Chapter Twenty-Eight
She turned the latch of the lock as she heard the outer door close from the parlor. Without hesitation, she stripped off her gloves and started unhooking the bodice at the front. One benefit to this unusual gown was the hooking at the front, instead of lacing in the back. Friedrich had thought of everything.
Discarding the bodice and then shimmying out of the layers of silk, her stockings and chemise, she pulled her getaway clothes from the trunk with a smile, remembering their earlier conversation.
“You want me to dress in boy’s clothes?”
“Yes. It will be warmer and easier for travel. It’ll also be safest as you can hold onto Dmitri’s back so his arms are free.”
“I’ll be riding Dmitri?”
“If you say the words ‘riding Dmitri’ like that again, I may lose my bloody mind.”
“Well, it’s your plan that I should ride him, not mine.”
Then he’d tumbled her to the bed where she’d tried ineffectually to escape in a fit of laughter.
Smiling, she slipped the thick muslin shirt over her head and then pulled on the trousers, her heart bursting at the thought of seeing and holding Helena soon. Pulling on her thick wool stockings—boys’ stockings—she cinched her boots tight and took a seat at the vanity. She removed the pins of her sophisticated coiffure and let her hair fall loose. As she brushed it through and braided into one simple plait, she noticed the servants who’d stoked the fire had also removed the silver platter of refreshments and replaced it with another.
She tied a red ribbon at the bottom of her braid, noting that King Dominik certainly knew how to throw lavish parties and spoil his guests. Perhaps that was all part of flaunting his wealth and power, for the entire palace reeked of decadence and excess. Even the half-burned candles in her chandelier had been replaced while she was at the ball, so that the room never lost its mystical quality with the fairy lights dancing around the room.
The tall, glossy, white clock in the corner bonged. Brenna jumped and stifled a scream. Then laughed at her jitters.
She stood and strode over to the lovely piece of furniture, the silver hands both pointing up to twelve o’clock, the pearl-inlay pendulum swinging back and forth. As the clock tolled the hour, a carousel opened up inside the face of the clock where a thumb-sized silver rabbit swiveled out and bobbed while an open-mouthed wolf loped on its heels in mechanical tandem, circling and circling with each strike of the gong. Upon the final stroke of midnight, the rabbit pitched forward and the jaws of the wolf caught him, pushing his quarry inside his cave. The carousel doors closed with a soft snick. The last clang died and the crackling of the fire took precedence again.
“Unusual,” Brenna muttered. And if she must be honest, rather morbid.
It had only been ten minutes since Friedrich had left. She paced near the window, the night too dark to see anything below, the starless sky swathed in gray clouds. A sweet scent caught her attention, and she turned to the silver tray on the sideboard.
She was wrong. It wasn’t piled with an array of refreshments but laden only with a carafe of red wine and a porcelain platter of glossy, red pomegranate halves opened and spilling over with juicy seeds. She wouldn’t dare touch another drop of alcohol, for she needed her wits about her, but the succulent pulpy fruit lured her with the scent of cinnamon and ginger and another scintillating spice she couldn’t identify. Her mouth watered. She’d never tasted candied pomegranate seeds before. It appeared there was no end to the wonders provided by their enigmatic and terrifying host.
She lifted a small handful of six seeds and popped the first in her mouth. The sweet coating melted and a spiced flavor burst on her tongue.
“Mmm.”
She circled toward the fire, nibbling on her small repast. She hadn’t eaten a thing at the ball since her stomach was twisted in knots. And there hadn’t been much time. She wondered again about Lord Rathbone and Lord Maxim. They were allies with the king, but they were obviously displeased with the idea of the king gaining more power in their region with a betrothal to Princess Mina. She frowned at the thought of the poor princess waking from her bloodless sleep to find she was betrothed to the treacherous King Dominik. She wondered if Lord Rathbone and Lord Maxim might ally with the resistance against the king should it come to that. Doubtful they would ever be sympathetic to their cause, no matter how much they despised the reign of a new, power-hungry sovereign.
She popped the last seed in her mouth. A spark from the fire caught her eye. The golden flames flickered more slowly, almost as if swaying and dancing in unison, their glittering sparks an eerie aberration. She backed away, shaking her head in disbelief.
“What—?” Her back hit the sideboard.
Then she felt it…an indefinable sensation coursing through her blood. Her heartbeat quickened, pounding in her ears. She lifted one of the glass-like pomegranate halves and inhaled the scent of the candied seeds, finding nothing menacing within.
But it didn’t matter. For the blood rushing like wildfire through her veins, a quickening both arousing and terrifying, seeped through muscle, down to the very marrow of her bones. She staggered, watching as the pearlescent, cherub-lined mirror swayed and rippled.
What is happening?
Gasping for breath, her limbs gave way beneath her and she crumbled to the floor, the pomegranate rolling from her hand, the deep-red seeds spilling onto the white marble floor. Riveted to the silvery angelic faces, certainly screaming down at her now, she watched as the frame moved, her mind crashing with a haze of terror she couldn’t understand.
“Mirror…mirror…” She heard her shaky voice trying to enunciate some unknown horror coming closer, as if her voice were disembodied of herself.
The wall yawned open. No, not the wall. Just the gargantuan mirror itself, swinging wide to reveal the mouth of hell. And from its infernal depths stepped the devil himself. King Dominik.
Paralyzed on the floor, she could do nothing but watch the terrifying figure looming toward her. Smiling.
“No,” she muttered, shaking her head, which made the kaleidoscope of lights spin too fast. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling him draw closer, like the electric sizzle on her skin before a giant thunderclap. A dark rumble of laughter vibrated from the monster in the room, licking across her skin like a leather whip.
“Open your eyes, little rabbit.”
She tried not to but a bone-crushing pain seared up her spine. She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out, for the agony sucked the breath from her lungs. She snapped open her eyes and the pain receded at once. A wave of indolent pleasure rolled in its wake.
“Oh, God,” she lamented too late, a tear slipping.
The pomegranate seeds. They’d been laced with his elixir. His power of persuasion. That’s what now coursed through her blood. She’d recognized the similar flood of heat to Friedrich’s bite. But the effect of the king’s potion was entirely different. One was full of seduction and pleasure, the other was wrought with paralyzing pain and crushing dominance.
She froze in utter fear as he crouched over her. He brushed the back of his knuckles across the apple of her cheek. Like a lover.
“You are a pretty little rabbit, aren’t you?” He bared his teeth in a salacious grin.
A shadowed figure moved in her periphery. Then another.
“Shall I carry her, Your Majesty?” The cold request of a Legionnaire.
“No, Kostya. I’ll take her.” He lifted her against his wide chest, the size of him as daunting as his potent presence. He carried her back toward the passage behind the mirror. “Little rabbit needs to get used to her new master.” He grinned at her again, all sharp teeth and cold menace. Piercing eyes cold as the winter snow. “My lady…my woman…my Brennalyn.”
Her heart plummeted as he echoed the words Friedrich whispered in her ear when they made love in front of that mirror. He’d watched them. He’d heard them.
He knew everything.
As he carried her into the chilly tunnel, she opened her mouth to scream, to warn her guards.
“Don’t.”
His one-word command was like a hammer to the base of her spine. She swallowed her cry to stifle the pain.
“Good girl,” he crooned close to her ear then carried her into the deep darkness.