of bed, wishing she could take a longer nap. Exhaustion pulled at her, but sleeping all day wouldn’t help her adjust to the third shift schedule.
The other kitchen staff told her dinner was served at six o’clock, and her stomach demanded she join.
Her uniform was crumpled from sleep, and she made a mental note to venture into town tomorrow for casual clothes. The clothes she arrived in magically disappeared while being laundered.
Winding through the dark hallways soothed her, and when she stepped into the brightly lit dining hall reserved for the staff, she relaxed. The room was large and had several rows of picnic-style tables where people were sprinkled about, talking and laughing amongst themselves.
When the closest table noticed her arrival, they fell quiet. The rest of the staff followed suit, and before long, the entire room stared at her in a deafening silence.
Keeping her shoulders back, she walked to the serving line, but the stack of plates was snatched from the table by a woman standing nearby. Rory heard a few snickers around the room and fought the urge to grab the plates from the woman and throw them on the ground.
If they wanted a villain, she would give them one.
Instead, she proceeded to the line and looked for anything she could eat with her hands, but as she passed each tray of food, someone pulled it back. She whirled on the other staff and stared them down, table by table.
A movement at the back of the dining hall caught her attention, and when she looked up, Samyaza stalked through the room toward her. She had half a mind to give him a reason to send her to Orcus now, and if it wasn’t for Cora, she would have.
He stepped around her and grabbed a plate that miraculously appeared where the stack had been. Food filled the buffet, too, and he piled his plate high before turning and leaving without a word.
Rory’s shoulders fell as she turned on her heel and walked toward the exit, but she only made it a few steps before mashed potatoes splattered against her chest. She stopped cold and searched for the one responsible.
“Evil bitch!” someone yelled as they hurled a spoonful of green beans her way.
That was all it took to set the others off. Rory was pelted with food from all angles, accompanied by insults she deserved. She would not cry, and she would not run. She retreated down the aisle, taking the punishment with poise.
As she stepped into her room and surveyed her clothes, she smiled. Ironic how they refused to feed her dinner, yet they gave her food, anyway.
She looked around the room for something to scrape the edible weapons onto. It was gross, but she was starving and didn’t eat during her shift.
A knock on her door almost made her jump out of her skin, and before she could ask who it was, the door opened, and two large wings cast a shadow across her face.
Sam entered quietly. “Eat,” he commanded and shoved the plate he’d made into her hands. She watched his large wings tuck in tight as he ducked through her doorway and disappeared.
Rory’s alarm clock blared at two-thirty a.m. the next morning, and she reached blindly to hit the snooze button. She was met by cold, rattling metal, and reality crashed into her, jolting her awake.
There were no electronics here, and the clock on her bedside table had literal bells that made her want to stomp it to bits. Turning it off, she stood and stretched before using the bathroom and getting ready for her shift. Briefly, she wondered if women had periods here since their bodies essentially froze in time.
She seemed to be the only person on three a.m. kitchen duty, but she’d passed other staff in the palace yesterday on her way to the kitchens.
The head cook at the end of Rory’s shift the day before told her to peel potatoes today. While it sounded terrible, it had to be better than scrubbing ovens.
She passed through the first kitchen into the next and screamed at the top of her lungs when she came face to face with the Umbra King.
His blonde hair was messy, and his silk sleep pants hung low on his hips. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the deep V at his waist drew her eyes downward.
“My eyes are up here, Miss Raven,” he drawled. Damn him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, fighting down the heat creeping into her cheeks.
“This is my palace,” he said, waving around a spoon. “What are you doing here? Ah, that’s right. You murdered thirteen innocent people.”
Dipping his spoon into what looked like custard, he brought it to his mouth, never breaking eye contact. She crossed her fingers and hoped that he choked.
Ignoring him, she walked around the middle island toward the back kitchen supply closet and mumbled, “None of them were innocent.”
“What was that?” he called after her. She kept walking, but shadows snaked around her like ropes and held her in place. Wiggling did no good, and she closed her eyes, wishing she were anywhere but here. “I said—“ Caius walked closer. “What was that?” His breath tickled the back of her neck, and she wondered if head-butting the king was a punishable offense.
“I said, I wish you had been one of them,” she replied. The shadows tightened, and one wrapped around her ponytail, twisting her head to look at him behind her.
“Tell me,” he murmured. “Did you lure them to their deaths with the promise of a good fuck?”
Rory tried to burn a hole through his face with her eyes. “Why? Interested?”
His shadows moved, still restraining her arms and legs, but freeing her body and hair. Caius walked in front of her, tracing his eyes from her face to her chest to her stomach.
His eyes found hers again, and they were filled with such heat, she thought she would burn alive. “Are you offering?” Her entire body throbbed, which pissed her off.
Her mind flashed back to the image of him standing behind a naked Nina. “I prefer not to lower myself to Nina’s sloppy seconds,” she crooned with a snarky smile.
He stepped into her space and lowered his towering frame. “Do you prefer to be strung up, like your victims?”
The way Caius looked at her curdled her insides, and she strained against the shadows binding her limbs. “Do not pretend to be better than me, Bane, or Caius, or whatever the fuck you’re going by today. I know what you did.“ She spit in his face for good measure, but a shadow blocked it from hitting him.
He remained unmoving as he studied her. Finally, he stepped back before rescinding his shadows. “And what is it you know?”
She shook her arms as the blood returned. “I watched you murder my sister and steal her soul.” Her words held such venom that she barely recognized her own voice.
He seemed to contemplate her words before saying, “I killed my own sister, Miss Raven. Why are you surprised?”
She forced her feet to stay rooted to the floor instead of lunging for him. He simply walked back to the counter, grabbed his bowl, and left.
Later that night, Rory sat under the shower’s hot stream and leaned her head back. Her hands had blisters the size of Erdikoa because, as it turns out, peeling potatoes all day is not easier than cleaning ovens.
She’d shoved a few rolls into her apron, and snuck a piece of breakfast steak before the lunch crew came in, and it was all she’d eaten today. Her stomach rumbled, but there was no use in trying the dining hall again.
Once she was out of the shower, Rory climbed into bed, not bothering with pajamas. She was exhausted, and it wasn’t long before sleep pulled her under.
Rory was lying in a field of wildflowers, staring at a ceiling fit for a king. A grey and black chandelier hung above her, and when she turned her head from side to side, the Umbra King’s throne room surrounded her. Her dark surroundings were in deep contrast with the soft grass beneath her. “Even in my dreams I’m stuck in Vincula.”
“Miss Raven?”
Rory looked up and saw Caius wading through the thick field and groaned. “Figures my first full night’s sleep would be haunted by the likes of you.”
His head appeared in her line of sight. “Your soul is black, Miss Raven. You are a walking nightmare in and of yourself.”
She sat up and twisted herself to glower at him. “You murdered your own sister, but you speak to me like I disgust you for similar transgressions.”
He positioned himself in front of her and sat on the grass. “Thirteen,” he corrected her. “You murdered thirteen people. Not just one.”
“You killed two.” She ripped a handful of grass from the floor and threw it in his face. He had no shadows here, and his hand wasn’t big enough to deflect the entire assault. He tried blowing blades of grass from his mouth but ultimately had to pick them from his tongue with his fingers.
Rory leaned forward, laughing with satisfaction. “You deserved it.”
“That wasn’t very polite,” he said in a low voice. “You need to grow up.”
She threw another blade of grass half-heartedly. “Not everyone is five-hundred years old.” She eyed him skeptically, recalling his naked body positioned behind Nina for the hundredth time. “Which is really fucking weird. Why do you fuck women hundreds of years younger than you?”
He studiously ignored her as he picked the grass off his shirt. “Who else am I supposed to fuck? My siblings and I are the only immortals in the realms.”
Rory scrunched her nose. “It’s still weird.”
“It is not something you need to concern yourself with,” he replied. “I do not consort with people like you.” At his condescending words, she lost her composure.
“Will you shut up?” she snapped. “They deserved it. I saved people, you know. Me, not you. All you did was kill for your own gain. Do not judge me when your hands are bathed in blood.”
There was a breath of quiet before he asked, “What do you mean, ‘they deserved it?’”
She still ripped at the grass. “They were black souls so suffocating it was hard to be around them.” She could feel his attention focused solely on her. “I followed them, and—“
“Why?” he asked, cutting her off. “If they were difficult to be around, why would you follow them?”
She looked at him and wondered how he could be so old, yet so dense. “Because a black soul will commit a crime, eventually. They can’t help themselves.”
“You do not know that,” he argued. “You killed them because you assumed they would commit a crime?”
“I followed them for days, sometimes weeks, to keep an eye on them,” she explained. “Some committed small crimes that were none of my business, and after a while, I left them alone.” It still bothered her, letting them go. What if the next day they hurt someone? “But some tried to hurt people in the worst ways, and I stopped them.” She quit messing with the grass and lifted her gaze. “Forever.”
He didn’t respond, and she wished something would make noise to fill the silence. Suddenly, music blasted through the room, and she startled like Keith in a phantom house. They were fun houses at carnivals where Eidolons popped through walls and scared the shit out of you.
She remembered she was dreaming and laughed quietly to herself.
Caius lifted a brow. “Discussing murder is funny to you?”
She motioned her hand around the room. “I wished for noise and conjured music.”
He stared at her. “There is no music.”
The music stopped, and she wished the chandelier would fall on his head, frowning when it didn’t. “How is it you have finagled your way into my dream? Leave.”
“Perhaps it is you who has intruded on mine,” he countered.
“I didn’t know the evil king slept.” His presence irritated her, but despite the hostility in the air, they had a sort of familiarity, and it unsettled her more than anything.
He bit his lip, and she could tell he was trying not to smile, which pissed her off more. “Is that what they’re calling me now?” he asked wryly.
“Is that not what they have always called you?” She hoped her taunting pissed him off, even if it was only a dream.
A humorless laugh escaped him. “They called me much worse.”
“Because you killed your sister?” Rory asked crossly.
His eyes were focused on a flower as he plucked it from the floor. “Things are not always as they seem.”
“I suppose you didn’t kill my sister, either, and my own eyes deceived me?” she asked through clenched teeth. They were headed toward dangerous territory.
His fist closed around the delicate petals in his hand, crushing them, and they fluttered to the ground. “If I said no, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Bells echoed through the enormous room, and Rory jumped to her feet, prepared for a fight. Instead of the danger she expected, Caius moved next to her and looked around. “Time to wake up.”
Rory reached blindly for her alarm clock, and when she couldn’t find the button to stop the bells, she knocked it to the floor. She vaguely remembered dreaming, but as dreams do, the memory of her wonderland faded away until it was nothing but a feeling in the back of her mind.
The palace was vast, and Rory’s feet ached as she explored every inch she could. She was still trying to adjust her sleep schedule and needed something to keep her awake until an appropriate hour. It would also help when she began her search of the palace.
There was a smaller staircase by the kitchens no one ever used that she never noticed before; the steps were dusty, and the torches were out. Intrigued, Rory grabbed a torch from the nearby wall and looked around before slinking up the abandoned stairwell. The last thing she needed was someone reporting her to the king.
The stairs ended on a small landing with a single door at the top. “Interesting,” she murmured and tried the handle. Locked. Shit.
Her curiosity was going to eat her alive if she didn’t find out what was behind that door. Running back downstairs, she hurried to her room, grabbed a few hairpins, and bolted back up the stairway, thankful no one was around.
Once in front of the door, she bent over as she gasped for breath. Her legs ached, and her lungs burned. Running laps around the palace courtyard for conditioning shot to the top of her to-do list.
Pulling the two pins out, she stuck them into the deadbolt. Lock picking was something she mastered years back after her first kill.
The news said she killed thirteen people, but she killed fourteen. After her first kill, she puked and cried, and abandoned the body in the alley where she killed him.
The enforcers found the body the same night but ruled it an illegal trade gone badly. Rory knew she needed better places to execute her victims and researched until she was blue in the face. One netsite led her to a warehouse that used to house a butcher shop and meat packing plant.
She went to check it out, and when she found the door locked, she taught herself to pick locks with the help of different videos on the esse-net. Once inside, she was fascinated with the meat hooks hanging in broken freezers and the pulley system over a huge drain in the floor.
It was the day The Butcher was born.
Now, she was thankful for her self-taught skill as she moved the pins around until the latch clicked. When she pushed the door open and entered the room, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
The entire ceiling showed a blue sky with a few clouds and bright sunlight. With her head craned back, she studied the ceiling to figure out how it was possible.
“Essence screen,” she murmured. The entire ceiling was one giant screen. She closed the door and looked around the room. It was a large bedroom decorated beautifully with a feminine touch.
An enormous sleigh bed sat against the far wall, and upon further inspection, Rory realized the entire frame was made of a metal the same color as gold moedas. “Aether,” she breathed.
The rest of the room was more of the same; the beautiful metal detailing covered everything, and Rory couldn’t help but run her fingers along every surface she could reach.
The entire room was bathed in faux sunlight, and Rory almost cried from the sensation. She didn’t think she would feel the light on her face again for a very long time, but it seemed she found sunshine in a bottle.
It was then she really inspected the room and noted there was no dust collected anywhere. The stairs were untouched, but this room was immaculate. There were two doors on the back wall of the room, leading to a bathroom and a closet.
“Whose room is this?” she asked aloud. It was obvious by the stairs no one had been here in a long time, so how was it clean? A spell, maybe? The room was fueled by essence, after all. Another mystery.
She pulled open drawers to hunt for clues as to who stayed here, but all she found were basic toiletries and cosmetics. Gorgeous gowns hung in the closet, as well as tailored women’s pantsuits.
Had the previous Umbra King’s wife stayed here? When Rory pulled open the slender drawer at the top of the vanity, she stared in awe. It was a built-in jewelry box, filled with exquisite jewelry of every kind. There was a small box next to the earrings, and when she flipped the lid open, she nearly squealed with joy. “Jackpot.” A golden key sat inside, and while it could be to something else, it matched the room and was the size of the lock on the main door.
She wasn’t a thief, but for this room, she would make an exception. Looking around one last time, she tucked the key in her pocket and slipped through the door onto the small landing at the top of the stairs.
“Please work,” she prayed. The key slipped into the deadbolt and turned, locking the door. She opened the door again, ran to the bathroom, and grabbed a towel.
She did a silent victory dance when she locked the door again and scrambled back down the stairs to continue her exploration of the palace. On her way down, she used the towel to dust the stairs. If people noticed footprints, it would draw unwanted attention to the room.
Afterward, she took the main staircase to the next floor, which were the legion’s quarters. It made sense, she guessed, but wouldn’t they want their own homes?
“Their rooms are likely bigger than yours, dumbass,” she mumbled to herself.
“They are,” a familiar voice said from behind her.
She spun around to find the Umbra King standing a few feet away, watching her intently. “Oh,” she replied as the stolen key burned a hole in her pocket.
“Are you lost, Miss Raven?” He had one hand in his pocket while he raised the other to his mouth and ran a thumb across his bottom lip as his eyes roved over her. The rings on his hand glinted in the torchlight, and while she’d never thought rings on men were attractive, they worked on him.
She jolted at her own thoughts. Why did she keep thinking like that? This man murdered your sister, she reminded herself. At least she thought so. It had been ten years since she’d seen him, but his face wasn’t one she could forget.
Then why did doubt cloud her mind when he was near? And why did his face anger her less and less after such a short amount of time?
No. It was him. Her shoulders straightened as she met his stare straight on. “I was getting to know the layout of the palace. Am I not allowed to do that?”
His hand dropped. “If you are looking for an escape from Vincula, there isn’t one.”
Her eyes turned to slits. “I’m not an idiot. If you’ll excuse me.” She turned to leave, but a wall of shadows stopped her. She glared at them and swore a silent oath to find a way to kill the stupid things.
“I will show you around. I wouldn’t want you snooping where you don’t belong,” he said, and approached her side. “I don’t trust you.”
Her glare could have sliced through steel. “I don’t trust you either.”
“Good,” he replied as his eyes roamed her face. The wall of shadows dissolved, and he motioned for her to follow. “As you pointed out, this is where the legion lives.”
“Why don’t they live in town?”
His eyes cut to her briefly. “They can, if they wish. Most prefer to stay here where someone else does their laundry and cooks for them.”
“Typical men,” Rory muttered.
The king’s mouth pulled up slightly. “You can do your own laundry and cooking, if you’d like to prove your independence.”
“I already do,” she said under her breath. After the incident in the dining hall, she cooked herself food in the kitchens before her shift ended and ate half when no one was around and the other half in her room at night.
His eyes shifted to her again. “Excuse me?”
She refused to look at him as they walked. “I cook my own food, Your Grace.”
He stopped abruptly and folded his arms across his chest. “Are you above eating with the others, or is the food not to your liking?”
She kept walking, but another shadow wall blocked her passage. “Fucking hell.” She turned to him. “You will be delighted to hear I am not allowed to eat with the others. The first and last time I tried, I was refused food. Until they covered me in it, that is. I’m sure you will relish in my humiliation for the rest of the evening.” She was embarrassed, as much as she hated to admit it.
He regarded her thoughtfully. “Are you surprised?”
“No,” she answered honestly. “If you won’t show me around, I would like to go to my room, please.”
The politeness she afforded him seared a hole through her tongue, but pissing off her warden would do her no favors.
He tipped his head toward a set of stairs at the end of the hall, and Rory groaned. “You couldn’t at least bring elevators to this cursed palace?”
He chuckled, and the sound surprised her because it wasn’t full of mockery as usual. “The only place in all of Vincula with power is the Royal quarters, powered by my essence.“ After seeing the sky room, she knew that was a lie.
“Wait. You’re an inmate as much as I am, yet you get power? That is bullshit.”
The mirth on his face slipped away, and his jaw tensed. “I may be locked away, but I am no inmate. I am your king, and it would do you well to remember that.”
His tone made her eyes bulge slightly. He looked to be three seconds away from strangling her. “Where are your quarters?”
He continued toward the stairs, leading them up. “Are you planning a visit, Miss Raven?”
She smiled sweetly when they reached the next floor, ignoring the ache in her calves. “How else will I ravish you, Your Grace?”
She yelped when he backed her into a wall, and a shadow squeezed her throat lightly. “You couldn’t handle the way I fuck, Miss Raven.” Her chest was heaving when he stepped back and turned.
“Seemed pretty basic to me,” she mumbled, rubbing her throat.
He didn’t turn around as he continued down the hall. “I do not waste effort on unimportant things.” Rory smiled to herself at his dismissal of Nina.
“Smug is not a good look on you, Miss Raven.”
Her jaw dropped. Did everyone have eyes in the back of their heads? She hurried after him. “Where are we?”
“The guest floor,” he replied.
Her brow furrowed. “Who in the hell would visit Vincula?”
She was beside him now, and his eyes cut to her. “Vincula is a beautiful place.” His eyes grew distant. “My friends and siblings from Erdikoa would often visit.”
“Would?” she echoed and immediately wished she could snatch the question back at the look on his face.
Why did she care about his pain? She didn’t.
“The two rooms at the end of the hall are for the Angels,“ he said, ignoring her question.
“Angels?“ Like the feathered mystics from fairytales? “Sam,” she realized aloud.
Caius’ mouth thinned slightly. “You speak informally as though you know him well.”
“He told me to call him Sam,” she said defensively. “And he is nice to me.” Kind of. She wasn’t sure he liked her much.
“Interesting,” Caius murmured. “I think we’re done for today.”
A slight twinge of disappointment pinched her chest. She needed to see more of the palace, and while it was better to search without the king watching her every move, having someone explain the layout was helpful. She would ask Bellina.
Silently, he led her back to the staff quarters and left as she stared after him.
