The pain I felt while my body continued trying to mend itself was nothing compared to the pain that I felt as I listened to Sen tell me what had happened to Cassius and Quinn.
She told me what had happened to me on the stage in Boston, how one of Dregon’s henchmen had launched an iron-tipped arrow into my chest, and Cassius had saved my life by breaking off the shaft, leaving the tip inside my chest until he was able to deliver me to the fae back here on Mystreuce. He handed me right over to Sen before they took him away. She said the fae had a hell of a time removing the arrow tip from beneath my ribcage since none of them could touch the iron without being burned.
After that, she told me how Quinn had been imprisoned for treachery against Athan’s rule with his plot to help me escape, and that after Cassius had been publicly mocked and scolded by his half-brother for both his lack of better judgment and his undermining of Athan’s rule, that he was threatened with the promise of something terrible if he didn’t agree to go back to playing the part of a drunken fool.
“What did Athan threaten him with?” I asked her.
“Your death.”
I scoffed at her answer. “Surely, my life doesn’t mean that much to Cassius.” It hurt my chest even more to utter those words, but I was quickly reaching the point of caring about him too much.
Sen smiled tenderly at me, and her eyes were laced with sympathy as she spoke. “We both know that it does.”
I sat in silence for a time after that and thought about what both Quinn and Cassius must be suffering thanks to me. I should never have let Cassius take me home, and I should never have let Quinn try to help me escape. I was sure they both hated me now.
“How long was I asleep for?” I asked.
“Fifteen days.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe that I had been out of it for half a month.
“It was not an easy recovery,” she said. “You are lucky to have survived it. Had it not been for Cassius’s quick thinking, you would not have.”
I held my fist against my aching chest every time she mentioned his name. My heart hurt for more reason than one.
“After I removed the arrow tip, there was much suturing needed, bones to set, and flesh to heal. I did what I could, and your body took it from there.”
“Thank you,” I said as I reached out to take her hand in mine. “You saved my life.”
She smiled and tipped her head toward me. I could see that she was worried about her brother, even as she tried to put on a strong face for my benefit.
“What will happen to Quinn?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Imprisonment under Athan leaves little hope for compassion or mercy. Last I heard, he was chained to a wall beneath Athan’s throne room,” Sen answered sadly.
I flinched at the thought of Quinn being restrained.
“We have to free him,” I said.
“I agree. But we can’t do it without your help, and you need to get better before you can help anyone.”
Sen was right. I had to recover as quickly as I could, or I would be no good to anyone else. As it was, I could do barely more than sit up for a few moments at a time and sip on the tinctures and broths that Sen gave me. I was useless until my body healed, and even then, I didn’t know how much help I could be. I lay back down on the mat, which Sen had covered in soft blankets for me, and turned my head to the side to watch out the doorway at the fae who occasionally walked past the room. I slept and rested and ate as much as I could tolerate. I tried to stretch my muscles and stand up for a few moments until my chest started to feel like it was catching fire.
At one point, I saw Cassius walk past the open doorway. I called to him in a voice that sounded like a desperate cry and waited for him to come back into view, but he never did.
“Why is Cassius avoiding me?” I asked Sen while we were sitting together, having a cup of her medicinal tea.
“He knows that there are eyes on him constantly now. He has been watching you like a hawk as you have been recovering, but he has kept his distance and has pretended not to care if you live or die. Athan knows now that you are Cassius’s weakness, and he will exploit that weakness if he needs to. Cassius is trying to protect you.”
“He must hate me for what I’ve done,” I said as I stared into my tea. “Quinn must hate me, too.”
“No one hates you,” Sen said. “And no one blames you, except for maybe yourself. Guilt is as potent as poison. You need to let it go.”
Sen was really wise for her age, or at least for how old she looked to be. I respected her for both her kindness and her wisdom, and above all, for her inner strength. For such a tiny thing, she seemed almost unbreakable.
After some more time had passed, I was finally well enough to be back up on my feet. I had no idea where I would be staying now that Cassius was trying to keep his distance from me. Staying in the same room didn’t really allow for much space between us. I also didn’t know how he planned to protect me if I couldn’t stay with him.
“You’ll be staying here, in Quinn’s room, until we get him back,” Sen said as she saw me walking along the corridors in the fae quarters while I thought about all the things running through my mind. “The other guys in his room have bunked up with some of the others, so you’ll have the room all to yourself,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t need the whole room to myself,” I said. I felt horrible at the idea that after everything I had already done to trouble everyone, now I was kicking Quinn’s friends out of their room.
“Trust me,” Sen said with a mischievous look on her face. “You do. Besides, they don’t mind at all.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “But why would I need a room all to my—”
“Just trust me on this one,” she winked.
I walked back to Quinn’s room by myself and sat down on the edge of the bed. I didn’t even know where to start with sorting out my thoughts. I had to figure out how to help Sen and save Quinn from Athan’s prison. I needed to find a way to talk to Cassius and tell him how sorry I was that I had betrayed him and hoped that he could forgive me, and I needed to either resign myself to this life in this world or figure out how to get home on my own. I was just about to mentally tackle the first thing on that list before a figure showed up and stood in my doorway.
“Cassius!” I cried as I got up off the bed and ran toward him, throwing my arms around his neck and crashing into him so hard that the pain in my chest took my breath away. I stumbled backward, realizing that even though I was better, I still wasn’t fully back to a hundred percent. Cassius caught me with his arms behind my back and helped me sit back down on the bed. He came to sit next to me and looked at me with a sympathetic expression of pain.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “It still hurts.” I placed my palm lightly over my chest, where my broken ribs were still throbbing from clashing against Cassius’s chest.
“I bet,” he said. “You took quite a hit.”
“Sen told me how you saved me. She told me how you surrendered yourself to save my life.” My words all ran together in one long, rambling breath as I tried to get them all out for him to hear before he told me how much he hated me now. “I’m sorry, Cassius…I’m so sorry. Please believe me. I just wanted to go home, but I never wanted to betray you; I swear it.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he just looked down at the floor with his elbow resting against his thigh and his forehead in his hand. I could see his shoulders rise slowly up and down as if he were making a point to keep his breathing steady and measured.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” he said. “Very.”
My heart dropped. “Do you hate me?”
“No.”
He lifted his head from his hand and looked at me. “I couldn’t hate you, Mara, not even if I wanted to.”
I thought that hearing that would make me feel better, but instead, it made me feel even worse for what I had done.“You must understand at least a little bit,” I said. “I just wanted to go home; I just didn’t want to be a prisoner or a slave anymore.”
“You have it all wrong,” Cassius said. He looked at me as though he was a vulnerable and exposed nerve. “You have never been my prisoner; it is I who have been yours. If being a slave means that the desires of another person command you, then it is I who am your slave. Because no matter how hard I try to keep myself from you or how much I try to push you from my thoughts, I find myself unable to do anything but keep you safe and protected. My weakness for you has enslaved me, Mara, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
He stared at me with intensity in his dark eyes that darted back and forth between my pupils.
“I want to be so angry with you,” Cassius shouted. “I want to hate you and go back to not caring about any of this at all.”
I knew that feeling; I wanted to hate him, too.
Cassius shook vehemently as if he were going to erupt into a fury of wrath. He lunged at me, and when his mouth covered mine, I felt as though stars had ignited inside my head, throwing every other thought I’d had ever had away. All I could feel was the feverish wrap of his tongue around mine and the heat that rose in me from the bottom of my belly and spread down between my thighs and into every place of blood rushing throughout my body. I put my hands against his chest and clawed at his shirt to pull him closer, ignoring the throbbing pain in my chest and feeling instead, the throbbing between my thighs. I wasn’t thinking; I couldn’t think. All I could do was feel .
I wasn’t sure what would have happened if Sen had not come into the room just then, just as Cassius had laid me back onto the bed and started to crawl over me. I wanted him so badly at that moment, and by the swelling desire I felt pressing against me, I could tell that Cassius wanted me, too.
“Cassius,” Sen said, loudly enough that he could hear her over our labored breathing. “Athan is here.”
Cassius immediately got to his feet and rushed out the door before I could say anything.
“Everything okay?” Sen asked as she looked at me with concern.
“Yeah,” I said. “He didn’t—I mean, it wasn’t what it looked like.” I doubted that I could put a coherent sentence together at that moment.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not hard to see that something is going on between you two. Just be careful, okay?”
I nodded. My mind was still swirling around inside my skull. What even was that? I thought to myself as Sen went back out into the corridor. I had heard that there was a fine line between strong emotions, but I couldn’t give a name to what I just felt if my life depended on it, which maybe it did.
I sat in Quinn’s room for a bit, unsure what else to do, knowing that Athan was here. After a few minutes, Cassius returned. As soon as I saw him, I wanted to kiss him again, and it was difficult for me to focus on anything else.
“What was he doing here?” I asked. “Sen already told me that he threatened to kill me if you didn’t comply with him.” I hadn’t meant to be so blunt about that, but I didn’t see any reason not to be upfront with each other.
“Yeah, he did. I’m not sure why he was here now. He said he was looking for a lost slave, but there’s no way that was the truth. Athan never loses anything or anyone. He’s gone now, though.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Cassius answered. “I’m sure. Are you well enough to do something physical?” he asked.
My mind immediately flashed to the moment we had a few minutes ago. “Physical?”
Cassius nodded. “I want to train you in combat skills,” he said.
Not what I had envisioned at all, so I was really glad I hadn’t said anything that would have embarrassed myself.
“I don’t know what Athan has planned, but I don’t trust him. He may have promised not to hurt you if I adhere to being his lapdog, but I still don’t trust that he will keep that promise, regardless of what I agree to do or not. You need to be able to defend yourself in case I’m not around.”
“Where would you be going?” I asked as I tried not to sound worried.
“Nowhere,” he answered. “But there will be moments that I can’t keep a constant watch over you. You need to be capable of protecting yourself for at least enough time for me to get to you.”
“I agree,” I said. “I don’t trust Athan, either, and Dregon really freaks me out. I’m well enough to start training.”
“Good,” Cassius smiled. “We’ll have to do it in secret, but I should be able to have people cover for us enough to make it work.”
“Okay. When do we start?” I asked.
“Now.”