Gleam: The dark fantasy romance TikTok sensation that’s sold over a million copies (Plated Prisoner Book 3)

The pain doesn’t let me stay unconscious for very long. I’d gladly lie here on the cold floor where I can dream instead of wake, but I’m not that lucky.

That’s the thing about escapism. In whatever form, it always ends, and then we’re forced back into a reality that’s not nearly as satisfying.

A whimper precedes my vision, lips parting before my lids can. When I blink blearily, I note how dark the room is, the high window showing me a single star.

This too? I ask the goddess in her twinkling watch. I had to endure this too?

My eyes blur from a soul-deep pain that stems from the stolen threads of my back. With my cheek pressed against the rough stone floor, an exhale rattles out of me.

Numb. That’s how I feel when I stare at the pieces of me lying listlessly on the ground. Their gold seems duller, long lengths looking like a puddle of fabric, lacking all of their personality and liveliness.

My palm scrapes against the floor, arm stretching to reach for the one closest to me. I manage to drag it toward me, holding it in front of my face. I stare at the jaggedly cut edge, swipe along the curdled blood that’s dried like clumps of gold paint.

The ribbon droops between my fingers, a weary vine ripped from its roots. I try to move one of them on instinct, but…nothing. Nothing except an endless throb of pain from each snipped stem.

“Miss Auren.”

I jolt from the voice, but it makes my back tighten, which causes a frenzy of sharp pain to run up and down my spine. A curse flies from my mouth before I suck in enough air to breathe through it.

“Steady.”

My eyes fly up to him, and it just goes to show my state of mind, because I forgot we were in the same room. “Digby.” My voice cracks, throat ruined from my screams.

He’s still lying on his cot that’s attached to the wall, but he’s managed to roll over onto his side so that he’s facing me. Just seeing him looking at me, alive, makes me crumple all over again, and I’m wracked with emotion too full to contain.

Behind his gray beard, I see his lips tremble, his eyes holding a sheen of sadness, and it hits me right in the chest. The sight of him like this, beaten and bruised, left in a cold, dark room for who knows how long, it kills me.

“Don’t cry.”

Just hearing his gruff voice makes me cry harder. Teardrops dapple my face, each one a grievance left to splatter on the ground.

I force myself to sit up so I can see him better, gritting my teeth past the pain that shoots down my back, the tattered ends of deadened ribbons spiking with agony.

Digby’s lips thin as he watches me curse and pant and wince, but I manage to get into a sitting position, though my stomach is roiling by the time that I do. With my back too tender, I scoot over to the corner, and then let my shoulder and arm slump against the wall so that I don’t graze my wounds.

Swiping away the tears on my face, I look at Digby, knowing that if he’s not trying to move, then he must really be hurt.

Dragging my eyes over his wrinkled old uniform, I wonder exactly what kind of injuries he’s sustained.

“I didn’t know you were here,” I whisper.

He nods.

“I thought you were dead.”

He shakes his head in answer.

The smallest smile tips my lips. “There’s my guard of few words,” I tease gently, even though it feels forced, even though every breath I pull in shoots pain down my back.

Digby grunts in response, but I can see that his own mouth twitches too. It’s a farce—this tiny bit of comfort. But it’s the only bit we’ll have.

“What happened?” I ask, voice hoarse and twinging. “How did you get here?”

His eyes flicker. “Saw you get taken.”

“By the Red Raids?”

Digby nods and says, “Rode straight here to alert the king so he could send help. I’ve been in this room ever since.” His voice is even more grating than mine, and I wonder if it’s from disuse. When I calculate how long he must’ve been in here, hurt and alone…

My stomach clenches between fists, wrung out until I can taste bile on my tongue. “He never should’ve done this to you,” I say, the anger in me fighting with the drugged haze in my system.

“I failed you, my lady. He was right to lock me up.”

“Stop with the my lady shit, and don’t you dare think that any of this is justified. It’s not.” None of it.

My eyes fall unbidden to the floor again, to the ribbon I’m still clutching in my hand.

Digby’s gaze follows, but he doesn’t speak about them. Maybe he can sense that I’m barely holding on by the ruined stubs that hang limp along my spine. For once, I’m grateful for his penchant for few words.

Yet even though he doesn’t bring it up, I see his hand curl into a fist, though his pinky doesn’t move. From fingernail to second knuckle, it’s stained like he dipped it in an inkwell. Claimed by the bite of frost, probably while he rode to Fifth to help save me.

How much more of him has been deadened? What other parts of him are hurt irrevocably because of Midas and me?

I close my eyes and let my head drop against the wall beside me, the cold stone pressing against my tender cheek. “Sail died,” I whisper, and even now, I feel my chest constrict at saying those words aloud.

“He was a good soldier.”

“He was a good man,” I reply. “He died protecting me, and now you…”

“Don’t you worry about me,” he retorts. “I want you to worry about you. I want you to be safe even when I can’t stand guard.”

Water rushes into my eyes, and my bottom lip trembles. My heart isn’t just beating—it’s taken a beating too.

“I’m so sorry, Dig,” I say softly, my throat squeezing shut. When I open my eyes again, he’s still looking at me, no blame in his expression, no hate. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get you out of here. Strike a deal with Midas to get him to let you go.”

But Digby shakes his head. “I’m your guard, Miss Auren. My place is with you,” he declares, as though it should be obvious.

Something sharp and small stabs right through my heart. Who knew loyalty could hurt so much?

“Now isn’t the time to be stubborn.”

“I’m not.” He rolls his neck a bit so he can look up at the ceiling. Maybe it’s just as hard for him to look at the tattered remains on the floor as it is for me. “The second I was assigned the post to be your guard, I found my purpose, my lady. All those other shits weren’t good enough to watch over you.”

I let out a shaky smile. “You really were the only one I could ever trust in Highbell,” I tell him. “Even when I was just a snotty girl complaining about being bored, or all those hours of practicing the harp, you were always there. You were my steady.”

He swallows hard again like he’s digesting my vulnerable words. Then, “You were bad at playing that thing. Had to come in with bits of kerchief stuffed in my ears.”

A sad laugh creases the tears into my cheeks. “I remember.”

We fall into silence for a moment, but there’s so much I want to say to him, so much undone in the threads of this raw moment. But I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance like this, which is why I clear my throat and say, “You were the closest thing I had to a father,” I admit, my voice small, eyes cast down as I twirl the ribbon around my finger. “I knew I drove you nuts sometimes, but you always made me feel safe. And I never thanked you enough.”

He makes a noise, like a shaken breath past a graveled throat. “It was always my pleasure to serve you, my lady.” Then, in quiet gruffness, he adds, “Any father would be damn lucky to have you for a daughter.”

A vapor of melancholy condenses in the air between us. Every breath I take in saturates my soul with its drizzling grief.

After a while, I let the ribbon drop from my fingers, let it land on the floor.noveldrama

“Look at us now, Dig,” I say, trying to smile up at him, though my face pulls into a grimace instead. “I bet you wish you would’ve played that drinking game with me.”

A short, rasped chuckle escapes him. “Aye, my lady,” he breathes out with a sigh. “Aye.”

My lids droop, shivers covering my skin.

If I can rest for a bit, then hopefully I won’t be too drained once dawn comes, and I can fight back. I just need the sun. Once it rises, I will gold-touch every guard in my path if I have to in order to get Digby out of here.

Slade will be worrying. I was supposed to meet him in the library, so he’ll know something’s wrong since I didn’t show up. I just need to rest, to bide my time and pray for the day to come.

After a few quiet minutes tick by, the heaviness of my body drags me into an in-between place where pain doesn’t exist. I drift, like a boat without an anchor, lost in a shallow sea.

Yet I’m washed right back up to the rocky shore again, jerking against a collision of awareness when a noise clanks in the hall.

The door suddenly swings open, making me jerk upright, sending my back into snaps of torment again.

I barely have time to react before four guards rush in and grab me. Two of them hoist me up by my arms, another one blocks my feet when I try to kick out, and the last one is Scofield, who steps up and blocks my view of Digby.

I can hear Digby cursing and some kind of scuffle ensuing, but my eyes widen when Scofield holds up familiar white petals, freckled with blood-red dewdrops.

“No!” Through panic and frenzy, I struggle to fight off the guards, but the moment one of them grazes against my back, I cry out in agony, the fight pouring out from the wounds.

“Is that too much?” one of the other guards questions.

“King Midas’s orders,” Scofield replies, a look of guilt flashing past his eyes for a moment, though it does nothing to placate the hate I feel for him. “Just hold still, my lady,” he pleads, as if he wants me to make this easier for him.

“Fuck you!” I heave, vision bursting with circles of black that threaten to stain my consciousness.

“Don’t hurt her!” Digby shouts before hissing in a breath.

A snarl rips from my throat when Scofield moves just enough for me to see ginger-headed Lowe holding Digby down.

“Open, my lady.”

My gaze is ripped away from Digby as Scofield shoves the petals toward my mouth, but I snap at him, teeth as vicious as a timberwing, hard and quick enough that I draw blood.

He curses and flinches his hand back, looking at me with a flash of anger. Using his other hand, he grips my cheeks and then squeezes hard on my jaw, forcing my lips to part. Before I can so much as curse him, he shoves three petals inside my mouth, clamps my jaw shut, and then covers both of his hands over my mouth and nose.

I feel the saccharine liquid coating my tongue, feel the petals dissolving in my mouth. I try to spit, but Scofield presses my lips hard against my teeth, not letting me open. The inside of my lip slices open as I struggle, but I can’t breathe with his hand clamped over my face.

My body panics at the lack of air, and then it betrays me by swallowing. The second I do, horror fills my eyes.

Too much. They gave me too damn much.

Scofield lets go, and I cough out huge gasps of torn breath that rip right from the center of my chest. “Get your fucking hands off her!” Digby growls.

“It’s okay, Dig,” I gulp, because I can’t let him take another beating. I need him to live. Need him to let me go without a fight that will only leave him even worse for wear.

“It’s not fucking okay!”

The drug hits me instantly, like being pushed into a lake, the slap of the surface jolting me from head to toe. My mind folds in, the pages of a book creased right down the center, jumbling my thoughts, crimping my words.

I can’t even think straight. I’m just full body spasms, a shredded tongue, a bowed spine, a spinning stomach. And heat. Unbearable heat connected to my core that makes me throb right at the center.

No…

My burning eyes lift to Digby one last time before I’m dragged out of the room. My chin slumps against my chest, body succumbing to unnatural warmth. I fade into unconsciousness, hearing Digby’s last shout and the door slamming shut.

But in my head, I’m whispering, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.