The current threatened to sweep us away, even in the place where the strait widened and it became less forceful. I wrapped my fingers around the edge of the boat, looking over the side into the dark waters beneath us.
It was as if there was no bottom, and it plunged into a chasm that connected to the home of tortured souls who displeased The Father and The Mother. The bridge across the strait wasn’t far enough away to leave me with any sense of comfort, knowing that one strong current would be all it took to expose us to the Mist Guard waiting downstream.
The walled city on the other side of the strait was bigger than anything I’d ever seen, jutting up out of the barren landscape with gleaming torches to light the stone. It made the Mist Guard fortress at home seem like a playhouse, and it wasn’t even the capitol.
We hurried out of the boat the moment we touched the shore on the other side, the men rushing to cover it with brambles to the side of the beach area. Jensen swore as one caught the skin of his wrist, drawing it into his mouth to stem the flow of blood before he could leave a red stain on the snow.
“Let’s go!” Melian whispered, taking my forearm in her grip. She pulled me toward the stone wall of the city, shoving a moss-covered stone out of the way to reveal a narrow passage. We stepped inside the darkened tunnel, the walls oppressive as the men followed behind us and pulled the cover closed to disguise the entrance.
“How do you know about this?” I asked, keeping my voice quiet.
“Cover your marks,” she said, urging Caelum, Jensen, and I to pull our hoods tighter about our necks as she did the same. Beck and Duncan weren’t Fae Marked, and far more able to pass any inspection the Mist Guard might make if we were caught. “The Ladies of the Night might not be treated well above the surface, but they see everything. The Lord of Tradesholde likes opium, and this is one of the ways he sneaks it into the city.”
Lord Byron had done the opposite, allowing his companions to enter through the front door and pass by his wife in the sitting room as they went to service him. I was his only dirty secret; the only one he bothered to hide.
It made sense, as he couldn’t have married me if the High Priest thought he’d already played with me.
Caelum wrapped his arm around my back supportively, ducking low to keep from hitting his head on the roof of the low tunnel carved into the very foundation of the city. Water streamed through it, serving as a drain for the streets inside the city, trickling over the rock base as we slowly made our way through. With Melian at the lead and her men taking up the rear behind us, I kept my hand near the dagger strapped to my thigh, ready to draw it at the first sign of a fight.
Melian turned back when she reached the end of the tunnel, her gaze landing on each of us momentarily before she spoke softly. “The tunnel to exit Tradesholde is by the stables on the other side. If we’re separated, look for a stone cover carved with poppies on the right edge. It’s another way they deliver the Lord his opium supply.”
Beck and Duncan squeezed past us and stepped up beside her, shoving their shoulders into the cover in front of the entrance to the city. It slid to the side, slowly opening to reveal the quiet street of a city at night. Cobblestone lined the walkway at his feet as Duncan stepped out, looking around carefully before he waved a hand and summoned Melian and Beck to follow. Jensen followed in a hurry, not wasting any time with us. “Move,” he ordered, starting to heave the cover closed as Caelum and I emerged into the darkened city. Melian nodded once before she and the other men darted off, hurrying through the city as if they knew the way well.
“You stay with me,” Caelum growled as we tried to follow, his voice dropping low in a commanding reminder.
Melian’s concerns nagged at the back of my mind, joining with the questions I’d asked myself the night before, which had driven me to the library for more information. Despite my assurances to Melian, I couldn’t help but wonder about the man at my side. How he’d come to find me, why he’d cared enough to follow me that night the Wild Hunt attacked Brann and I, and how he’d come to know about the Resistance.
I looked up at Caelum, finding his gaze heavy on my face as he studied me intently. He took my hand as he pulled me through the streets, navigating as though he expected something to jump out and attack at any moment. Even so, suspicion still lurked in his eyes, as if he could see through my assurances and knew the doubt I’d warred with since he killed the cave beast.
Something had changed in our relationship in that moment, and Caelum damn well knew it.
“Is there something you want to talk about, my star?” Caelum asked, tilting his head to the side as he drew in a breath.
“Just nervous,” I lied, feeling the need to protect my thoughts from him. I couldn’t say what Caelum would do if he discovered I’d wondered about his intentions and his obsession with me, but whatever it was, I didn’t think it would be good, and the walls closed in around me some more.
“You could have stayed in the safety of the Resistance,” he remarked, tugging me around a corner as Melian and the others melted into one of the alleyways in the distance. “You’d be warm and comfortable there, waiting for me to wake you up with my cock.”
“Is that all you care about now? I am more than just something for you to fuck,” I said, my voice dropping low. I loved his innuendos and his desire for me, but in the moments when I had to wonder about the intensity of our relationship, the last thing I wanted was to feel as if I didn’t matter beyond the hole between my legs.
He stopped in the middle of the alleyway, looking down to glare at me in warning. “Trust me when I tell you that I know exactly what you’re worth, Little One. I know exactly how irreplaceable you are. That is why I would much rather see you waiting back in the tunnels, safe and sound where nothing can take you away from me,” he said, leaning forward to touch his lips to my forehead in a tender moment.
I tried to shrug off Melian’s concerns and the way they’d melded with mine, creating a symphony of worry inside of me that I couldn’t seem to shake. I sensed that I was dancing on the edge of something, missing what was right in front of my face.
“I don’t know what I’ve done to make you mistake me for a woman of leisure, Caelum, but I most certainly am not,” I said primly as my lips curved up, watching as his brow smoothed in the face of my sudden sass and the dissipation of the tension from a moment before.