Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,56
comforts I can to ensure you’re not suffering, and that any decisions I make, they’re not made lightly.”
Something about that statement brings a lump into my throat. I hate that I’m still a prisoner, and I’m frightened of what’s to come when he makes those decisions… but right now, at least, I’m not frightened of him. How could I tell him that my life should matter more to him than his own and that of all the people counting on him?
It does mean something that what happens to me matters to him at all, even if not as much as those other things.
“All right,” I say, a rasp creeping into my voice.
He studies me. “In light of that, there’s one request I’d make of you that I know you may recoil from. If we’re to find another cure that works so that we can release you without losing that boon, I need to understand everything I can about your blood. I’d like to take a sample from you to test.”
I flinch automatically, a jolt of panic racing through me—a rush of images: elbows and knees pinning me down, blue-white hair and daffodil-yellow, a glinting blade, the slice into my wrist. My lungs start to constrict like they did when Whitt made his threat the other day, but Sylas has spoken so calmly and gently that the sensation doesn’t turn completely suffocating.
Closing my eyes, I travel away in my head to a bamboo forests and sublime mountains. After a few gulps of breath, my thoughts stop spinning.
He asked, rather than just taking. He’s not like my former captors. And if he can figure out some alternate cure by studying my blood, then both our problems will be solved.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Sylas’s smile comes back, though the edges of it look pained. “You’re made of strong stuff, little scrap. I thought I might put a movie on now—perhaps there’s something in my collection you’re familiar with?—and that would help take your mind off the procedure.”
Is that why we’re really here? I can’t argue against his strategy. My gaze has already shot to the stack of movie cases, starving for something from home. “That sounds good.”
As I get up to consider my options, a sharper awareness cuts through the muddle of my momentary panic. Sylas has opened up a lot. I should use this chance while he’s feeling particularly generous to find out more that I need to too.
“You have a lot,” I say as casually as I can manage. “I guess when you’re close to the human world here, it’s pretty easy to go back and forth?”
“It certainly wouldn’t be much trouble if there’s anything missing that you’d particularly like to see.”
That’s not quite what I’m trying to get at. I worry my lip under my teeth, pretending to be absorbed by the movie selection. “I wouldn’t want you to have to waste your magic or whatever just getting me a movie.”
The fae lord hums dismissively. “The boundaries aren’t so solid as to need an enchantment to breach them. On the fringes, one can slip from one world to the next without even meaning to if one isn’t careful.”
Then I could slip through too, all on my own. Relief settles in my chest alongside a twinge of guilt at manipulating the conversation to my own ends. Of course, I doubt he’d have admitted that fact if he thought there was any chance at all that I could escape the keep to make use of the information.
“I think this one will do it,” I say, pulling out a superhero parody Mom and Dad took me and Jamie to see in the theater not that long before Aerik ripped me away from my life.
Sylas pops the disc into the player, and I find myself frozen on the sofa, caught in a surge of more conflicting emotions than I can pick apart. The act of watching the movie is familiar and right but so distant from what I’ve been living through for almost a decade. I remember jostling with Jamie trying to grab the seat closest to the center of the row and Dad jokingly threatening to banish us to the back of the theater. The echo of salty, buttery popcorn laces my mouth.
It’s a bittersweet distraction, but it does stop me from flashing back to my grimy cage. Sylas dabs a clear salve on my wrist to numb the skin, and I keep my eyes fixed on the TV screen as he cuts a small