Ellis pulled me closer, his arms like iron bands. “You can’t mean to go through with this,” he said, his voice cracking. “Your Majesty.”

I shook my head and pulled his arm away. “I have to,” I said softly. “If I don’t, the Fae will come. I can’t let that happen to any of you.”

“Rowan,” Ellis said, cupping my face in his hands. There was something eternal in his gaze. The buried promise of the future we would never have. “I’ll come for you,” he vowed. “I’ll find some way to get you out of this bargain. I swear it.”

I nodded, sure that was a promise he couldn’t keep.

“While this is all very touching,” the Reaper said, his tone mocking and bored, “we should get going before the sun sets any further.”

The bastard didn’t even care that he’d just destroyed my life.

He stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching through the leaves. Holding a rope, he grabbed both my wrists in one of his large, gloved hands and wrapped it around them.

“What are you doing?” I asked in shock. “I’m not an animal to be trussed up and dragged into the forest.”

He secured my wrists with a knot. “That’s where you’re wrong, Princess.”

“Rowan!” my mother screamed before the Reaper tugged me so hard I stumbled.

“It’s okay, Mother. I’ll be okay.” I didn’t believe that for one second, but what else could I say? Tears ran down her cheeks while my father clutched her. Margaret buried her face against my father’s chest, sobbing.

Ellis moved in front of me as the Reaper yanked on my binding again. “I’ll come for you,” he vowed. “Be strong.”

He turned to the Reaper. “If you hurt her, I’ll cut out your heart myself and feed it to the palace dogs, and that would still be too noble an end for you.”

The Reaper issued a derisive snort. “I’d like to see you try, lordling.”

A vein in Ellis’s forehead popped, and I swallowed, trying to hold in my tears. I knew Ellis would try, but in my heart, I understood it was impossible.

“Come on, Princess,” the Reaper said, his voice bearing a deadly purr that suggested if I didn’t comply soon, he’d make us all sorry.

After stealing one last look at my stricken family, he tugged me again. I stumbled after, following him into the forest and into my nebulous future.

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Chapter Three

We walked for what felt like hours, the sun sinking over the horizon and the stars glittering overhead. I’d never been this deep in the forest, and all I could see were miles of trees in every direction. Everything looked the same—a wall of green marking the boundaries of my prison.

Swerving confidently between the trees with the sinuous grace of a serpent, the monster to which I was tethered clearly knew exactly where he was going. His focus aimed at the path we trod, I stared at the wide expanse of his back, trying to obliterate him with the heat of my sizzling rage. But he continued unharmed, his long cloak fluttering in the air like the angel of death.

The fabric of my dress snagged on the brambles and branches, shredding the delicate silk into ribbons. I stumbled over my tired feet, but the Reaper never slowed his pace. I got the sense he wouldn’t hesitate to drag me across the forest floor until my skin peeled off my bones if I fell. I harbored no illusions he’d entered the Hunt because he wanted to set up a home and make me his wife.

Ahead of us, an expansive range of rocky hills loomed, their tops dusted with browning greenery. They stretched for miles in either direction, forming a barrier symbolizing the divide between the future I’d been assured and the fate that now awaited.

As we drew closer, I noted a small opening that allowed us to pass through unheeded. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing my delicate slippers would never survive the climb.

My stomach rumbled in hunger, and my throat crackled with thirst. It had been hours since we’d left the castle. I wondered what Margaret and my mother were doing right now. Was Ellis poring through texts, searching for a way to get me out of this? My father was likely ordering every one of his advisors to get me back.

But the decree was binding. The Fae had seen to that a long time ago. My only means of escape were death or the Reaper’s release of his claim on my life. But this monster hadn’t brought down the largest stag in the forest just to let me go.

No, I was his forever, no matter his reasons.

Just when I didn’t think I could walk any farther, the trees parted, and a gentle hill rose across a small grassy plain. At the top stood a battered stone castle, looking like a single incisor left in a gaping, toothless smile.

I shook my head, unable to believe this sight, stunned to find such a dwelling in the forest. Where had it come from? Who had once ruled here? The battlements were cracked and worn, the shattered windows like vacant eye sockets watching our approach.

Though it looked uninhabited, I understood with mounting dread, this was to be my new home.

The Reaper pulled me up the length of the well-trodden switchback to the massive wooden gate. He heaved one open with the heft of his shoulder, just enough that we could both slip inside.

Green moss grew over a small courtyard covered with cracked flagstones, many of them missing. Moonlight glinted off the smoothed, worn surfaces, and I could taste the eternal silence permeating the walls.

More moss muffled my footsteps as we crossed the space and entered another door at the far end. Pulling me inside a small room, The Reaper locked the entrance behind me. The only illumination came from a few small windows set high in the walls.

I surveyed the area, my eyes adjusting to the gloom. There was a beaten wooden table in the center, surrounded by three equally beaten chairs. Beyond that was a huge fireplace lining the wall, the hearth burning low. In the corner was a countertop and several cupboards that served as a kitchen, and in another corner was a large, neatly made bed.

As my gaze traveled across every angle, what I saw on the opposite wall made my blood run cold.

A cage. 

The Reaper tugged on my rope, pulling me toward it, and I yanked my hands back. “I’m not going in there!” I shouted, digging my heels into the stone floor. My delicate slippers offered no grip, and I slid like I was being dragged over warmed butter. I fought with every ounce of strength I could, but he didn’t even seem to be trying.

“Please! I won’t run. I promise.” He pulled the rope so hard that I tripped and crashed into him. He was all muscle, as hard and unforgiving as iron. Before I landed on the ground, a large, gloved hand grabbed my upper arm and hauled me up to a standing position. “I’ll stay put,” I said again, and the Reaper let out a derisive snort that suggested he wasn’t about to buy that.

With his enormous hand still wrapped around my arm, he shoved me through the door of the cage. My skirts tangling, I crashed into the far wall, my bound hands scraping the stone and my cheek grazing the surface. I winced at the sting when it broke my skin.

The cage door slammed with a metallic clang and then a click signaled the last remnants of my freedom, of my future, vaporizing into mist.

Wrapping my fingers around the bars, I shook them. “Let me out!” I shouted as loud as I could, but I might as well have been talking to a wall for all the attention the Reaper paid me.

After screaming for a minute, to no avail, I fell silent, deciding it was pointless. Instead, I watched the Reaper as he moved around the room, that hideous skull mask swinging from side to side.

Though he had an entire castle at his disposal, it seemed he’d confined his life to only this room. He stoked the fire, the glow of orange flames offering more light and warming my numb fingers and toes.