Chapter 17: Chapter 17: SECOND LESSON

VALORIA WILDEROSE

I slide into comfortable pants, baggy enough to hide my bone-thin thighs, and a loose shirt—against Yue’s better judgment.

Left to her, I’d be dressed in a frilly sundress with makeup to impress. She insists that I’d look presentable, still caught up in her romance fantasies, but I know better.

I follow the tall, silent, brooding man down countless halls until we open into a courtyard, beautifully maintained, with classy, expensive furniture everywhere.

The amount of gold and extravagance scattered around is almost an eyesore.

The closer we draw to wherever Azrael is waiting, the more I feel my skin crawl. Shivers run down my spine as if alerting me to the approaching danger.

All my instincts are alarmed.

“Ah, there you are.” I hear his voice before I see him, rising from where he sits with a large grin on his face—one I recognize instantly. I swallow.

He passes a single hand gesture before I’m dragged forward, standing right in front of him.

The psychopathic glint in his eyes seems even brighter than last night, brimming with a new, zealous life. This excitement terrifies me.

I shiver once a finger hooks the underside of my chin, raising my face to his properly. He leans closer, assessing me with a silent hum to himself.

The sudden proximity has my mind recalling last night: our kiss and the warmth of his lips, the sweet scent that oozed off him.

“My wandering fox is here again,” he chimes, cutting into my distracting thoughts, a hint of disgust in his tone forcing me back into reality.

“Your Majesty,” I greet with a slight nod, avoiding his sharp blue eyes.

He grabs my face tightly all of a sudden, fingers digging into my cheeks until they burn. The light playfulness morphs into annoyance at my obviously unbothered response.

I’ve already shown him he won’t break me last night, and it’s more obvious now how much that annoys him.

He holds the expression for a second longer before, once more, there’s a shift in his emotions.

Suddenly, his smile returns, and he lets me go, patting me on the head like a pet goat about to be slaughtered.

“I have a surprise for you today—a little game I couldn’t think of playing without you joining me,” he speaks ominously, turning around.

I’m confused for a moment until he steps aside, revealing a lineup of six men—werewolves—with sacks over their heads, each sack marked with a red blotch roughly painted like a bullseye.

And then I notice the seventh: lifeless on the floor, in a pool of his own blood, an arrow pierced through his head.

I stagger backward the moment I catch the grotesque sight, almost losing my balance and the bit of breakfast I’ve managed to eat, clasping both hands over my mouth to stop myself from puking and to conceal my gasp.

He chuckles at my reaction.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Leaning over me from behind, his hot breath fans my ear, ironically sending a cold chill down my spine.

I feel tears well up in my eyes too fast, everything inside me terrified and on fire. Still, I don’t move. I don’t dare even breathe as his hands slide up both my arms.

“What do you say—will you play with me?”

I don’t get the chance to answer—not that I have any real choice.

A servant walks forward, placing a bow and a single arrow into my hands before stepping back. The tip is stained with blood—no doubt from the dead man.

“Have you ever shot an arrow before in your life?” he asks, guiding my hands with a chilling gentleness, showing me how to hold it upright, ignoring my trembling.

I swallow another ball of saliva, another scream begging to be let out.

“N-n-n… n-n-n…”

“Speak up!”

I jump in fright, so close to pissing myself and letting the bow fall from my hands. I purse my lips and take a deep breath, feeling tears stream down my cheeks.

“No,” I repeat.

“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you, so pay attention.”

My entire body is fully aware of him pressed behind me—the warmth, his large hands that could snap me like a twig at any moment, holding mine.

“Secure the base of the arrow, and then you pull like this…”

I shiver again at the hot air blown into my ear, overpowering the thin string that digs into my finger like a blade as he pulls it back with me.

“Now, you aim…”

The tip points at one of them on the extreme, the red splotch on his sack. I freeze, trembling even more violently.

“And fire,” he whispers his command.

I cry even harder.

I thought the bigger fool was everyone else, thinking that by some insane miracle I had won Azrael’s favor simply because he wanted me to live longer, to be his pet—but no.

The bigger fool is me.

I thought I’d checked him, that all of this was some game I understood.

I believed he wouldn’t kill me, so whatever he threw at me, I could bear it long enough until it was checkmate.

I let last night lower my guard because of a flimsy, fleeting kiss that tasted like wine, forgetting that my hell with a vile, wicked man had only just begun.

This was never a game, because I’d lost the second I was up against him.

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