Chapter 4 Keep your claws to yourself, Princess.

CHAPTER FOUR

Keep your claws to yourself, Princess.

FREYA

His scent hit me first, hot and heavy, slithering beneath my sternum. 

It took me a second to catch up, to realise that … it was him. 

I had seen him before. I hadn’t recognised him in the chapel, but now he stood so close to me, pinning me against the wall, and … it was him – the man from the alley. The stranger who saved my life when I’d wandered off in the market. 

What? None of this made sense. 

“Cat got your tongue?” He snarled at me, and my blood ran colder when I saw his fangs. 

Fear spread through my entire body as reality crashed in hard. I should have escaped. I would have escaped Carden with Hallow and Emily. We had a plan, and he ruined it. He attacked my home. I ran at him, and he … he’d bitten me? 

This fucking monster. I could barely feel the bite on my neck as adrenaline rushed through me. It felt as if I was in a race, struggling to catch my breath.

“Are you mute?” He raised his brow in confusion. 

He had two-colored eyes; one was blood red, and the other was amber. He was taller than the last time I’d seen him, bigger, rougher, and covered in blood. My father’s blood.

He loosened his hand around my throat softly in contemplation, and I lunged at him without thinking, nails managing to graze his cheek. 

“Fucking animal.” He growled and pushed me back into the wall, except this time, my face was pressed into the wall, and my back was pressed to him. 

“I … I’m the fucking animal?” I thrashed against his hold, holding back my rage, even though I wanted to scream. He held my hands behind me, keeping me captive. 

“Learn to keep your claws to yourself, or I’ll rip them out, princess.” He warned gruffly, and I tried to push off the wall, but my strength was nothing compared to his. 

“What are you going to do to me? Do you think you can hold me here? I am the fucking Princess of Volantis, and my people will come for me.” I hissed, chest rising and falling. 

The wedding dress I had on was tight around my body. I couldn’t breathe properly. My head hurt as if I’d been hit from behind. I smelled like blood, and my neck stung. I wanted to go home. 

“They’ll have to find you first.” He scoffed and tied my hands firmly. 

Find me first?

“W … what are you doing?” Panic flared hot in me, but he didn’t respond. 

The next second, he pulled me away from the wall and threw me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing. 

“PUT ME DOWN, YOU FUCKING MONSTER!” I screamed, thrashing my feet, but he ignored me. I might as well have made no sound. I pounded my bound wrist against his back. I fought hard, my head growing lighter from the position, but he ignored it. 

He walked down the hallway I’d run from. My vision swam, and my head felt as if I was waterboarded. How much blood did I lose? I saw glimpses through the windows. I didn’t know where we were, but I was certain we weren’t in Volantis anymore. It didn’t look like Eldora either. We seemed so high up in the sky. Where was Hallow? Where was Emily? 

“We are very sorry, My King, we didn’t know –”

“Silence.” He hissed, and they stopped talking. 

Who was this man? How did he have so much power? 

He kept his hand on my lower thigh as he carried me back to my cage, and I pretended his rough hands didn’t burn, but they did. My wedding dress had ridden up, and he had his hands on my naked thigh. I was going to scrub myself clean and wash away the filth from my body. His filth. 

He kicked the door open with one leg and tossed me like a sack of flour on the bed. I almost hit my head. 

I glared at him when I found my footing. 

“Try to escape again, Princess, and you will sleep in the kernel.” He warned, folding his arms.

“Then you better get it ready because I will never stop.” I spat back, pushing myself to my knees. My hands were still bound. 

His eyes darkened, and he nodded. “Noted. Perhaps I will.” 

He wasn’t bluffing, and neither was I. I didn’t spend years locked away at home to be locked away here too. I wasn’t interested in trading one cage for the other. I was going to find my way out.

The door opened, and two people stepped in. I didn’t know who they were. The man was just as tall, with shaved hair and darkness in his eyes. His arm was wrapped in a cloth, with blood soaking through. The woman, on the other hand, was different from anyone I’d ever seen before. She had tattoos running down her arm, and white locks.

“You must be Princess Freya.” She smiled at me, voice thick with an accent I didn’t recognise. 

“What do you want from me? You need to let me go. Carden will come for me. My mother will come for me. They will burn you all. You must let me go.” I wanted to beg, but I was a princess. I refused to bow down to these … these people; they were savages.

“Burn us all? Us?” The man smirked and stepped forward, making me inch backwards. “You have no idea where you are, do you? Good, because they don’t either. No one is coming to save you.” 

A chill spread in me from within like a sickness, and my toes curled. I wasn’t sure if it was terror, or dread, or both wrapped in one. Where was I? Where was this place?

Glimpses from the chapel flickered through my mind. I looked at the monster slowly, eyes burning with hot tears. He killed my father. I saw him kill him. I … I thought he would spare my mother, but why would he? 

“You … you killed her, didn’t you?” My voice came out cracked and small. 

Something darker flickered in his eyes, and his jaw ticked.

He probably didn’t even remember me. The man I met in the dark alley was gone. The man who saved my life was gone. Everything I knew to be true was … gone.

“You are going to regret this; you are going to pay for everything.” The words slipped out without thought. What more did I have to lose? Nothing.

He didn’t dignify my words with a response. He walked, and his friends followed him. The door shut behind them, and the room plunged into darkness.

I was going to get out of here or die trying.