I could feel the bruises forming on my arms and legs as Hekate tossed me into a dark room. I steadied myself into a crouch and glared up at her.

"He won't—" 

The words got stuck in my throat, and I struggled. I tried again, "I'm just a human—" Again I had to stop. Frustrated, I glared at Hekate, and her lips twisted. But she didn't look amused.

"He will."

I tried not to let the emotions playing within me show on my face. But whatever parts of me came from this world were overpowered by the one I had grown up in. Hekate saw right through it.

Her lips lifted off her teeth, showing her long, sharp fangs. They held a threat. A warning that she could kill me with a flick of her wrist.

"I think he is a fool, and that you're the very weakness we have been looking for all along. If only I had known all I needed was a pretty girl with a bit of magic plucked from the human realm, he would have been dead long ago. Had I been smart, I would have killed him before he was big enough to be a threat at all. But I was a fool then, I didn't realize how powerful he would become."

I forced myself to stand, barely able to stop from stumbling. The burning sensation from the bracelet on my wrist radiated up my arm like an open wound. My head swam, and my vision blurred, like I was sick all over again.

"Monster," I spat. "He is your son." 

Raw anger unfurled, spreading through my chest. For a moment all I saw was red. I wished for my Craft back so that I could tear her to shreds and be done with her.

Faerie or not, no mother should speak so freely of killing their own child. I could practically see it, the way the air would turn red with the colour of her...

I swallowed, closing my eyes, trying to will the image away. The anger inside of me burned, a twisted and rabid thing. So different from what I was used to feeling. It wanted nothing more than to claw and scream and...

There was a snarl, then Hekate shot gripped my neck between her long clawed fingers. Surprise ran like ice through my veins as I saw my own feelings reflected in her bloodred eyes.

"There are more important things than blood. Don't you see? Ronan may want war, but he will destroy us all in the process. He is an abomination, something that I never should have allowed into this world. All he wants is blood and nothing will ever stop that, especially now that he has his bond with you. He needs to be stopped, and had he not interfered with the sluagh, we could have prevented it coming to this," she hissed. 

"You are nothing. Not in your world, and neither are you here. You are just a stain that we must bear to obtain a greater cause. The Dream Courts will rise again, and it doesn't matter if you live to see that."

I narrowed my eyes. I could remember the raven I had seen earlier that day before the sluagh attacked, and how they had gathered just before the shadows surrounded me.

It had been her all along.

Hekate had been watching us, waiting to strike. How long had she been there in the shadows? The thought that she had watched us through it all, even in our intimate moments added to my growing fury. I snarled in disgust, feeling something animal taking hold of me. Hekate blinked, then her features sharpened.

She pushed me back, pinning me to the wall, her long teeth exposed and bared, ready to rip out my throat. With her face cast in shadow, she appeared more like the demon she truly was.

"The Dream Courts," I said. "Is that what this is all about?"

She hissed. "You don't know anything, don't talk like you understand. If I had my way, I would kill you now."

I stared back at her steadily, my body shaking with both rage and exhaustion. "Then do it."

Her eyes flared before dimming and she pulled away. "I could," she said softly, too soft. "I have killed Kings to get what I want."

Even as her words hung in the air, sending a haunting shiver through me, I didn't break her gaze.

"Then why not take the throne yourself?" I taunted. "Why do you need your master? A prince? Just take it all."

Slowly her lips closed over her teeth, drawing her red lips tight as she sneered. "Oh, how ignorant you are. In the Night Courts, the throne is won, not taken. Sure, I could win. But I don't want it, I am not meant to be weighed down by a Crown. The fool of the present Queen would be completely useless if it weren't for my master." She gave a short humorless laugh. 

"No, if the elements were smart, they would choose Ankou himself, but alas, that is not the way. Mab's curse lingers, and the only one left to rule with a drop of Dream blood is Prince Oisin." She said the name with no attempt to conceal her contempt. "More human that fae, that one, but he will have to do."

I shook my head. "He's only using you. Even I can see that."

She drew her hands back from my neck. I could feel the warm trickle of blood against my skin from where her fingers had dug into it. "And perhaps he is. It doesn't matter. Without him, the Dream Courts remain dead and cursed, but with him ruling through Oisin, vengeance will be ours."

Her sneer returned. She lifted a clawed hand and snapped her fingers, pale blue lights erupting in the room. I did a double take. It was not what I had expected. Walking through the halls, everything had appeared so cold and dark, like the shadows were thicker than usual. I had expected a cell, a dungeon maybe. Some dark, hollow pit at the bottom of an unknown faerie castle. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had left me there until I turned to rot.

But instead, I stood in a grand room—a bedroom. One fit for a princess, perhaps even a queen. Tall dark ebony walls made up the room, and a wide four-poster bed fit with billowing black curtains took up one-half of it. On the other side was a fireplace, set before two cushioned chairs. Against the far wall sat a wardrobe, opened wide to reveal dresses and finery.

"Ankou wishes for you to be treated with favor, an honor a human like you should appreciate."

She stepped away from me quickly. I let out a relieved breath to not have her so close.

"Enjoy your cage, little bird."

The door clicked shut behind her, a glimmer appearing over it as a snap cut through the room. Though I already had a good idea of what it meant, I ran to the door, grasping the handle. It wouldn't budge, even if I threw all of my weight against it. 

I leaned against the door, feeling a hum along its surface that I recognized. Magic—Craft that I had no hope of breaking with the bracelet burning into my wrist. I look down to see my skin growing raw and red, the pain nearly unbearable.

A small trickle of air traced my fingers, but that was it. It was more than just my loss of Craft bearing down upon me. Something else tugged inside of me, pulling the very blood in my veins so my whole body ached. Like something was missing, a part of me cut out. A deep heart-wrenching emptiness.

The bond, I realized, my hands clenched into fists.

Ronan wasn't here, but still I wasn't free of him.

I couldn't just sit here forever. Hekate thought she had beat me, cowed me. Like Ronan, and even Eirian back during the Hunt, everyone was trying to force me onto a path I did not want to follow.

I stared down at my wrist again I looked at the bones of my hand that sat in the way, holding the bracelet in place, keeping me from pulling it off.

Some of Ronan's last words floated through my head. He said he and I weren't that different. That I wasn't as human as I thought I was.

Then I thought of Eirian, recovering from a would that should have killed him. The immortality of the fae. They could heal from a would that gutted them, keep going after limbs had been lost.

Then all the wounds I had acquired myself, that had already faded to scars, a faint memory of the pain all that remained.

I moved over to the bed, staring down at my hand.

I had three days until Ronan would come.

It was time that I decided my own fate.