18. Rosalina
18
Rosalina
L ast night, I slept in a prison cell. Tonight, I’m in a beautiful room, with a soft four-poster bed.
It might as well be that cold dungeon.
I tried to help the fae man… but he changed. Papa’s raspy warning echoes in my mind: ‘They’re monsters, Rose! Beasts!’
Yeah, I figured that when Keldarion shoved me in a cell and Ezryn choked me and accused me of being a spy. I never imagined they’re actually demonic wolves .
I curl in on myself, wrapped tight in the blankets. That thing… It attacked me. Dried blood coats my leg. The ice Keldarion covered the wound in has long since melted. I know I should have tried to wash it somehow, or at least bandaged it, but I can’t do anything but cower in my bed.
What am I going to do?
I’m a prisoner to four fae princes. And I’m powerless against them.
The sky begins to lighten. I think I managed an hour or two between all the tossing and turning. The fear has faded with the night and given way to sadness. I hug my pillow and cry.
My door creaks open and I jolt up. But there’s only a little white rabbit. It cocks its head at me, staring with shining red eyes.
“Hi, cutie,” I whisper, voice gravelly from crying. “Are you trapped in this castle too?”
The rabbit hops forward, and then in one big leap, jumps upon the bed. I can’t help but smile. I always wanted a pet, but with Papa’s erratic schedule, it seemed unfair.
The bunny wiggles right up beside my face and I reach out, stroking the soft, downy fur. “Did you need some company too?” I sniff. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
The bunny is so sweet with her little pink nose, long ears, and shining red eyes that seem so intent on me. Dawn breaks over the horizon, and the first golden rays of sunlight filter through the window. “What’s your name?” I ask. “Snowball? Fluffy? Wiggles—AHH!”
Fluffy is… growing . And shedding her fur like some sort of fucking nightmare. I scramble backward, but by the time I blink my eyes, the rabbit is gone and replaced with… Astrid.
“You can call me Fluffy if you want to.” She smiles. She’s lying so casually on my bed, her head beside me on the pillow. And she’s butt-ass naked.
“W-where are your clothes?” I squeal. “Or your fur?”
She looks down at her thin, pale body. “Oh right. I forgot humans aren’t as comfortable with nudity.” She giggles and pushes herself up, padding across the room to grab a robe from the wardrobe.
I push myself up onto all fours and gape at her. She turns and stares back, her human eyes the same shade of light red as the bunny’s. Wait. Not her human eyes. She’s fae, like them.
Astrid crosses her hands in front of her and smiles softly, like she’s waiting for me to catch up.
“Why,” I ask slowly, “were you a rabbit?”
She laughs and glides across the floor to sit on the edge of the bed. Her straight white hair falls to her chin, and her bangs are cut right above her pale eyebrows. “I’m a hare, actually. They’re quite common in the Winter Realm. You should come see them!”
The only thing I know about hares was that one time I was lying in bed with Lucas, and he was stroking my face, staring at me with what could have been love. And he smiled and opened his mouth, and I swore he was going to tell me all the things I so desperately wanted to hear. But he said, ‘Have you ever heard the death keel of a hare? Sometimes I like to snipe them with the rifle, but I don’t get the sound if it’s too clean of a shot. I can get them to make it with my knife, though. It’s unlike anything you’ll ever hear.’ Then he mounted me, placed his hand over my face, and whispered in my ear, ‘I want to hear you make a sound like that.’
I don’t know if I ever gave him what he wanted.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing my mind to return to the present. Because I’d much rather be in this room with this fucking werebunny than that moment again.
He’s not like that anymore, a part of my mind argues. He asked me to marry him.
“Is everything alright?” Astrid scoots up closer to me and runs a tender hand over my hair.
“It’s all a bit overwhelming,” I say. “A few days ago, I was working in a bookstore. Now, I’m a prisoner in an enchanted castle.”
Astrid gives a sad smile. “If it makes it any easier, we’re so excited you’re here. Nothing exciting has happened in the last twenty-five years.”
“Is that how long you’ve been trapped here?” I ask.
She nods and clasps her hands on her lap. “We could leave, I suppose. But where would we go? There’s no home to return to for the cursed.”
“Cursed,” I whisper. “Everyone in here… is cursed?”
Astrid walks to the window, the dawn light painting her pale body orange. “Fae by day, beasts by night. I suppose us servants should count ourselves lucky. You get used to turning into an animal. I don’t think you ever get used to… what happens to the princes.”
The hideous, twisted wolves fill my mind, their wild gazes and giant bodies sending my heart skittering in my chest. “What happened here? Why are you all cursed?”
Astrid looks nervously to the door. “Someone’s coming.”
The door swings open and Marigold comes in with a tray of breakfast. She looks over at me and I can tell she’s displeased with my blood messing up the clean sheets. It turns out, I don’t have to recount last night. Everyone in the castle already knows what happened. Those eyes I’d felt peering at me had been the staff.
I nibble on my breakfast, opting for plain toast on account of my queasy stomach. Marigold and Astrid tell me the type of animals the staff turn into. Marigold is a raccoon, and there’s a bear, and a penguin, and a couple dogs, and the gardener turns into a great owl. When I ask why this is all happening, they dodge the question like a freaking border collie in an agility show.
A solid knock sounds from the door. I suck in a breath and straighten. “Come in.”
The door slowly creeps open, revealing a towering metal figure.
The masked knight from the bridge. The dark gray wolf who dripped soil and had little bones tangled in his fur.
Ezryn, the Spring Prince.