35: Devil His Due

Thought I'd leave you with a song from my playlist. "A Little Wicked" by Valerie Broussard.❤

There was a lot to be said since we'd last been in this room together; neither of us seemed up for saying any of it. Chiro leaned comfortably against the wall with one foot on the desk. His eyes were closed when I lifted my head and brushed hair off my cheeks. I got the feeling he was aware I'd moved, the chair had creaked after all, but when his piercing grey gaze failed to lock on mine I took the chance to study him. Not the way I had when we'd first met in the snow or later on the open plains. Not the way I'd seen him in the echoing cave where venom tainted my system. I examined him under an artist's lens, searching for meaning in the shape of the man before me. His body before had told me little about him, but now that perfect sculpt of demon had been dusted with bruises and scarred with cuts, mostly hidden beneath his clothes.

It was a good thing his face and limbs hadn't taken much of a beating. If the other demons knew about the hex he was screwed. Royally screwed, if the King learned of his condition.

Even in the privacy of his chambers, Chiro sucked it up as any wounded animal would. People were good at showing pain. People were even better at complaining. But the Prince did none of that. It had to hurt. The spot where Akta had stabbed him was deep. I wasn't a doctor but those wounds were the kind that lingered, festered, killed if left unattended. And how much did he know about caring for injuries? Still, he was healing faster than a regular human; regular human would be dead by now, I reasoned, recalling that fight with Akta. I hadn't been much better off.

Maybe worse off, though I dared not think too hard on that. At least Chiro knew the extent of his hex. All I had was a growing awareness that something had been done to me, just like that awful sensation where a person knows something had been done to their drink or food, but only after they'd gulped it down. I'd been laid out like a lamb to sacrifice. Something had been done, something deep and personal and wholly wretched, but my bones couldn't feel any more than that. Yet.

I stared hard at the faint outline of bandaging around Chiro's torso. We'd made it out of the woods, but a part of him was still in there. A part of me was still there in the Oaks, too. I reached forward.

"Don't," he snapped in an instant, popping one eye the moment my hand inched curiously to his hemline.

I tipped back in the chair to better regard his surly features. "Gonna need you to answer a few questions."

"I'll answer some of them if you promise to leave when I ask."

"It's getting late. I don't know if I want to be wandering these halls alone."

"I'm not escorting you anywhere."

"I could stay here."

His eyes narrowed.

"Fine, fine." I sighed. He assessed me with the poker-faced expression of a cat deciding whether or not it wants to slid out from its narrow little hiding place. Then, after a moment, he got up wincing and slunk around to his bed. I waited for him to settle on top of the soft comforter to ask, "At least tell me how bad it is?"

"Better."

I spun around on the chair and laid my hands and chin on the back to watch him ease into a more comfortable position, propped on pillows. "Chiro," I said, realizing with vague horror that my voice had broken into the pitched warning my mother used on me when she'd catch me sassing her.

He flexed his hand. Clear, distinct discomfort swept through his voice, but it wasn't from pain. "I can't shift. Not a single claw. I'm almost-"

"-human," I finished. He nodded. My stomach sank. I should have known and yet... "We'll lift the hex then. Tell me what to do." He had to give me something to work with. Didn't have to be much. Anything was better than the alternative.

"You can't."

"So it's more like a cold. We wait it out," I carried on hurriedly, trying not to appear as bothered as I felt. "What kind of a time frame we looking at?"

"That's not how it works here, Tay Wilson."

"Tay," I corrected him and dropped the matter for now. "And just how does it work here after the Hunt? What happens to the brides?"

"They're yours."

"What if I free them?"

"They fend for themselves." Before I could ask another question he added, "How successful were you doing that?"

"There are women here. I've seen them. They don't look like brides. They don't look fantastic, but they're surviving alright."

"There are others," Chiro agreed. "We do not always Hunt for brides. Some kingdoms bring them back for other reasons, men and women. The women you've seen within the palace are mostly owned or considered too broken to bother with. It's always been tradition that women unfit or otherwise barren are given other tasks or killed."

"Never really thought about it like that. You know, about the women who can't have kids or wouldn't make for a suitable partner." Like Dot, I supposed. I had a feeling that girl would have ended up dead sooner rather than later. I separated strands of damp hair in my fingers. "With all the healing and being a sort of ghost or something, I sort of just, hell, I don't know what I thought. I wasn't really thinking you'd have to worry about things like periods and the state of your uterus."

From the look on his face, Chiro didn't want to think about that, either. "If you had issues before, you have them now. Your soul remembers what it was, even if it isn't wearing the same flesh. There are women here, but the ones who are alive have their reasons, whether it's freedom or slavery or something else."

"Would my ladies be safe if I put out a warning not to touch them? Could they find their way?"

He shook his head. "The others aren't afraid of you. Wary, but until you make an example out of someone they may prefer to act first, apologize later, if they have to apologize at all."

I chewed my lip. "Marrying the girls stops that behavior?"

"No more than a ring stops nonsense between you humans. But it helps. A woman has never won the Hunt. I can't promise you the truce that works for us will have any meaning with you unless you prove yourself capable of protecting yourself and them."

Which I couldn't, not really. I willed the ends of my hair to freeze beneath my fingertips. Nothing, not even a chill. Frustrated, I tapped my foot on the floor and considered my options. "Listen," I began, watching his face very carefully. "I know you could've made this Hunt short and sweet and stolen me away a lot sooner than you had. I'd go so far as to say technically you caught me first. You had so many chances and you, Mr. Opportunistic, didn't take them, not even at the gates. No one would've known. Instead, you helped me. Why?"

Chiro deflected my stare with a turn of his head. He focused on the embroidered blanket. "Pass."

I sat back, mildly surprised. "Excuse me?"

He rested his hands on his lap and stretched himself out. "Some questions, not all of them."

I tried again. "Well, I plan on freeing the lot of them and offering my protection if they want it. Thing is, I don't have the resources. The only way I'll get them for sure, no strings attached, is to keep you as my bride," I said. Now his attention was back where I wanted it. "I don't support the Hunt. I don't think you do, either, but I don't see any other way."

"You don't need to marry me. Just give them to me. I'll put them under my protection."

"We don't belong to any of you." I thought I might be safe with Chiro; but did I think the others would be? No. Not without my supervision. He didn't, far as I'd heard, have an obligation to any other bride but myself. I wasn't about to just hand him all the women because he'd done a couple good deeds that he may or may not have been coerced into doing under my father's commands.

Chiro knew where this was going the second I spoke. He sat propped up across the room and yet it seemed as though I could feel exhaustion welled in his chest. "You and those brats have been more trouble than you're worth."

"You reap what you sow," I said. "Anyway, how's your reputation holding up after being captured by an artsy little Alaskan girl?"

"I am still Prince," he said, shrugging. A touch of pride squared his shoulders. He appeared to consider something a moment, then looked to me and said, "Do you play cards, Tay Wil-Tay?"

"Not well." I lifted a shoulder. "Wasn't even good at 'Go Fish.'"

His eyebrow rose. "Is there anything you're good at?"

I frowned at him, but the corners of my lips were quick to turn up. "What's your point?"

"The demons aren't concerned about challenging me for the time being. They've been dealt a few cards but they haven't figured out what game we're playing yet."

"So you like cards, huh?"

"I like games. Cards have a lot." He nodded permission to open a drawer on his desk. Inside were three small packages of playing cards. They weren't marked like any I'd seen-these were full of creatures and monsters with the artwork of a detailed set of tarot cards-but they did have all the numbers and suits right.

I shuffled through the first creased deck. "Thought you were my trump card," I said idly, fanning out a king, queen, and ace of hearts. "Which is why I wanted to keep you. Not as an underling or war prize, but as an equal."

"You don't want to do that," he said very carefully.

"Not in a physical sense," I agreed. "Just the ritual, whatever it is in these parts. I need your influence. I need your power. I need everything that comes with being a prince. Except for, you know-" My cheeks warmed several skin tones as I raised my eyebrows."-the crown jewels and such."

"What if..." He winced as he fixed the pillows behind him. "What if the ritual is physical?"

"Totally comfortable with lying," I added, hoping it was the sort of process that occurred behind closed doors. I shuffled through the desk again, poking through the illustrated cards. "I'll say whatever you want me to say about how marvelous you are. Thing is, you're a human. It's kind of ruining my plan."

"Almost human." He frowned as if there was a big difference.

"The second one of those girls accidentally mentions the hex or a demon figures out you aren't dangerous, we're fucked. Until I can wake up these powers or whatever, I need help. And that's the thing, Chiro. There's a safer solution on the table."

His attention perked. The mild amusement with which he'd been listening disappeared into a tensed face. "What do you mean?"

I set the deck back into the desk behind me. "The King made an offer. Everything I ask for is mine in return for one heir. I could be queen of this hell."

Chiro gave a short laugh. Another tiny flash of pain cut him off. When he recovered he said, "After women give birth, the child is weaned and its mother is sacrificed to the Witch."

"Why?" I gasped.

He leaned forward and patted the space where his tattoo was inked. "In return for feeding It, we are given a blessing. You'd have to scour our history books for a time when this wasn't the case, when women were treated less like cattle and more like..."

"What would happen to the girls I left behind?"

"What happens to everyone here, eventually. Any progress you make will be undone the moment you're gone."

I couldn't even swear coherently at that. Get hitched to a powerless prince and get everyone killed sooner, or delay the inevitable for about nine months to a year or so? Uncertain what to do or say but sure I needed more time to decide, I crossed my arms. "Guess this is where I ask where the hell my father is."

Chiro didn't bother asking how I knew he worked for my father. He just seemed torn on telling me a damned thing. "Look," he finally said after my insistence, "your father is in no condition to see you. That's why he sent me."

"Should I be thanking him or you for keeping me alive then?"

"Him," Chiro said.

I wasn't sure I believed that. "And what does he think I should do?"

The man shrugged. "The King's offer is news to me. You just burst into my room to disrupt the rest I very much require. Your father doesn't have an opinion until I let him know what's happened."

"Will you?"

He rubbed his forehead. "I work for your father, not you."

My hands had returned to the back of the chair, which I gripped tightly now as I listened. "What do you suppose he'd say?"

"Probably the same thing as you."

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do," Chiro said, feigning a yawn. When I didn't budge, he carried on. "I'm not what he wants for you. The King isn't what he wants for you. But you can buy yourself time to do what you have to do if you would accept the King's hand. Now if you would kindly..."

"Why would you risk your life in serving my father?"

"I owe him," he said curtly, and that was the extent of his answer, no matter how many other angles I tried. At that point, I decided to become a true and proper lady and leave him to his grumblings.

"Well thank you for you help," I said, pushing away from the chair. "You know, I really want to hate you, the way Dakota can, but you haven't been horrible enough to me, us." I flashed him a cheerful smile.

It was, I supposed, as good of a compliment as any, and he took it with a bit of a pointed grin. "Make no mistake, Tay Wilson. If it weren't for your father's command you might still be here tonight in my bed."

"I'm not in your bed," I pointed out from beside the door.

"Not yet."

I could've walked out then, but those words and that confident tone, tempted my urge to reply. My fingers lifted off the door. I stepped a pace or two nearer. "Don't see me as a disgusting human any more, do you?" My hand smoothed the front of my new gown. "Royalty fits me like a glove. Takes all those grimy, puny mortal edges and..."

"You bathed," Chiro said dismissively. "That helps. Roll around in the woods all day and then ask to roll around with me and I'd decline, royalty or not."

"Noted," I said. I sidled closer to the desk, reaching for the drawer with the cards. "Hey, would you mind if I borrowed a deck? This would really help the girls feel more at home."

He let me. I thanked him and ambled toward the desk at a turtle's pace.

Dark gray eyes followed my progress. "You're curious," he observed with a hint of smugness. "I saw it when you were delirious. I see it again tonight, that little spark of imagination in your eyes. You want to know what I'd do to you."

I snatched up a deck. "No," I lied, waving the package as proof that I hadn't just made up an excuse to linger a minute or two longer. Like I wasn't wondering how he'd get my muscles to unwind. "Just thought we could use a little fun."

"We could."

My hand fell to my hip. "You know what I mean."

"If you want to know what I mean, come closer." The man didn't move an inch, looked relaxed and yet pleased as if he already knew he'd won.

An electric tingle sparked through my veins at his invite. Like a misguided, adult red riding hood I paced closer across the floor, one nervous step at a time, toward the man who could be mine. And his grin only widened. He was sitting quite keenly now, waiting, watching, ready. "Lean in," he whispered.

I really shouldn't.

I really wanted to.

I was just outside his reach now, toes hesitant to cross an intangible border, well aware of the distance from his lips to mine, well aware that this was a bad idea, that curiosity killed the cat and a hundred other small animals when they met up with a larger, meaner predator. And yet, my, what gray eyes he had!

In one smooth motion he grabbed me by the waist and drew me onto his lap. His chin, smooth from a recent shave and faintly scented of sandalwood, pressed against the curve of my neck. "Tell me what you like," he said in a breath that tickled and made me squirm against him, which only served to tighten his grip.

"I don't know," I said. This was a lie. I was a young woman. I'd done things. I knew things. But I'd never spoken them. As if in agreement, my tongue had swelled to the roof of my mouth.

"Now, I'm in no condition for heavy physical activity," he purred, fingers tiptoeing along my thigh. "But if you want these muscles relaxed you need only ask. I'm here to serve you." And he said it in such a humble tone I knew it was horseshit.

And that made me laugh. He was smiling when I bopped his arm and exclaimed, "I don't even know your real name, sir!"

He shuffled me with a soft grunt, not off onto the floor where I'd expected, just a little to the side to keep my elbow from digging into his chest. "The one you know works fine," he said, but the timbre of his voice had changed, shifted to an unfamiliar octave. His hand brushed my cheek. "Try it."

"Chir-"

He kissed me. Slow, thoughtful, deliberate. Unknowingly I'd braced for something more intense and found myself melting into surprised delight, found myself going back for more almost eagarly. The shock of how gentle he was being faded into the realization that maybe he was curious, too.

Or he really was hurting. Looking into his eyes, I couldn't be sure.

The thought crossed my mind that I shouldn't be doing this, that I should play opossum in his arms until he loosened his grip and I could go scurrying out of the hall like the good girl I'd been raised to be.

But the inane thought only made me giggle against his lips, which in turn made him pull away with a wrinkled brow and a puzzled frown. And after everything I had witnessed, everything I'd done, this was the gentlest, most charming moment I'd experienced.

And I wanted it to stay that way. I wanted something to hold onto in the bleak future.

"Oh-okay," I announced suddenly, scrambling off him with less resistance and a whole lot less dignity than I'd imagined. "It's warm in here. Think I'm going to get some air."

Straightening my clothes, I trotted out onto the balcony while he mumbled something about humans.

In the moonlit filigree of leaf and branch, a flash of brightness caught my eye: a brilliant patch of ivory on the forest's edge. I felt Chiro's puzzled stare on my shoulders as I turned from him and braced white knuckles on the stone rail.

Even a still forest teemed with life. But tonight a dead wind blew rot toward the stars, which glimmered almost malignantly in the dark sky. A storm surged the far reaches of distant mountains; a fog settled where plains bled into forest, flattened on the decaying wind by rippling gusts.

It was beautiful, and eerie, and then the source of that ill-seated hatred for the sight emerged fully into view. My eyes fell on the woman first: tall, lean, dressed in a clean, bright wedding gown. Her dark hair flowed freely around her shoulders, draped over the antlers she sat upon; her bare toes teasing a fleabitten, droopy ear.  It was too distant to make out her features, but I knew, sure as I knew anything, that Leda was resting her chin against one broken tine and smiling up at me.

My eyes kept sinking lower, lower. The breath hitched in my chest. I looked down, down, down, past the sunken dead eyes, over that handsome, golden chest to the place where red darkness gaped. The rest of Akta, particularly the stomach and ribcage where Shail had torn out his organs and feasted, had been stitched over with oddly textured material. Skin, I realized, of different tones and. My stomach leaped into my throat. And faces.

My hand muffled my call to Chiro, but it was ultimately unnecessary. The man stood just beside me.

"I warned you there'd be consequences," he said, the oncoming storm and dire phantoms reflected in the depths of his grey eyes.

The End.

THANK YOU. Seriously, thank you so much for giving this story a chance! I know most of my stories are a bit ...odd compared to some other types of stories you see on Wattpad, so your loyalty and readership through Hunted (And Dark Side, And Run Cold, etc) is just so meaningful and touching. I love to see each and every one of your names pop up in my notification feed for votes and comments (and of course, much love to the silent types as well)!

Tay, Chiro, and all the rest are on spring break! I need to sort through some of plans and complete my edits of Hunted (you just read my first draft). I'm also working on setting myself up to self-publish polished, refined versions of my stories on Amazon. Follow me on Wattpad for news and updates.

Or facebook friend me, or twitter, I don't care! I'm always happy to chill and chat! :) <3

For those who don't want to miss a thing, book two, HOUNDED, will debut June 2017. I'd love to write sooner than that, but unfortunately I'm not a full time writer so I have to rotate my projects with what time I have when I'm not making money to survive. ):

Lastly, if you loved Hunted, PLEASE SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS. Or comment and vote. Remember me when the Wattys come around and people ask you what books you love. The *only* reason Hunted has been able to climb up to #3 on the hotlist is because of you reading it and showering Tay, Chiro, Dakota, and the rest with love (or hate, depending)!

TLDR;

Book Two: Hounded (Wild Hunt Series: 2)

Debuts: June 2017

I LOVE YOU ALL. IF YOU LOVE ME, TOO, PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT AND SHARE.

In the meantime, read Dark Side or my other stories. Folks who like this generally like that!

PS

There will be three interlude chapters, where I get to write from character perspectives other than Tay. They will be posted to this book sometime before Chapter One of Hounded! Watch this book, as they will appear as Interlude I, Interlude II, and Interlude III!

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤