Things only got worse from there.

Three days passed without me so much as stepping foot outside my room. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. I spent most of my time sitting by the window, staring out. Not seeing anything, not feeling anything. Still in shock, and horrified by the thought of living that way day after day.

Except once I was married to Bradley, I’d also have to worry every day if he was going to come for me. Would that be the day he decided he wanted his wife? When? How? For how long? My stomach turned at the thought of all the ways he’d want to degrade me.

I thought about throwing myself out the window. I thought about it more than once. It would be over quickly. The fall would probably be scarier than hitting the ground. When I hit the ground, it would all end. All of it. I wouldn’t even feel it. And I wouldn’t have to live in fear or pain.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was a coward. Too cowardly to even end my own life.

There was one more chance. One shot at avoiding the future Bradley had promised for me. I went to see George after three long, torturous days. The walk felt longer than ever.

Nothing about the mansion held any magic for me as I went. The windows didn’t sparkle, nor did the sunlight streaming through them. The stones which made up the walls no longer glowed. They may have for others who walked past, but not for me. They never would for me again. Had I really been naïve enough to not understand the existence of men like Bradley?

For the first time since coming home, I was glad my sister hadn’t come with me. She had escaped that monster. I would have to see if the same could be true for me.

He was in his office, as usual, and he smiled the way he always had when I knocked on the open door.

The big desk dwarfed him—Papa was abnormally large for one of the fae, while George was typically diminutive.

“Come in, dear.” How he could call me that after the way he’d spoken to me in front of Bradley was a mystery.

“I have to speak to you about something very important.” I closed and locked the door behind me.

“It must be important, if you’re so eager to lock us in together.” He leaned back in his chair, fingers tented beneath his chin. “What is it?”

Instead of answering right away, I pulled up the long sleeve of my dress to show him the ugly bruises on my forearm.

“Bradley did this to me after we met in here the other day,” I whispered shakily. “He hurt me terribly.” I took a cloth from my pocket and wiped my cheek as carefully as I could, removing the concealing tonic I had dabbed on my skin.

George’s eyes widened as more bruises were revealed.

“That’s terrible,” he announced, shaking his head. “I’m very sorry to see this. Very sorry, indeed.”

“I can’t marry him, Uncle George. You must see that now. I can’t possibly be wed to a creature like that. I would tell you the awful things he said to me, but I’m not sure I can repeat them.” I shuddered when I remembered, though.

He held up one hand. “No, please. There’s no need. If he was capable of doing this to you, I can only imagine what else he’s capable of.” He shook his head again, clicking his tongue this time. “Such a shame. I had such hopes, too.”

“So you see? You see that we can’t be married?” Would it be that easy? I hadn’t dared hope it would take so little to convince him.

“I never said that. Did I say that?”

No. It couldn’t be. My insides quaked. Tears filled my eyes. Weakness overtook me—I hadn’t eaten in days, and it caught up all at once. I swayed on my feet.

“Here, here.” He jumped from his chair and helped me sit on a small settee near the fireplace. “You look terrible, and it’s not just the bruises. Have you been taking care of yourself?”

“I… I…” I didn’t know what to say. What was there to be said? It was like the entire world was crashing in on me, and he wanted to know if I was taking care of myself? Since when did it matter to him what happened to me?

“Alina. I think it’s time you and I got a few things straight.”

Where had I heard something like that before? Oh, yes. From Bradley. He wanted me to understand the way our married life would go. Now my uncle wanted me to understand something, too. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know whatever it was. He pulled up a chair and sat in front of me, my hands in his.

“As I said, I’m sorry Bradley is such a brute. It grieves me terribly. I hate to think of my niece hurting this way.” He looked at the bruises on my arms and grimaced. “It really is such a shame.”

“But you still want me to marry him?”

Nothing made sense. My head spun. Was I imagining things? Had I even left my room? Maybe I had fainted from hunger or thirst, and I was dreaming the whole thing. That had to be the case. Otherwise, there was no explanation for the horror I was facing.

“It doesn’t matter whether or not I want it, Alina. It’s simply the way things are going to be.” Just like that, his hands tightened around mine and held them in place. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well get used to it. Bear with it. The sooner you do, the easier life will be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ll make it easier for you.” He stared into my eyes, and I stared into his.

There was nothing there. He was empty inside. Empty and struggling, straining to fill his emptiness with something. Anything.

“Bradley’s family name will unite with ours. Together, there’s no chance of any of the other clans upsetting ours. Not ever. They wouldn’t dare, not with the money and power we’d possess. I will not jeopardize that for anything. Not even you. Whatever gave you the idea I cared about your happiness or well-being?”

“You just said…”

“Oh, yes. It bothers me greatly whenever I see that a man has hurt a woman. But in this case, my dear Alina, the ends justify the means.”

“I won’t do it. I won’t.” I sounded weak, pathetic even to my own ears. But I had to say it. I had to make him understand what it meant to me.

“Won’t you?” His smile was cold, nasty. “I think you’ll change your mind under the right circumstances.”

“There are no such circumstances.”

“You’re sure about that?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Not even when I tell you I know your sister is alive out there, somewhere?”

My heart stopped for a second. No. He was bluffing. It couldn’t be.

“Oh, come on, Alina.” He dropped my hands with a look of mock sadness. “I gave you more credit than this. You’re an intelligent girl. Surely you didn’t think your stories would convince me.”

“They’re—they’re not stories.”

“They are. They are fabrications which you put together in order to explain away your sister’s disappearance. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve known you your entire life. I know what it looks like when you’re telling the truth and what it looks like when you’re telling a lie—especially when that lie is a big, important one. A lie so many other things hinge upon. You’re terrible at lying, by the way, and you always were. Even your beloved papa knew this.” He chuckled, then sighed. “He used to laugh at what a bad liar you were. Much worse than your sister.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is, Alina. And you were lying when you said you found your sister’s car. You lied when you said you hitchhiked. That dress you wore looked as though it had been laundered and ironed, for the sake of all that’s sacred. It was a pathetic little story, not worthy of someone with your intelligence.”

He was right. It was all pathetic. I was a fool to think I could lie and get away with it.

“What does any of this have to do with Bradley?” I asked.

He stood, clasping his hands behind his back. “Good question. You see, if your sister was willing to run away and you were willing to fabricate a blatant lie to cover up for her, there must be a compelling reason for it. Especially since lying is against your nature. I ask myself, then, what you’re covering up. What did your sister do, or not do, that brought all of this on?”

He began pacing back and forth in front of me. “Furthermore, there’s the blood oath. The blood oath has been broken. All of our seers, every expert I’ve contact has confirmed this for me. There’s no way of knowing how it broke, but the oath is no longer valid. That much is indisputable.”

“You spoke to the seers?”

“I spoke to everyone I could,” he snarled, “long before you returned. The moment the oath broke, Bradley contacted me. I took it from there.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Now, I can’t understand how it happened. I admit that. But that’s neither here nor there. I can’t do anything about it. What I can do, however, is make sure we hold up our end of the bargain. It might not have been struck in blood, but it’s just as valid if I say it is. Understand?”

I only nodded. There was no point in arguing with him.

“I go back to the reason why you’re covering for your sister. What happened? What did she do? Where is she now?” His empty eyes bored holes into my skull.

I refused to so much as flinch in case it gave anything away.

He frowned. “You might think there’s no way for me to find out, but I have to disagree with you there. There are many ways. And you won’t like them.”

I knew what he meant, and I should’ve known he would go that far. I had underestimated both of them, him and Bradley. They were both monsters.

George sat down again, but he didn’t bother to take my hands this time. “You know what I mean, don’t you? Old Riordan and Ellis would be more than happy to take a look inside that brain of yours.”

Even though I already knew he was referring to two of the clan’s mind readers, I shuddered in distaste.

They had always frightened me, even when I was a little girl and didn’t understand their powers. They had a way about them, an energy which surrounded them. They had the ability to dig inside another person’s head and find anything they were tasked with finding—and when they were finished, more often than not they left nothing but a shell of a person behind.

Only a few very strong, very special people could withstand having another presence inside their mind. Much less two presences.

“So, you see now,” he whispered. “Either you go through with the wedding as I dictate, or you sit down with the two of them, and they find out for me why your sister didn’t come back and where I can find her. Understood?”

What I understood what was it meant to be between a rock and a hard place. I’d heard that saying more times than I could possibly count, but it finally made sense to me in a way it never had before. No matter which way I turned, there was no winning. They had me.

“Understood.” I got up, rolled my sleeve down to my wrist, and left the room without another word. There was nothing more to say, anyway.

I tried to imagine myself as Bradley’s wife, but the image wouldn’t come to mind. My subconscious blocked it so fiercely, I couldn’t even imagine a life in which I was married to him.

I should never have left the cave. Why did I leave? Why didn’t I fight to stay? If Smoke knew what I would find when I got home, he would have fought for me. I just knew it.

Or maybe I was telling myself that to soothe the endless, aching misery which had quickly become my life.

I locked the door to my room and leaned against it, just like I had when I first got home. But instead of feeling relieved at my solitude, I burst into heartbroken tears and slid to the floor. I cried it all out, every last bit, until there was nothing left inside. Not a single tear. I wouldn’t cry again.

I struggled to my feet in spite of my weakness. It didn’t matter how weak I was, since it wouldn’t take any strength to let myself fall out the window. I only hoped I would be forgiven after the fact.

Maybe I would see my parents again in whatever world sat beyond ours. The thought gave me strength. I walked over to the window and opened it, then leaned down to peer at the ground. I would die instantly. Nobody could survive a fall like that.

I thought about Jasmine. I thought about Smoke. I hoped they both knew how much they meant to me. I leaned forward…

No!

I heard it in my head, clear as a bell.

So clear that I caught myself and looked around, wondering who had screamed it. Somebody must have seen me. Somebody walking around the grounds.

I hadn’t considered that. I scanned the clearing, then the woods beyond, expecting to see waving arms or a body jumping up and down to get my attention. There was nobody in sight.

Even so, taking a moment to pause had broken me out of my stupor. Was I really just in the process of killing myself? Was I really about to let myself fall out of the window?

I stepped back.

No. I couldn’t do that. As much as I would love knowing George wouldn’t get his way, that wasn’t the right method.

I had to run. That was my only option. Death was final. I didn’t want to give up my life because of Bradley or my uncle or anybody.

And there was only one place I could imagine running to. I looked out toward the mountains again.

If I had to spend the rest of my life searching for Smoke, it would be a life better spent than if I married Bradley.

I’d consider myself lucky to live out in the woods, among the trees, dealing with the elements as they raged around me. So long as I didn’t have to look at my uncle ever again.

A plan started forming itself in my head as I began to pack my things.