“If I decide I don’t like kissing?”

she asked, because he was big and overwhelming and made her lose all sense of self-preservation.

A slow, slow curve of his lips that had her toes curling into the sheets. “Oh, you’ll like my kiss, Liliana. I felt your tongue stroke against mine.”

“Micah!”

He tilted his head to the side. “Am I not supposed to say that, either? Remember I’m the Lord of the Black Castle. I can say whatever I want.”

“You’re not the least bit civilized, are you?”

He gave her the strangest look, as if she’d asked a silly question. But to her surprise, he answered it. “I live at the gateway to the Abyss.”

“Yes, I suppose the civilized graces aren’t exactly useful here.” If she wasn’t careful, he’d turn her as wild. To be quite honest, she wasn’t sure she minded.

Dear Reader,

I’ve always loved dark, dangerous heroes, and Micah is very much that. The lord of a terrible place called the Abyss, he’s known only death and violence, seen only fear on the faces of the men and women who cross his path. It’s why he’s so fascinated with Liliana, this strange intruder in his domain who looks him in the eye. Liliana, in turn, has come prepared to face a monster … only to find herself tempted by the dark lord’s sinful kiss.

I adored spending time with Micah and Liliana, and the world of the Royal House of Shadows. Working with fellow authors Gena Showalter, Jessica Andersen, and Jill Monroe to create that unique world was a fun process – one that included the exchange of many, many e-mails to ensure the storyline was seamless from book to book.

I truly hope you’ll enjoy stepping into this magical, dangerous and seductive world.

With the warmest regards,

Nalini Singh

About the Author

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author NALINI SINGH loves writing paranormal romances. Currently working on two ongoing series, she also has a passion for travel and has been to places as far afield as Tahiti, Japan, Ireland and Scotland. She makes her home in beautiful New Zealand. To find out more about Nalini’s books, please visit her website: www.nalinisingh.com

Lord of the Abyss

Nalini Singh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my fellow adventurers into Elden

Prologue

When I picked up the pen and ink that are the tools of the Royal Chronicler, I took an oath to record only the truth. Now my old bones ache with the knowledge that the truth I must put down is one I wish I could erase. But it cannot be. I know no one will read these archives now, but still the history must be written. The past must be known. And so I must begin.

For many years the Blood Sorcerer cast covetous eyes on the kingdom of Elden, a proud, ancient land overflowing with riches and power, its long-lived people watched over by the good king Aelfric and his wise queen, Alvina. Though strong as rulers, they were not brutal, and Elden’s people flourished under their guiding hand.

So did their children.

Nicolai, the oldest and some say the one with the darkest heart.

Dayn, second-born and with eyes that saw everything.

Breena, gentle of spirit and much loved by mother, father and brothers all.

And Micah, the youngest, his heart that of an innocent. Born long after his siblings, he was but a babe of five when the blackest shadows engulfed Elden, on the dawn following a night of celebration to acknowledge that milestone. But the singing and dancing had long grown quiet, the castle yet dark with sleep, when the Blood Sorcerer appeared at the gates—accompanied by monsters such as were unseen in all the kingdoms.

Perhaps they had once been spiders, but now they were horrific creatures with razor-sharp blades on their furred legs and a taste for human flesh, their eyes roiling red. They were accompanied by men turned into hulking beasts with fists akin to steel mallets, and tiny scurrying insects that dug into the soil and turned it to poison.

Hands drenched with the life force of those he had murdered, the Blood Sorcerer’s power was an immense thing, bloated and malignant. It seemed nothing could defeat him, but the king and queen would not surrender their people to such darkness, though the Blood Sorcerer taunted them with promises of a quick death.

King Aelfric’s strength was a profound force and he wounded the sorcerer with a terrible blow, but fed by the putrid evil of his malevolent power, the enemy would not die. Again and again the Blood Sorcerer attacked, until the king started to bleed from his very eyes.

The queen, weak herself from battling the creatures the sorcerer had brought with him, saw the king begin to fall under the onslaught of evil, and knew the battle was lost. Using the last of their strength, for their spirits were one, she sacrificed her life to do a great magic, one that has never since been repeated and may never be known.

There is a lineage of blood that ties mother to child, a lineage that can never be broken. And it is this lineage the queen used to cast her children away from Elden, to safety, so they could one day return and reclaim their stolen birthright.

It was a mother’s last loving gift, yet the Blood Sorcerer boasts even now that Queen Alvina failed, that he twisted her magic at the end so that instead of finding safe harbor, the heirs of Elden fell into death. There is no one left alive to contradict him.

—From the Royal Chronicles of Elden, on the third day of the Reign of the Blood Sorcerer

Chapter 1

He was the most beautiful monster she had ever seen.

It was the first thought Liliana had as she lay weak and drained across the black marble of the floor, her face reflected in its polished surface. As she watched, the one they called the Lord of the Black Castle rose from his ebony throne at the head of the room and walked down the ten steps with a lazy grace that spoke of power, strength … and death.

Trying desperately to close her hand into a fist, she attempted to push herself up onto her knees, unwilling to meet him at such a disadvantage. But her body was debilitated beyond bearing by the blood she had spilled to make the crossing, her wrists spotted with it, though her magic had sealed the wounds. Her father would’ve sacrificed another without a thought to the life he took, would call her a fool for using her own blood.

“Weak.” He had spit the judgment at her more than once. “I took a beautiful witch to wife and got a hatchet-faced mewling brat in return.”

Sensing the vibration of the monster’s boots getting ever closer, she took a deep breath, able to feel it rattle in her throat. It wasn’t meant to be like this. The spell should have deposited her in the forests outside his domain, not in the midst of his great hall, where he stood as the lone, lethal shield against the vicious beings beyond. She could feel eyes on her, hundreds of them. And yet no one made a sound.

The boots were almost to her now.

Cruelty was no stranger to her, not after having grown up with the Blood Sorcerer for a father. But this man, this “monster,” was meant to be completely without heart, without soul. His castle held within it the gateway to the Abyss, the place where the servants of evil were banished after death to suffer eternal torment at the hands of the basilisks and the serpents, and he was the guardian of that terrible place. It was said that even the most inhuman of the dead quivered when confronted by his visage.

But that was a lie, she thought as he crouched down beside her, his boots heavy in her line of sight.

He was not ugly at all.

Strong hands gripped her by the shoulders, pulled her roughly to her knees.

And she found herself staring into the face of a monster.

Sun-kissed hair, eyes of winter-green and skin that held the golden brush of summer even in this black place devoid of warmth, he could have stood in as the model for the mythical Prince Charming spoken of in childhood storybooks. Except Prince Charming did not wear armor of impenetrable black, and his eyes were not full of nightmares.

“Who is this?” A quiet, quiet question.

It made the hair on the back of her neck rise. She tried to force her tongue to work, but her body refused to cooperate even that much, still stunned from the leap she’d made from her father’s stolen kingdom to this place that stood as the dark ward between the living and the most depraved of the dead.

“An intruder.” He stroked her hair off her face, the act almost tender … if one ignored the fact that he wore gauntlets over his forearms that extended to his hands in spiderwebs of black. A spray of razors rode over his knuckles, while his fingers were tipped with bladed claws the same shade as his armor. “No one has dared enter the Black Castle without invitation in …” A flicker in the green. “Ever.”

He didn’t remember, she realized, looking into that face that was only of the Guardian. There was no echo of the boy he must’ve once been. None. Which could only mean one thing—according to legend, it was Queen Alvina who had cast the final desperate spell that had thrown her children from Elden, but Liliana’s father had ever gloated that he’d thwarted the queen’s magic with his own.

What only Liliana knew, because he’d once betrayed it in a rage, was that the Blood Sorcerer believed he had failed. Perhaps he had with the three oldest children, but not with the youngest … with Micah. Her father’s blood enchantment had held strong as the child grew into a man, into the dread Lord of the Black Castle.

Oh, he would be pleased. So, so pleased. For those he bespelled rarely, if ever, broke through the veil and found themselves again. Liliana’s mother had not—she haunted the hallways of his castle to this day, a slender woman with skin of the dark, lush honey-brown that spoke of Elden’s southern climes, and eyes of uptilted gold.

Irina believed herself the chatelaine of a great keep, childless and with her only duty being to see to the needs of the master—even if those needs meant nights filled with screams and bruises ringed around her neck more often than not. Her gaze glanced off her daughter even when Liliana stood directly in her path and pleaded for her mother to remember her, to know her.

By contrast, the winter-green eyes on her face right then saw her when she wished they would not. She had meant to slip unnoticed into his household, learn all she could about him before attempting to speak the truth of his past. She’d been ready to cope with a lack of memory, for he had been only five when Elden fell. But if he was caught in the malicious tentacles of her father’s sorcery, then her task had become a thousand times harder. The Blood Sorcerer’s work had a way of mutating over time, so there was no knowing what other effects it might’ve had.

“What do I do with you?” the Lord of the Black Castle and the Guardian of the Abyss asked in a tone that held a faint, dangerous amusement. “Since I have never had an intruder, your presence leaves me at a loss.”

Playing with her, she thought; he was playing with her as a cat might with a mouse it fully intended to eat—but wanted to torment first.

Anger gave her the will to stare back, her defiance born of a lifetime of fighting her father’s attempts to break her. Perhaps it was futile, but she could no more help it than a cornered animal could stop itself from striking out.

He blinked. “Interesting.” Steel-tipped nails grazed her cheek before he moved both hands to her shoulders again and pulled, bringing her to her feet as he rose.

She wobbled, would have pitched forward if he hadn’t held her up. As it was, one of her hands slammed up against the cold black of his armor. It felt like rock. Her father’s sorcery she thought, had grown upon itself, turned his mental prison into a physical truth. To counteract the spell, she’d first have to remove his armor.

Of course, before she could attempt any such thing, she had to survive.

“The dungeon,” the monster said at last. “Bard!”

A heavy tread, one that made the ground tremble. A second later, Liliana found herself being picked up in huge tree-trunk arms as the monster watched. “Take her to the dungeon,” he said. “I’ll deal with her after I hunt those destined for the Abyss tonight.”

The command echoed ominously in Liliana’s mind as she was carried from the hall in a hold that was unbreakable. In contrast to the strange whispering hush that pervaded this castle of harshest stone, she could feel a big, steady heartbeat against her cheek, the speed of it so slow as to be nothing human. Unable to turn her head, she couldn’t see who—what—it was that carried her with such ease until they passed through a hall of black mirrors.

His face appeared as if it had been formed of clay left in a child’s hands. It was all knots and bulges, misshapen and without any true form. He did have ears, but the large protrusions stuck up far too high on the sides of his head. And his nose … she couldn’t truly see it, but perhaps it was the small button hidden between his distorted cheeks and below the overhanging jut of his brow.

Ugly, she thought, he was truly ugly.

That made her feel better. At least one being in this place might have some sympathy with her. “Please,” she managed to whisper through a throat cracked and raw.

One of those ears seemed to twitch, but he didn’t halt his steady, relentless pace toward the dungeons. She tried again, got the same response. He wouldn’t stop, she realized, no matter what. For the monster would punish him. All too aware of the cage created by that kind of fear, she went silent, conserving her energy.

It was as well, for this Bard’s long, slow strides soon brought them to a dark corridor formed of crumbling walls, the only light coming from a single flickering torch. Then she glimpsed the stairs. The descent into the menacing maw of the Black Castle was narrow and tight enough that Bard’s head scraped the top more than once, his shoulders barely fitting. She felt her feet brush the stone, too, but Bard just held her in a more restrictive way, ensuring she took no injury.

She didn’t make the mistake of thinking it was because of any care on his part. No, he simply didn’t want to be responsible for explaining why the prisoner had been harmed in a way that had not been mandated by the Lord of the Black Castle.

The stairs seemed to spiral down interminably, until she wondered if she was being taken into the very bowels of the Abyss itself. But the dungeons they finally came to were harshly real, the passageway lit by a torch that gave just enough illumination for her to see that each cell was a black square broken up by a small window set with bars. She strained her ears but heard only silence. Either there were no other prisoners … or they were long dead.

Opening the door to the nearest cell, Bard stepped inside and placed her in the corner, atop a bed of straw. His eyes met hers, and she sucked in a breath. Large and dark and full of sorrow, they were the eyes of a scholar or a physician, shimmering with compassion. But he shook his head when she parted her lips.

There would be no mercy from him, not here.

As he turned to step out, he grunted and rattled something in the other corner. Then the door slammed shut, leaving her in a darkness so complete, it was stygian. But no—a scrap of light flickered in from the flames of the torch outside, enough to allow her to navigate the cell.

Gathering her strength, she crawled to where Bard had rattled what sounded like a metal bucket. Her hands touched it after what seemed like hours, and she felt her way carefully up its side until she could dip her fingers within.

Water.

Her throat suddenly felt as if it was lined with broken glass. Sheer need gave her the strength to pull herself up onto her knees and cup her hands, drink her fill. The water was cool and crisp and sweet, the droplets trailing down her wrists. It was beyond tempting to gorge, but she stopped herself after a bare few mouthfuls, aware her empty stomach would revolt if she overindulged.

Her eyes more accustomed to the shadows now, she glimpsed something else beside the pail. A steel container. Opening it, she found a small loaf of bread. Hunger a clawing beast in her stomach after days without food, she ripped off a piece and chewed. The bread wasn’t moldy or stale but simply lumpy and hard—as if the baker had been given instructions to make it as unpalatable as possible.

A skittering to her left, the sound of tiny paws on stone.

She turned her head, found her eyes meeting two shiny ones that gleamed in the dark. The sight may have incited fear in another woman, but Liliana had long made pets of such creatures in her father’s home. Still, she examined her roommate carefully. It was a small, quivering thing, its bones showing through its skin. Hardly a threat. Tearing off a piece of bread, she held it out. “Come, little friend.”

The mouse froze.

She continued to hold the bread, almost able to see the way the tiny creature was torn between lunging for the food and protecting itself. Hunger won and it darted to grab the bread from her grasp. An instant later and it was gone. It would return, she thought, when its belly forced it to.

Closing the container with half the loaf still inside, she placed it beside the water and made her way to the straw. For a dungeon, she thought drowsily as her body began to shut down, this place was not so terrible. The monster clearly needed to take lessons from her father in how to make it a filthy pit full of screams and endless despair.

The dream always began the same way.

“No, Bitty, no.” She was small, maybe five, and on her knees, shaking a finger at the long-haired white rabbit who was her best friend. “You have to fetch.”

Since Bitty was a rabbit more enamored with eating and sunning himself, he didn’t so much as twitch when she threw the ball. Sighing, she got up and fetched it herself, but she wasn’t really sad. Bitty was a good pet. He let her stroke his long silky ears as much as she wanted, and sometimes he made enough of an effort to move to follow her around the room.

“Come on, slugapuss,” she said, pulling him into her lap. “Oomph, you’re heavy. No more lettuce for you.”

Under her hands, his heart beat in a fast rhythm, his body warm and snuggly. She struggled to her feet under the burden. “Let’s go in the garden. If you’re really good, I’ll steal some strawberries for you.”

That was when the door opened.

And the dream changed.

The man in the doorway with his black hair brushed back from a severe widow’s peak, chill slate-gray eyes and cadaverous frame, was her father. For a frozen moment, she thought he’d heard what she’d been planning for the strawberries, but then he smiled and her fear lessened a fraction. Just a fraction. Because even at five years of age, she knew nothing good ever came of her father seeking her out. “Father?”

He strolled into the room, his eyes on Bitty. “You’ve looked after him well.”

She nodded. “I take care of him really good.” Bitty was the only kind thing her father had ever done for her.

“I can see that.” He smiled again, but those eyes, they were wrong in a way that made her stomach hurt. “Come with me, Liliana. No,” he said when she would have bent to place Bitty on the floor, “bring your pet. I have a use for him.”

The words scared her, but she was only five. Cuddling Bitty close to her chest, she toddled along after her father, and then up … and up … and up.

“How thoughtless of me,” he said when they were halfway. “It must be difficult for you, all these stairs. Let me take the creature.”

Certain she felt the rabbit flinch, Liliana tightened her hold on Bitty. “No, I’m okay,” she said, trying not to huff.

Eyes of dirty ice stared at her for a long moment before her father turned, continued to climb the twisting, winding staircase to the tower room. The magic room. Where she was never, ever supposed to go.

However, today he opened the door and said, “It’s time you learned about your heritage.”

There was nowhere else to go, nowhere he wouldn’t find her. So she walked into that room full of strange scents and books. It wasn’t as gloomy as she’d expected, and there was no blood. Relief had her smiling in tremulous hope. Everyone always said her father was a blood sorcerer, but there was no blood here, so they had to be wrong.

Looking up, she met his gaze as he loomed over to take Bitty from her protesting arms. Her smile died, fear a metallic taste on her tongue.

“Such a healthy creature,” he murmured, carrying the rabbit over to something that looked like a stone birdbath set in the middle of the circular room. Switching his hold, he suspended Bitty by his silky ears.

“No!” Liliana said, able to hear Bitty squeaking in distress. “That hurts him.”

“It won’t be for long.” And then her father pulled a long, sharp knife from his cloak.

Bitty’s blood turned the silver of the blade a dark, dark crimson before it flowed down to fill the shallow bowl of the horrible thing that wasn’t a birdbath.

“Come here, Liliana.”

Shaking her head, sobbing, she backed away.

“Come here,” he said again in that same calm voice.

Her feet began to move forward in spite of her terror, in spite of her will, until she was close enough for her father to pick her up by the ruff of her neck and push her face close to the fading warmth of Bitty’s blood, her blinding fear reflected in red. “See,” he said. “See who you are.”

Chapter 2

Liliana jerked awake on a soundless scream, her mouth stuffed with cotton wool and her head full of the cold finality of death. It took her long moments to realize that the door to her cell stood open; Bard watched her with those large eyes of liquid black.

“Hello,” she said, voice strained with the echoes of nightmare.

He waved her forward.

She got to her feet, ready to fight dizziness, but her body held her up. Relieved, she stepped out, following Bard’s ponderous steps through the dimly lit passageway until he stopped at another narrow door. When he did nothing else, she pushed through and felt her cheeks color. “I’ll be but a moment.”

Taking care of her private business, she used the mirror of black glass to tidy herself up as much as possible—there wasn’t anything she could do about her beak of a nose, or the eyes of dirty ice so wrong against her mother’s honey-dark skin, or the strawlike consistency of her matted black hair, much less the slashing gape of her mouth, but she was able to sleek that hair back off her face at least and tuck it behind her ears, wash off the blood that still streaked her wrists.

“Well,” she said to herself, “you’re here now. You must do what you came to do.” Though she had no idea how.

She’d grown up hearing the people her father had enslaved whispering of the four royal children, the true heirs to the jewel that was once Elden. The hope in their furtive voices had nurtured her own, fostering dreams of a future in which fear, sharp and acrid, wasn’t her constant companion.

Then, a month ago, driven by a steadily strengthening belief that something was very, very wrong, she’d stolen away into the putrid stench and clawing branches of the Dead Forest to call a vision as her father could not, his blood too tainted—and seen the tomorrow that was to come.

The heirs of Elden would return.

All of them … but one.

The Guardian of the Abyss would not be there on that fateful day. Without him, the four-sided key of power would remain incomplete. His brothers and sister, their mates, would fight with the fiercest hearts to defeat her father, but they would fail, and Elden would fall forever to the Blood Sorcerer’s evil. Horrifying as that was, it wasn’t the worst truth.

Elden had begun to die a slow death the instant the king and the queen—the blood of Elden—had taken their final breaths. That death would be complete when the clock struck midnight on the twentieth anniversary of her father’s invasion. Not so terrible a thing if it would strip the Blood Sorcerer of power, but Elden’s people were touched by magic, too. Without it, they would simply fall where they stood, never to rise again.

Her father had spent years seeking to find a solution to what he termed a “disease.” Which is why he would not murder the returned heirs. No, she’d seen the horror in her vision—he’d have them enchained and cut into with extreme care day after day, night after night, their blood dripping to the earth in a continuous flow to fool it into believing the blood of Elden had returned. They were a race that lived for centuries, would not easily die. And so her father would continue on in his heinous—

Thump!

Jumping at the booming sound, she realized her guard was whacking on the door to hurry her up. “I’m coming,” she said, and turned away from the mirror.

Bard began to shuffle off in front of her as soon as she stepped out. It was difficult to keep up with him, for even shuffling, he was a far larger creature than her, each of his feet five times as big as her own. “Master Bard,” she called as she all but ran behind him after reaching the top of the stairs.

He didn’t stop, but she saw one of those large ears twitch.

“I do not wish to die,” she said to his back. “What must I do to survive?”

Bard shook his head in a slight negative.

There was no way to survive?

Or he didn’t know how she might?

Surely, she thought, not giving in to panic, surely her father’s evil hadn’t completely destroyed the soul of the boy who had been Prince Micah. She didn’t know much about the youngest child of King Aelfric and Queen Alvina, but she’d heard enough whispers to realize that he had been a beloved prince, the small heart of the royal family, and of Elden.

“For who could not love a babe with such a light in his eyes?”

Words her old nursery maid, Mathilde, had said as she told Liliana a night-tale. It had taken Liliana years to realize that Mathilde’s night-tales had been the true stories of Elden. And then she’d understood why Mathilde had disappeared from the nursery one cold spring night, never to be seen alive again.

Months later, her father had taken her for a walk, pointed out the gleaming white of bone in the slithering dark of the Dead Forest, a faint smile on his face.

Pain bloomed in her heart at the memory of the only person who had ever held her when she cried, but she crushed it with a ruthless hand. Mathilde was long dead, but the youngest prince of Elden still lived and, no matter the cost, Liliana would return him to Elden before the final, deadly midnight bell.

The Lord of the Black Castle found himself waiting for his prisoner. It had taken longer than he’d anticipated to capture those spirits destined for the Abyss who had somehow managed to halt their journey at the badlands that surrounded the doorway to their ultimate destination. Usually, time had little meaning for him, but this past night he’d known the hours were passing, that the intruder who had dared look him in the eye slept in his dungeon.

He wasn’t used to such thoughts and they made him curious.

So he waited on the black stone of the floor beneath his throne, aware of the day servants from the village going about their business in jittering quiet. It had been so as long as he could remember. They feared him, even as they served him. That was the way it should and would always be, for the Guardian of the Abyss must be a monster.

The thunder of Bard’s footsteps vibrated through the stone just as he was getting impatient, and then came the deep groan of the massive doors at the end of the great hall being opened. The Lord of the Black Castle looked up as Bard walked in. His prisoner was nowhere to be seen—until Bard moved aside to expose the odd creature at his back.

She was … mismatched, he thought. Though her skin was a smooth golden brown that reminded him of honey from the redblossom tree, her eyes were tiny dots a peculiar sort of nowhere color and her mouth much too big, her hooked nose overwhelming every other feature. Her hair stuck out in a stiff mass akin to the straw in the stables, and she limped when she walked, as if one leg was shorter than the other.

Truly, she was not a prepossessing thing at all. And yet he remained curious.

Because she looked him in the eye.

No one had been unafraid enough to do that for … He could not remember the last time.

“So, you survived the night,” he said.

She brushed off a piece of straw from the coarse material of her sacklike brown dress. “The accommodation was lovely, thank you.”

He blinked at the unexpected response, conscious of the servants freezing where they stood. He didn’t know what they expected him to do. Just as he had no awareness of his actions when the curse came upon him. He just knew that after it passed, parts of the castle lay wrecked, and the servants scuttled away from him like so many insects afraid to be crushed. “I shall have to speak to Bard about that,” he murmured.

“Oh, don’t blame him for my comfort,” the odd creature said with an airy wave of a bony hand. “You see, I am quite used to a stone floor, so straw is the height of luxury.”

“Who are you?” Whoever she was, she could not harm him. No one could harm him. No one could even touch him through the black armor that had crept up over his body until it encased him from neck to ankle. He’d felt the tendrils spearing through his hair of late, knew the armor would soon cover his face, too. All for the best. It would make it more difficult for evil to touch him when he went hunting its disciples.

“Liliana,” his prisoner said, those tiny eyes of no particular color meeting his own with bold confidence. “I am Liliana. Who are you?”

He angled his head, wondering if she had all her faculties. For surely she wouldn’t dare to speak to him thus otherwise. “I am the Guardian of the Abyss and the Lord of the Black Castle,” he said because it amused him.

“Do you not have a name?” A quiet whisper.

It made him go still inside. “The lord does not need a name.” But he had had one once, he thought, a long time ago. So long ago that it made waves of darkness roll through his head to even think of it, the monstrous curse within itching to take form.

He snapped a hand at Bard. “Take her back!”

Liliana could have kicked herself as she was dragged away by a massive hand, her heels scraping along the stone floor. She’d attempted too much, too soon, and the twisted evil of her father’s sorcery had struck back like the most vicious of snakes. “Wait!” she cried out to the retreating back coated in unyielding black armor. “Wait!”

When her jailor stopped to open the door, she glanced around wildly, trying to find something with which to save herself. There were no weapons on the wall nearby, but even if there had been, she was no warrior. The servants were too afraid to help. Maybe she could throw the bread, she thought with a dark glance at the hunk that sat on a platter on the huge slab of a dining table to her left—it certainly looked hard enough.

Oh.

“I can cook!” she yelled as Bard started to drag her through the doorway. “I’ll cook you the most delicious meal you’ve ever had in your life if you—”

The door began to close on her words.

“Bard.”

The big ugly lug stopped at his master’s voice.

“Take her to the kitchen,” came the order. “If she lies, throw her in the cauldron.”

Relief had her feeling faint, but she managed to wobble around to walk beside Bard when he released his hold and turned to lead her down a different corridor. “He was jesting about the cauldron, wasn’t he? You cannot have a cauldron big enough for a person?”

Bard halted, sighed, looked at her with those wide, liquid eyes. When he spoke, the sound came from the depths of some deep cave, so heavy and thunderous that her eardrums echoed. “We,” he said, “have knives.”

Liliana couldn’t tell if he, like his master, was making a jest at her expense, so she shut her mouth and said nothing as they wound their way through black hallways free of all ornamentation, down a single wide step and through a heavy wooden door into a warm, sweet-smelling room at one end.

A startled pixielike creature looked up from where she stood by the large freestanding bench in the center. “Bard!” the woman said, her voice as high and sweet as her face was tiny and wrinkled in the most unexpected way—at the corners of her lips and along the bridge of her nose. The rest of her skin, the color of the earth after rain, was taut and smooth, the crinkled tips of her ears poking out through dark hair she’d pulled back into a thick braid.

A brownie, Liliana thought in wonder. She wasn’t a pixie at all, but a brownie, a creature her father had hunted to extinction in Elden, for their blood made his magic so very strong.

Bard pushed Liliana into the room with one big paw. “New cook.” He was gone the next instant.

The brownie’s face fell.

Feeling terrible, Liliana walked over to stand on the other side of the bench. “I’m sorry.” She hadn’t even thought when she’d spoken. “I was trying to save myself from being sent back to the dungeon when I said I’d cook.”

The other woman blinked at her. “Oh, no, oh, no. I’m an awful cook, I am.” Picking up a biscuit from a tray on the bench, she dropped it to the floor. It bounced. “I do not know why the lord has not had me beheaded. Perhaps, oh, yes, perhaps he enjoys that my food matches this place.”

Startled by her friendliness, Liliana said, “But you looked so disappointed just then.”

The woman’s ears turned pink at the tips. “Oh, no, that was nothing. Nothing at all. I’m Jissa.”

“Liliana.”

Reaching out, Jissa pinched Liliana’s wrinkled and blood-encrusted dress. “I am not a good cook, but I keep this place clean. You are not clean.”

“No.” Embarrassed, Liliana scratched at her hair. “A bath would be much appreciated.”

“You’ll have to be quick, quick indeed, if you are to cook a meal,” Jissa warned, shaking a rolling pin at her. “The lord will not wait past the early dinner bell before consigning you to the dungeon again.” The brownie was moving as she spoke, waving at Liliana to follow with quick, birdlike motions. “Noon meal he will not eat today. Not in the castle, he isn’t.”

Running after her, Liliana found herself led to a small bathroom where Jissa was already working the pump to fill the tub. “I’ll do—”

The brownie shook her head. “Take off your clothes and get in, in right now.” Impatient words. “I’m sorry but it must be cold, so cold, for we have no time to heat the water.”

Glad for the chance to be clean after spending days in her father’s dungeon for the infraction of refusing to slit a man’s throat, and then last night here, she gave up any attempt at modesty and stripped away her clothing to step into the frigid bath. Shivering, she picked up the bar of rough soap on the ledge, and dipping her head under the pump, wet her hair.

As she lathered it, Jissa said, “You are not very well put together, you aren’t.”

From others, it may have been an unkind statement. From Jissa, it sounded like simple fact, so Liliana nodded. “No.” Her breasts were so small as to be nonexistent, while her ribs stuck out from beneath her skin. Her behind, by comparison, was rather large, and one of her legs was shorter than the other.

“You will fit in very well here, yes, you will,” Jissa said with a sudden smile that gave her a quixotic charm. “For he is the only creature of beauty, and even he turns into a monster.”

Laughing, Liliana ducked her head under the water and washed off the suds before repeating the soaping process. Jissa stopped pumping to give her the chance to lather up her entire body, leaning against the pump as she recovered from the exertion.

“Where do you come from, Jissa?” Liliana asked, running the soap down her arms with a bliss even the cold couldn’t diminish. “You are surely not a denizen of the Abyss.” There was no evil in the brownie—on that Liliana would stake her life.

Jissa’s face grew sad. “A mountain forest far from here, so far,” she whispered. “The Blood Sorcerer came to our village and stole our magic. Stole and stole. I survived, but he said he couldn’t stand the sight of me, so he enspelled me beyond the kingdoms, beyond the realm. This is where the spell stopped.”

Liliana’s stomach curdled. She knew Jissa would hate her if she learned of the murderous blood that ran in her veins, but Liliana needed her friendship. So she bit her tongue and stuck her head and body under the pump as Jissa began to work it again.

I’m sorry, she whispered deep inside. I’m sorry my blood is responsible for the spilling of your own.

Chapter 3

Bath finished, she got out and rubbed herself down with a rough little towel while Jissa disappeared—to return with a black tunic that hit Liliana midthigh, black leggings and soft black boots. “I think these were meant for footmen,” she said, holding out the garments, “when there were men of foot. There have never been any in the years I have lived here. Never, ever.”

“Thank you, they look very comfortable.” The leggings fit well enough but the tunic was baggy, so she was grateful for the thin rope Jissa found for her to use as a belt. “Do you have a comb I could—Thank you.” Brushing it through the knotted mat of her hair, she pulled the whole mass severely off her face and tied it using a smaller piece of rope. She didn’t look in the mirror. She had no wish to see the face “that would frighten even a ghoul into returning to its den.”

“Can you truly cook?” Jissa asked as they made their way back to the kitchen.

“Yes. I spent many hours in the kitchens of the castle where I grew up.” In spite of his cadaverous frame, the Blood Sorcerer liked to eat, and so he didn’t brutalize the cook. As a result, the man had been the only one of the castle’s servants unafraid to offer a little kindness to the child who clung to the shadows so as not to attract her father’s attention.

“What raw ingredients do you have?” she asked Jissa, shaking off the memories. That child was long gone, her innocence shattered into innumerable shards. The woman she’d become would let nothing stop her—not even the monster who was the lord of this place.

“Oh, many things.” Moving to the bench where she’d been working, the brownie waved a hand and the mostly empty surface was suddenly overflowing with plump red and orange peppers, carrots, cabbages, ripe fruits of every description, a basket full of dark green leaves that would taste nutty when cooked, and more.

Liliana picked up a pepper with a wondering hand. “Where does this come from?”

“The village,” Jissa said in a matter-of-fact tone that was already familiar.

“There is a village in this realm?” She’d always assumed the Abyss was a baleful place devoid of all life—but that didn’t explain the servants she’d seen.

“Of course.” Jissa gave her a look that suggested Liliana was being very dim. “We are the doorway to the Abyss. The doorway only.”

“Yes, I see.” The Black Castle was still part of the living world. “Is the village close?”

A shake of her head that sent Jissa’s braid swinging.

“You must pass through the gates of the Black Castle, and then you must walk through the forest to the settlement. Dark, whispery forest. Whisper, whisper. But not bad.” An intent look, as if she wanted to make certain Liliana understood.

She continued at Liliana’s nod. “I walk quick and fast with Bard when we need supplies, and buy from the merchants using the lord’s gold. This and that and this, too.” A sudden dipping of her head that hid her expression, but her words were pragmatic enough. “Bard carries everything back for me. Always he carries.”

“He has gold?” The furnishings Liliana had seen were functional, but aside from a few grim tapestries, there was nothing of beauty, nothing to speak of wealth. All was black and hard and cold.

“It is the Law of the Abyss, first law, always law.” Jissa began to stack the vegetables to the side to clear part of the bench. “Do you not know?” She answered her own question without waiting for a response. “Evil gold and evil treasure comes to the Black Castle with the condemned.” A baring of those sharp, pointed teeth. “Only if an innocent, an innocent, you see, would be harmed by the taking, only then it does not.”

Liliana thought of her father’s coffers, knew this law was yet another reason he sought to live forever, though they, too, were part of a race that lived centuries. He had taken her into his vault after bleeding poor Bitty to nothingness. Gold in innumerable piles, jewels twinkling from necklaces still stained with their last wearer’s lifeblood, rings on skeletal fingers, it had been a glimmering nightmare.

“This,” her father had said, his arms spread wide, “this is what you could have if you aren’t weak.” Picking up a necklace of tear-shaped diamonds splattered with flecks of brown, he’d placed it around her neck. “Feel it, feel the blood.”

She had felt it. And it had made her choke on her own vomit. Her father had backhanded her so hard for her “weakness” she’d ended up resting on a mountain of gold coins. When he’d wrenched off the necklace, he’d made her bleed. She carried the scar on her neck to this day—it was a constant reminder of the vow she’d made as a defenseless child. Never would she be like him, no matter what he did to her.

And he had done things he didn’t do even to his enemies.

“Dungeon you’ll go to if you don’t cook.”

Snapping back to the present, Liliana nodded and chose an assortment of fruit vibrant with color and fragrance. “Will you chop these, Jissa?”

The brownie picked up a knife as Liliana hunted out the flour, butter and milk, and began to roll out a pastry on one corner of the massive bench. “The village,” she said as they worked, “do you live there?” It would make sense if Jissa did—the Black Castle was a gloomy place full of watchful ghosts and shimmering darkness.

“I cannot.” Jissa’s sadness lingered in the air, settled on Liliana’s skin, permeated her very bones. “I tried when I first came, and I … died, was all dead, after two days. The lord brought me back here and I lived again.”

Liliana’s heart caught, for she understood now. No matter her memories, Jissa hadn’t survived the massacre in her village. The Blood Sorcerer had a spell he called Slumber. Such an innocuous name for such an evil thing. He used it on those magical creatures who were pure of blood and yet rare. Rather than murdering them when he might already be swollen with power, he broke their necks but whispered a spell at the moment of death that kept them breathing and slumbering.

Liliana had been locked in a room with her father’s victims once, but it hadn’t horrified her as he’d intended. She’d been grateful, her magic telling her the beings no longer possessed their souls. They had escaped. But not Jissa. Whatever her father had done to her, it had trapped her in this borderland between life and death. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Confusion. “You aren’t the Blood Sorcerer. No, you’re not.”

Knives in Liliana’s chest, the lies of omission choking her up.

Jissa spoke again. “There are meats in the cold box. I can—”

“No. No meat on the table.” Her own blood would be the only blood she would ever spill. Her father had delighted in forcing her to watch as he took his time torturing and mutilating creature after magical creature. It was when she was six that he’d begun to whisper spells that forced her to do the same vile acts even as she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Four more years it had taken until she’d grown strong enough to block his spells with her own. That was when he’d started to hurt the servants who dared to speak with her, to offer her any small kindness—all except the cook. So she had learned to remain silent.

“Oh.” Jissa’s brow furrowed, her sharp little teeth biting into her lower lip. “Meat, he always eats the meat,” she whispered. “Even I, bad cook I, can’t make it taste that terrible.”

“Never fear, Jissa,” Liliana said, kneading the dough with determined hands, her mind on eyes of winter-green, so very beautiful, so very deadly. “He’ll never notice the lack.”

The dinner bell rang loud and sonorous. Seated alone at the head of a massive table of polished wood so dark it was near black, the Guardian of the Abyss raised his cup and took a sip of red wine. “Where is my meal, Bard?” he asked, though he wasn’t looking forward to the food that didn’t deserve the name.

If Jissa weren’t already dead, he was sure he would have executed her long ago for attempting to starve him. Of course today it was his new prisoner who would face his wrath. He wondered if she would look him in the eye when he sentenced her to another night in the dungeon.

“I will see, my lord.” The big man turned to open the door … to reveal the prisoner, Liliana, and Jissa standing there with huge trays in their arms.

“Thank you,” Liliana said with a smile that was much too wide. “We couldn’t open the door.” And then she was walking into the great hall with that halting stride of hers, her face brutally exposed given that she’d pulled her hair back.

Again, he found himself fascinated by his strange prisoner.

Placing her tray on the table and waiting for Jissa to do the same, she whipped off the covers from the dishes and moved to serve him. “This,” she said, placing a small round tart on his plate, “is not my best work, but you didn’t give me much time, my lord. Jissa tells me the dinner bell rings early today.”

He picked up the tidbit, wondering if all her food came in so small a portion. And if her words were meant to warn him that she’d lied about her ability to cook. If she had, he would have to send her back to the dungeon. Lines furrowed his forehead. He was intrigued enough by her that he wanted her around, but he couldn’t spare her—he was the Guardian of the Abyss. Mercy was a weakness he’d never had. Though perhaps he would ask Bard to give her a blanket.

“Well, my lord? Will you not eat it or are you afraid I will poison you?” A question as tart as the miniscule bite he held in hand.

He considered punishing her for her impertinence, decided she was likely feebleminded and didn’t know any better. “The Guardian of the Abyss cannot die.”

She tucked a stiff strand of hair behind her ear. “But only while you are within this castle.”

Amused by her, he decided to answer. “No. While I am in this realm.”

“I see.” Something whispered in the depths of her eyes, and he wondered if she was a very clever spy, come to assassinate him.

But who would dare raise a blade against the Lord of the Black Castle? And why would they send this creature so weak and small and strange? Ridiculous. With that, he ate the tart.

An explosion of flavors—sweet and fresh and spicy and—”What else have you made?” Swallowing the tiny tidbit, he waited with impatience as she served him two more of the same.

Then came the soup so clear and with round little green things in it that she told him were pieces of “spring onion.” He blinked, having the sudden, nagging feeling that he hated onion. But that was an inexplicable thought—he ate what Jissa made, but then Jissa’s food had no taste. “This is meant to feed me?”

“Try it, my lord.”

He didn’t bother with the spoon. Picking up the bowl, he drank.

And drank.

And drank.

There was a large square of something made of many layers in front of him when he finished the soup and set the bowl to the side. This time, he didn’t question, simply picked up the fork and took a bite.

Cheese and a thin pastry and peppers and cabbage, tomatoes and other things, spices he couldn’t name but that burst to life on his tongue with flickering heat. He cleared his plate with swift relish. “What is next?”

She spooned rice, soft and fluffy, onto his plate, before covering it with some kind of a stew, except that it was full of chunks of different vegetables that turned it into a storm of color. “Where is the meat?”

Putting down the bowl, his peculiar little prisoner folded her arms. “I won’t cook it. If you wish for meat, you may ask Jissa to do so.”

He was the Lord of the Black Castle and of the Abyss. He wasn’t used to being defied. But he was also not used to eating food that made him eager to see the next course. So he tried this vegetable stew over rice. It was a thick, flavorsome concoction that lay warm and satisfying in his belly. Finishing the food, he pushed away the plate. “You will cook for me.”

A slight nod—as if she had a choice in the matter. “I didn’t have time to prepare a proper dessert, my lord, but I hope this will do.”

She put slices of fruit in front of him, plump and fresh, alongside a small pot of something sweet and rich, with a scent that made his nostrils flare. “What is this?”

A faint smile. “Try it, my lord.”

He hadn’t been the recipient of any kind of a smile for so long that something creaked and crashed open inside of him as he looked into her face. “No, you will tell me,” he said in a harsh tone, suddenly no longer amused.

She didn’t flinch. “Honey with a bit of vanilla and some spices. It is sometimes called nectar.”

More, please!

Shaking his head, he rid himself of that odd childlike voice. He didn’t know such a child, and the smallest of the realms never came through the doorway to the Abyss. They didn’t have time to grow into the evil that would mean banishment to this place of torment and repentance.

More, Mama!

“Take it away,” he said, shoving back his chair with such force it clattered to the floor. “And do not bring me such a thing again.”

His prisoner said nothing as she—with Jissa’s help—began to gather up the remains of the meal. Stalking to the other end of the great hall, he used the power of this place to raise himself to the wall above the throne and picked out a giant sickle, black as his armor. The edge gleamed white-hot the instant it touched his hand.

He glimpsed Liliana watching him as he came back down to earth and turned to walk out into the cold dark of the soul hunt.

Liliana’s eyes lingered on the doorway through which the dark lord had disappeared, the echo of his chair hitting the floor still ringing in her ears. Something in him remembered the delicacy favored by the children of Elden, something in him knew.

“Liliana.” Jissa’s hand on her arm. “Go, go, we must go. Not nice to see souls being dragged into the Abyss. Always, they try to escape. Beg and bargain and plead.”

“Where is the doorway?”

“Feet, below our feet. Down, down in the castle.”

Liliana looked at the black marble of the floor and wondered what she would find if she were to crack it open. Likely nothing but rock. For it was said only the most blackened of souls and the Guardian of the Abyss himself could view that terrible wasteland full of screams and horror. And it was this place that the youngest Elden royal faced night after night. It was this place that had shaped him.

“We’ll eat now.” Jissa’s bright voice broke into her murky thoughts. “You and me and Bard, we’ll eat your delicious food.”

“The other servants?” Liliana asked when they reached the kitchens after cleaning up the table in the great hall.

“Returned to the village they have.” Round, shining eyes filled with unquenchable sorrow. “Gone home.”

Liliana’s hatred for her father grew impossibly deeper. “Sit,” she said, “eat. I’ll be back after I deliver this—” picking up a tart “—to another friend.”

When Bard began to rise, Liliana said, “Where will I go, Master Jailor? And what would I dare steal?” With that, she pushed through the door and made her way down to the dungeons. The door to her cell was closed, but not locked.

Walking inside, she placed the tart near the food container. “Little friend,” she whispered, “this is for you.”

Silence. Then a slight sound, a small body quivering in hope.

Rising, Liliana backed out and closed the door. She was about to return to the warmth of the kitchen when she found herself curious about the other cells. She’d heard nothing but silence the previous night, but she’d been weak and exhausted at the time.

Picking the torch up off the wall, its flames flickering eerie shadows over the crumbling stone, she walked deeper into the cold. The first cell beyond her own was empty, as was the next. But the third, the third was very much occupied.

“Sissssster,” came the sibilant whisper as she stood with the flame held close to the small barred square in the door, “help meeeee.”

Chapter 4

Squinting, she tried to see within. But there was only blackness. An impossible blackness, so dense as to repel the light from the torch. Liliana hesitated. She wasn’t stupid. The Black Castle held the gateway through which only the most vicious of the dead and the Guardian himself could pass—her sojourn here aside, its dungeons were unlikely to be populated by beings who meant her no harm.

Holding the torch in front of her like a shield, she backed away.

A slithering, as if some large creature was nearing the door. “Sisssster, it issssss a misssstake. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Then,” she said, continuing to keep her distance, “you would not have been drawn to the Abyss.” It was said the Abyss was the one constant throughout the realms, its magic elemental, immutable—if your soul was rotted and foul, you’d be unable to escape it once your mortal flesh released its grip on life.

“Are you ssssssssssoooo certain?”

“Yes,” she said, suddenly conscious that she was almost at the cell door once again.

She couldn’t remember moving.

And she couldn’t shift her eyes from the square “window” of the cage.

“Come clossssser, sissssster.”

Swallowing, she squeezed her fingers into the palm of her free hand in an attempt to cut half-moons into her flesh, release her blood. But it was taking too long and she knew that once she was close enough, the sinister creature beyond would reach out—

“Stop.”

The single, cold word was said in a deep voice that whispered with its own darkness.

An enraged hiss from beyond the door, before the Lord of the Black Castle raised a gauntleted hand and a mirror of black glass grew to cover the bars of the window. Only then did he turn to look at her, and his eyes, his eyes …

She stumbled back in spite of herself at the blackness within, all traces of green erased. Watching her with lethal focus, he stepped closer, until he could grip her jaw, hold her in place with those fingers tipped with claws of cold steel. “Are you so eager to spend another night in the dungeon?” As gentle as the first question he’d asked her in this realm.

She tried to shake her head, but his hold was firm, his grip unbreakable. “I am too curious, my lord,” she managed to grit out. “It is my besetting sin.”

For some reason, that made him soften his hold. “What would you see here?”

“I wanted to know if you had any more prisoners.”

Black tendrils spread out from his irises and back again, eerie—and a sign of the sorcery that held him captive. If she didn’t find a way to reverse it, he would soon be utterly encased in impenetrable black.

“Why,” she said when he didn’t reply, “is that creature here and not in the Abyss?”

“Opening the doorway is difficult work,” he said, rubbing his thumb almost absently over her chin, the sharp point brushing against her lip in a caress that could turn deadly in a fragment of a moment. “It’s less trouble to collect several of the condemned and deliver them together.”

“Aren’t you afraid of what they’ll do to your servants?” It was hard to speak with him touching her, his body so big, so close.

“My servants are intelligent enough to know not to wander the dungeons once night has fallen.”

She colored, wondering why he stared at her so; she knew she was ugly, but did he have to watch her with such focus? As if she was an insect? “I won’t make the same mistake again.”

Releasing her, he said, “But will you be curious again?”

Perhaps it would’ve been better to lie, but Liliana found her mouth parting, the words spilling out. “Yes, this castle is fascinating.” As was its lord. Who would he have been if her father had not seized the throne of Elden? A prince golden and true? Sophisticated and elegant and learned?

She couldn’t imagine him thus, this man with the ice of death in his gaze, his voice, his touch. “Did you complete your hunt?” He hadn’t been gone long … or she’d been caught in the creature’s snare for longer than she’d realized.

“Yes, for now,” he said, his eyes still that eerie midnight shade. “Come. I will show you my castle.”

Startled at the offer, she began to head after him.

“Beware, sissssssster,” came the sibilant whisper from beyond the mirrored glass. “No maid is safe with the Lord of the Black Castle.”

She felt more than saw anger sweep across the face of the lethal male at her side, but she snorted. “Clearly, you do not have good vision,” she said to whatever lay beyond the locked door. “Or you’d know that I’m not a maid any man would want to ravish.”

Turning to look at the Guardian of the Abyss, she found him staring at her again. Once more, she felt like a bug, an insect. But she straightened her shoulders and said, “Your castle, my lord?”

A long pause that made an icy bead of sweat trickle down her spine before he led her back up the winding stairs and into the dark heart of his domain. Stopping in the hall of black mirrors when she hesitated, he said, “Do you want to see?”

Everywhere she looked, she saw reflections. Him, so tall and sun-golden and piercingly beautiful—and her, so short and badly formed. “What?” she asked, looking away from her own image.

“The Abyss.” He swept out a hand without waiting for a response and the mirrors filled with images of churning horror. At first there was only a wash of black and green flame, an impression of things burning. But then she began to see the faces. Contorted faces drowning in pain. Clawing hands asking for help before they dug out their own eyes in an effort to escape. Limbs floating in the black, twitching as if sensation remained.

And the screams. Silent. Endless. Forever.

Clapping her hands over her ears, she shook her head. “Stop it!”

“Do you feel pity for them?” He touched his finger to the image of a face flayed and torn, its eyes red orbs bulging with terror as a basilisk feasted on its body. “He sold his children to … a sorcerer. The … sorcerer tortured and murdered them because that is how he gains his power. The man knew.”

No matter that she stood in the midst of such violent anguish, she caught his hesitation. “Blood Sorcerer,” it seemed, was something he couldn’t say. But if he remembered her father, even if only in the most hidden depths of his psyche, then there was a chance he’d remember his family, remember what he had to do before it was too late.

“Please,” she whispered, feeling as if her ears were bleeding from those silent screams that reverberated relentlessly in her head.

“This one,” he said, pointing to another face so burned the flesh was melting, but with eyes of perfect alertness, “trapped those creatures he considered lesser—brownies like Jissa, the wise gazelles of the plains, cave trolls so small and shy—and butchered them for his own amusement. And this one, she poisoned an entire wood so that the creatures tied to the earth would curl up and die and she would have their land.”

Unable to take the pressure of the screams any longer, her gut twisting from the horrors he was painting onto the walls of a mind that already held too much, Liliana ran forward to press her face to his back, her hands fisted against the hard carapace of his armor. “Stop, or I won’t cook for you again.”

A moment’s pause.

The images disappeared.

Peace.

“You will cook for me.” An order—but there was a thread of what she might’ve almost called disappointment in the tone of his voice.

Blinking, she wondered if he had been trying to show her something that was important to him, something he’d thought she would like to see. Surely not, for he was the Lord of the Black Castle, and yet … he was alone. A monster who stood as the last defense against the other monsters. “They say,” she whispered, “that once there was no Abyss, that the world was innocent and its people, young and old, untainted.”

He shifted away to face her, his eyebrows heavy over eyes become that beautiful winter-green. “You tell night-tales.”

“Perhaps.” In truth, regardless of what she wanted to believe, she’d seen too much not to understand that there would always be those whose souls were malevolent. “I do know many night-tales.”

He cocked his head. “How many?”

“Many,” she said, seeing in his intrigued expression a way to reach the boy who lived within the lethal Guardian, who had to live within. If she was wrong, if that boy was long dead, crushed beneath the weight of years and the soul-chilling armor of her father’s twisted spell, then they were all lost. Her father would rule and Elden would become another Abyss.

Having been “permitted” time enough for a meal, she found herself in the great hall, perhaps half an hour later, able to feel hundreds of eyes on her—as she had the day she’d landed frail and disoriented on the marble floor. But when she raised her head in stiff pride, ready to stare down the audience, she saw only emptiness. “Who is watching?”

The Lord of the Black Castle turned from where he’d put one booted foot on the steps that led to the throne colored the same eponymous shade, as hard and lacking in ornamentation as the man himself. “The residents,” he said, as if that were self-evident.

“The residents?” she pushed, fighting the urge to hug her arms around herself. “From the Abyss?” Legend said that despite the pitiless task that was his nightly duty, the Guardian was always pure of heart. In this ancient legend she’d placed her faith, but if he allowed the putrid souls destined for the Abyss to linger above …

“Of course not.” A grim stare that raised every tiny hair on her body. “There are other souls who are drawn to the Black Castle.”

“Why?”

“They come and they do not leave.” An answer that told her she was trying his patience with her questions. “The Black Castle welcomes them.”

Liliana felt a glimmer of understanding, wondered if she might have more allies than she believed.

“You will tell the tale now.” It was an order as he took his seat on the throne.

Hairs still standing up in alarm, she nonetheless put her hands on her hips and said, “It would be easier if I didn’t have to shout, my lord!” He sat high and remote, an arrogant emperor.

He gestured her forward. “You may sit at my feet.”

Dropping them from her hips, Liliana fisted her hands by her sides, her entire body rigid. Sit at his feet?

Like an animal? No. If her father hadn’t broken her after a lifetime, then the Guardian of the Abyss surely would not! But when she would’ve opened her mouth, given voice to her fury, she felt ghostly fingers on her lips, almost heard a whisper in her ear.

The shock of it cut through her conditioned response, tempered her rage, made her think.

Looking up into the face of the dark lord who’d commanded her, she saw impatience, saw, too, a quicksilver anticipation. “Is it an honor, my lord?” she asked, realization shimmering a golden rain through her veins. “To sit below your throne?”

“You ask strange questions, Liliana.” It was the first time he’d said her name, and it felt akin to a spell on its own, wrapping her in tendrils of black that gleamed with bright green highlights. “This throne is only for the Guardian. Any imposter who dares sit here will die a terrible death.”

And so it was a great honor for her to be allowed so close.

Keeping that in mind, she swallowed her pride and climbed the steps to the throne—but instead of taking a seat at his feet, for that she couldn’t do, not for anyone, she perched herself several feet away, so she could turn and face him. “Once upon a time,” she began, her blood thunder in her veins—because it could all end now, with a single misstep—”there was a land called Elden.”

Whispers rolling around the room, ghostly murmurs gaining in volume.

“Quiet!” The lord cut the air with a slicing hand.

Silence reigned.

“Continue.”

Curiosity about the ghostly residents danced nimble and quick through her veins, but she kept it in check.

First, she must discover if the Abyss had saved the last heir—or if it had consumed him. “This land, this Elden, it was a place of grace and wonder. Its people grew old at so slow a pace that some called them immortal, but they were not true immortals, for they could die, but only after hundreds of years of life, of learning.

“Because of their great love of this last, they were renowned for their knowledge and artistry, their libraries the finest in all the kingdoms.” She carried on when her audience didn’t interrupt, the ghosts as motionless as the green-eyed man on the throne of black. “Elden was also a land overflowing with magical energy, its people’s bodies touched with it.” That energy had given Elden its strength—and made it a target. “All of Elden’s grace and prosperity flowed from the king and queen. King Aelfric, it is said—”

“No!” The Lord of the Black Castle rose, his hands clenched, his eyes black, the tendrils spiraling out to run across his face. “You will not say that name.”

“It is only a name in a tale,” she said, though the merciless cold of his gaze made her abdomen lurch with the realization that he could end her life with one swipe of that razor-gauntleted hand. “It is not real.” Better to tell a small lie, if it would help her slip under the viscous cobweb of her father’s spell. “Surely, you aren’t a child to be scared of tales.” It was a chance she took, that he wouldn’t kill her for such insolence, but the stakes were too high for her to walk softly.

“You dare challenge me?” Quiet words. Deadly words. “I will—”

“If you send everyone to the dungeon, my lord,” she said, brushing an imaginary speck of dirt off her tunic in an effort to hide the trembling in her hands, “it’s a wonder you have any friends at all.”

His eyes turned green between one blink and the next, the tendrils of armor disappearing from his face. “The Guardian of the Abyss has no friends.”

She understood loneliness. Oh, yes, she understood how it could cut and bite and make you bleed. “I’m not surprised,” she said, rather than offering him her friendship. That would most certainly get her thrown back down into the bowels of the castle—he was a man of power and pride, of arrogance earned through dark labor. “It’s a dicey business,” she said, taking her life into her hands for the second time in as many minutes, “talking with someone who locks up anyone who disagrees with him.”

Anger turned his bones stark against his skin, but then the green gleamed. “Tell this tale, Liliana. I promise, whether it is good or bad, you won’t have to spend the night in the dungeon.”

Liliana didn’t trust that gleam, her heart thudding against her ribs as her hands turned damp. “What are you planning to do to me?”

Chapter 5

He smiled. And she caught her breath at the heartbreaking beauty of him. Now she understood, now she glimpsed the child he must’ve been, the one who had won a kingdom’s heart. However, his words were not those of a child, but of an intelligent, dangerous man. “You must imagine what the Guardian of the Abyss might do to you.”

It took every ounce of her will to find her voice again when all she wanted was to stare at him, this lost prince who had become a dark stranger. “King Aelfric—” she saw him clench his hands over the arms of the throne but he stayed silent “—was wise and powerful. It was written that his people would do anything for him, they loved him so much.” She’d spent many an hour in the archives, a place her father never went, though he kept a chronicler on hand to record his “greatness.”

“Kings are not loved.” A rough interruption from the Guardian of the Abyss. “They rule. They cannot play games of nicety.”

Liliana rubbed a fisted hand over her heart. “Some kings rule, and some kings reign,” she whispered. “Some are loved and some are not. Aelfric was loved, for he was just and treated his people with a fair hand.”

“Fairness alone does not engender love.”

She looked into that gaze turned inscrutable, wondered if he was asking a question, or simply stating a fact. “In Elden,” she said, “it did.” When he didn’t interrupt again, she continued. “Its people, hungry for knowledge, did love to roam. Some even found a doorway to a realm of no magic and came back with the most fantastical tales.”

Ghostly whispers of disbelief, but it was the Lord of the Black Castle who snorted. “A realm without magic? It’s like speaking of a realm without air.”

“This is my tale,” Liliana said with a prim sniff, smoothing her hands down the wrinkled black of her tunic. It was as shapeless as a potato sack, but better than that ugly brown dress, he supposed.

“If you don’t like it,” she continued, putting that large hooked nose of hers into the air, “you don’t have to listen.”

No one said such things to him in such a tone, but though part of her tale caused a primal fury within him, it was an intriguing story, far better than anything he’d heard these past several years. There was a storyteller in the village, but the old man quaked and trembled so when invited to the Black Castle that the Guardian of the Abyss was afraid he would shake apart. And his teeth chattered the entire time, a constant clattering accompaniment.

“Continue,” he said to this curious storyteller of his, this Liliana who had appeared from nowhere and was stroked by a magic he knew he should recognize, a magic that aroused a shadowy curl of anger … of hidden memory.

He shook off the thought at once—he was the Guardian of the Abyss and had been so since the instant he woke in the Black Castle. There were no other memories within him. “Liliana.” It was a growl when she didn’t immediately obey.

Her head lifted. “In this land of no magic—” a stern frown when the ghostly residents of the Black Castle twittered in amusement “—it is said that they do everything with mechanical creatures. They build monoliths with fearsome metal beasts and even have birds that fly through the air on steel wings.”

Cold. Cold. Cold, the residents whispered, but the lord wondered what those towering structures might look like. However, when his lashes drifted down, what he saw instead was a castle tall and strong, with many-hued pennants flaring above the parapets while fire-dancers circled, the birds voices a shimmering chorus to the dawn. The windows were made of glass so fine they appeared created of air, the building growing out of the pure blue waters of a pristine lake.

The entire scene was drenched in a golden glow.

Impossible, he thought. No light such as that had ever touched the Black Castle, or the barren desert and bubbling pools of lava that were the badlands. Perhaps he’d read of that golden castle in another tale as a child.

But … he had never been a child.

“My lord.”

Turning, he met Liliana’s quizzical gaze. Such an in-between shade were her eyes. Neither blue nor gray. “Enough,” he said, getting to his feet. “You may sleep in the kitchen tonight. Bard!”

Liliana was already rising. “You didn’t like my tale?” she asked as Bard lumbered into the great hall from where he’d been standing watch outside.

He stared at her, at those strange eyes that seemed to penetrate the hard shine of the black armor and see things in him that should not, could not, exist. “You will make me breakfast when you wake.” Then he turned and walked to the doorway that would lead him out into the night-dark world.

As Liliana followed Bard’s hulking presence to the kitchen, she felt a ghostly finger tug at her hair. Then another. “Stop it,” she muttered under her breath. When they persisted, she halted, knuckled fists against her hips, foot tapping on the black stone of the castle floor. “I have no intention of continuing the tale until the lord wishes it.” She glared at the air. “If you pester me, I’ll refuse to do even that.”

Turning back around, she found Bard staring at her with those liquid eyes so wise and deep. “Don’t pretend you can’t hear them,” she said, folding her arms.

Bard said nothing, simply carried on to the kitchen.

The ghosts, at least, whispered away, leaving her in peace.

“Thank you,” she said when he pushed open the door that led to the cozy room.

He waited until she was inside before pulling it shut.

She heard a lock click into place. “So much for trust.” A little surprised that she’d survived the Guardian of the Abyss, she looked around for something with which to create a pallet. The sacks of flour, perhaps, or maybe—”Jissa, you sweetheart.” A set of folded blankets, as well as a soft pillow, lay neatly in front of the stove that had been stoked so that it would burn all night, ensuring she’d feel no chill.

Unfolding the blankets with a smile, she realized one of them was heavy, stuffed with some kind of cotton. With that on the heated floor near the stove, it would be almost as comfortable as sleeping in a bed—something she hadn’t done for months, having been banished to an empty stone room in punishment for not heeding her father. He hadn’t locked her in, because he enjoyed tormenting her by making her watch her mother haunt the halls, Irina’s face puffy and bruised from his fists.

A sharp hint of iron.

It took conscious effort to make herself unclench her fists, force her mind away from her hatred of the man whose blood ran in her veins. Face burning with pulsing rage, she got up to throw ice-cold water on her cheeks before hunting out some more food. No matter if her stomach churned with memory, she had to keep up her strength if she was to tangle with the dangerous, golden prince who ruled this place.

Taking out a thick piece of bread, she cut off a hunk of smoky cheese and rolled it up. The first bite was delicious, settling her stomach, the second even more so. Then she heard the skitter of tiny feet. Breaking off a bit of the cheese, she walked to the corner where she could see the gleam of small dark eyes, the skeletal push of bone against skin. “Here you go, my little friend.”

She retreated after placing the cheese on the floor. Only when he’d eaten the food did she approach again and leave a second piece. It would not do to feed him too quickly when he had been starving so very long.

The same could be said for the Lord of the Black Castle.

She’d attempted too much too soon in speaking of Elden and his father at once, driven by the knowledge that time was running out at an inexorable pace. From his violent reaction to King Aelfric’s name, it was obvious that the Blood Sorcerer’s twisted spell was even more entrenched than she’d believed. Not even a crack marred the carapace that was the black armor that held him locked away from his past.

Worry turned her gut to lead, made the food lose all taste, but she forced herself to finish the sandwich, then a small apple. What strength she had came from her own blood, and she couldn’t afford to allow that blood to grow thin and weak. If her father found her …

Bile, bitter and acidic, rose up in her throat.

“No,” she whispered. “No.” He wouldn’t find her. She’d only discovered the location of the youngest prince because of her visions. Even then, it had taken her five attempts to get to a realm most knew only as the most terrifying of legends. The first two times that she’d failed hadn’t been so bad—she’d been able to return home before her father noticed. The third time, she’d ended up with a fractured forearm after landing wrong, and the fourth … the Blood Sorcerer had been waiting for her.

Her skin tightened as if under the lash of a razor-whip.

“But I didn’t break.” A fierce reminder. That night, as her back was shredded, so much meat exposed to the air while she lay naked and chained to a massive stone table carved with channels that sent her blood trickling into collection pots, she’d managed to convince the Blood Sorcerer that her spells had been fueled by a wish to find a talisman that would cure her mother.

He’d believed her; he found it vastly amusing how much it hurt her that Irina never so much as acknowledged her presence.

“No matter what you do—” he’d paused to rub his finger over a seeping wound “—she belongs to me.” A chuckle as he stepped away to flick the whip almost desultorily over her already ruined back.

Blood seeped out of her ravaged flesh, sliding down her ribs and into the channels. “She’s my mother.” A mother she loved.

Another laugh, deep and from the chest, as if he had never heard anything so ludicrous in his life. “Then I give you leave to discover this wonderful talisman. Do show it to me when you find it.” A stroke of the whip over her shoulders. “I think my pets will enjoy their time with you.”

Spiders—huge and mutated for use in another spell—fell from the ceiling to crawl all over her body, their furred legs rasping over her flesh, their mouths sucking on the raw meat of her back. Panicked, she tried to use her sorcery to escape, but her father was stronger and the restraints held.

The entire time they terrorized her, he sat where she could see him, a small smile on his face.

The Guardian of the Abyss flew across the skies, his wings slicing through the night air in much the same way as that of the bat over to his right, his wings as leathery and as dark. He didn’t know where his wings went when he landed—they simply appeared when he needed them and ceased to exist when he no longer wished them present.

A gift from the Abyss.

He thought of Liliana’s tale of a realm without magic and snorted again. As if such a land could ever exist. An instant later, his mind pricked at him with the other part of her story, the part about that place, the name of which he couldn’t even think about without a thunderous pain in his head, an anvil striking at his skull from within. He flew harder, faster, in an effort to escape the relentless pressure.

A whisper of oily evil.

Having located his prey, he moved toward it with furious swiftness. The man-shaped shadow was running over the ground in a vain effort to escape his fate, heading toward the borders of the realm. The majority of the condemned woke up from death to find themselves in the howling cold of the Abyss, but some were able to claw themselves to a stop in the badlands.

They had to be caught and sent through the doorway, for he would not take the chance that they might turn in the other direction, and seek to possess one of the villagers. However, sometimes, he allowed them to run—because waiting out here were creatures who could catch even shadows, crunching them up with sharp teeth before spitting out screaming, mangled tears of black.

It was a lesson no one had ever wanted to repeat.

Sweeping down on wings designed for deathly silence, he clamped his hands over the figure’s arms. It thrashed, panicked that anyone could restrain it—for it was little more than smoke—but the lord of this place had always been able to hold those destined for the Abyss.

After all, that was the reason for his creation.

Crying, scared, a small child in a dark, dark place.

Guessing the alien images and emotions were the result of an attack by the creature in his grasp, he entrapped the shadow using thick black ropes infused with his blood, ensuring there’d be no more attempts at coercion. Then he flew through the cold, moonless and starless night, impatient to capture the others and return to the Black Castle. To get rid of his burden, nothing more.

But after he landed, the shadows locked up in the cages from which nothing could escape, he strode not to his room, but to the kitchen. The lock on the door was no impediment. Everything in the Black Castle obeyed its lord, flesh or ether or metal. Everything except the woman fast asleep on the floor near the hot belly of the stove.

Stepping closer, he stared down at her. She wasn’t beautiful, this Liliana with the potent magic in her blood that he knew and yet could not name, this storyteller who told him outlandish tales as if she thought them true. Her nose was too big, her eyes too close together, her hair so much black straw.

But …

He watched her until she sighed and turned toward him, as if in welcome.

Crouching, he reached for her—and saw the gauntlet around his forearm, the spiderweb crawling across the back of his hand to turn into sharp claws above his nails, indestructible armor that kept him safe from evil, and shut him away from the world. He rose, his hand clenched into a fist, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

He stared at the lock for a long, long time.

If he left the door unlocked, she might decide to leave.

He snapped the lock shut.

It had nothing to do with Liliana. He just wanted to hear the rest of her ridiculous tale.

Chapter 6

Liliana woke to the sound of small feet moving around the kitchen. “Jissa?”

“Yes, it’s me. I’m making sweet, sweet chocolate.”

Liliana jerked into a sitting position at once. “Where did you get it?”

Jissa smiled, showing a row of pointed white teeth. “He brought some once. Nowhere, where, I don’t know.”

Astonished at the idea that the beautiful monster with eyes of winter-green enjoyed chocolate, Liliana rose to her feet, reaching back to twist her hair off her neck. “He must like it very much to have searched it out,” she said, heading to the washing bowl in the corner.

“I made him some the first time he brought it, yes, I did. One sip he took and said it tasted not right. Not right.” Jissa poured the liquid into two small cups. “Is right!”

Face washed and dried, Liliana came to take a sip of the rich, sweet liquid that made her toes curl. The only reason she knew and adored the taste was because the cook had had a weakness for it, and the kind man had shared his store of it with her on the days when her father had brutalized her to silence. Violence and chocolate were indelibly linked in her mind, but she refused to let that diminish her pleasure in the treat. “You’re right. This is perfect.” Licking a droplet off her lips, she remembered the cook reaching for something to sprinkle on top. “Unless … “

Jissa, having started to pull together the ingredients for a loaf of bread, wasn’t paying attention. “Shall we make fruit porridge this morning, Liliana?”

“Perhaps we can put the fruit in the bread,” Liliana muttered, putting down her chocolate to rummage through the cupboards. “It will taste lovely toasted.”

“What do you search for?”

“Cinnamon.”

A mournful shake of her head. “No, don’t know. Don’t know at all.”

“I’m sure it must be here.” If the youngest son of Elden had found chocolate and brought it home, then he may well have hunted out the spice that was so very common in his homeland that it was put in everything from casseroles to sweets … to a little boy’s chocolate.

A squeak met her when she opened a lower cupboard.

“Mouse? A mouse!” Jissa turned with rolling pin held high, her face scrunched up into a scowl. “Nasty creatures! Show me, show Jissa.”

Liliana closed the door. “It was only a squeaking hinge. Don’t forget the sugar syrup or the bread won’t taste as sweet.”

“Oh, dear!” Distracted, Jissa dropped the rolling pin onto the table and ran to get the syrup.

Soon as she was far enough away, Liliana opened the door a crack, put her finger to her lips and whispered, “Have you seen the cinnamon?”

Small black eyes gleamed at her in the dark before her little friend darted out and along the edge of the cupboards to the very corner of the kitchen, where it slipped under a set of tall shelves just as Jissa returned. “Oh, you must help me, Liliana,” the brownie wailed. “He won’t, won’t like what I make. I don’t want you thrown back in the cold, so cold dungeon.”

“I’ll help, don’t worry. Just give me a moment.” Having reached the shelves under which the mouse had disappeared, she looked at the rows upon rows of identical dark brown jars, not a label in sight. “Well,” she muttered, then glimpsed a flash of sleek gray run up along the side of the shelving. An instant later, one particular jar was nudged forward a bare millimeter.

Grabbing it, she twisted the lid open to find several long sticks of cinnamon. A bit old, but they had held their scent. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

The mouse twitched its nose at her before disappearing behind the jars.

Turning, she walked over to put the jar next to the small tin of chocolate. Then she helped Jissa finish preparing the fruit bread, made a few crisp pastries covered with jam and churned some fresh butter.

“Oh, but there is no meat.” Jissa twisted her hands. “He will growl and snarl and my bones will clatter, clatter against one another, they will.”

Liliana had heard the Guardian of the Abyss growl, and while terrifying, it had also haunted her sleep in a startlingly different fashion—she’d dreamed of him making the same feral sound against a woman’s … against her skin. And now that she’d allowed herself to recall it, she couldn’t stop the sinful cascade of a lush fantasy that surely meant she was mad—for what kind of a woman would want the dark lord in her bed?

“Snarling and growling.” Jissa continued to fuss. “Meat, he will demand. Meat!”

“We’ll see,” she said through a throat gone dry, and began to grind the cinnamon until it was a pile of dust that she scooped back into the jar. “Now, where’s the milk?”

The Guardian of the Abyss hadn’t slept. He never slept. When the Black Castle went quiet for the night, he walked the halls in the company of ghosts. Sometimes, he went back out to hunt, for that was his reason for being, and sometimes, he went searching beyond the village and to the twilight lands, for those like Jissa and Bard.

He didn’t know why he’d saved the brownie and the big lug. No one had ever asked him, but perhaps his strange storyteller would. If she did ask such an impertinent question, he’d tell her it was because he needed servants. A lie. He wondered if she would know, if she would challenge him. Hmm …

Striding into the great hall with that intriguing thought in mind, he halted.

The table was set with toast and pastry and fruit. But that wasn’t what stopped him. It was the scent in the air, sweet and spicy at the same time. Aware of Liliana standing with suspicious meekness by the table, he crossed the black stone of the castle to take his seat, picking up the cup of steaming liquid at his elbow.

Rich and dark, he recognized it as chocolate. But that scent …

Drawing it in, he felt his mind spark, tumbling him headlong into memories that couldn’t be his own, but that he found himself loath to repudiate.

A woman’s laughter. Soft hands on his brow. Contentment.

“Drink.” The whisper came from beside him. “Drink.”

Looking up at his prisoner, who was most certainly a sorceress, someone he should not be listening to under any circumstances, he nonetheless lifted the cup to his lips. Sweet and wicked and wild, the taste seared his senses, took him to places he didn’t know, showed him a kaleidoscope of faces he’d never seen in the Abyss.

The woman’s face was the strongest. Eyes so bright and green, hair the color of sunlight, and a face of such beauty and grace it hurt him to look at her. But she was laughing, this being formed of purest magic, leaning forward to press her lips to his forehead.

Stubborn, so stubborn, my baby boy.

“What sorcery is this?” he asked, slamming down the empty cup and rising to glare at the woman who had likely poisoned him.

Liliana didn’t flinch as she should. “No sorcery, my lord. It is merely a spice named cinnamon.”

Cinnamon, he can’t have enough.

Shaking his head to erase that haunting voice that made things in his chest tear and break, he stared at Liliana, spoke in the gentle tone that made the villagers tremble. “Where’s my breakfast?” He ran the sharp tips of his gauntlet along her jaw. “I do not smell meat.”

“Your breakfast is right here,” she said, her face going white … but she didn’t back down. “And it’s quite delicious, as you’d know if you’d stop trying to terrify me.” Reaching out, she touched him, her hand curving over the black armor of his upper arm. “Please sit.”

He was so startled that anyone dared touch him, he obeyed without realizing what he was doing. When he would’ve snarled, she seduced him into silence by serving him bread studded with fruit and sprinkled with honey and sugar and … cinnamon.

This time, when the scent threatened to ensorcel him, he fought it.

Liliana laughed, the sound an invisible stroke that caressed him through the armor. “No one ever told me the Lord of the Black Castle was so stubborn.” Her father, Liliana thought, hope a jagged pulse within her, had likely not realized the indomitable will within the child this dangerous man had once been. Far more of the prince might have survived his entrapment than anyone realized—though she’d have to be careful how far she pushed him. He might have allowed her instinctive touch, but he remained the Lord of the Black Castle, powerful and lethal.

“Speak to me with respect,” he growled at her, but his lips were dusted with honey and sugar, his hair falling across his forehead. For an instant, he looked unbearably young, deliciously approachable, his mouth a treat for her to suck on.

Feeling her cheeks burn at the scandalous thought, her breasts taut points against the thin black material of the tunic, she went to pull away from the table.

A strong hand clamped down on her wrist, his palm hot and rough, the brush of the razored points extending from his gauntlet an unnamed threat. “Where is Bard?” It was a silken question.

“Outside the door,” she said, realizing he was pulling her down.

She resisted.

He compelled.

Until her lips were on a level with his.

Her heart pounded hard enough to bruise against her ribs, but she couldn’t take her eyes off those sugar-sweet lips. “My lord?” Her voice came out a croak.

His mouth curved, as if he could read her thoughts, and she held her breath, waiting to see what he would do. Right then, she had the sudden, shocking realization that she might permit him any liberty, no matter how darkly wicked, if he would only allow her to sup at those lips, to taste his mouth.

“You smell, Liliana.” He released her wrist. “You must bathe.”

Face so hot she knew she must be a dull, angry red beneath the brown of her skin, she stepped away from the table. “Bathing facilities are rather limited in the dungeon and the kitchen,” she snapped, wanting to slam the candlestick in the center of the table on his beautiful head.

He glanced at her as he bit into a pastry, and she could’ve sworn there was laughter in his gaze, but of course, the Guardian of the Abyss didn’t know how to laugh. “You remind me of a creature in the village,” he told her as he gobbled up her pastries like some greedy, ill-mannered child. “The baker keeps it as a pet, though the kitten is forever spitting and clawing at everyone she meets.”

Taunted, she was being taunted. “This spitting kitten is your cook,” she said, unable to sit back and allow him to get away with it, though no sane woman would have argued with the Lord of the Black Castle. But then, as evidenced by her sinful fantasies, she was in no way sane. “I beg you don’t forget that, or I might forget which is the salt and which the chili.”

Ignoring her threat, he waved her forward. “Pour me more chocolate—” the order of an emperor to his concubine “—then you may go and bathe.”

She really wanted to smash the teapot over his head, but she poured the luscious liquid into his cup, watched his eyes glaze over for an instant as his mind tried to drag him into the past. It was the truth she’d told. She hadn’t ensorcelled either the cinnamon or the chocolate—but some sensual memories were strong enough to act as spells on their own. “Now, may I go?”

“My lord,” he said, licking out his tongue to capture a drop of chocolate on his lip.

Her entire body hummed. “What?”

“You forgot to add ‘my lord.’”

She grit her teeth and put down the teapot with extreme care. “May I go, my lord?”

He took a sip of his chocolate, paused for a second. “No.”

“No?” Her vision was starting to blaze incandescent red.

“I haven’t finished breakfasting yet.”

Suddenly, she could see the spoiled princeling all too well—except that she was also certain there was a cackling imp riding on his shoulder at this moment. No, not a spoiled princeling at all. More akin to an adolescent boy pulling the pigtails of a girl to annoy her.

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