Chapter 2
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He’s done research.
“I’m not hungry,” I murmur when the faerie man returns holding a silver platter overflowing with cheeses and meats and fruits. I haven’t moved from this spot on the carpet since he left roughly twenty minutes ago with little more than an overeager smile and an I’ll be back momentarily, my feather.
“Not hungry?” he says, stopping outside my cage door.
“You hadn’t yet received any food when I got you, but you claim you were using that man for a free meal.
That would either mean you lied to me about the purpose of that despicable being, and I know you didn’t, or you must have—in fact—been hungry. ”
“Don’t be so closed-minded. There are, at any point in time, a thousand reasons for any given action. Confining me to two based only on your assumptions is uncouth.”
“Uncouth?” he echoes, looming with the abundant tray. “Shall I return to that grease pit and fetch his head for you? If I’m to be perceived without manners anyway, I can swiftly cast off my restraint and show you the true meaning of uncouth.”
My flesh turns clammy.
He sneers. “Why does the idea of his murder result in a physical unease from you, my feather?” Dropping himself, he plants the tray on the ground beside him and reaches for me.
His hand latches around my throat and drags me to the bars.
“You do not want me to kill him? He means more than nothing to you? Explain yourself.”
Heart stampeding, I remember myself. Or, the myself I must be around irrational, horrible, selfish people. When it comes to slavery, I am not allowed to be smart or negative. I am not allowed to have emotions. I do what is expected of me. Nothing more, nothing less.
If I am told to eat, I eat.
If that results in begging to go to the bathroom or risking needing to go when my warden isn’t around, so be it. At present, he’s yet to make the sorts of demands Rodrick always taunted would befall me just as soon as we were married. At present, I know there are worse fates.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I led him on. I’d feel too responsible for his death if you killed him. I was hungry. Now I’m scared. That’s all.”
“Scared?” Clamped around my throat, his fingers flex, then loosen.
He rests back on his calves, murmuring, “Of course you are. Do forgive me. Your emotions are tangled in so much allure I can barely register them. I’ve been homed in on your physical reactions, not your scents.
” He plants his palms against his thighs and is silent for several long moments.
“Danielle…I’m…” His already broad shoulders square, becoming more imposing.
“I have a friend who suggests that it is safe to be vulnerable around the right people. I can’t imagine anyone might be more right than you.
So, to that end, I offer you my vulnerability: I am… nervous.”
He’s what now?
Nervous?
He’s the nervous one here?
And, also, he can detect the smallest changes in my body as well as scent my emotions?
That doesn’t bode well for my acting skills.
If that’s the case, I can’t get by with anything less than wholly believing I am the character I need to be in order to survive.
Survival in such a context is as good as losing myself. Completely.
With that thought, blood rushes from my face, proving it is easier said than done to truly slot myself into the skin of the person I need to be to survive.
My warden swears, and his hands close into fists.
“I have distressed you further. This is not going well.” He mutters, “Mayhaps mentioning murder this early in our relationship wasn’t a good move.
No, probably not… Fool, control yourself.
” He starts to rise, fixing his tone and volume.
“Be patient, love. I will fetch more gifts for you. What do you enjoy? Jewels? Gowns? Artwork?” He plants a hand at his chin and paces the marble beyond my cage.
“Women…women enjoy…books. Yes. Perfect.”
He’s gone before I can confirm that I do, actually, enjoy books.
Flitting from wherever she’s been playing in the cage behind me, Frelsi whispers, “When he gets back, tell him you also enjoy sweets.”
I frown. “You want sweets?”
“I want sweets.”
My eyes roll, because at least with Frelsi I can be my unfiltered self at no risk—even if the blood has yet to return to my head. “You think you deserve sweets with the way you’ve been behaving?”
Aghast, she lays her extra-knuckled, ink-tipped hands across her heart.
“Dani. I’m wounded in my emotions.” Her black-and-green eyes narrow.
“Not to mention we’ve been over this. It’s never about what someone deserves.
Actions-based criteria is outlawed. You get what you want because you want it, not because someone decides you deserve it. ”
“Are you oblivious to the situation, Frel? I am in a cage, and I can’t shrink my body up like yours.
My entire existence is reliant on what that faerie man believes I deserve.
” I toss a hand toward the ajar door on my right, leading toward dark granite counters.
“Even to the extent of when I can go to the bathroom.”
Frelsi looks that way, then back at me. Her head flops. “So?”
This has occurred, often, since Frelsi came into existence sometime in mid-April, but the differences between how I think and how a faerie does sting right now.
Fundamentally, we are not the same. And not knowing the differences in our thoughts is dangerous when my future relies on manipulating one of her kind.
She says, “A pretty, powerful faerie man has made you his pretty, powerless pet. I don’t think you understand the situation.
” She settles herself on my lap, kneeling on my knee and looking up at me—evil.
“Play nice with him. Wrap him around your cute little finger. Then, we can ask him to take our vengeance on your mother and that—” She swears. “—fiancé she planned for you.”
“I don’t want revenge. I want freedom.”
“There is no freedom while you live afraid of them. Understand this, Dani: beyond this cage, outside this world, those monsters still control you. You’ve been looking over your shoulder for weeks, terrified and paranoid.
They must either die or be taught to fear you if ever you plan to live out there in peace.
I believe this man would give you those options, and countless others. I like him.”
“Of course you do, you little unseelie nightmare,” I hiss.
She gasps. “How dare you compliment me at a time like this. We’re talking seriously. And you know I can’t handle positive affirmations!” Her face explodes with heat, and she falls forward, rolling against my skirt in her embarrassment. “Distracting me from our very important discourse. So cruel.”
Playing nice with yet another man in a position of power over me is the last thing I wanted to do after I got the courage to leave. Playing nice is all I’ve done for my entire life.
Even now, I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head, imposing and selfish and actually cruel.
Do this shoot, Danielle. It’ll make us a lot of money, Danielle. Flirt with your coworker, Danielle. Scandals help us gain more popularity, Danielle. Oh, do be more interesting, Danielle. Make it believable, Danielle. Kiss him.
Never mind that I’d never kissed a man before people were taking pictures of me doing it.
At least he’s attractive, right, Danielle?
My stomach sours, and I cast a look at the tray of food the faerie man abandoned beyond these golden bars.
Horrifyingly, the question repeats itself, but this time it does not carry the echo of my mother’s voice.
At least he’s attractive.
Right, Danielle?
I could seduce him. I could try, anyway.
It stands that no matter how skimpy some of the clothes I’ve been forced to wear have been, I have never been forced to go all the way for the camera. Obviously. My mother’s pride forbade her from being seen as a woman who sold her only daughter into that sort of service.
Nothing at all here protects me, and unlike with the men I’ve used to get this far, there’s no chance I’ll be able to slip away before the worst of my lying promises become the expectation.
Do I just accept my fate and opt for peace with it?
Escaping from my mother, a human woman, was hard enough.
Escaping from a powerful faerie…
It’s impossible. His magic would no doubt be able to find me, no matter where I go, no matter how far I run.
I’d have to kill him.
And I already know that when it comes to fight or flight, I fawn.
“Dani,” Frelsi whines, falling onto her side, “I can sense the light leaving you.”
Dull, I murmur, “You don’t say?”
“I hate when you get like this.”
I smile; it’s picture perfect. Just like it always has to be. For the cameras. “Why?”
“Doll Dani is creepy.”
“What choices do I have?”
“Plenty! Make him your slave.”
What amount of belief does my tiny pixie friend have in me? She expects me to enslave a powerful faerie who doesn’t even need his eyes to be the epitome of grace? He is in multi-layer robes, can’t see, and hasn’t so much as stumbled, for frick’s sake. Let’s attempt a scrap of realism.
One wrong move, and I’m dead. Or worse than dead, depending on my warden’s whim.
The only thing Frelsi’s been right about is this: I’m his pet, little more than a dog he has to take outside to go potty when it whines. I worry about encouraging anything else, because if I must choose between pet and plaything, the answer is obvious, if demeaning.
Good thing pride has never once served me before.
I’ve grown up entirely unused to it.
So it’s almost…easy…to cast aside.
When the bedroom door swings open, my heart jumps even as I remain precisely doll-like.
The number of books the faerie man is carrying in suggests that he doesn’t turn everything he looks at to stone in an unfortunate King Midas fashion.
He must take his blindfold off sometimes to read, which means having it on is not a permanent fixture and being turned to stone accidentally must join my growing list of concerns.
Fantastic.
Love that for me.
“This one was excellent,” he says as he places an Eros and Psyche retelling coauthored by Blaire Featherstone and Gale Greenway before me.
I’ve seen this book at large in the human world recently.
It’s known for being unbelievably dark. Proving my thoughts correct, the faerie man provides, “He keeps her in a cage. It’s very romantic. ”
I blink and glance toward this guy’s face.
He presents another book with an elegant cover of snakes and skulls. “I learned a lot from this one. Perhaps…too much.”
His face.
It flushes.
Is he…
No. Surely he isn’t giving me the research he mentioned before.
Is this a stack of books on How to Kidnap Someone? The covers certainly seem to be relaying dark romance. Which would imply that he does have a “romantic” intention with me.
My stomach knots.
Setting the next book down, he taps the hardback twice. “Lots of choking.” Confident as ever, he murmurs a self-assuring, “Women love choking.”
Frelsi’s told me that the fae can’t outright lie. But they can share something that isn’t true so long as they believe what they’re saying.
Given that information and my current physical position, I am unnerved to the nth degree.
“There’s a lot of strange balances…” he offers. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of taking things too swiftly with you. I’d like to savor my every taste, commit your everything to my senses.”
Ignoring the entirety of this tapestry of red flags, Frelsi whispers, “Sweets.”
“Sweets?” the man asks. No clarification necessary, he places the rest of the books within my reach beyond the cage bars and rises. “Sweets. You want sweets, my feather? I understand. This food is insufficient to please you. I shall fetch a deeper variety.”
When the bedroom door swings closed behind him again, Frelsi collapses with delight. “Fetch!” she cheers. “Even though you’re the pet, he’s doing all the fetching!”
Hesitant, I reach for the book with the darkest cover, slip it through the bars, and open it somewhere in the middle.
Three lines is all I skim before I snap the thing closed again.
“What? What?” Frelsi chirps.
I swallow. Hard. “You are not old enough.”
I am not old enough.
This is the kind of source material he has used as “research”? I’m not sure what’s worse—reading to prepare myself for an inevitable I have no power to spare myself from…
Or letting the horrors be a surprise.