Chapter 20 CHAPTER 20
The sound tore through the room, loud enough to make the walls seem to shake with it, and before I could react, he crossed the distance between us in a blur of movement. His hand reached the gown on the bed, gripping the fabric with ease before tearing it apart as if it were nothing. The sound of ripping cloth filled the chamber, sharp and violent, as the dress was shredded in his hands and thrown aside like it had never mattered at all.
I stood frozen, my breath caught somewhere between fear and shock as pieces of the fabric fell to the floor.
His gaze snapped back to me.
This time, his voice was lower, and colder.
“Then being a prisoner,” he said slowly, “is now your own doing.”
The words settled heavily in the space between us, and something in my chest tightened at the way he said it, not raised, not shouted, but controlled in a way that felt far more dangerous.
“I intended to offer you more,” he continued, his tone still low, but no less sharp. “A proper meal. A place beyond this chamber. A night without chains or locked doors.” His eyes held mine, unyielding. “But you chose otherwise.”
I swallowed, but didn’t speak.
He took a step back, his expression unreadable now, though the tension in his body hadn’t faded. “What I give you here is more than what you had before,” he added, his voice cutting slightly deeper with each word. “And from what I have seen… you had very little.”
That stung.
More than I wanted it to.
But I refused to let it show.
He turned sharply, already moving toward the door, his steps quick, controlled, as if staying any longer would push him past whatever line he was holding onto. His hand reached the door, pausing only for a brief moment before he spoke again.
“We will see where that mouth gets you,” he said, his voice low and final as he glanced back at me. “Little hunter.”
The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing through the chamber.
I still stood there, didn’t move, not even as the torn pieces of the gown settled around me.
Because something told me… I had just made things far worse.
____
It was well past morning by the time I realized something was wrong. I could tell by the way the light stretched through the balcony doors, softer now, no longer sharp with early daylight but warmer, higher in the sky. The room had already shifted into that quiet stillness that came after the servant’s usual visit, yet the door had remained closed, untouched.
It hadn’t come.
At first, I told myself it was nothing. The creature was probably busy elsewhere, tending to other parts of the castle, delayed by something I didn’t understand. It had always been precise, always on time, but this place was unpredictable in ways I still didn’t fully grasp. I convinced myself it would arrive soon, just later than usual, and I tried not to think too much about it as I moved around the chamber, pretending that everything was still the same.
But as time passed, that certainty began to slip.
The light shifted further, stretching longer across the stone floor, and the silence started to feel different. It wasn’t the quiet I had grown used to over the past few days. This felt heavier, like something was missing, like the room itself was holding its breath.
By noon, the hunger had started to settle in.
At first it was a dull ache, easy enough to ignore, but it grew steadily, twisting tighter in my stomach until it became impossible to push aside. The sound of my stomach growling broke through the silence more than once, each time making it worse, making the emptiness feel sharper, more demanding.
I paced more than I sat, trying to distract myself, trying not to think about the tray that should have been waiting on the table by now. My eyes kept drifting toward the door, watching it without meaning to, waiting for that familiar sound of it opening.
It never came.
A slow dread crept into my chest, curling inward as the hours dragged on, and before I could stop it, my mind went back to him, to the way his voice had lowered, to the words he had left me with before he walked out.
We will see where that mouth gets you.
A shiver ran down my spine despite the warmth of the room.
“He wouldn’t really let me starve,” I murmured to myself, though the words didn’t sound as certain as I wanted them to. I shook my head slightly, trying to push the thought away. No. This had to be something else. A delay. A mistake. He wouldn’t go that far.
Would he?
The silence gave me no answer.
I let out a slow breath, forcing my shoulders to straighten as I pushed back against the unease settling deeper into me. If this was some kind of test, then I wouldn’t give him what he wanted. I wouldn’t break just because he decided to prove a point.
“Fine,” I muttered under my breath. “Let’s see who gives in first.”
The words felt stronger than I did.
As the day stretched into evening, the light slowly faded from the room, replaced by the dim glow of the fire that had long since begun to die down. The hunger had sharpened into something constant now, a gnawing emptiness that made it harder to think clearly, harder to focus on anything but the ache in my stomach.
Still, I waited.
And just when I had started to believe it wasn’t coming at all, I heard it.
The door.
It opened slowly this time, the sound cutting through the quiet, and I turned immediately, a mix of relief and frustration rising in my chest all at once. The servant stepped inside, carrying a tray just as it always did, its movements quick and controlled as it crossed the room.
It didn’t look at me.
Didn’t pause.
It placed the tray down and turned to leave almost immediately.
I took a step forward without thinking. “Wait,” I called out, my voice rougher than I expected.
It didn’t stop.
The door opened.
Then shut.
The lock clicked into place.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the door before my gaze slowly dropped to the tray. The food sat there untouched, just as it always had, but something about it felt different now, like it had been given rather than provided.
Like it could be taken away just as easily.
I moved toward it slowly, the hunger pulling at me stronger now, but my eyes shifted back to the door as something else settled in.
The servant hadn’t returned. It hadn’t brought more firewood.