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Chapter Seven

***KIERAN ***

Xaden’s magic transports us to the top of the House of Twilight like the crack of a whip. The snow on the mountain in the distance is heavier than ever, flurrying around in the air before my high-arched windows in a thick storm. A horrible winter is coming, one these lands have never known.

I miss when the sky is clear and star-studded. I miss the calmness of the twilight before my bargain.

But another presence makes me feel calm. A darling little doe just beyond the nearing black carved doors.

When I enter my study, the Offering sinks into her chair.

She can’t help it. Even the best warriors of centuries have trouble sticking up to me, staring me down.

It’s fascinating her older sister could. The one trained since birth to destroy me.

Luckily this one was raised to fear me. It will make doing what I need to do so much easier.

I roll my neck at the thought of retrieving her. How she got on her knees willingly and opened her mouth. Knowing such a submission lives in her thrills me. And I won’t fuck her, but the witches never said anything about shoving myself down her throat.

My study has three familiar members. Vienna lays lazily across my distant black piano, Kallias helping me to my wine on the leather couch, and Rhodes, he’s somewhere here.

“I don’t want to fucking hear it,” I let them down as I enter, going straight for the cherry wood bar and pouring two fingers of spiced rum.

Rhodes comes out from the shadows and takes the glass I poured for him. There are bandages on his left hand, bandages soaked in black blood.

Let’s just hope the Offering was too distressed to learn that we do not bleed her color. That we need what runs in hers.

I catch the Offering staring at the bandages, staring at me, just for a split second.

When she notices me noticing her, blood rushes to her cheeks and she quickly looks away from me, to Vienna.

It’s part of the plan to make her think that the Twin’s sister is her ally. Little does she know Vienna is the worst one of all of us.

Cute little darling doe. I’m going to break her.

“What’s your name?”

Everyone in the room knows who I’m speaking to. Rhodes, fucking horny predator, can’t help but lean in and listen to her answer. We’re all dying to know it, all dying to fantasize fucking her. There are plenty of women for us at court but we are tired of them.

The little doe doesn’t speak. Refuses to look at me.

The submission makes my cock pulse. More than I care to admit. I do feel sorry for her, how she will die for a curse and a bargain that she knows nothing about, but is not sorry enough.

We all must pay eventually for the sins of our ancestors.

Kallias comes to my side and hands me a cigarette. The flash of white magic and heat grabs the Offering's attention. My voice, too.

“Have they made you aware that you cannot run?” I ask, the Offering nods. I take a thick drag of my cigarette. “And have you looked outside enough to know that we are on top of a mountain? That you can climb for miles in any direction and you will not get anywhere?”

Kallias gives her a look that makes her think he’s sorry for her. This gives the Offering enough courage to open her mouth. “I saw a city beyond the balcony at dinner.”

Not the most common response from the Offerings when we tell them they can’t run, but not the least common, either.

I’m too sick of this same routine to say anything. Xaden speaks for me.

“If you go to the city,” the Demon Hunter says, causing the girl to shrink, “the people will not help you. All are loyal to the Midnight King, they will turn you in within minutes.”

A drift of snow breaks through the wards we have in the house and flurries around Vienna. The look in her eyes says it all. Fix this dying mountain.

“You stabbed my Spymaster’s hand,” I state, not overly angry, nor calm, either.

The Offering squirms in her chair and then looks to Vienna again.

“She can’t help you,” I say, “Get up, now.”

The nameless girl rises. She wears a royal blue nightgown that shows a generous portion of her curves. Curves that would give any woman in Court the confidence to be a raging bitch. But the Offering crosses her hands over her chest as if trying to hide in the air.

What did her sisters do to her? Is she broken already?

The same rage I felt when I saw her in her mother's throne room comes back, but I can’t worry about her, or how her family treated her.

I have a bargain to complete.

She tenses when I speak. “You will kneel before him and apologize, or sleep in the prisons. Vienna will not visit you, and Kallias will not visit you. You will be left with no sunlight or food for nine days.”

I steel for resistance. We all do. For anger or a bite or–something. The girl has refused to tell us her name and stabbed Rhodes’ hand, surely she’ll resist now.

But again, the little doe shocks me.

The nameless girl rises, traveling from the chair that swallowed her whole and kneeling before me and Rhodes. Her head bows, still, refusing like a good girl to look at us. But will she speak? Even if it terrifies her?

I can tell he’s fucking reeling. Thinking the same sick thoughts of me about making her choke.

“I apologize,” the Offering says loud and clearly. The keys of a piano go off as Vienna cranes her neck. Kallias from a nearby distance falls out of his chair.

I blink and make eye contact with Xaden from across the room. If he still claims after tonight that the Offering isn’t willing–that she can’t be convinced to be willing, I’ll smack him across the head.

It cannot come from a place of fear. He reminds us all through our heads.

You can be willing and still terrified. Vienna argues silently.

The Offerings' breaths have increased at our silence. A well-trained girl, yes. But I don’t think she stabbed Rhodes’ hand out of anything but fear. In fact, when she is daring enough to look up at us, her eyes are pricked with tears.

It’s a look I haven’t seen in a long time. A look that breaks my chosen brother's world apart and permanently alters the course of our history.

Empathy.

A girl not just pretending to be good, but remorseful.

Xaden and Kallias look just as confused as I am. Normally the Offerings end up in the prison within the first twenty-four hours, kicking and screaming or biting. But I know my chosen brothers well enough to know that their silence here carries meaning. We’re all wondering the same thing: What twisted person would feel genuinely bad for stabbing their kidnapper's body?

Beside me, Rhodes shifts. I wonder when the last time someone who hurt him apologized. Men do not apologize for anything in war.

“Take her to bed,” I command Vienna, mostly because I’m not sure what to do. My chosen brothers and I all watch the Offering as she exits. Four hungry predators enticed by their prey.

“Fuck, I need a drink,” Kallias slumps into the bar chair beside his brother. At least I am not the only one confused by the girl.

And maybe my chosen brothers and I would have talked about something resembling feelings and love if we hadn’t so quickly received word from Vienna about our Offering. That the little doe is acting how little does are supposed to act.

“She’s running.”

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