Kristoff and Alec behind. 'Or I could—'
'Place her with the other one,' Frederic pronounced before turning and starting up the stairs.
'What? No, wait—'
Before I could rally a protest, Mattias grabbed my arm, unlocked Kristoff's door, shoved me inside, and slammed the door closed behind me.
'Hey! I'm the Zorya, remember?' I threw myself back into the door and pounded on it. 'Mattias, let me out! I promise I won't run away or marry anyone else, OK? Mattias? Hello?'
'Perhaps you shouldn't make such hasty promises,' Kristoff's deep, rich voice rolled around in the darkness of the room. 'You never know when you might wish to take a third husband.'
'Oh, be quiet, you. Mattias? Damn.' I turned to face the room but saw nothing. There was no light in the room, not one tiny little smidgen peeking in from outside, which meant either there weren't any windows, or they were boarded up tightly. There was a smell, however, an earthy, slightly musty scent that must have been what Ingveldur had picked up on when she looked down into the basement. It smelled like a bag of potatoes left sitting in a pantry too long. 'Where are you?'
A painful-sounding thud came from a few feet away, followed by a muttered oath and slight scuffling noise that finished with a wooden creak. 'On a chair.'
I held out my hands, taking baby steps to avoid running into anything. 'Where on a chair? Lovely, now I sound like Dr. Seuss. I don't suppose you can see in the dark, can you?'
Kristoff snorted. 'No. Nor can I turn into a bat and escape this prison, or change into a wolf and attack your second husband the moment he opens the door, or even dissolve into a wisp of smoke and slip through the crack under the door. I'm a Dark One, Zorya, not a djinn.'
'I'm having just as bad a day as you are, so you needn't be quite so snarky. I don't know where you are,' I said, taking a few more shuffled steps forward, my hands still reaching into the darkness.
'Why do you care where I am?' he asked sullenly.
'My hands are free. I might be able to get yours free, as well, and then we can do something about this business. Could you talk some more so I can find you?' I shuffled a couple more steps, and suddenly my fingers met something soft and squishy. I jumped back, startled. 'Ack! Something else is here!'
'Yes. My eyeball.'
'Oh. Sorry.' I reached out carefully, baby stepping forward until my questing fingers landed on a nose with a little break in the middle. 'Did I hurt you?'
'No, but if you don't let go of my nose you'll make me sneeze.'
'Sorry.' I took the last couple of steps forward, feeling my way down to his shoulders, then around to his back where his hands were bound. 'I suppose you've tried wiggling your hands out of the handcuffs?'
'Yes. I am not a magician, either.'
I knelt and felt the bindings. They seemed pretty secure, snapped tight around Kristoff's wrists. I sat back on my heels, sighing. 'And I do not know how to pick a lock, unfortunately. Well, no use in crying over spilled milk. What else is in here? Nothing we can use as a weapon?'
'I didn't find anything.'
It didn't take me long to examine the room. There were a couple of wooden bins that had evidently been used at one time to hold root vegetables, but all that was left now was a fine dirt at the bottom of the bins, and a couple of shriveled lumps that could only be desiccated potatoes. I searched the last bin, finding nothing but an especially odd-shaped potato. It had sharp little pointy eyes, and a soft coating, as if it had sprouted a growth of fungus.
'Other than what smells like a mummified rat, that is.'
I screamed and dropped the horrible thing my fingers were still examining, and leaped to the side, bashing into Kristoff and knocking him over. As we fell, our heads clunked together painfully.
'Oh my god. Are you hurt?' I hurriedly scrambled to my feet and leaped backward when I stepped on something soft and gooshy. 'Eeek! Rats!
'That was my hand,' Kristoff said in a rather pained voice.
'I'm so sorry! Let me help you up—'
'No!' he said quickly, his breath coming sharply. There was a ruffling noise, a muffled groan, and then the chair creaked again.
I huddled against the door, my arms wrapped around myself, my forehead throbbing where it had smacked against Kristoff. 'Are you hurt?' I asked again with what I thought was noble, if miserable, concern.
'Not really. Why, were you planning on attacking me again?'
'I didn't attack you. I was trying to help you.'
'By poking me in the eye, twisting my nose, knocking me down, beating me about the head and shoulders, and attempting to break the bones in my hand?' His voice was as deep and rich as ever, but there was a distinct note of dissatisfaction in it that riled me.
'Well, I'm doing the best I can, but you didn't tell me that bin had a dead rat in it!'
'I couldn't see what you were doing to tell you to avoid it,' he said with maddening reason.
'You know how much I hate rats. You could have warned me.'
The sound of a tiny sigh reached my ears. 'Zorya, there is a dead rat in the far bin.'
'Very funny. What are we going to do?' I was almost glad it was dark in the room, so Kristoff wouldn't see the tears of frustration and self-pity welling in my eyes.
'Christ, you're not going to cry, are you?'
'No, of course not. I'm not the crying sort,' I said with a betraying wet sniffle, defiantly wiping my eyes. 'It's just that it's been kind of a long last couple of days, and I'm a bit tired and stressy.'
He didn't say anything to that, but he didn't need to.
I rocked myself, feeling absolutely pathetic at that moment. I'd failed miserably in trying to do what Anniki had begged of me before she died, failed in getting the ghosts to their final reward, failed trying to make the Brotherhood people see reason. And now Alec and Kristoff were likely going to be subjected to the clearly insane Kristjana's most demented tortures, and there was only myself to blame. I'd botched the whole thing horribly, and I wanted nothing more at that moment than to go home and cry for a week or two.
Kristoff sighed again, this time loudly and aggressively. 'Come here.'
I swallowed the painful lump in my throat. 'Why?'
'Because you're miserable and I can't stand the sound of you sniffling over there.' His voice was gruff and abrupt, but there was an underlying note that had me carefully moving forward without questioning why I sought comfort from him.
'Sit down,' he commanded.
'I'm not touching those bins again—'
He swore in Italian. 'Sit on me, woman.'
My fingers brushed against his chest. 'I'll squash you—'
'Sit!'
I swiveled around to sit across his legs, swearing that if he made one little intake of breath that indicated I was smashing his legs into a pulp, I'd leap off.
All he said, however, was, 'I can't pat you in a suitably calming manner, but you can consider yourself patted. Now, stop crying.'
'Why are you being nice to me?' I asked, blinking like crazy to keep the tears from spilling over my lashes.
'Would you rather I yelled at you?'
'No. I'd rather you answered a question.'
'What?'
'Why did Kristjana keep referring to me as Alec's Beloved? I told her we weren't dating, so even if she knew that Alec and I had spent the night together, that doesn't constitute a relationship.'
Kristoff was silent for a few moments, reluctant to speak. I relaxed on him a smidgen, refusing to allow myself to admit just how much I enjoyed breathing in his smoky scent.
I didn't want Kristoff, I reminded myself. It was Alec who indicated he loved me, Alec who clearly felt I was something more than a pest to be endured.
