Chapter 1
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I don’t know what to make of me.
What I “need” is therapy.
So much therapy.
Unfortunately, in Castor’s domain, I’m not sure any of the goblins would make great therapists, and I can’t exactly burden a human with the words I was kidnapped by a pretty faerie man, and my life is significantly better than it was before that event, now can I?
No. No, I cannot.
Probably because I’m kidnapped and unsure whether or not “therapy” is included in my list of benefits, even as that list grows longer by the second.
Using levitation magic, Castor settles a giant stuffed bear into a corner of my cage while I stand to the side, watching him guide the rest of the things he bought for me in after it.
I didn’t ask for half the stuff in the many, many colorful bags now gathering around my swinging bed, and I definitely didn’t ask for a bear twice my size, but Castor insisted I’d need a cuddle buddy for the harrowing challenge ahead.
He also insisted that, though his arms would be wide open, I deserved more than one cuddle buddy option.
Gripping my arm, I let my nails bite my skin and take it all in. There’s…so much. Hair supplies. Undergarments—so I can stop reusing the ones I smuggled away with me over and over again. Phone accessories, including earbuds, which my mother never let me have.
I’d watch my CapyZahra streams on the lowest volume, huddled in my bed, terrified I’d be overheard and have the privilege taken away.
Castor, in contrast, doesn’t seem like he’ll be content until I possess every conceivable privilege available.
Proving as much, once he finishes creating a playground of exciting new things for Frelsi to zip through, he turns to me and says, “I require a list of your favorite foods.”
“Gummy bears!” Frelsi chirps, dashing into a bag. Her tiny gasp lifts before a bottle of menstrual relief, maximum strength pokes over the top. “Hard candy!”
My stomach bottoms out, and I find myself unwilling to figure out if a faerie can handle overdosing.
“Nothing we got is candy, Frel. It’s all medicine, supplements, and vitamins.
Even the gummy ones. They’re for…” Cycle support.
Is…Frelsi old enough to have this talk? Castor certainly seems to understand the concepts, so faeries likely do have periods, but I feel like I’ll need a picture book to hold her attention if I’m going to attempt such a discussion.
Frelsi scowls. “Why won’t you let me have anything nice? You wouldn’t let me have the gummies that one guy tried to give you last week, either.” Her eyes go giant and water. “Do you…hate me?”
“Frel…remember…those gummies weren’t…candy either.”
Drama incarnate, Frelsi throws herself into the shag carpet amid the bags. “Is nothing candy anymore?”
“Mine…” Castor murmurs, smile thin when I face him.
I gulp. “Yes?”
“Did a man attempt to give you drugs last week?”
A? As in singular? No. Not at all. Over the course of my two-week flee, several men tried to outright give me drugs, and several more were discreet in their attempts to get something into my food or drinks.
I only survived unscathed thanks to Frel’s magic.
She might be small and young, but her glamour has been just strong enough to cover me when I’ve needed to disappear.
Fast. Unfortunately, it only lasts a few minutes at a time, and if my mother tracked me down to a general location, I have no doubt her commitment would have outlasted Frelsi’s powers.
But, well, I guess that doesn’t much matter anymore.
My mother can’t track me to Faerie, and even if she could, I saw today that Castor’s powers don’t appear to have the same limitations as Frelsi’s, if they have any limitations at all.
Castor chuckles. “Your silence says enough, my darling feather.” He extends his hand for me, and I hesitate before crossing the plush carpet of my enclosure to reach him.
After I clasp his fingers, he reels me in, and I shudder as his arm loops around my waist, pressing our hips together. His lips graze my cheek. “Stir up some disgust for the monsters who have dared press their poisons upon you. I need a trail if I’m to hunt them down.”
“You can do that?” I whisper.
“I can do many things.”
Many, many powerful things. When my shoulders relax, I find myself melting against his chest, and I know I really, really, desperately need that therapy. But it’s fineee. Maybe. Hopefully.
I mean, honestly, haven’t I lived this long without it? And isn’t the main issue that’s bothering me actually a non-issue considering my life is better in a literal cage than it was before?
Talk about being ungrateful. The universe hands me a blessing, and I’m whining about the fact it comes with bars as though Castor seems at all interested in keeping me cooped up in them when he takes me to Russia and outlet malls on a whim.
I say, “Those addicts aren’t worth your effort. So many people have done worse than poorly flirt with me or try to get me high.”
“Think about them, then, and I’ll take care that they suffer fates deserving of their conduct.”
Justice. What a charming thought.
He’ll take care of those who have hurt me, because he’s determined to take care of me.
He’ll make me breakfast. And buy me lunch.
And make sure I have everything I need before I even think about needing anything.
He’ll fill my gilded cage with toys and keep me safe from having to deal with the literal monsters that roam his castle.
He’ll protect me from the human monsters I’ve been subjected to my entire life. He’ll do anything I ask.
He’ll take care of me.
All for the low, low cost of a little love.
Letting my eyes close, I murmur, “I don’t want to think about them.
” Castor’s heartbeat races against my ear, but this time he doesn’t pull my head away from it.
“I know I’m not supposed to thank the fae, but…
for everything you’ve done…I don’t know what words I can say to express my gratitude.
” My chest twists, and I’m not acting when tears threaten to choke me.
“You make me feel…like a person. For the first time in my life, I feel like a person.”
He releases my hand so he can wrap me in both his arms, keeping me secure and warm in the cocoon of his thick dark robes.
“Hush.” His low voice rumbles against me as I try to pull myself together.
“I can hardly bear to hear your heart break like this, my love. The blood, sweat, and tears of those who have hurt you may not mend these aches, but if you wish it, they will suffer.” His fingers comb through my hair.
“They will know a worse fear and dread than the ones they have given you. They will learn, and they will never repeat themselves.”
I sniff. “Why are you so intent on hurting people?”
“I am not intent on hurting people.” Confusion taints each of his words.
“I am intent on justice, and, for my soulmate, I am intent on paying back what is due tenfold.” His breath rushes into my hair as he deflates slightly.
“Do you ask such a question because of what happened with Willow? If she didn’t heal as swiftly as she does, I wouldn’t have attempted the joke.
She didn’t do anything terribly wrong.” He mumbles, “She only hurt my feelings…” He melts further.
“Truly, it’s quite cruel. She passes out Ollie’s credit cards like candy to everyone but me. ”
“Candy?” Frelsi says, popping her head out of a bag filled with my new bras.
“Not real candy,” Castor clarifies.
So Frelsi huffs and ducks back out of sight.
Now wholly leaning his full weight against me, Castor pouts.
“I always feel like I’m the odd one out.
Even in the moments when I try hardest not to be.
And I have been trying, very hard.” With a sigh, he kisses the corner of my eye, unravels, and steps back.
His hand cups my face, the touch fragile as his face turns away from mine.
“Please never treat me like an outcast, dearest heart.”
Slowly, my hand reaches to press his fingers deeper into my skin. “Please always treat me like a person.”
A frail smile lifts his lips. “I fear that may be difficult. You are far more than a mere person to me. I can treat you as nothing less than my salvation. I love you, my feather. So much more than words can express. You are the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins. You are the moon in my sky and the endless sea of stars. Just your voice…your touch…incites in me realms of magic untold. You are more precious than life.”
Being someone’s salvation sounds like a heavy burden to bear.
I’ve never been something so important before. I’ve never been treated like I’m important at all. Not as a human being is meant to be important, anyway.
All my life, I’ve been an object. A marketable image.
Someone that adult men have judged and jeered at constantly.
I spent my childhood wondering if my nose was too small, or too large, if my lips were too thin, or too thick, if my ears sat right, if my face was the right shape.
It took me years to realize that perfect for one job was repulsive according to the board on another.
There isn’t a single part of myself that I haven’t heard criticized. Openly and publicly.
Somewhere along the way, my anxiety turned into apathy. The fear of failing my mother and losing her love if I didn’t fit what random strangers wanted disappeared.
I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but at some point I realized that if love can be lost, it isn’t love at all.
“What is love to you, Castor?” I ask.
Without hesitation, he says, “Devotion and loyalty. Love is commitment to you, to your needs, to your wants, to your joy. Love is choosing you, above all else. No matter what.”
No matter what?
No matter how I look?
No matter what I do?
“That sounds like obsession,” I whisper, carefully.
“Yes, and?”