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

I sleep like the dead, so deep that it’s like clawing out from six feet underground to pull myself into consciousness. But I do it, because my subconscious is warning me that something is…off.

Peeling my blurred eyes open, I jerk upright, trying to bat away the last dregs of slumber, my senses prickling.

When I catch movement in my dim bedroom, I experience a moment of panic before my eyes land on the intruder.

“Lu?” My voice is croaky and cracked, but I stare at the Wrath incredulously. She’s sitting in front of the fire with her feet propped up, a book in one hand and a wine glass in the other.

She casts me a look. “Took you long enough. The sun went down an hour ago. You were snoring.”

Embarrassment makes me grumble indignantly, “I was not.”

I probably was.

Gaze flicking over to the balcony and windows, I see that Lu was right, I slept right through the entire day. Not only did I get a bath in before dawn, but I passed out just as the sun was cresting, and I’ve been sleeping ever since. Slade’s attentions wore me out in the best way.

Rubbing my face, I shove the covers back and stand up, stretching my arms over my head, feeling little twinges of soreness all over. Although, I think those have more to do with my nighttime activities than my exercises, and I have to keep a blush from my face as the swarm of memories crop up.

“How did you get in here?” I ask as I wander over to Lu, noting that not only is she drinking my wine, but she’s also helped herself to my tray of food that the servants sent. She must’ve built up my fire though, because it’s blazing warm and bright.

I flop into the chair across from her and look over the remnants of food on the tray. Looks like Lu helped herself to the cuts of meat and whatever used to be in the bowl. All that’s left is one chocolate scone, some gritty fruit, and half of a sandwich with a cinnamon crust that has a bite taken out of it.

I raise my brow at her. “Enjoy my food?”

She shrugs. “I’ve had worse. But why this kingdom thinks it’s a good idea to slop sugar on everything, I’ll never know. In the city, I ordered the beef stew, and it was smothered in syrup.”

My nose wrinkles as I take a bite of scone and help myself to some water. “How did you get in here?”

“Easily. Came right in through the balcony.”

A frown pulls my brows together. “That door was locked.”

“Was it?” she hums. “Well, then you need better guards. No one even patrols below the grounds over here, and the ones in the hall never hear a thing.”

When she says better guards, Digby’s face suddenly flashes in my mind. Just like that, the sugary breakfast goes sour in my mouth. I manage to swallow the bite down, but it feels like guilt settles in my stomach instead.

“What’s that look for?”

“Nothing. Just…I had a good guard,” I say, fidgeting with one of my ribbons in my lap as I think of Digby and Sail both. “Two great ones, actually.”

“Had?”

“It’s my fault,” I answer, unable to go into any more detail. It’s my fault Sail was stabbed by the captain of the Red Raids. My fault that Digby is being held by Midas and dangled over my head.

I feel suddenly awkward, because I didn’t expect this unrestrained sadness to cut my knees right out from under me like this, for me to suddenly stumble on grief. Especially not in front of Lu.

I need to talk to Slade about Digby as soon as possible—about Rissa too. I should’ve done it last night, but…I was preoccupied. I just wanted a moment for myself. I didn’t want to let reality flood in and taint our time together.

Yet that was selfish of me, to indulge and shut away all my problems. Guilt claws down my back now, because Digby might be wasting away in a dungeon somewhere for all I know, while I’m up here indulging in Slade’s company and complaining about how sweet the food is. What kind of horrible person does that?

Cutting through the thick silence, Lu says, “I know how it feels when bad shit happens and it’s your fault,” she says matter-of-factly. I appreciate her no-nonsense tone. I’m grateful that she doesn’t try to tell me it wasn’t my fault, to absolve me from my guilt. “When Rip put me in charge of the right flank, I was cocky as hell about it. But then we had our first battle, and I lost a lot of good men and women.”noveldrama

I glance up at her, watching her eyes cast into the flames of the fire, her dark skin aglow with its warmth.

“Every life lost…it was on me, you know? I was responsible for commanding them, and every direction caused some to live and others to die.”

She lifts a hand to scrub over the shapes of daggers cut into her hair, and I suddenly wonder if there’s a significance for those symbolic blades.

“When you feel responsible for death…that stays with you. It sticks to the soles of your feet every time you take a step.”

I nod slowly in understanding, and Lu lets out a breath, face stoic as she sits up straighter. “But that’s the curse of the survivors. We have to live with our dead.”

When I think about all the people who have died because of me, my shoulders weigh down. “Living with the dead is harder than living with the living.”

Her gaze jumps to mine, turning mischievous. “Unless that living happens to be the golden king prick.”

I snort and shake my head. “You have no idea.”

With a laugh, she sets down the wine glass and points at it. “Our wine barrel is better than this stuff.”

“I agree.” Abandoning the scone, I set it down and get to my feet. “So, you’re really going to be able to sneak me out of here?”

Lu gives me a look. “Don’t insult me, Gildy.”

I hold up my hands placatingly. “Alright, alright. Let me just get dressed.”

It just takes me a few minutes, and when I come out of my dressing room, I’m in a new gown and my hair is no longer a rat’s nest. I also may have taken a little bit of extra time on my appearance for a certain king, so I chose my dress with care and only snapped two of the boning inlays in the corset. The things you do for the males you sleep with.

“Okay, I’m ready,” I say, coming back out as I pull on my coat.

Lu springs up fluidly from the chair. “Finally.” She walks over, holding out the book she had this whole time.

When I look down and see what it is, my eyes go wide. “How did you get that?”

“It was just sitting out.”

I pin her with a look. “It was stuffed into one of the gowns in my dressing room.”

Lu shrugs and slips into her thick black coat. “You need better hiding spots.”

Shaking my head, I take the fae book and put it into the inside pocket of my coat. Lu leads the way out of the balcony, and before I even close the door behind us, she’s leaping up onto the railing.

“Lu—”

Without hesitation, she bends her knees and then goes flipping right off of it.

I gasp and rush over, but Lu’s perfectly maneuvered herself and somehow managed to grab onto the railing of the next balcony over. In some crazy acrobatic feats, and making it look much easier than it actually is, she kicks off and spins her body and then lands in a perfect crouch onto the snowy ground below.

I just gape down at her in the dark. “How the hell did you do that?” I hiss.

She smirks. “Easily.”

With a huff, I wrap all of my ribbons around the railing before climbing up onto it. Gripping half of them, I have my ribbons slowly lower me down as far as they’ll go. The other half stretches to the next balcony, and I swing myself over, and then I repeat the process again.

When I finally land on the ground, my arms are shaking and I’m breathing hard.

“Took you long enough,” Lu admonishes. “But I’ll admit, that was a bit better than the first effort I witnessed.”

I glower at her. “We can’t all be flip masters who just go careening off three-story-high balconies.”

With a grin, she starts to walk, and I follow behind her, noting that the dogs are put away in the kennel house for the night, the pen empty and quiet. “Your arm strength is atrocious. You need to come back and get training with us again.”

The very few training sessions I had with the Wrath were the most challenging and rigorous thing I’d ever done, but it also made me feel good mentally—a way to rid myself of my own vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

“I’d like that,” I admit.

Lu seems pleased, and she sends me an enigmatic look. “I’m glad you came to your senses, Gildy.”

I don’t think she’s talking about the training.

I smile. “Me too.”

“You seem to be controlling your ribbons with greater skill,” she notes, and I can’t help but puff up a little at her compliment.

“I’ve been trying to practice with them when I can.”

“Good,” she says with a sharp nod of her head. “Now I need you to shut up, okay?”

Taken aback, I mutter, “Rude.”

I follow her past the row of greenhouses until we reach the corner of the castle walls. The sky is growing darker with every passing minute, gated shadows enclosing the land into night. She stops and looks around it, holding her hand up for me to wait, and then after a moment, waves me forward again.

I look around nervously as we creep past the stables, and then once again, Lu stops me just at the corner of it, but this time we stay there for a few minutes, and I notice Lu checking a brass pocket watch clipped to her belt.

“You worked out the guards’ rotations?” I whisper, keeping my back pressed against the rough wall of the stable.

“Yes. Now shh,” she snips.

Pretending to button my lip, I let my eyes scan the castle grounds, noting the ice sculptures in the distance. They’re pretty during the day, but at night, they look like creepy spectators, their silhouettes menacing and eerie. I keep darting a look at them, and my heart nearly jumps into my throat when I notice movement. Realizing it’s two guards heading toward us, I stiffen, but Lu just shoots me a look to stay still and quiet.

I’m barely breathing when they come nearer and nearer toward the front of the stable. Yet before they cross right in front of us, one of them mutters something too low for me to hear, and then they both start looking around behind them, momentarily distracted. I have no idea what caught their attention, but it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Lu gives a sharp jerk of her head, and I follow her hurriedly as we dart in the opposite direction. I steal looks behind us, but the guards never glance our way.

She stops us again when we reach the garden gazebo, her eyes intent on the face of the pocket watch like she’s memorized every guard route and is counting down the seconds.

“That was close,” I whisper, my heart still beating fast from the residual adrenaline rush. “Good thing they got distracted.” I rub my hands together, the cold air seeping right through my gloves. “So what’s the plan? How are we going to sneak out?”

“The guards open the castle gates in three minutes for the outer perimeter watch change. We’ll slip out then.”

An incredulous look drops over my features. “What are you talking about? We can’t just…slip out through the front gates of the castle.”

She doesn’t even look up from her watch. “Yes, we can.”

I feel like I’m suddenly talking to a crazy person. “The front gate has to be swarming with guards.”

“Usually has about thirty,” she replies with a shrug.

My mouth drops open. “And yet, you expect us to just walk right out? Are you out of your mind?”

“Gildy Locks, your voice is going a little high-pitched, there. I’m going to need you to loosen your ribbons and take a breath.”

Okay, I might be panicking a bit, but she doesn’t have to sound so damn amused.

“We’ll get caught if we try to go out that way,” I insist. “I thought you had found some secret way out or had bribed a guard or something.”

“I don’t need to,” she tells me. “Ready to go?”

“No!” I hiss.

She rolls her eyes, looking entirely too calm about this. “Just don’t talk, and we’ll be fine. Now come on, or we’ll miss our chance.”

Grumbling a curse, I follow her as she pushes off the gazebo and heads down the swept stone walkway. We pass the last of the ice sculptures, then go past the bailey, and then all too soon, we’re nearing the castle gate.

Torches are braced high along the wall, like iron fingers jutting out from the stone with sharp fingernails of flames. I can see armored soldiers on the top parapet, their purple cloaks wagging in the cold wind.

There are some unhitched wagons and empty carriages on the ground off to the left, and a stone statue of whatever past king sits smack dab in the middle so that the first thing you see when you enter the gates is some long dead monarch with a saber held in his hand.

Lu stops us in the shadow of an alcove stacked with sandbags, probably to pour over the ground when they need to pack the snowfall down. Even in our current hiding spot, we’re way too out in the open for my liking.

“Lu…” I breathe. I don’t care how stealthy she is. There is no way we are sneaking out of those gates when they open.

She shoots me a sharp look, effectively silencing me. Slade trusted her implicitly to sneak me out, had absolutely zero doubt she could get me to the camp, and that, plus my own trust in her, makes me stay right where I am.

When two guards walk over to the gate and begin to lift the heavy beam stretched across it, Lu whispers, “Get ready, Gildy.”

Despite the cold temperature, I’m sweating with nervousness. The gate opens, and a line of guards come filing in, looking tired with slumped shoulders and dragged steps. Several of them head straight across the grounds, while some begin to talk with the other soldiers, not in any rush to put the beam back in place.

When Lu starts walking toward the gate, I grit my teeth and hurry forward. I stick to her like a noon shadow, my eyes darting every which way as I note the dozens of guards around, just waiting for one of them to spot us and raise the alarm.

My pulse pounds in my ears, but Lu continues to stride confidently forward, not a single step faltering. Her birdlike steps are silent, like she’s able to flit from one place to another, her body lithe and graceful in every movement, making me feel lumbering and noisy beside her. Even when we finally lose the last of the wall’s shadows and can only head straight down the middle toward the gate, she doesn’t slow.

The moment we’re out in the open, two guards on the wall turn their heads in our direction, and I brace myself. But as quickly as they looked down at us, they look away again.

What in the world?

I’m not sure how they didn’t see us, but I don’t have time to fully appreciate the close call, because we reach the gate just then. The group of guards several feet away begin to turn toward us too, and I tense up, ready to sprint through the gate.

But once again, they get distracted, their attention jerking away a second before their eyes land on us. The men all grumble and start kicking at the snow with their boots, pointing at something I can’t see. A nudge from Lu has me whipping my head back around, and then we’re slipping out the gate together.

I take a breath the moment we’re outside the castle walls, disbelief furrowing my brow.

We got out.

I can’t believe we actually just walked right out the front gate, right next to all those castle guards. I know Lu was critical of Ranhold’s security, and now, I can see why. And yet, something is off. No way we got that lucky.

As we walk quickly away, I feel like there’s a giant target on my gold-clad back, but…nothing happens.

Nothing at all.

I steal a look behind us, squinting through the dark at the guard towers that I know must be manned, but not a single shout rings out. When Lu and I reach the crest of a hill and are far enough away from the castle walls, new perimeter guards come filing out, and then the gate doors are closed again.

Lu nods in satisfaction. “We’re fine now,” she says briskly. “Good job not talking. That would’ve made things more difficult for me.”

“How the hell did we just pull that off?” I pant, trying to keep up with her as we hurry through the snow.

“We didn’t. I did,” Lu replies, brown eyes sweeping the landscape.

I send one of my ribbons to grip her by the arm and pull her to a stop. “Tell me what just happened. What was that?”

Lu frowns down at my ribbon and bats it away. “I have a little magic.”

My brows shoot up. “You have magic? What kind?”

“Nothing too extreme, I can’t rot people alive or turn a castle gold, but I can divert attention.”

Surprise has me shaking my head. “How does it work?”

She shrugs. “I can sense when people are paying attention to me, and then I just…make them pay attention elsewhere.”

Well, that’s a handy trick.

“And you can do it for the people with you?”

“To an extent,” she replies. “One person with me is easy. But more than that, and it gets a bit more difficult.”

“This would’ve been nice information before you snuck me out.”

Lu grins, her white teeth flashing in the night. “But this was more fun. You should’ve seen your face back there. I thought you were going to pee yourself.”

“Thanks a lot,” I say drily.

“Come on, it’s colder than a pecker in the Barrens. I’ll take you to see the others.”

A smile pulls my cheeks as I follow her, noting the orange glow of the campfires up ahead. When giddiness rises in my chest, I realize just how excited I am to see Slade again, as well as the other members of the Wrath. Even big brutish Osrik, who still scares me a little.

It’s funny, but walking past the tents of Fourth’s army feels so much more comfortable than the luxuries of the castle behind me. In fact, it feels a little bit like coming home.