Chapter 3
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The bar is much lower than it should be, I think.
What is going on?
What—in both the realms I know about—is going on?
“Her name is Whimsy,” my faerie kidnapper says, leaning back against my cage bars.
He has been talking non-stop for approximately an hour.
Roughly fifty minutes ago, immediately after he returned with a platter of sweets, Frelsi decimated them and fell asleep upon the hanging bed behind me.
I hate her, I think.
She’s condemned me to fifty minutes of insanity alone.
And now? Now, I’m holding a phone and staring at a chubby bird on a self-care app called Finch.
There is absolutely no signal.
But that figures.
Wherever this part of Faerie is, it is not within T-Mobile’s service range.
My lunatic of a kidnapper proceeds, “My friend Xios introduced me to the app, and just yesterday I got friend requests from everyone else in the group who has it!”
I drag my gaze off the phone.
This man is ecstatic.
Because…he has bird friends on a self-care app?
“You’ll meet the group later. But there’s—” He begins listing names and descriptions with such swiftness I’m not even catching real words anymore. Up until he says, “And Zahra. But you already know Zahra.”
“Zahra?” I whisper.
“She’s Xios’s mate, for context on how she fits into all of this. She asked me to find you. Stuff…happened. And now we’re here!”
He…actually knows Zahra? And she’s mated to a faerie? And she asked him to find me?
Breathless, I lower his phone. “I don’t…understand.”
“Which part, love?” He turns his face toward me, smiling so gently I can almost pretend he isn’t surrounded by the R-rated books he’s used as guidelines for imprisoning me.
“You’re actually friends with Zahra?” I ask.
He clicks his tongue. “Right. You believed I was mining your thoughts earlier when I mentioned her. Yes, we’re…friends. I believe that to be true. I care a great deal about her, at any rate.”
He says as much so simply, so tenderly. I’m not sure what to make of it.
The fae can’t lie.
Why would my Zahra be friends with a lunatic like him?
Because of this Xios guy? Don’t tell me this is a husband’s friend is my friend sort of thing?
Is Zahra safe? Is she dealing with her own faerie menace?
Or is this pure, uninhibited delusion? A misconception between human and faerie understandings?
“You’re shocked. Why?” my kidnapper asks.
Why?
What’s a good diversion for that question?
Opting for a stray few tears, I let my voice crack. “I’ve been trying to reach Zahra. You know her. She’s my only friend.”
“Only?”
My chest tightens, and I brace myself for another bout of violent possession that insists he is also my friend.
It doesn’t come. Instead, he hums. “I’ll not tell the hatchling. She seems rather fond of you at a friendship level…”
Oh. Right. Well. “I didn’t mean…” I don’t know why I’m explaining myself. Maybe on the off chance I need consistency to help me later? “Frelsi’s only been around for a few months. Zahra’s been my only friend for years. Can I see her?”
He murmurs, “She’s not entirely happy with me right now, I don’t think.”
“What?” I whisper, frail and insipid. “Why not?”
Good on her. She knows insanity when she sees it. I knew this had to be a husband’s friend situation. Poor Zahra… I hope her husband isn’t a lunatic, too. But if he is a faerie, probably we’re both stuck.
“It’s not important right now.” My kidnapper waves the matter away. “What is important is getting you adjusted, comfortable.” Turning, he reaches through the bars of my cage and drags the backs of two fingers down my cheek. “It’s growing late. Would you like to prepare for bed, my feather?”
Fear spears me through the chest.
“What’s wrong?” Softly, he strokes my pulse with the pad of his thumb.
“You shouldn’t be afraid of heights even if you are unused to sleeping aloft.
You’re welcome to sleep in my bed if it suits you better.
Sharing so soon is unexpected…but given the pacing depicted in much of my research, I wouldn’t be surprised if you craved it. ”
I crave a little personal space. And, you know what? Actually, on second thought, this cage isn’t so bad as long as he’s on the other side of it. Anxiety and fear dance inside me, leaving me speechless.
He chuckles. “I am quite entirely joking, love. If you prefer my bed, though, it has also been made safe for you. I can sleep here.”
He can…what? Is he suggesting that it’s okay for us to swap beds? He’s offering to sleep in the cage? What in the world is he talking about? What does made safe for you mean? Opting once again for frail afraid miss, I whisper, “Not sharing is an option? You…you didn’t mean prepare for bed…as in…”
“Gracious.” His smile falls as he pulls his hand back.
“No, love. I’d prefer you far more desperate for me prior to that sort of thing.
Ideally, we’ll be begging for each other.
I know I am…socially…out of practice, but I do hold some valuable knowledge concerning how to interact with people.
Women love consent. Does…that bring you some peace? ”
Yeah, um. You know what? Sure. Sure. Let’s pretend it’s comforting to know that this man wants desperation in his intimacy… I’m excellent at pretending. If my mother only knew how excellent, she’d have been selling me to Hollywood next.
“You are not responding in a way that exhibits peace…” he murmurs.
“What?” I squeak. I’m smiling, still, aren’t I? I have been, for the past however long he’s been in here rambling.
“Your heartbeat is frantic. You smell of nerves…and…” Breath leaves him.
“Poor frightened creature… What has the world done to you?” Rising, he opens my cage door.
It is painfully silent; not a single creak would alert me if he were to change his mind about joining me in here overnight. Offering his hand, he murmurs, “Come.”
Disobedience never results in anything good…
Heck, look where it’s gotten me this time.
Lifting my hand to his, I rise out of the position I’ve not moved from for too long, and stumble toward him.
He catches me, draws me gently in, and kisses my forehead, my cheek. “Shh… I’ve got you.”
Wow.
He just identified the problem.
I’m almost proud of him.
As though I could collapse at any moment, he brings me carefully toward the bathroom. My breath catches as a low few orbs of floating light ignite near the ceiling, casting a bluish fiery glow across porcelain and marble. Black and white.
It’s lavish.
But harsh.
The sharp cuts of the darkest dark against the purest white sting my eyes.
With another unwelcome kiss to my cheek, the faerie directs my attention to the two sinks, and the two square stone cups beside each of them. “This is mine,” he says, referring to a black toothbrush in one cup. “This one…is yours.” He plucks the other brush and presents it.
It’s quartz.
The handle is quartz.
What is this?
It’s the most beautiful toothbrush I have ever seen.
Once I’ve taken it, the faerie man swells. “And this,” he says, excitement building once more as he references a group of hand towels on a rack above the sink nearest my toothbrush cup. “These are yours, too.”
They’re white. To contrast the black ones hung over the rack on the other side.
He goes to the tub, which is nothing short of a small pool. Another glass window in the ceiling casts a gleaming ray of moonlight over it. “I can run you a bath, my love. I prepared candles for you. Cotton and fresh linen. A tame scent, in case overwhelming fabricated scents bother you, too.”
They do.
I don’t know how he knows that.
I don’t know why he’s said too.
Every time I have done perfume shoots, they’ve had to replace the liquid with water. And even then, the people around me wearing the product have sometimes been unbearably too much.
“I have rose petals and orchid petals. Gardenia,” he continues. “If you’d prefer to shower first or need to wash your hair, I apologize. I didn’t know your hair type, so I’ve only my shampoo and conditioner. I will remedy this first thing in the morning. Or immediately. Whichever pleases you most.”
Whichever…pleases me most?
I’m still stuck, holding a toothbrush that has a place in a stranger’s bathroom, when the man sweeps away from the tub and the candles he was arranging intently around the far rim.
“Your nightclothes. I forgot. You’ll need them before you bathe.
Blindfolded or not, the knowledge of your nearness in a towel…
We’ll not tempt me like that until at least next week. Unless you…want to?”
“Want to?” I echo, kind of…lost here.
“Unless you want to torture me.”
“Oh.” I wet my lips. “No… I don’t want to do that.”
“Pity.” He smiles, forlorn, as though my refusing to torture him is a very sad thing. “Your nightclothes, then. Allow me to retrieve them.”
He leaves me alone with the heavy toothbrush, and I stare at it, barely gathering my thoughts before he returns to hang a long silk nightgown with a matching robe on a hook by the standing shower.
He takes a moment to adjust the frills of the lavish robe, and the fabric seems to change before my very eyes.
A low hum rises from him. “If it’s too big or too small, let me know.
I’ll fix it. Does the color suit your tastes? Women like pink.”
I do like pink. The soft pink matches the color I usually kept my nails when I wasn’t in active shoots and had to maintain my social media, back before I stripped anything that might draw attention to myself away. I haven’t worn makeup or a particularly clean dress in weeks. “The color’s…fine.”
He smiles, then he rushes back to the tub and draws me a steaming bath.
After dictating how to control the water’s temperature, showing me a clip in case I want to put up my hair, and telling me how to lock the door, he tips up my chin and kisses my forehead.
Then he leaves.
As the door closes behind him, I realize. I’m still standing here. Holding my very own toothbrush. And wondering why in the world I feel like crying.