Page 26 of When Roses Burn

“We don’t,” I told her. “It’s time to go… now.”

The last word came out in a low growl that drained the color from her face again. Briar had never been one for conflict; she avoided it when she could and had often kept me from the main ballroom in No Man’s Land, though we’d both enjoyed the thrill of sneaking in there.

She didn’t move. “I’m not leaving him.”

A sneer curved my lip. I wasn’t used to being disobeyed, and I wasn’t about to be defied by this bitch. “You’ll go where I say you go.”

She looked as if I’d asked her to fly out of here. “We can’t leave him. It’s… it’s cruel.”

“Your kind is cruelty incarnate.”

“That doesn’t mean I am!” she snapped.

I released another harsh, bitter laugh. “You’re the worst of them all.”

“No,” she breathed. “I’m not. I’m not. I don’t know what they did to you in here…. I mean… I… I do know, but I’m not leaving him.”

Ten years had forged a spine where there wasn’t much of one before, but I suspected that most of what I remembered of her was lies. She’d forged the persona she wanted me to see and believe back then.

I glanced at Devnair, who remained held above the bed by the thorns digging into his wrists; I easily recalled the bite of those vicious barbs. The blood dripping onto the bed below him soaked the comforter. Many casters reveled in that blood.

I didn’t know the elf well; I’d shared some experiences with him, as they didn’t always keep us in these rooms and the vines did as the casters commanded. The vines came from the walls and moved through them as they followed us from one room to another. There were times when it was all of us and one, or many casters, in the large sitting room with all its pillows.

I’d probably only ever seen the elf once, or maybe twice, in my male form. When I was with the casters, I only saw him as the beast… or at least part of the beast.

“The vines are impenetrable, or at least they were supposed to be,” Devnair said with a pointed look at me.

The corner of my mouth twitched toward a smile. “They are supposed to be.”

“But you can break them,” Briar stated. “Which means you can free him.”

The elf looked at her like she’d sprouted ten heads that bobbed and weaved around her like the snakes around the gorgons.

“Who the fuck is this girl, Knox?” Devnair asked.

“I have no idea,” I answered honestly.

I couldn’t figure out who this woman was in place of the girl who betrayed me. I could still hear her screams and recall her final kiss goodbye.

Then, her mother’s whispered words screamed through my mind once more. Those words ran on repeat through my mind for years. In the beginning, I refused to believe that bitch. My Briar, mea eveto, would never betray me.

But I’d been so wrong, and it wasn’t just the queen who whispered those words to me; other casters did too. Not all the casters taunted me with their truths, but enough of them did for doubts to start. And it wasn’t just the words they whispered that gradually changed my mind; it was the other things they knew too.

They knew our supplies and what she’d brought to the tunnel on which day. That was when my doubts about her first surfaced. However, I convinced myself that someone could have been watching her without her knowing. We were always so careful, and she’d managed to sneak into No Man’s Land for years, but we’d always known there was a chance one of us could get caught.

I clung to that hope as the days passed and the torment continued, but the final nail in the coffin of my belief in Briar was when her mother whispered about our plan to live on the ocean. No one could have known about that unless Briar told them.

That dream of sailing away was ours and ours alone; I never would have trusted anyone else with it. Until then, I’d cleaved to the hope Briar hadn’t betrayed me. After that, I couldn’t deny it anymore.

Recalling the depth of her betrayal sparked a fresh surge of loathing for the casters, especially this woman. I had no idea what game she played here, but it was time to go.

“We’re leaving,” I stated.

“Wait!” Devnair cried.

Briar spun back to the vines. “I’m not leaving him here to die!”

“What does he matter to you?” I snarled.