One of the Enduares steps forward, his eyes so blue that they almost seem to glow with an otherworldly light. His gaze pierces through me.
He looks concerned. "You are the king's human?" His common tongue is almost hard to understand. “Can we help you?”
The Butcher’s whore,I translate as I shake my head, trying to back away.I knew it.
The Enduar steps toward me again. My heart is pounding in my chest, and sweat trickles down my back. I have to get out of here.
"They told me that I could leave if I wanted to," I bluff, sticking my chin out.
One of them shakes his head and murmurs something in the Enduar tongue. My eyes go wide, and I start to breathe faster and faster. The one approaching me nods. "You must speak with the king."
I hold my hands up, telling him to stop, and his nose wrinkles as he inhales my smell. There are so many of them, what if they hold me down too?
"No," I say firmly and dart around them. I'm fully expecting to be snatched up and dragged, kicking and screaming to the man who made me watch while my brother was taken.
But to my surprise, they don't follow me. I sprint down the passageway, my heart pounding in my chest. As I retrace my steps to the exit of the cave, I pass several more of the monsters. None of them approach as I run under mushroom light and once again across the bridge, showcasing the temple with pulsing veins of lava.
While hurrying up the winding tunnel to the exit, a weight is lifted. They really will let me leave. My plan will work this time. I will—
“It is good to see you are feeling better.”
I'm stopped dead in my tracks by a fully armored Enduar leaning against the grand golden doors. His arms are crossed, and he looks down at me, almost bored, as he takes in my filthy appearance, stolen clothes, and satchel. Flickers of anger shine through his expression, but I feel them potently, small bursts from the crystal in my chest.
“Ay, esto es el colmo,”1I breathe. That connection between us still isn't dead, and he doesn’t seem to notice the state of my body. Power flows off him, but it doesn’t compare with his cruel, chiseled perfection. Except his eyes. They are guarded.
He raises a silver eyebrow, and I'm just glad he isn't wearing those awful fangs on his teeth. “More human words? Something about height, I think. Do you enjoy my height?”
I narrow my eyes. I don’t know how he knows so many words from the human dialect, but I am getting tired. "It's an expression,capullo azul2. It means that I’m done playing games. Now let me pass."
His lips quirk up into a smile, the first one I have ever seen on his face. It unsettles me, especially as it is not complemented by his battle armor. "Why would I do that, exactly?"
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. This is the most he has ever spoken to me out loud. "I don't belong here. I need to find my brother."
"You keep saying that. Will you tell me why you think they’ll kill him?” he says after a displeased pause. Still not moving from his spot.
More anger heats my insides. "No. My friend told me you told everyone they could leave. I'm going now."
Desperation leaks into my heart. He raises his hand, and flashbacks from my first escape overtake me. He'd used that same hand to tear my attacker in half as easily as if he were tearing through leaves.
It is impossible to handle the wave of anger and despair crashing over me as I look into his unyielding silver-blue gaze. Somehow, he invades my mind again, sending me an image of me on the ground. Dying, broken. My knees threaten to buckle, and my eyes well with tears at the horror.
“You are afraid of all the wrong things. It is safe here,” he says. The sound of metal clinking was the only thing I could hear over my labored breaths.
He reaches out and touches me. A large, warm hand envelops my face, turning my face to gaze at him. He does not merely exist in this world, he does not submit; hecommands.
“Have you thought about my offer?” I ask.
His eyes gleam. “I had assumed you offered yourself out of desperation. You are calmer now, and you still wish to give yourself to me?”
I blink, struggling to breathe with his hand on my face. “Let me go to save my brother. I will free him, and I will return.”
His expression grows harder, more severe, as he watches me speak. “The answer is still no to letting you leave.”
I take a step back, feeling the loss of his warmth and the crystal in my chest pulsing. “Send someone with me. I promise I will return. Is that not what you want—For me to stay and be your... concubine?”
More anger. “What I want, Estela,” he all but purrs, “is for you to return to your room and heal.”
The king leans forward, looming over me, so I must crane my neck as I look up at him. Clearly, he does not care about the state of my hair. The song my crystal sings is unbearable, drawing me in to touch him. To feel his skin on my own.