Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,59
forcing me toward the door, away from the food.
“You promise to give your blood to me willingly?” Armando suddenly called out.
My guards paused so I could glance over my shoulder at the king and the Duke of Montklief. “You will eventually force me to do as you wish. You will make me suffer to bend me to your will. If you will let me see that my friends are alive — and healthy — then yes, I promise to give you my blood willingly.”
King Armando’s sharp blue eyes, the same penetrating blue as Damian’s, never left mine. But where Damian’s eyes held a wealth of emotions, this man’s held only malice. “Do not try to cross me, Alexa. If you do not submit to me, exactly as I expect — if you break your word — not only will I resort to taking your blood by force, but I will kill your friends myself. While you watch.”
My blood pounded through my body, a drumbeat of desperation, as I nodded.
“That is all.”
Rafe pulled me out the door, leaving the king and his threats behind.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. Not only because I was starving, despite my flippant response to the king’s dinner earlier, but because my mind was running in a million different directions. If he refused my request, it would all be for nothing. But if he granted it …
I stared at the dark window, where a sliver of the moon was barely visible, hanging low in the sky. I still hadn’t grown accustomed to the biting chill of nighttime in Dansii, and even though I was huddled beneath the one blanket they’d given me to sleep with, I still shivered.
Long after Rafe had rechained me to the floor and locked the door behind him, the scrape of a key in the lock sounded again. I froze in my bed, closing my eyes to feign sleep. The door made a barely audible squeak as it was pushed open. Quiet footfalls sounded across my floor, coming toward where I lay on the bed. I tensed, preparing for an attack of some sort. My mattress dipped slightly, and I lunged up in bed, swinging my arms forward, the heavy iron bands my only available weapons.
Akio smothered a cry of shock, leaping back from the bed, his eyes wide in the shadowy moonlight. Something clattered to the floor, and I glanced over the edge of my mattress to see a plate facedown on the stones.
When my gaze flew to his again, guilt colored the skin of his neck red.
“You were bringing me food?” I whispered.
He shrugged, clearly embarrassed — and concerned. He glanced over his shoulder toward the door, then back to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, throwing off my covers and climbing out of bed to kneel on the cold ground. When I lifted the plate, the smell of what he’d brought made my stomach lurch with hunger. Some sort of spiced meat and rice and a couple of slices of an unfamiliar fruit. I began to scoop the rice back onto the plate, but only after I picked up the meat and tore a piece of it off with my teeth and quickly chewed it. I didn’t even care that it was so spicy it made sweat break out on my forehead. It was food.
Akio knelt down beside me and helped me pick up the remaining grains of rice. His hands trembled slightly as he worked. Was he nervous about being this close to me without the black sorcerers to keep me from attacking him — or was he scared of what might happen if he was discovered helping me in any way? When he glanced over his shoulder toward the slightly ajar door again, I guessed it was the latter. If I’d wanted to attack, I would have done it by now.
“Thank you,” I murmured when the food was all cleaned up and I’d taken another bite of meat.
He watched me for a moment, a strange sadness lurking in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry, too,” he said at last, his voice quiet. And then he stood and silently crossed the room, pulling the door softly shut behind him. The lock clicked again, leaving me with his offering and a hundred questions burning in my mind.
No one came back until long after the sun had risen and the heat had once again billowed back into the air. When I looked out my window, gusts of sand blew on the horizon, whipped up