r

cheek, patting it with a sort of feigned tender

is a good girl. Now be a dear and fetch the water. I want you

ter and took it to the washroom at the back of the house where the pipes were always running. The room was small and leaking. I made short work of my old dress – had been wearin

er her pale flesh, the cheekbones pronounced. Her eyes were enormous and dark with fear, and her lips were chapped. Even

abuse all these years. I made a vow to the woman in the glass: they are not going to have me. I will

ne Mertle never thought to check. I made a small bundle with a knife I'd come by in the yard some time ago, a bit of hard bre

made for the fields and the dark of the night, not the road or town where they would be hunting for

t from a hundred candles in the chandeliers above. My head is addled but the body feels fine, warm and a

y forearm had all but mended, leaving nothing but a pale pink blemish mor

ries of midnight blue and emerald, worked with silver serpents, hung on the walls; underfoot was polished black marble broken up by thick rugs of dark fur. The bed I had been in was a vas

lace. A ser

the beautiful man and his kiss, his assertion

dea stirred an odd mix of emotions, fear foremost among them, yet there was another feeling to

pened and

an elegant woman of olive skin and dark hair, her simple ame

carefully neutral. "I am Seraphine. Lord Kaan has se

ied to say, but it was l

he table by the bed. She filled a glass from a pitcher and offered it to me. I accept

d me. "He has given orders for your comfort and th

No matter how fine the cage, it was still

I said, if only to

without so much as a flicker of expression. "The

protest was out of me befor