Callie
The last goblet of liquid was poison. Not an antidote.
I grabbed a fist full of my hair at what I had just done.
I had miscalculated.
She had said four poisons and three antidotes.
My stomach immediately seized in a tight cramp, and I fell on my side still atop the table as I pulled my knees to my chest.
There were no more cups; nothing else was in the room but snakes.
My skin grew both too hot and too cold at the same time.
“You are monsters! This wasn’t even a fair trial! You just wanted entertainment for your demented people!” I screamed, clutching my stomach as stabbing pain spread throughout my body.
I waited but felt and heard nothing from the crowd or Mendax.
“Well, congratulations, you assholes! You got what you wanted!” I cried as hot tears dribbled down to collect on the table below my face.
My voice was hoarse with wailing sobs of defeat. Panic surrounded my every thought.
“Go take the throne, you piece of shit! You’re nothing but a monster, and that’s all you’ll ever be! Some day you will get what’s coming to you!” I choked back a scared sob.
My mind was blurring together like I was underwater. Everything felt foggy and painful. I could feel things beginning to shift and move as my muscles started to spasm.
I was crying so hard now snot ran down my face onto the table and pooled beneath my face. Why was everything in my life so punishing? So agonizingly hellish and tiresome.
At least I could be with my mom and sister again. I would finally be able to hug them again after I died.
“I am so stupid. I wish I’d never seen those fairies, and I wish I’d never met Eli. I wish I’d never seen a stupid moth or mushroom in my life. I wish I’d never become a scientist. I wish I’d never made that deal. I wish I’d never met any Fae ever!” I blubbered just before a sharp pain had me crying out as my stomach seized painfully. My mouth felt so dry.
My heart was beating so fast that it felt like a train was running through my chest. The hot tears continued to blur my vision.
“I wish I could go back to Willow Springs and pretend again. Just pretend everything is normal and okay and that . . . that is my life. I could date Cliff and settle down. I would hug Cecelia if I ever saw her again. I would hug Earl so tight and tell him to stay so far away from those stupid mushrooms.” My blubbering was incoherent, but it didn’t matter because no one was here. I would die completely alone.
Fight lamb. Show me the serpent that I know you really are, Callie. Give me all the venom you’ve got.
He was encouraging me? How ironic.
Calling me a serpent. Couldn’t he decide? A lamb or a serpent? You couldn’t be both.
He and I both knew I was a lamb. If I was a serpent, I would have already bitten him.
I would have bitten him a thousand times before he threw me in the dungeon.
I would have filled him with so much fucking venom his eyes floated and his heart exploded—
That mouth of yours is making me hard with all of these venomous threats.
The venom.
Ohmygod. The venom.
I struggled to sit up. My stomach felt tight, and I was barely able to move.
The venom was the last antidote.
The last poison was oleander. It had lethal cardiac glycosides known as oleandrin and neriine that sped up the pulse to erratically high levels.
I rolled off the table with a crack as my back landed hard atop a lumpy pile of snakes. I grabbed the nearest one, my fears overridden by the last morsel of my fleeting will to live.
There was no more space left for panic. I was too full of desperation.
The thick black reptile was huge. My hand couldn’t encompass his body, but I trailed it to the end and lifted hoping it wasn’t his tail.
It wasn’t. The large black snake widened its pink mouth before striking me in the chest just above my right nipple.
I screamed as the snake slithered angrily away.
The harsh sting had me clawing at my breast where the viper had struck. I felt the rush of venom surge through me like a bolt of electricity before it began its paralyzing effect.
Snakes used their venom to dull and sedate their prey, making it easier for them to consume. This effect would counter the poison’s effect by slowing down my heart rate.
The collection of poisons in my stomach would likely be in abundance, hence able to burn off enough of the lethal venom to where I would only be incredibly sick, but not dead. Unless they didn’t get me out of here in time and the other snakes bit me.
Before I could even move my arms out to collapse on the ground, the room whirled around me, and I was again back in the center of the ballroom at the Court of Faerie.
This time I felt no cold marble floor beneath me like that of the last trial.
Warm hands shifted underneath my back. My eyes fought to stay shut. To go somewhere far, far away from all of this torture.
I was in Prince Mendax’s arms.
I opened my eyes, prepared to fight, but instead, my body betrayed me. Every taut, sedated muscle grew heavier in his arms, and I found myself tucking into his broad chest, finding comfort.
It made no sense. He was the reason I was sent to the trial.
I knew he wanted me dead.
But something had cracked in him. I could see it in the way he stared at me.
As if I alone gave the oxygen that allowed him life.
He studied me as raw power flooded the space around him. His black wings of smoke spread so wide it felt as if the room struggled to contain them. Emotion filled the pools of sky-blue eyes studying my face. His dark brows furrowed, and his mouth was only a thin line with a look of shaken wonder on his face. I felt him tighten his grip on me as he began to walk, carrying me out of the ballroom.
Darkness fought to close the edges of my eyes again, and I prayed this was just the sedative effects of the venom and not my death.
“You are safe now, lamb. I’ve got you,” he whispered with a trembling voice.
“She will be killed in the last trial, Mendax, no matter what you say. I will not keep a human in my bloodline. I run the next trial, and she doesn’t make it out.” The queen’s cold shout echoed around us.
The sound of large doors being opened sounded at the same time as a cool breeze hit me, but my eyes had already fastened shut. Only the warm feel of Mendax’s body as he pulled me against him and the steady pace of his haggard breathing grounded me.
“I can lose everything, but not you. I can’t lose you,” he whispered so quietly I knew I wasn’t meant to hear.
Pure warmth and protection radiated through my mind like a cocoon of sweet and cozy feelings.
It was from him, and it felt like a dirty, vulnerable secret I wasn’t supposed to know.
“Get away from me,” I growled as the oversized shadow gave me a predatory stare.
I had passed out sometime after we had ridden in the carriage and slept the entire way back.
I wasn’t sure if the queen had ridden back with us, but in the few hours it took to get back to the Unseelie castle, it had become deserted. The night always seemed to be filled with shadows and smoke when I saw it, so I still had no idea what part of the day it actually was.
“Callie, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a choice. There could still be a pocket of venom in the puncture marks, and I will not risk it,” he gritted through his teeth, barely hiding his frustration.
“Funny words from the person who caused the venom,” I bit out as harshly as I could. As if my words were the snake itself striking.
I edged toward the door of the room he had taken me into. I just wanted to get away from him and his sexy amber-smelling body.
I was exhausted, but I wasn’t about to let him suck the poison out of my bite.
The bite above my breast.
He was the villain in my story.
The merciless shadow that felt nothing and cared for no one.
He had tried to kill me numerous times. He alone had caused me more pain and anguish than I had felt my entire life, and I would not forget that.
So then why did I find myself wanting more of him? Needing him?
I knew there was more to him than he let on. I’d witnessed kindness and gentleness from the horrifying umbra. After speaking to the maids, I knew he wasn’t as bad as he made himself out to be. Or maybe he was, but not to me.
I should feel terrified and frightened by his presence, but instead, I found myself only wondering what he would feel like under my fingers. He had discovered how my skin felt—tasted.
I craved to know what his Fae skin felt like under me—inside me.
I shook my head so hard my hair whipped the wall, and I silently begged my idiotic brain to right itself from these horrible, delusional thoughts.
He was the bad guy.
You didn’t care about the bad guy. You didn’t want to be near the bad guy. You didn’t want to make the bad guy smile so hard that it caused something in your gut to ache.
You didn’t fall into the bad guy’s traps, and you certainly—certainly—didn’t fall in love with him.
He ran his large hands over his face and through his silky black hair, attempting to harness his growing anger.
“I can impel you, Callie Peterson, remember that,” he threatened as he stepped closer to me and the door frame.
“Don’t you dare,” I said through gritted teeth, suddenly feeling incredibly weak and helpless.
“The venom will get out one way or another, Callie. Either I call the nearest guard or suck it out myself,” he threatened, taking another step closer. “But know that I’ll kill the guard for touching you before his mouth has the chance to speak again,” he growled as if the mere thought of someone else touching me made him a savage.
Only a few feet separated us now.
“Promise me,” I whispered, all the fight leaving me momentarily as I made my plea.
I noticed his body relax slightly with his victory.
“Anything,” he stated as if it physically caused him pain not to step into me and take me in his arms.
“Promise me that you will never impel me, that you’ll never take my free will away,” I pleaded softly.
“Done.” He stepped closer, the movement fluid and graceful.
“One more thing, Mendax—”
“Malum,” he whispered as he stepped into me, the front of our bodies pressing tightly together.
His eyes were full of heat as if an inferno fought to emerge from under his gentle movements.
My body stiffened, and I fought the urge to melt into him. I wouldn’t allow it. I stepped into my footing and held my ground.
“What?” I asked, shocked. My more tender emotions recoiled with the realization of what he had just done, the power of the words he had just spoken.
“My true name is Malum Mendax, Crown Prince of the Unseelie Court,” he whispered a little timidly, as if he were handing me a gun.
As far as the Fae believed, he was.
“Speak my name from those soft lips, and I’ll give you anything—everything—you could ever want,” he whispered hoarsely against my neck as he struggled to swallow, and I could tell he meant it.
He lifted his face, and tender emotions filled his eyes. But only anger filled mine. I didn’t want this. I couldn’t do this.
“Let me leave, Malum Mendax. Forget the last trial, and let me go home. Now,” I said through gritted teeth.
His closeness was doing things to me I didn’t want—things that were making this a lot harder. I accidentally inhaled, and the smell of spicy amber filled me like a hard drink making me tense with anger.
He was the bad guy!
His features sharpened as if he’d been asleep this whole time and had only just awakened. He stepped back with a scowl.
“You will never leave me, Callie. This is your home now.”
He stepped back farther, and his black outfit seemed to radiate shadows as his features grew tight. He tilted his head, making him look even more unhinged than his crazy words had made him sound.
“The trial is written in Faerie law as a promise, and the queen has taken control of it. It cannot be stopped, but I will see to it that my—that you are unscathed.”
“If I come out alive, then I get to go back to the human realm. That should also be written in Faerie law, as you say. You promised me,” I countered.
My eyes had begun to well up from exhaustion and frustration. My dress was the same from the trial, and it blanketed my frame, heavy and uncomfortable.
“That was before you were my bonded. Before I realized I can’t live without you,” he insisted as he crossed his arms. Challenge flashed across his eyes with a gleam.
“You tried to kill me after you bonded to me! I had no say in this! You have been trying to destroy me since I got here!” I shouted at him, suddenly feeling uncontainable.
The wariness from the trials ebbed away, replaced with anger, both with myself for feeling some morbid type of connection with him and with the monster himself.
He turned his back to me as he raked his fingers through his inky tresses in an attempt to calm himself. He looked barbarous. No longer gentle and sweet. It was as though the layer had finally cracked, and the creature left was fully unhinged and maniacal.
I recoiled slightly as the air shifted. The human prey in me began to panic with a new fear.
He was losing his control, I could feel it. I should be frightened, but some idiotic, lurid part of me begged to see what would happen if he did. Would he finally kill me? Or something worse?
“We may have both been trying to destroy each other, lamb, but rest assured, only you have succeeded,” he snarled as he turned. “I have tried and tried to rid myself of you. I have never felt the things that you evoke in me.”
He walked to the dresser that sat against the wall as if he needed the space between us or he would truly snap. He grabbed a glass decanter from the tray and poured the dark amber liquid into a small glass. Shaky hands held the glass as he replaced the decanter’s topper.
“You will finish the last trial. I will find out what it is from my mother and make absolute certain that you are kept safe.” He tossed back the amber liquid, emptying the glass. “And then we will be married. Then my burdensome suffering will finally end,” he mumbled the last part softly.
I stepped closer to the door slowly, attempting to keep my movements undetected.
He was insane.
Gorgeous and alluring but cracked in the head all the same. I ignored a secret part of me that seemed to vibrate with the power I got knowing how strongly I affected him and the butterflies it gave me. He was the Unseelie prince. The most feared of the Fae, and I, a little human, had somehow gotten to him?
“I will go home after the third and final trial. Your mother will see to it. I know she would never allow a human to take her throne,” I said smugly as I watched a muscle tick in his defined jaw. He knew I was right. “I’ll die before I marry you. I still hate you,” I growled at him, not sure if I was reminding myself or him.
Something sharp seared painfully on my right breast. The bite mark burned like fire coal against my skin.
I startled and clutched my chest tightly with a hiss.
Mendax groaned and threw the glass against the wall. It shattered as he shouted out an angry roar.
“And I still want you dead just to rid myself of these nagging feelings! You are mine, and I will kill the entire world if it means keeping you,” he snarled. “Which includes getting the trace venom from your wound!” He growled as he took a step closer.
His wings unfurled in large billowing half-moon shapes that trailed onyx smoke along the floor.
I gasped at the sight of his wings spreading wide.
And then I ran out the open door.
The hallway was dark, but that would only help him. He seemed to be made from the shadows. My bare feet slapped against the cold marble floor. I was almost to the end of the hallway. I knew where I needed to go, and I would do anything to get there.
I couldn’t let him catch me.
I listened, expecting to hear footfalls behind me, but there were none. That didn’t mean anything though. He was a master killer. He enjoyed it. He was probably silent and hidden in the shadows right now. Watching me.
The door to the left at the end of the hall was open. If my calculations were correct, there should be a set of stairs in there that would get me to the roof. To the portal Walter said he knew was up there. I would find it. I had to.
The pain seared through my chest again. I wasn’t sure if it was from the thought of Walter being dropped off the roof by Mendax or the trace venom, but it hurt like crazy either way.
I turned to run into the room but fell backward as I slammed into a black wall of muscle. Mendax had shadowed into the door frame. Firm arms wrapped tightly around my waist, stopping my fall.
The front of our bodies pressed together, and my thin dress did little to buffer the feel of his hard muscles against my chest and shoulders. He was so large, every ounce of him chiseled and sculpted. The hard muscles of his abdomen tightened against me. My arms pressed against his biceps, feeling the hills and valleys of strength through his thin tunic.
The scent of campfire smoke and amber lacquered my senses as I inspected the sharp features of his face in a daze. His high cheekbones and sharp jaw looked so masculine when he clenched his jaw that way. Sky-blue eyes stared intensely at my mouth as if it were the key to the universe.
My eyes flickered as warm porcelain slid under the tips of my fingers. I hadn’t even realized I’d reached up to touch his face. My pointer, middle, and thumb traced the line of his jaw.
My eyes widened at my need to touch him. Stabbing pain flickered like confetti over my right breast shaking me out of the lust-filled daze. What was I doing?
I pushed off his chest, having caught him off guard just in the right moment, and ran down the hallway to the large staircase.
Panic and pain set in halfway down the wide stairs, and I’m not sure what caused it, the venom or the all-consuming want to be consumed by him. The need to know what would happen if I let the villain touch me.
I released my grip on the black railing and ran for my life. Every part of it.
I ran from myself and my wrong and broken feelings as I clamored down the hard stairs, afraid of what truly would be my death if I didn’t escape.
As I tiredly ran, the train of my dress caught the front of my foot, and I stumbled down the last several stairs with a painful thud. Every corner jabbing into my previous nearly-healed injuries.
I scrambled to get up when I felt his still presence to the front of me. Close enough I could feel the power radiating from him as the smoke billowed from his wings. Close enough to see the look of helpless frustration written in the depths of his steely eyes.
“Please, Callie,” he pleaded but didn’t move toward me.
“Get away from me, you psycho!” I shouted, turning as fast as I could. I began to run back up the stairs I had just come down. I was so slow now. I knew, had he really wanted, he could have grabbed me.
I clutched my chest as I stumbled over the last step, seriously debating letting him suck the poison from my system if it meant all the nagging pain would stop.
I reached the top platform on my hands and knees and crawled right into a pair of strong legs. I jumped up with the last of my will just as he stepped into me.
Something soft and pleading in his eyes spoke to whatever was left of me.
He swept his leg and gently kicked mine out from under me at the same time as he grabbed me. I jumped a moment late, not having seen the embarrassingly slow attack coming.
Strong arms held me as he dipped me backward and pressed firmly against my front. His hand held wide at the base of my skull while the other wrapped around my waist, pulling me against him.
His breath ghosted lightly across my face, both of us frozen as we stared intensely at the other.
“I-I have tried so hard to eradicate you from where you now live inside me.”
His words were so quiet and deep that I had to lean closer. I pulled myself up slightly to hear them, to feel them whispered across my cheek.
His words were shaky now, not the smooth, confident cadence I was used to hearing from him. “I would destroy anyone for you . . . anyone including myself,” he whispered, slowly reaching out to cup the side of my neck in his hand. “Every fiber of you has desecrated me wholly.” His voice cracked hoarsely. “The buttery texture of your skin has burned me with every touch. It’s all I think about. I-I am consumed by thoughts of you day and night.” His soft confession flowed from him in a plea.
I tilted my head up to find our faces were only a breath apart as he leaned over me. Before I realized what I’d done, I pushed my lips against his, my body refusing to take orders from my brain.
Soft velvety lips pressed against mine, gentle and tender, filled with everything we were both afraid of. I reached my hand to the back of his head and snaked my fingers through his satiny black hair needing to feel it. The action elicited a deep groan into my mouth from Mendax. The sound seemed to set fire to my bones with a painful need to be closer to him.
Within a second, the kiss had gone from tender to a blinding frenzy as I righted myself against him, and we struggled to touch more. I pressed my body so hard against his that I whimpered into his mouth when the wound on my chest smashed against him. Without breaking the wildness of our kiss, he reached down and cupped my ass in each hand, lifting me up. My dress shoved around my waist as I tightened my thighs around his body as I felt everything press against him with maddening friction.
It was a flurry of wild, needing hands and lips as he held me in the middle of the hall.
I felt something hard press against me so I gasped and pulled away. My arms held onto his massive shoulders as I looked down at him in a lust-drunk haze, half expecting to see him holding a knife against me.
He was hard as a rock.
The feel of his cock dented against the thin triangle of fabric that covered my center sent warmth and desire flooding through my lower belly. He realized what had shocked me and licked his lips with a salacious grin.
My back slammed against the hallway wall. I felt him press his length harder against my barely covered slit as he pulled away from our kiss to watch my face. My eyes flickered shut at the sensation. I didn’t care how wrong it was, I needed to feel him thrusting inside of me like I needed air.
He pressed against me a little harder with a deep groan, lifting my ass slightly, simultaneously causing a stroke of friction for us both. I bit my lip as I pressed my hips into him as though the fabric would incinerate and I would feel him inside me. Mendax’s lips found my neck as he trailed his tongue and soft mouth across the sensitive skin just below the shell of my ear. His hand slid across the bare skin of my thigh as goose bumps erupted in their wake like a command. A deep moan escaped with the feel of his lips as they moved stealthily across my clavicle. Playful bites and trails of teeth raked across my cleavage.
Mendax lifted his head to look deep into my eyes.
“How does it feel?” he said, breathing heavily. “To know that I love you and that you have doomed me? That you and only you have the power to disarm and debilitate me. That you, a human, have dismantled every part of me and rebuilt it as a shrine in your honor.” His pupils were blown out almost completely black now. He trailed his thumb across my bottom lip as he bit down on his own. “The way your mouth quivers slightly when you hold back your fiery words,” he rasped seductively as he pressed his thumb into my mouth. “The spark that you hide has swallowed me whole.” His strong hands skimmed across my shoulders as he shoved down the straps of my dress and exposed my breasts with a cold shock from the hallway’s icy air.
Pain flickered through arousal, and I squeezed my locked legs tightly around his waist. He snaked a hand down to press over the fabric of my underwear. At the same time, his other hand gently touched the two fang pricks next to my nipple. My eyes flickered, and I failed to stifle a sigh as the touch of both places sent the most delicious mix of pain-laced pleasure through my body.
“Oh god, Mendax,” I cried breathily as his fingers shoved aside the triangle of fabric covering me and pressed his mouth down to the bite. His tongue flicked across my hardened nipple as he stroked two fingers over my clit, causing me to jump and swear at the intense sensations.
I pressed myself against him, feeling the outline of his rock-hard cock behind his leathers.
He moaned, and the deep vibrations rumbled into my chest. Suddenly a sharp sting of blinding pain ripped from the skin under his mouth as he sucked at the bite. I shifted to get away just as his fingers dipped inside me.
I clung to him, unable to think of anything but the intense feelings that coursed through my body. My nails dented into his back as my head pressed against the wall behind me. The combination of pain and pleasure made me delirious. I writhed and arched against him, hoping he would give me more.
I froze with the realization he was sucking whatever residual poison out of my wound.
“Wait! Won’t the poison hurt you?” I whispered, shoving his hard shoulders away to look into his face.
I should want him dead. Not feel worried about him.
He pulled his face back, and my breast popped out of his mouth. He looked up at me as though in awe.
“It will not hurt me, little lamb. You are the only thing that could hurt me now,” he whispered as he stepped back and set my legs on the ground.
I pulled my dress down over my thighs and tried to steady myself. I kept my hands to myself, afraid that if they so much as brushed the hem of his shirt, I would be unable to control myself again.
His large frame blocked me from stepping away from the wall. His soft blue eyes looked at me in a way I would have given anything to experience.
From anyone but him.
“You were never supposed to mean this much to me,” he rasped, shaking his head.
“You are the bad guy,” I whispered, and my breath moved the black hair that fell across his forehead. “You are filled with hatred and wickedness. You enjoy killing.” My bare chest brushed against his, the conflicting emotions at war in my mind. None of any of this felt real. His hands found my waist, and I couldn’t help but feel relief when they did. “I love sunshine and animals. I-I am human—I don’t belong here. I need to leave,” my soft whispers pleaded as he bent down slowly and joined our lips in a slow, sensual kiss.
All thoughts, rational or otherwise, left me. I was a puddle against his touch. It didn’t matter how much my mind fought for what it thought was right.
“I am the bad guy, Callie.” He pulled away from my lips just enough to lay his whisper upon them, never opening his eyes. “Which is why you will never, ever be free from me again.”
He kissed my stiff lip, biting the bottom before he pulled back just enough to speak again. “I am selfish, and I like hurting people.” A haggard breath left him. “It doesn’t matter if you belong here or not. I won’t spare even half a thought before I murder every person in this world if they get in my way. I would search the crevices of hell and every nook in between for you. The Fae will beg you to stay, knowing that is what keeps their loved ones alive another day.” He cupped the side of my face gently and opened his eyes with heavy lids. “And you aren’t as good and full of sunshine as you would like people to believe, my little assassin. I see straight through you. It has my dick hard waiting to see what type of hellhound you truly are.”
My blood thrummed through my veins with his words. He still thought I was an assassin sent to kill him.
He was nothing but danger, in every sense of the word, and I needed to get away before he snapped—any more than he already had. I started to push him away, expecting him to get mad, but instead, a hurt look flicked across his pale eyes before he stepped back.
“For the last time, Mendax, I am a scientist, not an assassin sent to kill you,” I growled, feeling annoyed.
I hated this. I just wanted to go home.
A small grin tugged at the sides of his mouth. God, he was handsome when he smiled.
“I never said that you weren’t a scientist, my love. Two true things can exist at the same time,” he purred. His wings pulsed with heat as they coiled their black smoke around my body. “You were sent here to destroy me, and you have succeeded, even if it wasn’t in the way you intended.”
I don’t know what had gotten into me. But something inside me liked that he thought I was dangerous, not some Barbie doll idiot or some stuck-up boring scientist. He was enamored with me, the man who hated everyone, wanted me. The man who everyone feared, feared me.
I smashed my face to his, feeling his muscled chest with my palms.
What did it matter? Was any of this actually real? I wondered if I wasn’t just as mad as the dark prince when heat coiled in my belly and I pushed his back flush against the wall as we returned to a frenzy of hands and tongues.
