Author's note: hey, guys, so as promised I am trying to update this fic and the main Once fic more regularly. And to reward you for the long break before, here's a big long chapter, thirteen-thousand words. I hope you guys like it. Please let me know. I decided I wanted to introduce a bit of a horror element to this. Like, ghosts and dark magic and things. Well, not actual ghosts, because I don't do ghosts, but that sort of a vein. Anyway, let me know what you think.
But! A warning!
This chapter is…a bit intense. As I've mentioned before, I work on this fic usually when I'm feeling not very great. When I'm sick (which is like, all the time) or when I'm really angry. And I've had a lot to be angry about lately. So this chapter…really reflects that. It's really intense. I don't consider it that graphic, but there's blood and psychological torture and physical torture and that sort of thing, and it can get intense at times because of the psychological aspects, I think. So I just want to warn you. Again, this fic is sort of my dumping ground for all the too dark plot points and twists that I might want to put in Once but can't because it's too dark. This fic may not have a happy ending. I haven't decided yet. And this chapter is really dark. Just to warn you. But I hope you enjoy it!
The chapter title is sort of a loose play on "when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall."
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Once Upon a Moonless Dark
Chapter Nineteen
When the Glass Breaks, the Bruises Will Bloom
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When Dylan opened her eyes two nights later, the full moon shone through a crack in the thick, velvet drapes on the windows. Blood stained the silvery-pearl of the moonlight, the ivory face of the moon shadowed with the bruises of its own craters. She blinked slowly, pushing through the fog of her own tiredness, trying to figure out what had woken her.
Beside her, Nuada snored softly. He was exhausted; she knew that. They shared their minds and their bodies, and so she was as aware of his exhaustion as he was of hers. She felt like she should've known why they were both so tired all the time, but she didn't care enough to figure it out. Perhaps a combination of things: her pregnancy, the mental strain of knowing the longer the king stayed away the more likely it became that the next knock on the door would be him instead of a chambermaid or a servant with their next meal, the nightmares still slithering through their heads like venomous snakes.
Dylan hadn't slept through the night in months. She knew Nuada hadn't, either. Some nights, he didn't sleep at all. Only sat beside her, stroking her hair as if the act of not touching her hurt him, while she drifted off to sleep. Because she'd asked him and he couldn't lie to her, she knew once she slept he spent the hours prowling and pacing their chambers—first in the underground sanctuary and now in this cold, alien palace—searching for monsters in the shadows.
"Funny you should mention monsters, sweetness."
The thick haze of tiredness evaporated like mist in the sun at the sound of that voice. Dylan's eyes blasted wide. She stilled, sinking into herself, biting her tongue until she tasted blood so that she wouldn't whimper and give away that she was awake.
"I know you can hear me, little whore," Eamonn whispered. Dylan curled in on herself, tremors wracking her body. She opened her mouth to yell for Nuada, but only a croak emerged. Her prince didn't stir. Only kept on snoring, occasionally grunting or groaning in his sleep. "Don't bother pretending."
This was a dream. It was just a bad dream. He wasn't really there, because she'd killed him. Together with Nuada, she'd killed him and then Nuada had made sure Wink ripped apart the corpse so he could never come back—
"That's the thing about curses," Eamonn added jovially. The mattress dipped and Dylan nearly choked on the frantic whimper that wriggled out of her throat when she slid a couple inches along the silk sheets. "They don't care about death. You killed me, but you took too long to do it, sweetness."
Dylan buried her face in her pillow. Bit down hard on the silk-covered fluff when fingertips alighted ever so briefly on the curve of her hip. Thick, wet, heaving breaths surged up in her chest. Her face was icy, her cheeks numb. She shuddered continually, teeth digging hard into the pillow, her own fingers digging into her arms so hard she knew she'd have bruises in the morning.
You're a dream, she hissed in her mind. Just a dream. Nuada. Nuada, help me. Help me! Nuada!
But this time, the prince didn't wake up. Eamonn laughed oh so softly, the sound a violating caress.
"I'm no dream, no hallucination, sweetness. I'm the curse you triggered when you killed me." The bed shifted, Dylan choked, and hot breath washed against her ear, sickeningly moist. "You thought you'd escaped. Silly slut. Once I tasted your favors, once I had the chance to enjoy you and your handsome prince, do you really think I'd ever let either of you go?"
And then Eamonn's tongue flicked out and tasted the fear-sweat gathering on her skin and mixing with the tears on her cheek. He didn't flinch at the salt, only chuckled low in his throat when Dylan cried out and flailed at him. Implacable hands caught her wrists and then his weight was on her thighs, pinning her legs to the mattress while he pinned her wrists to the pillows and it was suddenly all too real that it was him, Eamonn, in her room and on her bed, holding her down.
Dylan began to sob. "No, no, no…"
"Oh, yes, sweetness. You'll never be free of me." He tightened his grip and his fingers bit into her wrists. Dylan thrashed, screamed. The scream tore at her throat, echoed off the stone walls of the bedroom. Nobody came. Nuada slept on. Dylan shot him a frantic look and Eamonn laughed. "He's enchanted, pet. He can't hear you. Now, let me get a look at you. It's been so long, and you've been hiding yourself where I cannot reach you, but now…"
Her breath came in sharp, panicky gasps as the cat-slitted silver eyes roved from her sweaty, tearstained face down over her neck, over her collarbones and the scar his teeth had left, over her body covered by the thin silk tunic she'd borrowed from Nuada to sleep in. Eamonn licked his lips, then grinned when his eyes alighted on her pregnant stomach.
"Well, then. Your belly enjoyed my seed, it seems. And you claimed to be so unwilling. Playing hard to get? Just like a whore."
Dylan shook her head frantically. "No. No! They're not yours! Get off me, you can't be here, you can't do this! They're not yours, you monster!"
Eamonn grinned, revealing the sharp, ivory points of his teeth. "How do you know? Did he tell you?" A jerk of his head to indicate Nuada's prone body. "Even he can be fooled. And he is royal. He can lie like a mortal. But they, you said? Perhaps one is his and the other is mine. Have you considered that?"
She gritted her teeth. Met his silver gaze. She wouldn't let him take that from her. Would not believe Nuada would lie about something that had wounded and vexed him so much, would lie to her about something so very important to her. The babies, her babies, had nothing of Eamonn in them. He'd raped her, but he couldn't take this from her. He was a ghost, a nightmare. Nothing more.
He chuckled, that familiar violating sound that shivered over her like a caress that made bile surge into her throat.
"While you were choking the life out of me," he crooned, leaning close enough that his breath shushed against her mouth. His hair fell around them like a silken obsidian curtain. "While your whore prince gutted me like a fish and you throttled the life out of me, do you know what I was doing? The moment I realized you had actually killed me, that that would be my end, do you know what I was doing?" He grinned, flashing those teeth. Tears stung Dylan's eyes and she didn't want to know, didn't want to hear. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and turned her head away. He kept talking, kept hissing vicious things in her ear. "I was laying my curse. I spilled it into the blood, my blood, as it spilled from my body. As it soaked into your floor, your bedclothes, your hair, your skin. You remember my blood on your skin, Dylan?"
It was worse, so much worse, when he used her name. When he shaped it, his voice sickeningly tender. "Oh, Dylan. And while Nuada was…what is that word humans use? Ah, yes. Fuck."
She flinched.
"Do you remember what it felt like while Nuada fucked you, both of you covered in my blood? You remember. You can still feel it. His seed in your body, my blood on your skin. Both of us on you, in you. Remember, sweetness?" He bent closer, until every word made his lips brush against her trembling mouth. "My curse held you, even then. Caressed your body as my blood stained your skin. Even while my corpse moldered and oozed on your bedroom floor, while my soul moved on to the next life, my hate and my lust stayed behind. It's still here. Do you feel it?"
He shifted just a little where he straddled her legs and she did feel it, the evidence of his hunger. But he was dead, he was dead, this was just a nightmare. She would wake up when it was over and push it out of her mind and let Nuada soothe it away. It was just a bad dream. Curses like this didn't exist. He couldn't do anything to her. Not in the waking world. Not anymore. He was dead.
Eamonn's tongue snaked out and he licked her lips. She jumped, squeaked. He laughed softly.
"But never fear. I'm not going to rape you, Dylan."
She stared at him. He chuckled again. This wasn't like all the other nightmares of him. He'd never talked to her this way. Never simply held her down like this. And he always, always forced himself on her…or forced Nuada on her, enthralled to the Tears.
Was that what he meant? Would this be a dream of the Tears? Sometimes she woke in the night, her pulse pounding in her throat and between her legs and against her sternum, from nightmares of drowning in Branwen's Tears and Eamonn and Nuada pinning her between them, all of them in the midst of the vicious, clawing whirlwind. But that was still rape, still force. She didn't want it.
"Get off me, then," she snarled. She wouldn't show him fear. Even though tears trickled from the corners of her eyes to wet her temples, even though her chin quivered a little, she wouldn't give him her fear if she could help it. He'd taken enough from her.
Eamonn made a sound of disappointment. "I can't do that. You don't want that."
"Yes," she snapped, "I do. Get off me." She bucked, trying to force him off of her, even knowing it was futile. He was an Elf. He had ten times the strength of a mortal man of his build. "Get off! Get out!"
And abruptly he was off of her, his weight gone so fast she gasped and sat up, scanning the room. More proof this was a nightmare: Eamonn was gone. He'd been chased away by her demand to leave. That proved it. It was just a bad dream, and she was awake now, and he was gone and Nuada slept peacefully beside her. She wanted Nuada. Wanted him to wake up and hold her tight while she worked through the nightmare in her mind and put it away, hold her, just hold her so she knew she was safe while she worked it all out. She reached out for her prince, surprised to see her hand shook a little.
A bone-white hand shot into her field of vision and grabbed her wrist hard enough to bruise. She screamed as Eamonn hooked his fingers in the neckline of her tunic and ripped it down the middle, baring her breasts. She screamed again and clawed at his face. Her nails raked across his face, somehow missing those silver eyes but drawing blood from his cheeks and forehead. Eamonn gave another throaty chuckle and shackled her wrists in his hands, bearing her down to the bed again.
"No! No! Nuada!"
"He can't hear you, sweetness," Eamonn sang over the sound of her screaming. He shoved a knee between her thighs to prise them apart. When she tried to shove her knee into his groin, he dodged and gave a short, sharp whistle. Tendrils of shadow slid up over the bed, flowing like rivers in the air across her vision. The shadowy ropes slid around her knees and yanked her legs flat to the bed and apart, leaving her open to Eamonn, vulnerable. She sobbed and tried to snap at him, sink her teeth into his arm so he'd be forced to let her go to protect himself. He simply laughed and lightly, almost playfully slapped her face.
"Still so spirited. Oh, I love it. Like a wild horse. Or a wild whore." He snickered at the pathetic joke and gripped both of her wrists in one hand, holding them high above her head so that her shoulders screamed from the strain. Dylan writhed, desperate, frantic to escape the nightmare. The word no echoed in her head, louder and louder until it was a constant screaming claxxon ricocheting off the confines of her skull.
"Don't worry, Dylan!" He bore down on her wrists until the bones creaked and the tendons in her shoulders groaned from the strain, threatening to snap. "You'll like this. You see, that's the curse I laid on you—knowledge."
"W-what?" She couldn't even twist against his grip anymore. One wrong movement and her shoulders, still weak and damaged from the abuse he'd heaped on her all those months ago in life, would dislocate. She might've been willing to risk that since this was only a nightmare, but the pain felt all too real.
You could feel pain in dreams. People said you couldn't, but you could. She felt it every time she dreamed of the dark Elf thrusting into her, tearing her, breaking her. Felt it every time she dreamed of the sick sensation of the balls of her shoulder joints popping free of the sockets while her tendons strained, threatening to snap.
"The curse is knowledge, and I would be the one to teach you. Knowledge of what you truly are—a whore. A filthy, lowborn whore who craves fae men inside her because she knows it's her purpose, her whole reason to exist: to satisfy men like me."
She spat in his face. She didn't know how she managed to work up enough saliva, but she aimed as best she could and the spit hit right beneath his eye.
"I am not a whore."
He didn't hit her. He didn't sneer. He simply twisted one shoulder so that he could wipe the spittle off his face, then said, "Look me in the eye and tell me that when I'm finished with you, sweetness."
He shifted, and suddenly Dylan realized he wore no shirt, no trousers, nothing. He was naked, stretched out beside her, holding her pinned with his bruising hand and his shadow ropes, and on her other side Nuada slept on.
"Nuada!" Dylan screamed. Even if this Nuada were only a figment of the nightmare, the real Nuada would hear her. He had to hear her.
Eamonn sighed. "If you insist on calling out another man's name, I'll have to gag you. It provokes my envy."
Before she could do more than snap at him to go to Hell, a thick band of shadow reared up and plunged toward her face. The rattlesnake-strike movement wrung a scream from her dry throat and then the shadow thrust past her lips, filling her mouth, shoving deep to the back of her throat. Dylan choked, gagged. Screamed around the thick, cool shadow flooding her mouth. The sound escaped muffled and tiny.
"That's better," Eamonn whispered, and pressed close to her. She felt him, hard muscle and imminent threat, twisted lust and starlit menace against her side. She tried to scream around the shadow-gag, but still couldn't get any true volume. Eamonn leaned in until his nose grazed her jaw. Dylan tried to shake him off like she might try to shake off a fly before it could bite her, but a thick band of shadow lurched up and slapped down on her neck, molding to fit part of her lower jaw so that it held her head in place.
She screamed and screamed and screamed. This had never happened in any of her other nightmares, she'd always been able to fight back. She always lost, but she'd always been able to try. Now she could only lie there, pinned under Eamonn's shadows and hands, and scream. Scream until she tasted blood in her mouth along with the shadow, scream until tears mingled with saliva on her skin because she couldn't swallow around the thing Eamonn was using to gag her.
Why wouldn't Nuada wake up? Why wouldn't he wake her up? Why wasn't he helping her?
Eamonn only held her while she screamed, as if patiently waiting for her to wear herself out. When she couldn't scream anymore, when her voice only rasped and crackled in her throat, he smiled gently.
"Got that out of your system? Good. Now, lie back and enjoy. Maybe, if you're very, very good, I'll let Silverlance wake up instead of killing him in his sleep."
Dylan shuddered. What if…what if this wasn't…? If this wasn't a dream, what would happen to her when it was over? Could Eamonn kill Nuada in his sleep? Could he kill her?
Something warm and wet flicked against her jaw. She jumped. Sobbed out a harsh, coughing sort of sob. Eamonn dragged his tongue over the tears and saliva on her skin, down along her neck. He laved her pulse with his tongue like a vampire preparing to bite, then moved on, trailing his mouth over her clavicle. He stopped there, frowning.
"I thought I bit you on both sides," he mumbled to himself. Dylan whimpered, then found she could still scream when the Elf sank his teeth deep into her unmarked collarbone, biting and biting, his sharp teeth puncturing her flesh until blood welled up and spilled over her skin. He pulled back and smiled. His teeth were stained scarlet. "Better. Much better."
He dropped bloody, wet kisses along her collarbones, licking at the blood, before kissing his way between her breasts. She shuddered, the tears coming fast and freely as he nuzzled her the way Nuada had only that evening.
"I've seen the way he worships your body when you give yourself to him," Eamonn growled against one breast. His breath moved hot and damp against a nipple and she had to swallow the urge to vomit. She actually felt her stomach convulse with nausea. "I could worship you, if you wished it, sweetness. I could sip from you, tears and blood and milk and pleasure and pain, as carefully as Silverlance, if you would submit sooner. Submit, admit to me what you are, and I will give you such pleasure."
She swallowed and somehow managed to hiss around the shadows, "Over my dead body." It came out slurred and muffled, but Eamonn seemed to understand despite the shadow gag.
"That is the eventual goal, sweetness." He shifted his head and his mouth found her breast. She tried to scream, but she had no voice. Only tears as he suckled greedily, hungrily, teeth pinching and bruising and threatening to draw more blood.
"Stop, stop, stop," she moaned around the gag of shadow, and, "No, no, no."
It felt like hours that he spent there, suckling, biting. Pleasure mingled with disgust and fear and shame in her belly, coiling like poisonous snakes until she thought she might very well be sick. He growled compliments about her breasts against her skin, about the taste of her skin and how much he loved the sounds of despair crawling out of her mouth, and she tried to shut out the hideous sound of his voice.
And then his free hand brushed over her side, down along her flank, over her hip. His fingers danced along her thigh, like fat spider legs, and she knew what he was going to do the instant before his fingers delved and found her.
"You see, sweetness?" He breathed against her skin. "You're so ready to be taken. Your body doesn't lie. It wants this. Wants me. You truly are a whore, to find such pleasure in this. My whore, now." His mouth closed over her bruised, vulnerable breast again with a bestial growl.
She screamed, screamed at the sick horror of his mouth on her and his fingers between her legs, and then she screamed at the horror of her body betraying her, betraying her own hate and fear, because pleasure throbbed like a rotten tooth and her hips began to buck and she felt it, knew it for what it was. Pleasure, release, an oncoming storm of it, and she knew then what he wanted. He wanted her to find release under him, without the Tears, without glamour, without Nuada. Without anything but his mouth and his hand. He would make her climax even as she screamed that she hated him, wanted him dead, and he would revel in how much it made her want to die.
Her toes curled and she wept, trying to force herself to ignore every stroke of his fingers over her, every slip and slide of him raping her, every low growl of pleasure from his monstrous throat as his teeth marked her breast. But she couldn't stop it, couldn't stop the pulsing pleasure from beginning to sweep up and over, washing away the dull throb of his bite at her collarbone, cresting, peaking, and this time when she screamed it was because she shattered under him as she had only ever shattered for Nuada and she hated herself and she hated him and in that moment she wished they were both dead.
Eamonn stared directly into her wet eyes as he raised his fingers to his lips and licked them, groaning appreciatively. Then he leaned in until his face hovered above hers. He whispered, "My whore, now. I'll come back tomorrow for more. Be ready for me. Wear something pretty."
And then it was all gone. Eamonn, the shadows, everything, and Dylan was staring up at the canopy of the bed, thighs wet and clavicle burning. But when she touched her fingertips to her collarbone, there was no bite and no blood. The tunic she'd worn to bed was whole, untorn. When she lifted it a little to feel for teeth marks on her breast, there were none.
But she'd had an orgasm. In her sleep? From the nightmare? That had never happened before. Eamonn had…in the dream, he…how could she have…in the waking world was one thing but in a dream? She felt disgusting. Filthy. Like a whore. Not a respectable prostitute, but simply...merely Eamonn's...
My whore, now.
No. No!
She charged off the bed and raced to the bathroom. She had to shower. Now. She couldn't live another minute with the evidence of her nightmare on her skin, the poisonous slime sticking to her, staining her.
It took three hours in the near-blistering shower before she felt clean enough to go back to bed, skin still clammy from the water and hair still dripping, the discarded black tunic traded for a fresh ivory one because she couldn't bear the thought of the one she'd been wearing before. It took even longer for her to actually sleep.
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It was Becan who waylaid the chambermaid bringing the prince and princess their breakfast the next morning, and practically dragged the poor girl back to the kitchens so that he, Becan Brownie, could speak to the Master of the Kitchens about his mistress.
Caspar Kabouter, Master of Kitchens in Findias, was a stout old fae with a beard to his knees the color of good flour and a long, red woolen cap perched atop his head that he kept out of the cook pots by the simple trick of pinning the somewhat pointy top to the shoulder of his long, white tunic with the ladle-and-knife broach of hammered silver that denoted his office. He had very little tolerance for anyone invading his domain, but this brownie was the personal body servant of the crown prince's mysterious bride, she who carried the future potential heirs to the Golden Throne. So Caspar Kabouter tolerated the brownie's presence with nothing more disapproving than a stern expression and one bushy, white brow raised.
"My lady is unwell," Becan said. The brownie hadn't spoken to Dylan in three days. Hadn't spoken to the prince since the evening before. Hadn't even set foot in the prince's suite. But he was the resident brownie in Princess Dylan's cottage, and had been for the seven years she'd lived there.
This was the seventh year, the first of the years of power for them, and their connection was…unique. The house itself, new as it was, had been imbued over those seven years with all the power of the brownie who tended it, as well as the fae who sought refuge there and the gentle spirit of the mortal who lived within its walls. Because of this, the cottage itself had been imbued with a sort of life. It and Becan were connected as integrally as the crown prince and his twin sister were said to be. But Dylan was the charge of the cottage, which made her Becan's charge as well, and because of this, sometimes the brownie knew things that could not be explained, even to other fae.
So he knew that his mistress, though still asleep for the moment, would awaken feeling ill in her belly, and tired. More ill and more tired than she had been since her bouts of morning sickness had abated a brace of moons back. He didn't know why, but she would need to be tempted to eat, to keep up her strength for the babes growing in her womb. So Becan explained, keeping the more private aspects of his knowledge to himself, to Caspar Kabouter than Her Highness would need very specific food this morning, to tempt her hunger.
"Does Her Highness have any preferences?" The kabouter wanted to know. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about this mortal princess of the fae demanding different eatables from him. On the one hand, she was no doubt homesick for the place she'd lived before coming to Bethmoora, to the city of Findias. On the other, she was a human, and humans were selfish pigs. But on the first hand, she was pregnant, and creatures that carried had tricky appetites, even when they were usually quite easily pleased. But on the other hand again, she was a human, and humans were greedy layabouts. Still…Nuada had chosen her, and the Master of Kitchens had never found justification to doubt the crown prince's judgment in such important matters.
"Her stomach is…a bit upset. Nothing too sweet or too salty. Toast, lightly buttered. Some easy fruit. Grapes, strawberries, perhaps a finely chopped apple? My mistress is fond of apples. Anything else you might consider acceptable," Becan said.
His voice snapped out, cool and emotionless. He had not spoken so before nearly dying in service to his mistress. He had once been a gentle, almost timid Wee Man, soft-spoken and obedient. He'd only ever carried a small dagger at his hip, and that, very rarely. But now he walked like a soldier, like a predator. He had spent the five moons his lady had kept herself apart in the sanctuary learning how to stand, to walk, to carry himself, and to fight. It had been a bit slow for his peace of mind because of his still-healing bones, but he had found a teacher in an old, vindictive clurichaun who lived in an enchanted wine cellar where time moved a bit differently than it normally did in the mundane world. For his mortal charge, Becan had been gone for five months, keeping an eye on her with his brownie magic. For Becan, it had been five-hundred years, and he had had to return every day—every enchanted day—to the cottage or risk going mad.
In those five centuries, the once gentle house sprite had become what brownies were not meant to be—a ruthless warrior who would slice an enemy's throat with the long, thin sword he wore strapped across his back, if that enemy dared to lay a finger on his mistress. Never again would he have to lie there, broken and helpless, while his home and his family and his own body were violated by some sadistic monster.
Eamonn had not been satisfied with raping the prince and Dylan. Small as Becan was, Eamonn had found ways to rape him, too. And the memories of that violation, the breaking and the tearing and the screams while his lady lay on the floor, sobbing from the agony of poison that made the rest of the world—including Becan—nothing but a dream to her…those memories had cemented inside the brownie into something dark and hard and brittle. Perhaps in another five centuries, that brittle thing would dissolve and leave him be. Until then, he spoke to Caspar Kabouter with all the warmth of a glacier.
The kabouter noticed, but said nothing. He had seen atrocities. He recognized the eyes of a faerie who had experienced terrible things. The kitchen fae only wondered if those terrible things had been done to him by his human mistress.
"We've some good ham, a little sweet to offset the salt. Baked with apples. A little fancier than what you imagined, but it was a favorite of Queen Cethlenn's when she carried her own babes," Caspar said. "Oi! Isibéal!" A young Elven girl, Bethmooran by the look of her star-blond hair and golden eyes, lifted her head from the soup pot she stirred. "Come here, girl. Leave the soup to Rórdan."
Under Becan's sharp but uncomfortably blank eye, Isibéal ingen Cabhan of the kitchens went to work preparing a tray for Her Highness. As an added touch, though neither the brownie nor Master Caspar had suggested it, she set a small crystal vase on the tray and plucked from behind one ear a pale pink primrose. The Elven girl leaned in and breathed a long, slow breath on the flower. It had slightly wilted at the edges from the heat of the kitchen, but now the wilt straightened out and the slight browning faded, leaving a sweet candy pinkness behind in the petals. She dropped the primrose in the slim vase and then handed the tray to the chambermaid Becan had dragged to the kitchens. The chambermaid, one of the rare non-hobs, winked at Isibéal. The message was clear: she would find a few flowers to add to the little vase before the tray found its way to the royal wing.
Caspar hadn't met the new princess, and neither had any of the kitchen staff, but every chambermaid, cleaning boy, or footservant that had had any sort of contact with her spoke of her quiet voice, sad eyes, and gentle smile. She always complimented the servants on their jobs and thanked them for their help. She had even, on occasion, offered to help with the cleaning work, but the prince had forbidden it and the servants had been scandalized. Her Highness was with child! She couldn't be expected to do such work.
The servants liked Princess Dylan, insofar as they knew of her. They saw her sadness and her shadows. They saw how she loved the prince, did her best to soothe the shadows that plagued him, as well. So they would do what they could to help ease her sorrow and his.
With a nod of his head to Caspar, Becan left the kitchens, trailed by the maid.
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Though Nuada had no idea how the brownie had known about it, he'd been right—Dylan did have to be coaxed to eat. She slept late and when she woke, Nuada saw the exhaustion bruising beneath her eyes and paling her lips. Her hair looked as if she'd slept on it wet, in wild puffs and wisps that Dylan shoved out of her face as she sat up in bed. She shivered, hugging herself, and Nuada saw that she'd changed her tunic sometime in the middle of the night. Why?
"Are you well, little witch?" He asked gently. She'd seemed fine after their lovemaking the night before. Unlike their time a few days prior, it had been nothing out of the ordinary. But there had been a few times in the months since their marriage when one or both of them had found tears on their cheeks and a strange, strangled sort of panic clawing at their throats in the aftermath of their impossible, ravenous need. He had seen no tears the night before as he'd kissed her chin, her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose, and the feathery raven black crescents of her eyelashes while she drifted off to sleep. But perhaps she'd woken in the night, frightened by a nightmare he'd triggered? Or perhaps—
"I had a nightmare," she murmured. "I woke up and wanted a shower. I'm just a little tired, I think. Give me a few minutes."
She slid out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. Nuada knew that after her morning ablutions, she would dress and then say her prayers in the privacy of her closet. It was the only room in the entire suite that only had one entrance, besides the bathing chamber. That made it safe enough for Dylan to be all right being out of his sight long enough to pray in this strange, new environment. In the sanctuary, he had often gone into the bathing room to wallow in the soothing heat of the bath while she prayed. She claimed she needed to pray alone. He was not, as some humans said, "a praying man," but he would not belittle her for the impossible faith she still somehow possessed. He believed in the gods of old as well as the monotheistic God called Yahweh and Allah and Elohim by mortals, the deity the fae called the High King of the World, the Lamplighter of the Moon, and the Star Kindler. He simply did not pray—to any of them. He had long ago decided that he could rely on no gods or mystical forces to protect his people but ones he could summon to his own hands.
Becan brought the breakfast tray while Dylan prayed in her mostly-empty closet. Nuada frowned a bit absently when he realized Dylan possessed no clothing befitting her station as wife of the crown prince. They'd have to do something about that…but Themba, the Master Tailor of Findias, was a man. He would more than likely frighten Dylan, though she had met him briefly before. Nuada knew of a tailor and weaver who would likely not frighten his wife, but that redoubtable lady had her business in the Troll Market in Brooklyn. Would Dylan be able to handle a trip to the Troll Market? For that matter, would he? He didn't know. And Aso the Weaver did not like leaving the mortal world. It brought her too close to her own kingdom for her comfort. She would likely refuse to come to Bethmoora to outfit his lady.
Filing the thought away for future perusal, Nuada turned back to Becan and the breakfast trays. Frowned with more focus when he saw that while his own tray bore plates heaped with pastries, breakfast meats, and fruit, Dylan's tray carried the sort of food one might serve someone who was ill. He shot the brownie a look. The calm, empty black eyes the color of sloe berries met his gaze with equanimity.
"My mistress is unwell," Becan said.
Instant denial leapt to Nuada's lips, but he swallowed it back. Casting out with his gift of mind-touch, he brushed against Dylan's mind. They stayed entrenched in each other, yes, but somehow he hadn't noticed that his wife had pulled back from him a little in the night. Had she been deliberately shielding him from the nausea churning in her stomach? She was well past morning sickness; after the first few moons, she'd seemed fine. He made a note to examine her himself to see if they needed a healer. While he had no healing gift per se, he would be able to detect if anything was wrong either with the babes or with their mother, though he wouldn't be able to determine what.
Becan bowed to the prince, and then to the mortal when she stepped out of the closet and offered the brownie a wan smile. He said, in a voice as gentle as a mother's, "Mistress. I've brought you sommat to eat. I thought you might be feeling poorly."
Dylan shot him a wildshy glance and sank down on the sofa in front of the couch. She smiled when she saw the four slices of buttered toast.
"You cut them into triangles for me!"
Becan canted his head. "I aim to please, Mistress Dylan. And the…staff sent you this, as well." He gestured to a slender, crystal vase at the corner of the tray. A half-dozen spring flowers shot up from the slim neck of the vase: a primrose in sweet pink, a forget-me-not, a stem of bells-of-Ireland, a violet foxglove stalk, and an ivory-and-cerise clover blossom. Dylan leaned in and breathed in the sweet scents of the flowers. Sighed.
"Ohhh," she sighed. "That's beautiful. If…if my thanks won't offend them…"
Becan shook his head. It was odd, Nuada thought, how the tiny faerie man, barely as tall as a pencil was long, sought to reassure his much larger mistress. "It will give no offense. I will tell them. Shall I leave you now, Your Highnesses?"
Nuada dismissed him and sank down beside Dylan, ostensibly to eat his own breakfast. In truth, he wanted to make sure his wife was not falling ill. He chewed eggs and bacon while Dylan nibbled on a triangle of toast, her gaze distant. He studied her. She'd chosen one of the simple, lambswool-and-silk leines he'd given her, a simple Irish dress that slipped over the head and fell to the floor, lacing up at the front and back to fit. The midnight garnet fabric seemed to drink up the light drifting into the room from the thin breaks in the heavy velvet drapes. The white belt she wore matched the ivory lacings on her gown. There was no reason to feel uneasy when he looked at her in that dress, and yet…
His eyes were drawn to the soft slope of her breasts rising above the neckline of her gown, and her clavicles pressing sharp against her skin. Nuada's eyes narrowed. Was that…?
The prince leaned over, for once his thoughts not even touching on ideas of seduction or carnality, and he touched one finger to her collarbone. Dylan flinched, barely biting back a yelp, and covered the spot with one hand protectively.
"Where did you get that bruise?" Nuada asked softly. He hadn't noticed it the last few nights, but that didn't mean it couldn't have come from that night where he'd been so rough, so forceful with her at her behest…
"What bruise?" Dylan gently probed the spot. Winced, the breath hissing between her teeth. "Ouch. What the frack?" Quickly, she got up and rushed to the bathing room in order to make use of the massive looking glass and the brighter light. Nuada followed her at a more sedate pace. He found her peering into the mirror in the bathing chamber, drawing down the gown's neck a little so that she could see the almost black, oval-shaped bruise on her collarbone. It was a circle of hard, sharp midnight that bled purple, blue, brown, and green into the center of it and outward onto the rest of her skin. It looked almost like…
It was, he realized. It was from a bite. He sometimes bit her in play, scraping his teeth against her skin to make her breath catch, to titillate her, but he didn't remember using that kind of force. But he'd lost himself a few times during that night of ravishment, of intense hunger. He'd done that to her. Bitten her that hard. Hurt her that much. Gods, what sort of monster was he, that he could do that to his wife? The mother of his children? To anyone, really?
"Dylan…Little one, I'm so sorry."
She didn't seem to hear him. She only stared at the bite-bruise with shadowed eyes for a long time before she whispered, "I…I need to lie down. I don't feel well."
Nuada could only nod as she trudged past him to collapse on their bed and close her eyes. He had done this. Hurt her past the point where she could face it at the moment. She was retreating from him. He felt her pulling inexorably out of his mind, slipping every vine from every crack in his thoughts, his mind, his very self. A sharp, startled cry welled up in his throat. He swallowed it back. Picked up the breakfast tray and sat down on the edge of her bed.
She opened weary, haunted eyes to him. Blinked. "I'm tired, Nuada. I didn't sleep well."
"I know," he said gently. "But little one, you must eat, remember? Please. Won't you try a little?"
He convinced her to eat three pieces of toast, a few slices of spring melon, and some early strawberries before her head fell to the pillow in utter weariness. This was too close to how she'd been before their marriage, before learning about the babes. Back when a chilling, gray fog had enveloped her and she'd tried to end her own life once, contemplated it again before learning of their unborn children.
"Dylan, is it only tiredness?" The prince asked, smoothing back her hair. It still hung in a tangle around her face and over her back and shoulders. "Or is it more?"
She shook her head. "The nightmare…I don't know. I can't think right now. I'm tired and I just need to sleep for a bit longer, okay?"
After a long moment, he said, "All right, little witch. As you command."
Setting aside the breakfast tray, he drew his legs up onto the bed and fitted himself to Dylan's back, slipping one arm under her body and draping the other over her belly. He set his chin on her shoulder, and she relaxed into his embrace. He dropped a kiss just under her ear. She sighed.
"I love you," she whispered. It sounded as if someone were carving the words into her throat, her chest, with tiny blades. The words tasted of pain and blood.
He pressed his forehead against the nape of her neck. Sighed. "If I were not broken," he confessed in a rasp, "if I were not some twisted, shadowed thing without a heart, without honor, I would love you, mo duinne. I cannot love anything anymore in that way, not as I ought to love, but what I feel for you…this sick, paltry thing inside me…it is as close as I will ever get again. You hold what remains of me, heart and soul—or the tattered remnants I have left, anyway."
When she slipped her arms along his, squeezing a little, he kissed the nape of her neck.
"Get some rest, wife of mine. I will guard your dreams."
In moments, he felt her body turn soft and pliant with the beginnings of sleep. Only when her breathing deepened, evened out, did he realize he still didn't know the details of her nightmare.
No doubt vile repetitions of the same nightmares she'd suffered for months. Damn the dark Elf that had done this to her, to both of them. Would he never cease plaguing them?
At least he was dead. He could offer them no fresh hurt. They would have to make due with that.
.
She woke slowly, languorously, stretching her legs and arching her back just a little to pop her stiff spine. She hadn't shifted position since falling asleep in Nuada's arms. Now his chin rested on her shoulder, digging in a little. Had that dull discomfort been what had started the slow pulling out of sleep? And his hand, warm and callused, cupped one breast as if the hand belonged there. He often did that when they rested, lying spooned together, curved to fit together as tightly as children petrified of the dark. But there was nothing childlike about the thumb he brushed back and forth across her skin, just at the edge of her gown's neckline where silk-and-lambswool gave way to flesh.
She woke feeling rested, and restless. Woke wanting him. She'd never been a sexual person before the Tears, and she had to wonder, always, how much of her desire for the prince came from the addiction of the Tears, the hell of their magic and their alchemical power. Would there come a day when the last dregs of poison seeped out of her body and she stopped wanting Nuada? How long would that take, if it happened at all?
Nuada's chin dug into her shoulder, sharply. Dylan hissed, "Ow! Nuada, why—"
"What did I tell you about saying another man's name when you were with me?"
The slight hurt and betrayal at the chin-jab faded and Dylan's eyes blasted wide at the same time that she flailed, arms and legs windmilling as she scrambled out of Eamonn's grasp and scuttled across the bed. She fell off in her haste, hit the floor with a thud that rattled her teeth. Gasping, heart lurching into her suddenly dust-dry throat, Dylan yanked herself up from the floor using the blankets and ran for the door that led to Nuada's receiving room. Her knee throbbed, ached from the fall and the scramble. Months in the healing sanctuary in the New York Underground had soothed the pain, but there was no fixing the damage from the badly-healed break. Now she limped as she ran, sobs trapped in her throat. Out, out, had to get out! She grabbed the doorknob.
"It's locked, sweetness," Eamonn called. Dylan glanced over her should, a quick snapshot look to see how close the monster had prowled.
He was still on the bed. He lay there atop the velvet blankets, obscenely nude, disgustingly aroused. He lay with one elbow bent and his head propped on a fist, one bent knee upraised as if to show himself off to her. He didn't look as if he had any intention of coming after her.
Dylan yanked on the doorknob. It rattled, but the door didn't budge. She yanked again. Tried pushing. Pull, push, pull, push, it didn't matter. Nothing worked. Nothing happened except that empty, cruel rattling like pebbles against bones. She hauled on the doorknob with both hands, jerking it, feeling the strain burning in her elbows and wrists.
"Open!" She screamed. "Open, please! Please!"
The door wouldn't open. Eamonn was right—it was, in fact, somehow locked from the outside.
Dylan whipped around, stumbling a little on her bad leg. Eamonn still lay watching her, taunting her with his nakedness. Dylan scanned the room. There were two other doors. One led to Nuada's bathroom. No good. Eamonn could easily break down the wooden door, since Nuada wasn't here to activate the protection spells. The other door led to her own suite, which she'd seen once when they'd arrived on the royal floor and then never gone into again.
The bed, and the beast that reclined on it, crouched between her and that door. If she could get past and get through the door, she could escape. Find Nuada. Find Wink or Becan. Find a guard. Find someone.
Eamonn smiled at her. "That door is locked, as well."
Liar. He was lying. She was not trapped in this room with him. He was lying.
She shot him a look and then tried to race across the room to the other door, skirting the bed. He didn't try to stop her. Only watched. She grabbed the doorknob, pulled with all her strength. The door didn't budge. She pushed, pulled again. But nothing happened. This door was locked, too.
"No," she gasped. She could feel tendrils of icy panic creeping into her brain like thorny vines, sinking in thorns like needles, flooding her with cold. "No, no, no…"
"Yes," Eamonn said from the bed. He still hadn't moved. "Oh, yes, yes, yes."
"Shut up!" Dylan yelled, hurtling across the bedroom to the bathroom door. She would lock herself in there. At least he'd have to work to get to her, damn him. She'd make him break the damn door down before he got to her, before he could lay his hands on her again.
"I locked that one, as well," he told her when the doorknob twisted ineffectually in her grip and refused to open. "I wanted to spend a little more time with you and didn't want you running off. You're so stupid, I feared you might throw yourself off a cliff."
The tears were starting to burn behind her eyes but his words caught her attention. The window. She could climb out one of the windows—
"I know what you're thinking, little whore," Eamonn said. "The windows are locked." She stared at him. He smiled. "It's all locked. There's nowhere for you to run, my sweet."
Then she would throw herself out the window. Her body would shatter the gleaming panes of glass as she threw herself toward the sky, the stars, the midnight velvet night. She would fall through the cool dark and break on the flagstones of the castle courtyard and Eamonn would never, ever touch her again. He wouldn't be able to touch her, she thought as she launched herself at the window, would never be able to pin her down or shove his tongue down her throat or dislocate her shoulders and force her onto her knees and pry her mouth open so he could shove his—
She screamed when a pair of strong, implacable hands caught her up and swung her away from the window. She kicked, flailed, clawed at Eamonn as he hauled her like a shrieking wildcat toward the bed.
"Stop it," he snarled. She ignored him, dragging her nails down the side of his face and along his neck so that silver blood welled up and dripped onto his shoulder. Her foot caught him in the ribs and he growled. "Fine, then."
He shifted, swung her, and her head smacked against the bedpost hard enough that spots danced across her vision. She smacked at him and he thwacked her head against the post again. Her hands were numb, her feet dangling helplessly. She snapped at him like a wolf trying to bite, aiming for his wrist. She'd torn a man's wrist open with her teeth as a child, she could damn well do it again.
Eamonn half-dropped her, saving his wrist from her teeth. Before she could take advantage, he twisted his fingers in her hair—as Nuada had done, only a few nights ago, but there was nothing thrilling about this—and slammed her forehead into the post.
Blackness descended for a few seconds and when she blinked it away, she half-lay on Eamonn's lap. But they weren't on the bed. He sat at the double-wide window seat, the moonlight turning his pale skin white as bones. Dylan lay supine across his legs, spine bowed by the weight of her own body, her hanging head nearly brushing the floor. When she sucked in a breath, Eamonn grabbed the neck of her gown and hauled her up, slamming her front-first against the icy window glass. She yelped at the impact of her stomach and face against the glass, then cried out when Eamonn blanketed her with his body, pressing his nude body against her. The dark Elf kept one of her hands pinned palm-to-glass with one of his, and had twisted her other arm behind her back at a brutal angle that made her dizzy. He ground himself against her butt through the skirt of her leine and Dylan tasted revulsion.
"This can't be good for our babes," Eamonn said gently, as if he weren't about to break her arm. "The cold, the excitement. Being crushed." He shoved her harder against the glass. She felt that flutter in her belly and knew her babies were frightened by the sudden constriction of the only world they'd ever known. They were still small, about the size of a human baby near the end of the third month. She was barely showing. If she'd been further along, Eamonn's weight crushing her against the glass could've been truly dangerous.
The threat was obvious. He would harm her unborn babies if she didn't cooperate. But he'd called them "our babes," and she would not stand for that.
"They're not yours," she spat. The words came out mushed because her cheek was shoved against the window, but Eamonn understood her. "Shut up!"
"I told you," he breathed into her ear, "Silverlance doesn't know everything. He is no healer. He could be wrong."
Swallowing, Dylan said, "The king himself verified the paternity, so you can just go die in a hole, you son of a bitch."
Eamonn chuckled in her ear. "Both of them? Or did he see that one was Bethmooran, with royal magic, and assumed the other was simply too weak to connect to the land?"
This time, when Dylan tried to swallow, she almost choked. Her trained doctor's brain scanned through the data she'd accumulated in medical school. She and Nuada were both fraternal twins. Fraternal twins didn't come from the same egg, but two separate eggs released at the same time. Which meant it was possible for a pair of fraternal twins to have different fathers as long as both eggs were fertilized within seventy-two hours of each other. After that, a woman's body underwent chemical changes that prevented new impregnation.
Eamonn and Nuada had both used her body, unprotected. She'd known the moment she'd realized she was probably pregnant that either of the Elves could've sired her children, but she'd never considered that it was possible the twins had different fathers. She'd assumed Nuada had checked, made sure both of them were his. But she'd never asked him…
"No," Dylan said icily. "You're just trying to play with my mind. Go to hell."
Eamonn sighed. "Sweetness, you're thinking about this like a healer. I'm not a ghost, I'm a curse. Have you considered what curses can do?"
She wrenched her arm, trying to shake him off. He slammed her into the window again with a resounding thud! and knocked the breath out of her. She didn't want to hear this, she didn't care. It was all lies. He wasn't real, he wasn't a curse. He was a nightmare that had found fresh fodder in her scarred, battered mind. This was a nightmare. It wasn't real. She didn't care!
"Fine. Let us presume for the moment our babes are in fact of the prince's blood," Eamonn said conversationally. Dylan had to swallow acrid bile at the words "our babes." She ground her teeth and tried to picture slitting Eamonn's throat. "I come to you when you sleep, sweetness. Here I am now. Have you considered that, robbed of my paternal rights as you claim I have been by Silverlance, I won't come to our babes, my babes, in the night to instruct them who their true father is?"
Dylan tried to shake her head, but Eamonn kept her cheek pressed firmly against the window. "That's insane and weird and why would you even—"
"Because, you stupid tart, you belong to me. Every inch of you. You and Silverlance both, and the little tadpoles in your belly." He leaned in, pressing a kiss just under her ear. Right where Nuada had kissed her before she fell asleep. "I want to break you both. You murdered me. That sin means you both belong to me now. And I will have recompense. Your bodies are mine. Your babies are mine. Everything you own, everything you love, belongs to me to do with as I see fit. Your brother," a thrill of horror shivered down Dylan's spine, "your sisters, Nuada's sister, his father, everyone you love…it's all mine now."
Nightmare. This was a nightmare, just a nightmare. It couldn't be real life. She'd fallen asleep at mid-morning and now it was deep night, and Nuada was nowhere to be seen. That proved this was a nightmare. She couldn't have slept so long and Nuada would never, ever leave her while she slept, he knew she had nightmares. They never left each other's sides while sleeping, in case dark dreams came for them. Dylan tried to look around, tried to see if there was a weapon somewhere, anywhere that she could grab, attack him with. She'd kill him, again and again if she had to. She wouldn't let even the dream-ghost of him come after her family, her husband, her children. She'd kill him, she thought as her eyes darted frantically around. They froze on the window latch a few inches above her head.
The night was bleeding, seeping dark blood through the cracks in the casement. Dylan knew instinctively that Eamon had called that liquid night, just like before.
"No," Dylan croaked. She wrenched her shoulder, kicked her feet, twisted around, trying to get free of the dark-haired Elf's grip. "No! No!" Tendrils of silky, clammy night slid around her wrist and melted over her hand, keeping it plastered to the window even after Eamonn let it go. He released the arm he'd twisted behind her back and more shadow pulled it up, gluing her other hand to the cold glass. Thick bands of night spilled over her chest, over the mound of scar tissue between her breasts, to pool on the window seat. Dylan was screaming now, wrenching against the shadows binding her hands, frantic. The shadows spread across the velvet seat until it puddled around her knees and then the darkness began to slide up, wrapping around her legs. She tried to slam her knees together but the darkness forced them apart.
"No! Get off me, let me go! No! Nuada! Nuada! Becan! Wink!"
With a savage oath, Eamonn palmed the back of her head and slammed it into the window. Over the flash of white across her vision, Dylan heard the unmistakable sound of crunching glass. Dazed, she dropped her head forward to thunk against the glass. Cracks spiderwebbed out around her head.
"Three other men, now? Slut." As if to emphasize his words, he reached around her and grabbed her breasts with bruising hands, squeezing them like someone squeezing oranges at the grocery store. Dylan yelped in pain and Eamonn squeezed harder, fingers biting into the soft flesh.
"Stop! Stop!"
"Why?" He demanded, squeezing and squeezing. "You're a whore. This is what you like, isn't it? Silverlance's hands on you like this? I'm surprised the brownie has hands large enough for you, but that troll…I've heard things about him. You must love how he uses you. Bitch." And Eamonn laughed, a derisive sound that barely penetrated the hot throbbing pain in Dylan's breasts. "Don't lie and pretend you don't like it. I know you do."
Tears of pain trailed down Dylan's face. "No…" She despised the weak tremble, the whimper in her voice. "It hurts. Please…"
Abruptly, he released her. Dylan sucked in huge, cold, relieved breaths as she sagged against the glass, the tears still wetting her cheeks.
Eamonn's hands smoothed over her sides, slow and careful. Dylan tensed, but the callused fingers simply traced over the belt wrapping around her waist. Slowly, he untied it and let it fall to the window seat. Even more slowly, he moved his hands up over her belly, pausing to rest over the small swelling before moving them up again, skimming her breasts before finding the lacings of her bodice.
"No," Dylan whispered. "No, please…"
"But this is one of the loveliest parts of you," the monster crooned in her ear. "This and what's between your legs. The rest of it is quite ugly, so scarred and mortal, but these are exceptional." He tugged the laces, ripping them out of their stays one by one, the brocade lacings snapping against the glass with every yank. Dylan sobbed silently as he undid her dress until the front gaped almost to her navel. Eamonn spread the fabric, baring her breasts to the cold night. Dylan could see the dim reflection of her bruised flesh in the night-darkened glass, the marks painfully vivid against the creamy paleness of her skin.
"Now for the other bit of loveliness," Eamonn said with a soft sigh, hot and moist against her ear. Dylan had no idea what it was he meant until he took the bunched skirt of her leine and tore it, ripping the expensive material to reveal her knees, her scarred legs, her plain black cotton underwear, her hips. She flinched with every sound of tearing fabric and all she could think was, Nuada gave me that dress. Nuada, wake me up. Someone wake me up. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Have to wake up! Wake up!
This was a nightmare. Only a nightmare. Eamonn was dead. She and Nuada had killed him. He hadn't had the power to curse a prince. This was only a nightmare. She would wake up soon.
"I realized what I did wrong last night," Eamonn said. He stroked the side of her neck and Dylan twitched away from him. She caught his scowl reflected in the window. "You couldn't see yourself, see the way your body reacted to me, so it was easier for you to deny how much you truly wanted it."
Dylan whipped her head toward him. Through bared teeth, she snarled, "I don't want anything from you except for you to go away!"
He shook his head, making a tsking sound. "We both know that's a lie. Now, are you going to be good and beg me like a good whore, or do I have to gag you again so that you don't call out the names of your other lovers whilst I have my hands on you?"
"I will never beg you. For anything."
Eamonn smirked. "Oh, sweetness, I've had you begging for quite a great deal during our acquaintance. 'Don't kill Nuada,' 'please take me,' 'please use me,' 'please, Eamonn, let me suck your—'"
"I was drugged, you sick monster."
He rolled his eyes. "We all have our little excuses. But you weren't drugged last night. And," he added, "you won't be drugged this time while you and I both watch you come undone beneath my touch." He snapped his fingers and more night bled in through the window. Dylan gasped and clamped her mouth shut, expecting the gag, but instead the rivers of shadow twined in her messy, tangled hair and forced her head straight so that she was looking directly into her own frightened eyes.
Eamonn lifted a knife, and Dylan recognized it—the knife from her cottage kitchen. The knife Eamonn had threatened her with before Nuada had walked into the trap the other Elf had set.
She forced herself not to whimper, not to plead. He'd threatened to cut her before Nuada's arrive but once the prince had come…he'd cut her face. Just like the wolves in the subway, the renegade Rojos who'd taken such strong exception to her. He'd planned on carving up her face, and he was going to do it again, he was going to make her bleed, she could taste the blood already…
But he simply cut through her underwear and pulled it away, leaving her without even that meager protection.
"If you're going to rape me," she snapped, swallowing sickness, "get it over with. I've seen this show before."
Eamonn shook his head. "I'm not going to rape you, Dylan. I've never raped you. That was Silverlance, taking you without any finesse or tenderness. I was good to you, better than a mortal whore deserves. I only gave you the, uh…ah. Gave you the fucking you so desperately wanted."
She couldn't turn her head, or she would've spat on him. Instead, she said something she hadn't said to anyone since she was fifteen.
"Fuck you."
"Not tonight, I'm afraid," Eamonn replied, "unless you ask nicely." He leaned into her, pulling her back flush to his chest and belly until she could feel every line of muscle, even through the loose hang of her dress. He settled his chin on her shoulder and nuzzled her almost lovingly. She tried to jerk away and almost pulled a muscle in her neck. She saw his reflection smile in the glass. "I'm going to enjoy this. And so are you."
He cupped her breasts, but this time didn't squeeze. He didn't have to. Even touching them hurt, especially when he traced the long bands of bruising he'd left on the delicate skin with his fingers.
"I must confess," he breathed in her ear, "I've never known anyone with breasts quite as soft or delicate as yours. You make such lovely bruises."
He pinched the nipples. Dylan bit her lip. Tremors shuddered through her, waves of revulsion and hateful lust. Tiny sparks of pleasure bit into her skin like hungry gnats. She tried to remember what she and Nuada had discussed: that a body had nerves and wiring that worked in certain ways most of the time and even when the mind was unwilling, the body could respond. That didn't mean anything. It wasn't consent. It wasn't inviting this. She wasn't inviting anything.
"See how you respond to me, sweetness," Eamonn growled in her ear as he manipulated her body, groping, grasping. "Your body is aching for me. You want me to use you, don't you? You realized it before, in your cottage, when we made love on your bed while Silverlance watched. Do you remember how damn good it was, having me inside you? How you screamed, begging me? Harder, faster, more. You begged so prettily," tears were running down her cheeks now, silent, ashamed, and he was shoving his disgusting arousal hard against her, "while I taught you your place. Admit it, my sweet: you've missed me…and I have missed you."
She kept repeating the words I don't want this in her mind as Eamonn played with her, toyed with her, smoothing his hands over her skin and tugging and pinching and tracing the bruises. She bit her lip until she tasted the first hint of the coppery fear tang of her own blood and made no sound, of pleasure or fear. Eventually she managed to even stop the tears. He wanted a victim. He would have a doll…or a corpse.
He loathed her silence. She saw it in his face, reflected in the window. He loathed that except for a tightening of the skin around her eyes, she refused to react. So it only surprised her a little when he swore and then suddenly viciously pinched her nipple, sank his teeth as hard as he could into the space where her neck met her shoulder, and cupped between her legs.
Pain made her gasp, cry out as his teeth punched through her skin. She felt the blood spill out and stream both down her back and over her breast. Eamonn wrenched his teeth from her flesh and began to stroke her and she knew he was done coaxing her. He would drag her into twisted pleasure and rip her climax from her to humiliate her, to rub her face in it. To try to prove she was a whore like he wanted her to admit.
And she couldn't stop him. Couldn't stop her body from shuddering, shuddering, the pleasure rippling through her like a poisonous wave. Couldn't stop the cry when he pushed his thick, clumsy fingers into her, stroking, curling his fingers into a vicious hook that seemed to spear right through her.
"No," she moaned, trying to pull away, trapped, paralyzed. "No."
"Yes," Eamonn growled in her ear. "You're wet for this. Don't lie to me, Dylan. You want this."
She couldn't shake her head, but she tried. "I don't, I don't, stop it." She couldn't be silent now, couldn't bear this.
"You don't want me to stop," he breathed, stroking. Stroking. Stroking. "You're close, aren't you, my sweet? Oh, so very close. I can tell. You can't stop trembling. Filthy whore, you love it."
Words crashed in her head, fear and memory splintering, screaming, clawing. How many times had Patrick and Xander said the same things? That she wanted them, liked what they did? And they'd never made her body react like this…
She wept, tears rolling down her cheeks and mixing with the blood drying to cool tackiness on her skin. She whispered, "Stop it, stop it. I don't want you, I want Nuada…"
Eamonn palmed her breast, crushing her to him, and he went at her relentlessly at the mention of the prince. He had an Elf's stamina and dexterity, and he used it, stroking, thrusting, invading her with his fingers while he caged her with his body and his shadows. She broke under the ruthless rape, the twisted pleasure wringing through her, and she cried out in horror and rage and release, but he would not cease.
"No, stop, stop it," she begged, as she'd sworn she wouldn't. "I can't. Stop!"
"How dare you call out his name when I am the one doing this for you?" Eamonn snarled, breaking her again on his fingers. Her spine bowed and she screamed again, sobbed, swore at him. He didn't stop. Refused to stop. Relentless invasion, ruthless demand, and she hated him, hated him, hated him. "You're mine," the Elf hissed when she came apart for the third and then the fourth time. "I give you this. I do. Filthy whoring bitch. Admit you want me. Admit you love this."
She couldn't stop crying, couldn't get her breath, and he just kept going, he wouldn't stop and it felt so good and so wrong and her stomach twisted, she couldn't stand anymore, couldn't keep upright. He caught her with his free arm and kept on, punishing, hurting, drowning her with every tidal wave of release, taunting her all the while.
"Admit you love this, Dylan. Your body doesn't lie. Admit you want it. Admit you're a whore. You're a whore for this, for me. You want it, don't you?" When she shook her head helplessly, he shifted his arm so that he held her up while wrapping his hand around her throat. He squeezed, ever so lightly, and she gasped. Choked when his grip tightened. "Yes, you do. You want this. You enjoy being used. Only a fae can give you such pleasure. And I am the one you want most. Shall I end it for you? Shall I give you what you crave? Beg me, and I will be merciful. I'll take you right now, right here. Beg me."
Dylan bit her tongue so hard blood flooded her mouth. Her tongue and her bottom lip ached from her teeth. She stared at herself, her reflection in the window. She looked exhausted. Battered. Hopeless. Desperate. Had she looked like this when the real Eamonn had been in her cottage, raping her? Raping Nuada? Had they both looked like they wanted to die? Had Eamonn looked the way he did now: hungry, almost ravenous, teeth bared in a feral grin and eyes dark from the dilated pupils? Rabid, vicious, full of loathing and lust?
"Admit it. You love this. Little whore loves it. She wants it. You want it. You want me."
Somehow she found the saliva to wet her mouth and the breath to say, "No. I don't want it or you. I hate you."
Eamonn went still, staring at her reflection. Their eyes met in the reflection of the window and she saw the rage then, the hate…and something that might have been hurt. The rage and hate terrified her, but the hurt thrilled her because she was going to destroy even this dream remnant of him until he never rose from his damn grave again, and she would hurt him any way she could.
"I hate you," she snarled. "You can use my body but that's all you can do. I will never want you, you son of a bitch. Nuada will never want you. We want each other. I will always choose him over you. You will never be the man, the warrior, the lord he is, you sick freak! You're nothing. You're nobody. You're no better than a dog compared to him. And I am not your whore!"
With a savage roar, Eamonn grabbed her by the hair and ripped her away from the window, throwing her toward the bed. She hit the carved wooden frame hard enough she felt a rib snap and pain flared in a sick, black starburst through her side. She scrambled over the bed as the dark Elf stalked toward her. This was a dream, this was a nightmare, and she would kill this nightmare the way she'd killed the real Eamonn. She just needed a weapon, needed a blade.
A blade. Nuada kept a knife under his pillow. Had Eamonn found it while she'd been trying the doors? She dove for the pillow and came up with the twin knife tearing it from its sheath. He was dead, he was dead, that son of a bitch was going to die!
A large hand landed on her shoulder and she whirled, ignoring the pain in her bad knee, in her side, even as it threatened to make her black out. Even as the blackness started to flood her vision, she slammed the blade straight into the moon-pale neck. It punched through the carotid and lodged there.
There was a choked gurgle. Dylan's eyes slashed up to Eamonn's face, desperate to see the dark Elf's expression as hell died again…and a scream lodged in her throat.
It was no longer night, but afternoon. Her dress was no longer unlaced and torn, but whole, rumpled as if from sleep. And the Elf in front of her…
"No…"
"Dyl…glk…" Nuada coughed, and blood spattered his lips and her face. He staggered back, hands going to his throat, and she reached for him. Nuada crumpled, choking on blood. "Hlk…Dyl…Dyl…"
"Nuada!" She looked around frantically, running her bloody hands through her hair as she dropped beside him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I thought you were Eamonn, I'm sorry, hold on, stay with me." She clamped her hands around the wound in his throat and she screamed, "Help! Wink! Becan! Somebody, help!"
Nuada's mouth moved silently and she saw amber blood welling up in the back of his throat. He was drowning. He tried to speak and the blood bubbled and foamed. Dylan screamed, "Help!" Nuada's gaze began to unfocus and Dylan cried, "No! No, Nuada, no! Stay with me! Stay with me! Nuada!"
The blood filling his slack mouth bubbled once and grew still.
"No…no…Nuada. Nuada? Nuada! Nuada!"
.
"Nuada!"
Nuada jerked awake as Dylan screamed. She lurched away from him, screaming his name. Instantly alert, the Elf prince grabbed her and turned her to face him. Her eyes were glazed from sleep, unseeing. Her face was white as death. And, he saw with distant bafflement, she had a black bruise marring the space where her neck met her shoulder. A bruise almost identical to the one on her collarbone.
"Dylan!" He could think on her bruises later. "Dylan! Wake up!" And in her mind, Little one, wake up! You were dreaming! You were just dreaming! It is all right, little one! You are safe! We are safe now!
Her eyes cleared, glassy blue-gray like a clouded autumn sky turning back to her normal silvery blue and she stared at him. Her chest heaved with every desperate breath. Reaching out, fingers trembling, she touched the left side of his neck. Stared at her fingers, at his unblemished skin, at her fingers again. Met his eyes with a stricken gaze.
Then she burst into tears.
Nuada enfolded her in his arms, rocking her a little, soothing her with soft nothings in Gaelic while she sobbed into his chest. He barely understood half of what she said—something about him, the dark Elf, and the window and doors being locked and he wouldn't stop and a knife and blood and how she was so very sorry—but once she was calm, they would talk it over. That was how they always handled nightmares, no matter whose nightmares they were.
But as he soothed her, his mind wandered to something else. Sometime while they slept, the lacing on Dylan's bodice had come partially undone. He'd noticed only the bruise on her shoulder at first, but now he could look down and glimpse something else—bruises in thick, slanted bands across her breasts, purple misted by burgundy and blue. She hadn't had them the night before.
There had been a few times, albeit rarely, when Dylan's exquisite, agonizing nearness while he slept had prompted him to touch her, caress her while he had only the most tangential acquaintance with wakefulness. There had been several times where they'd coupled while one or both of them were half-asleep—they'd discussed this in depth after the first time to make sure they'd crossed no boundaries or done any harm to their obviously complicated relationship. Had he…done this to her while they slept? Surely she would've awoken at such a rough touch. Had she? She knew she didn't have to allow him any access to her body if she didn't want it, so if she had woken from whatever he'd done to put those bruises on her, why hadn't she woken him up?
Had she tried? He couldn't think of how his wife had ended up with such savage bruises on her body when she'd been in his arms the entire time. He must've somehow done this, but then…why had she allowed it? Or had she?
He was afraid she hadn't. Afraid he had once again lost control and…Or perhaps something had triggered…something, and she hadn't cared, she'd only wanted his hands on her. That had happened before, as well, but never with this kind of result.
But she was too distraught to talk about it now. His questions could wait. So he only kissed the top of her head and soothed her tears. When it was ended and she was calm again, he coaxed her to eat some lunch. Becan, brilliant brownie that he was, had brought another tray of simple fruit and buttered toast.
This time, thank the Fates, Dylan ate everything on the tray and had no trouble keeping it down. But Nuada knew the nightmare still haunted her. He saw it in her eyes. And it only grew worse when her gaze drifted over his shoulder to one of the bedroom windows and she paled. He turned to look and frowned.
What, he wondered, was so frightening about a cracked window pane?