Syfoner: (A Dark Bully Romance) (Gods and Monsters Book 4) Read online

  That’s what I should have done.

  I should have begged to be free from the dungeons, from the rats that skittered about at night and kept me up most of the time, and from the very few meals the guards brought me.

  Oh, I should have swallowed my pride.

  But I’m just so fucking angry.

  If I wanted my escape plan to have a chance, that anger, that twisted hate-love that I held for him, had to be shoved aside.

  And yet, I was as stubborn as my mother once claimed.

  ‘A cliff would move for you,’ she used to tell me.

  I didn’t want to tame that part of myself. But I had to cage it, just for a moment.

  With a heavy sigh, I forced myself to lean into his touch.

  The Prince jerked his hand back, a blank look of shock slackening his face. “You are not wearing your bracelet.”

  The bracelet was tucked up with the blanket. Not ideal to sleep with all the time, not with the jewels that cut into my palm or cheek, depending on how I slept.

  I rested my head on the bars and angled my stare up at him. His face was rimmed by my low lashes.

  “I’m angry at you,” I confessed.

  My honesty made him blink once, twice.

  Then he tightened his jaw, keeping his stormy eyes on me. “I am furious with you,” he countered.

  “Guess that makes us even.”

  I scuffed the toe of my wrecked sandal over the stone floor. I must have looked pitiful. But that was exactly what I was going for.

  “I snuck out to explore without a guard breathing down my back,” I said with a weary sigh, “and you stuffed me into a cold, wet cell where I’m constantly hungry, parched, and bored out of my mind. Yeah,” I added smartly, “seems like a fair trade.”

  The Prince’s face hardened.

  I thought I saw flickers of doubt pass through his silvery eyes, but I couldn’t be sure. With the Prince, I never could, especially since his eyes suddenly turned frosty.

  “If I free you from this cell,” he said, and my heart leapt up to my throat and choked me, “it will be into my favour. Into my arms.”

  He let his steady gaze add a punch to his words.

  ‘Into my arms…’

  I turned my gaze down.

  “There was never another way for us,” he added softly, and let his fingertips meet the grimy strands of my hair once more. “It was always this or nothing.”

  He stole a strand to twist around his finger. The sensation was gentle on my scalp and my eyelashes fluttered.

  Even in this cell, damp and filthy, probably too thin and sickly-looking, I set my shoulders and conjured up some weight in my presence.

  I pinned his gaze as best I could.

  “You want me.” It wasn’t a question, and I made sure to cut him off before he could speak on it. “You want me in bed, my hand in yours, my life in your palms. But most of all, you want me by your side willingly.”

  The Prince said nothing.

  His fingertips pinched the stand of my hair, hard, and I could feel the burning hunger lashing all around him.

  I’d unlocked a little door he wanted to keep hidden.

  I’d set out the bait. My consent.

  I leaned closer to him, my face angled at his, and whispered, “But what will you give me in return?”

  The Prince parted his soft lips to speak, but I was quicker—

  “Will you give me cells and starvation?”

  I fought the sneer that threatened to settle on my face and, instead, forced a vacant honest expression. I needed him to believe that I could give him what he wanted, under the right circumstance.

  “Pain and suffering?” I went on. “Or will you give me luxuries, but curse me with heartache as you torture the only friend I’ve ever had?”

  His face shuttered. “I gave you what you wanted—to release that part of you that you deny.”

  “I’d already accepted Monster before you tortured Ava,” I argued. “And even if there was some greater reason for you to harm her, why did you have to act on it? Can’t you accept that she was the only one on my isle who had any time for me? You wouldn’t understand, of course. But I had a damn poor and lonely life. I still do, but without the poor part.”

  His lips set into a flat line, though his fingers continued their gentle caress of my hair.

  “Ava isn’t perfect,” I said. “But she was the only fucking person who gave me a minute of her time. She was the only who accepted me, good and bad.”

  “I accept you,” he said after a pause.

  I blinked, aching to reach up and touch his hand tangled in my hair. I didn’t know until he spoke those words just how much I needed to hear them.

  I let my eyes close and let out a heavy breath.

  “Only because you can touch me,” I murmured the truth, as though it would somehow make it less cutting to know.

  It didn’t.

  “Is that not how all great loves begin?” His question lured in my gaze. He was staring at the filthy strands of my hair, running his fingertips over each grain as if to cherish the texture. “They begin with touch.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell, won’t it?”

  “I suppose it will.”

  Silence roped around us, snaring us both into a break in time, where nothing bad had ever happened between us, and we could simply just exist together.

  It was a sweet moment that tickled my heart and dared to bring tears to my dampening eyes. Tears unshed for a future we would never have.

  Maybe everything would have been different if I wasn’t born on Zwayk.

  If I’d lived in the Capital, he might have learned of my existence long before now, and I might have seen the palace walls all around me for most of my life. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have had so much to lose at his hand.

  “What am I?” I breathed the question with a clinging exhaustion. “I’m not a vilas, not an aniel, I’m not a God.” I opened my eyes that likely gleamed like wet emerald stones, and looked up at him. “I need to know.”

  His scarlet mouth turned down at the corners and, after a long look at me, he shook his head—not in answer, in disappointment.

  Prince Poison drew his hand away, slipping it back between the bars, and took a step back. He was going to leave me here.

  Sadness turned his tone into a hushed sound. “You are mine.”

  Before he could slip away into the shadowy corridor, I grabbed for him, my arm pushed as far as it could go in the gap of the bars. “Wait!”

  He paused, half-turned away from me. I saw the shadows lick up his face and my heart twisted at the reminder of Damianos.

  “No more cells.” I bartered without much to trade with. “No more cold, or suffering, or torturing Ava.”

  Slowly, he turned his dark look on me. He knew as well as I did, I was in no position to make demands.

  Still, making deals was better than just accepting a fate spent in dungeons.

  “Get me out of here,” I went on. “Train me, keep me, kiss me—but never hurt me.”

  The Prince’s eyes blazed for a beat, and it unnerved me. My gut answered with tingles that brought chamber-pots to the forefront of my mind.

  Confident steps advance on me. The Prince wore a smile to match his presence. Dangerous and hungry … for me.

  Victory turned his eyes to mist. “Hold up your end,” he said, “and I will not disappoint you.”

  My heart soared so far up that I thought I was going to faint from a dizzy spell.

  I gripped onto the icy bars and watched, wide-eyed and bated breath, as the Prince called for the guard.

  I didn’t recognise the new face, but he was undoubtedly a vilas. Some kind of worshiper, a brand of worshipper we’d never heard of in Zwayk. Mind, we hadn’t heard a whole lot given how isolated and tiny we were.

  As the guard unlocked the cell door, I studied a red streak on the side of his neck. Its shape was warped, like wood that bloats after too many rainy days.

  It hit
me like a slap to the face. His mark was a brand. A scar from hot iron searing his skin.

  The guard opened the door for me.

  I almost stepped through, but I remembered my bracelet. With heavy legs and a dizzied head, I staggered over to the blanket and unearthed the intricate hand-bracelet.

  After I tugged it on loosely, I rushed out of the cell, weakness still keeping its stubborn grip on my tired muscles.

  The Prince steadied me as he slipped his arm around my waist and held me to him.

  I leaned into him, a traitor to myself.

  Before the Prince could lead me out of the dungeons, I looked down the rows of empty cells to the unmoving lump still curled up on the blanket-pile.

  The vilas hadn’t woken up yet, not even to the sound of voices or creaky doors opening. He hadn’t moved an inch since early that morning.

  I wondered if he was in a deep sleep or had slipped away into death’s embrace.

  But the Prince was right.

  I wasn’t like the others. I wasn’t separate to Monster—we were one.

  As one, I just … didn’t feel anything for the vilas.

  I felt only for myself.

  5

  Stepping into the sudden warmth of my bedchamber was like slipping into a hot washtub after an entire day picking muscles and crabs from the shore during the Frost Season.

  It was fucking bliss.

  Too bad Prince Poison stuck around for it.

  “Don’t mistake my leniency for mercy,” he told me. “You are alive, not from kindness, but from my own selfish wants.”

  At the mouth of my boudoir, I frowned up at the Prince’s stony face as he pulled his arm away from my waist. My look was guarded.

  “I will not afford you this reprieve again,” he warned, and the bubbling anger in my gut believed him.

  ‘Disobey me once more, I dare you.’ That was what he should have said. That was what he meant. ‘I will destroy you.’

  As if to confirm my suspicions, he gripped my chin so hard that the bone ached, and he whispered a deadly promise against my dry, cracked lips. “Next time, I will start with your friend.”

  In answer, I nodded.

  He let my chin go and, slowly, ran his fingers up to my hair. He wandered his gaze around every inch of my grimy skin.

  I tightened my grip on the loose hand-bracelet, letting his poison drain into it.

  Caressing the spot on my nape where small hairs never grew past a fingernail-length, the Prince asked in a quiet voice, “Do you think of me as often as I think of you?”

  His question was distant, like a breeze cascading over the peak of a hill.

  “My life is in your hands,” I said carefully. “For good or bad, you rule my thoughts.”

  You and Damianos.

  Yet both the Prince and Damianos probably saw me like those dead vilas sometimes found in the saloon. A toy. A thing to be used and discarded.

  The Prince pulled away from me, as if all interest in me suddenly vanished with just a blink of an eye.

  He wandered over to the fireplace and, while his back was to me, I chanced a look over at the window. My shoulders slumped.

  Barred from the outside, now.

  With his warnings and threats, I wondered if he had the intention of freeing me from the cell when he came down to see me. It was likelier that he meant to torment me, but my bargain was too tempting to ignore.

  I only thought this as the Prince made himself comfortable on the armchair by the blazing hearth, there was no guard in sight, and Nalla was rushing about like one of those chickens I’d killed when I was young and, after I’d lopped off its head, its body still skittered about madly.

  Mind, I didn’t kill it for fun. It was a meal bought from one of the travelling farmers on the ships, but I didn’t not enjoy it.

  Guess I should have known then just how messed up I was. And I had similar urges—of the decapitation persuasion—as I eyed the Prince who lounged on my favourite chair.

  Every inch of me ached to fight him. But it wasn’t the right moment to do that.

  Patience, I told myself.

  Nalla bumped me out of my dangerous thoughts as she waddled past me, carrying a huge copper jug wrapped in a drying-cloth. Steam wafted up from the jug and, with an excited step forward, I turned my attention on the washtub.

  Plots and ploys be damned. I was about to have a wash. Besides, I needed an actual plan, something solid enough to have a shot at success.

  But first, I had to get clean.

  With a glance at the Prince—who watched the now-blue flames in the hearth and had made himself a drink of amber liquid from the decanter I never used because I was a chevki type of lass—I realised he wasn’t going anywhere until one of his favoured aniels came to take guard.

  I hummed a curt sound to myself before I started to strip off the tattered, filthy remains of my dress.

  Nalla was almost finished filling the tub with a warm frothy water.

  The once-brilliant dress was piled at my feet as I started to unroll my torn stockings. I paid silent thanks to my past-self for burning all evidence of scrolls and letters and smashing up the phial—now I couldn’t be caught with any of it.

  The Prince threw a glance over his shoulder at me. His gaze lingered over my dirty, pale skin for a moment before he turned back to the hearth.

  Nalla scurried over, then took me to the safety of the screen separating the washtub from the Prince’s prying eyes. There, she peeled off my undergarments—a silk underskirt and a bralette.

  I noticed that, as I sank into the wonderful embrace of the water, Nalla gathered all my clothes and rammed them into a basket. She had no intention of cleaning them—they were beyond repair. Pretty pieces, collateral in the war between me and the Prince.

  The next few hours went on quietly.

  At least three times, Nalla emptied then refilled the washbasin, scrubbed me clean, and lathered and rinsed my hair. On the last wash, she brought me a trolley full of supper foods, teas and a lot of fruits to pick at.

  The Prince left early when Felicks arrived, and he didn’t so much as wave goodbye in my direction. I got the feeling he wasn’t entirely ready to forgive all that happened between us, but as long as I wasn’t thrown back in that cell, I couldn’t really give a damn.

  The less time around him, the more I could focus on the beginnings of my plan. But there were important pieces of this puzzle that I was missing, and I couldn’t get on my own.

  A way out of the palace

  A way to take Ava with me

  Though, I wasn’t certain she would come with me.

  I mean, now that she was so madly obsessed with Jasper and believed that stars came from his butthole, the hope of Ava choosing to come with me dimmed the more I thought about it.

  Maybe I should take care of Jasper first…?

  It wasn’t the worst idea.

  I pocketed that thought for later—it needed a whole other plan of its own.

  6

  My hair was still damp from the wash when I was rushing out of my bedchamber.

  I half-expected Felicks to shove me back inside and slam the doors in my face. Instead, he stayed leaning against the wall opposite me, a mildly interested look on his face.

  “You are under restrictions,” he told me.

  “I just want to see Ava.”

  I knew I couldn’t plead with him. His orders came from the Prince, and a little pet of a God wouldn’t overcome his fierce loyalty.

  But I was lucky.

  Too lucky, and my suspicions prickled the second Felicks said, “You have thirty minutes.”

  I blinked at him stupidly. “What?”

  “Thirty minutes,” he echoed, and gestured for me to head down the corridor. “Starting now.”

  Whatever. I wasn’t about to argue with something I wanted and received. The ghastly God had his reasons for sprinkling some freedom around me, reasons that I didn’t trust the least. Although I saw through the charade as clearly
as I could see through glass, I snatched the chance to see Ava and get my plan kicked into motion.

  I rushed down the hall, not sparing a second to useless moments.

  Felicks trailed me with a brisk pace of his own.

  Even the thuds of his bootsteps on the cushy runner rugs sounded controlled compared to mine—bare feet padding like those of a child waking in the middle of the night, bustling about to find a parent or a chamber-pot.

  Six minutes were lost to just how long it took me to reach Ava’s room. I banged on the door, not willing to lose another second.

  As my fist pounded hard against the splintered wood, Felicks perched himself on the windowsill behind me and made himself comfortable.

  No one answered the door.

  If I was totally honest, maybe I didn’t give enough time for anyone to answer. In a heartbeat, I was shoving the door open myself, and barging into the room.

  With a breath of relief, the first thing I noticed was that Sarah was not here. Ava, I noticed, was tucked up in her bed.

  She sat up at my burst-in, squinting at me through the darkness. It was then I realised just how late it was. Around midnight, maybe.

  I grimaced in the dark before I raced over to her and jumped on the foot of her bed. It creaked under my weight.

  Closer, Ava didn’t need to squint. She recognised my face in front of hers and, in a tick of a clock, her face went slack with shock.

  Stunned, she was silent, gaping at me.

  It was only when I grinned widely at her that her silence cracked like weak foundations, and she threw herself at me.

  A laugh caught in my throat as she clung onto me, not unlike a child to a mother. I let her hold on, despite that my muscles jumped into lumps of metal under her touch.

  Ava rested her head on my stiff shoulder as I awkwardly patted her back. Her face felt warm and wet against my skin.

  She was crying and, as horrible as I am, it brought a smile to my lips. For so long, I was losing my grip on the only tether keeping us together. It only took my imprisonment and possible death for her to hold on just as tightly too.