cooperates.”
He turns his back on me and crosses the minuscule distance to the door in a single stride, “Go ahead and get comfortable your Highness, you’re going to be here for a while.”
The metal door clangs on its hinges as it’s closed behind him followed by the unmistakable click of a lock being turned. The wash of relief flowing through me that the shifter King has left is short-lived. With the torch gone, my eyes readjust to the dim room, stinging against the sudden onslaught of hot tears, my throat tight.
The chains binding my wrists and feet appear long enough to make it to the single bed, but I don’t think I have the energy to get it up there on my own. I lower myself slowly to the stone floor. Pressing my cheek against the rough gritty rock, I search for any coolness leeching from the stone to cool my feverish skin.
Commander Lothbrook may be wrong about who I am, but he’s right about one thing.
All there’s left for me to do is wait.
Wait and hope that my father and sister come through.
I fade in and out with restless sleep. I wake to the sound of footsteps scraping up the hallway. No one enters the cell again, though. A latch I hadn’t noticed opens at the bottom of the metal door and a tray of food is pushed through. The meal is plain—some sort of bland vegetable stew, a ripped hunk of crusty bread, and a tin cup of water.
I send every grateful thought I can muster to the Mother at the sight of the water. My body is covered in sweat and my tongue feels swollen—mouth like dry cotton. The water is lukewarm and tastes like the tin cup it was in, but it is divine on my lips, down my throat. I drink it down in seconds, so fast that a dribble trickles down my chin. I swipe the drop up with a finger and carefully lick it off, not wanting a single bit to go to waste.
The second the water is gone, I’m thirsty again. I want to scold myself for not conserving some of it, but I can’t. It was worth it. My stomach is in knots, but I force myself to eat some of the food that was left for me. I’m going to need my strength to fight off the fever, and I know that soon I won’t be able to eat without my body rejecting it.
I take a few bites of the soup, but my hand is shaking too much to get much of it into my mouth. It sloshes off the spoon and dibbles onto the front of my dress. I finally give up, pushing the tray back towards the door and lowering myself back to the ground.
Time is hazy here in the dark, as I continually fade in and out of sleep. The footsteps only come back to collect the tray when it’s time for them to drop off another meal. Every time I hear footsteps down the hallway, I brace myself for some new horror to befall me, but it never does. If anything, the cell is too quiet. No other prisoners nearby…not even the shuffle of feet outside as any staff passes by.
There are no other sounds aside from my heartbeat and the rasp of my breaths scraping up and down my throat aside from the sound of scraping trays as more food is delivered through the hole in the door. After they deliver the second tray, I can’t even find the strength through my shivering to even drag myself a few feet to the water.
The illness is advancing and soon I won’t be able to keep any food down followed by liquids. It won’t be long until my body begins to reject any attempt at nourishment. Those few short feet I’d need to crawl to get to the tray might as well be a hundred miles.
All I can do is hunker back down against the stone and brace myself for the illness I know is coming.