Chapter 17_The Amber Trap

Tarni

​The iron door of the servant’s stairwell slammed shut behind me, the heavy latch clicking into place just as the furious shouts of the Inquisitor guards echoed from the corridor below.

​I collapsed against the cold metal, my lungs burning as I dragged in jagged, suffocating breaths of the stale upper-level air. My knees shook so violently I had to press my palms flat against the door to keep from sliding down to the flagstones.

​My mind was a chaotic, spinning void of ash and horror.

​I knew. Because my father was the one who signed the treasury ledger that paid for their deaths.

​Locke’s words replayed in my skull, a brutal, rhythmic hammer striking exactly where my heart used to be. When the Inquisitors had breached the vault, Locke had shoved me violently into the narrow chute of the old dumbwaiter, sealing the wooden panel just as the torchlight hit the aisle. He had stayed behind in the dark. He had offered himself to the guards to give me the three seconds I needed to climb the ropes in the pitch black.

​I didn't know if they were beating him. I didn't know if they were dragging him to the high tower. I only knew that the boy who had slipped me the key, the boy whose quiet presence had started to feel like the only anchor I had in this academy, was the heir to the family that had paid to slaughter my parents in the mud.

​I pushed myself off the iron door, wiping the soot and sweat from my face with the back of my trembling, gloved hand.

​I had to keep moving. If I was caught in the corridors after the midnight bell, smelling of old ash and locked-vault decay, the Inquisitors wouldn't need a medical exam to hang me.

​The East Wing corridor was entirely swallowed in darkness. The wall torches had been extinguished hours ago, leaving only the thin, pale slashes of moonlight filtering through the high arching windows to cut across the floor. I hugged the shadows, my leather boots making absolutely no sound against the stone. My room was only two flights up. Two flights of stairs, a left turn, and I could lock my door, burn the soot-stained clothes in the hearth, and scrub the ash from my skin.

​I rounded the corner of the grand colonnade, my eyes fixed on the narrow spiral staircase at the end of the hall.

​A shadow detached itself from the stone pillar to my left.

​Before my brain could even register the movement, before my hand could even reach for the bone-handled dagger strapped to my thigh, a massive weight slammed into my chest.

​The breath was violently expelled from my lungs as I was thrown backward. My spine hit the solid granite wall with a sickening thud that rattled my teeth and sent a shockwave of pain straight down my legs.

​A hand, large and clad in smooth, supple black leather, clamped around my throat.

​I choked, my hands flying up instinctively to claw at the wrist pinning me to the stone. The grip wasn't tight enough to crush my windpipe, but it was heavy, immovable, and terrifyingly precise. It held me completely suspended, my heels barely brushing the floorboards.

​"You are a very difficult creature to keep track of, Kael."

​The voice was a soft, glacial whisper that made the blood in my veins turn to absolute ice.

​General Vance stepped out of the suffocating darkness, his tall, imposing frame blocking out the pale moonlight. He wasn't wearing his heavy ceremonial armor. He wore a dark, open-collared silk shirt and a black velvet doublet, the casual attire making the predatory, coiled tension in his muscles even more terrifying. His pale, dead-gray eyes caught the faint light from the window, glowing with a dark, unhinged obsession.

​"My lord," I rasped, struggling to pull air through my restricted throat. I forced myself to stop clawing at his hand, forcing my arms down to my sides in a desperate display of submission. If I fought him, he would feel the lack of muscle. He would feel the binding. "I was just... returning to my quarters."

​"Were you?" Vance tilted his head, his face drifting inches from mine.

​His free hand moved, the backs of his cool knuckles grazing slowly down the side of my face, wiping a smear of vault ash from my cheek. He examined the dark soot on his leather glove, his eyes narrowing into cold, calculating slits.

​"The entire archives are being ripped apart by the High Inquisitor right now," Vance murmured, his voice entirely devoid of anger, which only made it infinitely more dangerous. "A perimeter was set. No cadet was allowed out of their barracks. And yet, here you are, reeking of old paper, burnt wax, and fear."

​My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. He knew. He had to know I was down there.

​"I couldn't sleep," I lied, the gravelly, forced masculine pitch of my voice scraping painfully against my dry throat. "I went to the training yards. I was in the armory."

​Vance’s hand remained at my throat, but his thumb shifted, pressing lightly against the frantic, racing pulse beneath my jawline. He smiled a small, cruel, completely terrifying curving of his lips that didn't reach his eyes

​"You lie so beautifully," he whispered.

​He took a half-step forward, closing the final inch of space between us. His body pressed flush against mine, trapping me entirely against the cold granite. The sheer, overwhelming heat of him radiated through his dark clothes, a suffocating, violent presence that completely enveloped me. My chest was crushed against his solid chest, the thick linen bandages digging painfully into my bruised ribs under the pressure of his weight.

​I froze entirely, terrified that the lack of breadth in my shoulders, the softness of my waist, the frantic, shallow rising of my chest would instantly betray me.

​"You've been avoiding me," Vance said softly. His tone wasn't accusatory; it was dangerously possessive, like a man talking to a wild horse he was preparing to break. "I clear the room for you. I remove the filth that dares to touch your coat. I give you a seat with my right hand, and yet, every time I turn my back, you vanish into the dark like a ghost.

​"I know my place, General," I managed to choke out.

​"Your place is exactly where I put you." Vance’s grip on my throat tightened just a fraction, a dark warning. "My patience is a finite resource, Kael. I do not enjoy chasing what belongs to me."

​He leaned in closer, his face dropping toward the crook of my neck.

​Panic surged through me, a primal, violently hot wave of pure terror. I tried to turn my head away, tried to press myself deeper into the stone, but his hand snapped up to the back of my skull, his fingers tangling roughly in my short, dark hair to hold me perfectly still.

​"Don't move," he commanded softly.

​He buried his face against the side of my neck, right over the collar of my heavy leather doublet. I squeezed my eyes shut, my entire body rigid with terror.

​He inhaled.

​A slow, deep, deliberate drag of air.

​He was looking for the smell of the archive dust. He was looking for proof of my treason. I wore the bitter, sharp pine oil and masculine musk that Kael used to wear, specifically to mask the natural scent of my skin. It was strong enough to fool the cadets in the mess hall. It was strong enough to fool Banjo in the sweat-drenched armory.

​But Vance was not a cadet.

​Vance paused.

​His breath hitched, hot and sudden against the sensitive skin beneath my ear. The terrifying, smooth rhythm of his movements stopped completely.

​For three agonizing seconds, he didn't move. He didn't speak. He just held his face against my neck, the absolute stillness radiating a shockwave of danger

​Then, slowly, deliberately, he inhaled again. Deeper this time, his nose brushing lightly against the bare skin just above my collar.

​A violent shudder ripped through his frame. I felt the sudden, erratic spike of his heartbeat thudding heavy and fast against my own chest.

​Beneath the sharp, biting scent of the pine oil, beneath the stale ash of the vault and the sweat of the day, was the faint, undeniable trace of the sweet amber and crushed rose soap I used to wash my skin in secret. It was a soft, delicate, entirely feminine scent. A scent that had absolutely no business on the body of a teenage male soldier.

​Vance pulled his head back.

​His eyes were completely changed. The cold, calculating emptiness was gone, replaced by a dark, consuming fire that made my stomach drop into a bottomless abyss. He stared at my throat, then slowly raised his gaze to meet mine. The hunger in his expression was no longer ambiguous. It was predatory, visceral, and utterly awakened.

​He didn't speak. He didn't ask a question.

​Instead, he moved his hand from my throat, sliding his long, pale fingers down the front of my chest to the heavy leather laces holding my doublet closed.

​"What are you hiding under here, little bird?" Vance whispered, his voice thick, heavy, and vibrating with a dark, terrifying realization.

​Before I could stop him, his fingers hooked around the top leather cord of my tunic, and he pulled a thin, wicked silver blade from his sleeve, sliding the razor-sharp edge directly beneath the knot.