Chapter Twelve
Relief had come in waves for days. Alexandre would fall asleep with the suffering growing strong within him and wake up as if it’d never existed at all. The freedom lasted for hours before slipping away as he sank into the agony once again.
He’d been unconscious when they arrived at the palace of Bela. They’d heard rumors of it being rebuilt, but how? La Dame had only been in Bela for a few months as far as they knew.
A wrongness hung in the air as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. Sunlight streamed through a window across the room. It stood open, with no glass separating the room from the outside world. Had they given him a means of escape? Nothing could be that simple.
He pushed back the heavy blankets and noted his bare legs. They’d removed his clothes. A blast of chilly
