Dream King by Elise Knight
10
It became depressingly obvious that the Pizza was a one-time offering. I should have saved some. Hell, I already knew that starving me wasn’t a problem for him, but I’d been hungry, and my stomach had over-ridden any sensible thoughts I might have had on the subject.
I stared down at the pile of leaves and berries that he’d obviously plucked from some bushes nearby.
“I can’t eat this.”
“So don’t,” He shrugged and turned to walk away as he always did.
Bastard! He knew I needed to eat. He’d kept me waiting for another full day and night. He also knew he needed to be near me when I did eat because there was no way he was going to untie me when he wasn’t around to supervise.
“Fine,” I capitulated. “I’ll eat it.”
He huffed in irritation.
“Make up your mind. I don’t have time to be dealing with your issues.”
He sat down in his usual place and brought out his knife to whittle again after magically making my bonds disappear.
I picked up a leaf and sniffed it. It didn’t seem likely that he’d poison me. If he wanted me dead, I was an easy target, but I could totally get that he’d pick any old leaves without knowing if they were poisonous or not. The guy didn’t seem to give a shit about my welfare anyway.
“They are safe,” he said without even looking up, then went back to his whittling.
I chewed on the leaf while watching him. It was no pizza and stuck in my throat, but it was better than nothing, which, at this point, was my only alternative. Without the fire, I could see exactly what it was he was carving. It was a person. A woman. I was too far away to see the features on it, but it looked like a beautiful woman.
“Who is she?” I asked, hazarding his wrath. It did not come.
“None of your business.”
“An old girlfriend?”
“None of your business.”
“Nice weather we’re having,” I said, trying a different tack. He was no company at all, but it was better than talking to the raven that was unable to answer me.
He looked up from his carving. “Why do you speak so much? Your incessant chatter gives me a headache.”
“It’s not like I have anyone else to talk to. I’m bored. You obviously don’t want me here, and as you’ve no plans to kill, I may as well go back home.”
He looked at me with curiosity in his eyes. “What makes you think I have no plans to kill you?”
I shrugged and threw a handful of berries into my mouth. They were surprisingly sweet. “You’ve had plenty of opportunity. If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already.”
He leapt up and held his knife to my throat. “I wouldn’t get comfortable in that thought if I were you. Just because I haven’t killed you yet, doesn’t mean I’m not going to. His eyes were ablaze with fury, but there was hesitation in them. “Let me make something crystal clear to you. You are never ever going back through that red door. Do you understand me?” He bared his teeth, and the muscles in his hand tautened.
“Actually, I don’t understand,” I said pushing at his chest. “I’m obviously a burden to you, and you have shown no interest in killing me except for a few empty threats, so why not let me go so I can leave you to go back to jerking off over other people’s dreams?”
It was like something snapped in him. I had that way with people. He roared, pulling me up by the front of my shirt. The leaves and berries that had been sitting on my lap scattered everywhere.
HIs strength was unbelievable. He held me up with one hand, his arm extended vertically. With his other hand, he waved magic from nothing, and before I knew it, I was hanging from a branch of the tree above me, tethered by my wrists.
His face was as black as thunder, his voice harsh. “Do. Not. Question. Me. Again!”
He stormed off through a gap in the door frames and through one of the doors, slamming the door shut with a bang that echoed through the forest. Looking up, Raven gave me a look as if to say that my situation was all of my own doing. I couldn’t disagree with him.