The Faerie King

Chapter 12

I f he thinks I’m going to sit in a bedroom and miss my chance to search for a way to undo the curse, he’s mad. Faerie sits on the border with Hell, while Ellyllon sits before Arcadia. There are many ancient bargains that stop the inhabitants of Hell from spilling over onto Earth and Arcadia. That’s why the residents of Ellyllon are much better than those of Faerie, because one is closer to Hell while the other is closer to the gods.

At least, that’s what Dad told me.

If it’s true, maybe I can find the route to Hell right here.

I pass our bedroom door and keep walking. I walk past whispers and secrets. Past pink doors and orange ones. Down winding, twisting corridors and up creaking wooden stairs. I poke my head inside the doors to see what lies within.

One door, a wooden one with an eye in the centre, opens to nothingness. Pitch black nothingness. I recoil, slamming the door shut.

A second, one that drips with the metallic tang of blood, opens to a shadowy mountain. A blood-red moon hangs high in the sky, and a large, imposing castle sits in the distance. Red eyes blink at me from the darkness. I slam that door shut, too.

Another, an ornate one with a glass mask on the front, opens to a large garden. I take a deep breath, poking my head through the door. My body is in Dae’s corridor, but my head is in a late summer afternoon in Italy. Tiles line the path as far as the eye can see. There’s a lake in the distance, glimmering and blue. I long to swim in it.

If the other doors led to darkness, this one leading to light is probably a bad omen, but I follow the tiled path anyway. The air is divine, I can smell the sun-baked Earth and the sweet scent of blossoms on a warm breeze.

The second I’m fully in this world, the door to Faerie slams shut behind me. I turn and run at it, slamming my fists against the unforgiving wood, but it refuses to open. Shit. I try pleading with it, I try stroking the grain, hoping to soothe it open.

“That won’t work,” a soft voice calls to me from behind. I turn slowly. A tall man with impeccably styled hair stands before me, each strand perfectly in place. “I’m Dorian.” He holds out a hand.

I eye the hand warily. He laughs, a melodic sound, and his hand drops back to his side.

“Elysia,” I say.

“Elysia,” he claps his hands and smiles, his lips the colour of honeyed wine. “Have dinner with me.”

I shake my head. “Do you know the way to Ellyllon?”

He twirls and points at a point high in the sky to the left. “You see that shimmering spot there?” I nod. “That’s Ellyllon.”

I frown. “How do I get there?”

“Can you fly?” He cocks his head, a playful glint in his eyes.

“No.”

“Then you might struggle.” He takes three long strides, closing the distance between us. I back away until my back hits the cold, hard door. He taps a finger against my chest, and a jolt shoots through my body, burning him. “Oooh, interesting. Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

I want to swat his hand away, but he might know something useful. “My mum is cursed. Got any ideas?”

His smile widens, revealing teeth a little too sharp, a little too white. “I might. Have dinner with me.”

I purse my lips. A dinner in exchange for information isn’t the worst offer. I nod. “Okay.”

He smiles, and a huge, varnished table laden with the most delicious-looking food appears. Feta-stuffed aubergines glisten with oil, herby focaccia releases a fragrant steam, plump black olives beckon, and delicate strawberry panna cotta shimmers like jewels. He holds out a glass of deep, almost green, wine. The glass is wide at the bottom, curved at the top, and etched with intricate patterns.

I shake my head. “No thanks.” I turn my head, straining to hear something. “What was that?”

He smiles again, an unnerving stillness in his eyes. “Come, sit.” I sit at the large table, and he begins piling food onto my plate.

“Did you just say my name?” I ask, my voice tight with suspicion.

He smiles, a flicker of something cold behind his eyes. “Yes, I was asking what your favourite thing about Ellyllon is.”

“Oh.” I pick up a fork, my appetite waning. “I haven’t been, actually. I’m from Earth.”

“Earth, then.”

“TV, I suppose. Getting to download anything I want.”

He eyes the plate before me, his gaze lingering on the untouched food. “What do you like to read there?”

I stab a piece of aubergine, my stomach churning. “Romance, I guess.” I frown, my ears straining. “Did you hear that again? I think someone’s calling me.”

His brow furrows in mock concern. “Hmmm, well, why don’t you have a bite, line your stomach, and then we’ll go looking for this mysterious voice.”

I look down at my fork, at the bite of aubergine impaled on it. This much delicious food in one place, I should be able to smell it. But I can’t smell anything. A fly escapes the centre of my piece of aubergine, flies straight out the middle. I put my fork back down as I hear Dae’s voice, faint but insistent, calling for me for a fourth time. “If you can’t take me to Ellyllon or Earth, I’d like to go back to Faerie, please. How do I open that door?”

Dorian leans back in his chair, his smile fading. “What difference does it make, one demon or another?”

Oh no. I fake a smile, my heart pounding. I’m in too deep. I think I’ve found my way to Hell, but now I’m not sure I’ll be able to find my way out. “Better the devil you know, right?”

He smiles too, but it’s stretched too wide, revealing a glimpse of something predatory. “Okay, you’re free to leave. But if you ever feel like coming back, we’ll be here.” I don’t ask who ‘we’ is. I only see him. I stand and walk towards the door, hoping it’ll open this time. “Elysia,” he calls out, his voice smooth as silk, “curses are broken all the time, here.”

The door swings open, and I let out a sigh of relief. I pause before leaving. “So, if I want to save my mum, you could help?”

“Yes, but we don’t give out magic as freely as the Faerie King does.”

The door starts closing again, and I slip through it before it slams shut. “Elly,” Dae’s voice is bouncing across the castle. It’s far away, but I can hear the urgency in it. I have a choice—I can slip through another door, see if that leads me closer to Ellyllon, or I can go towards him.

I walk towards him. Slowly. I’ll come back another time when I’ve gathered up some more courage. Dae crashes into me when he spots me, picking me up and twirling me in his arms. I try to shove him away, but he just holds on tighter, wrapping himself up in me.

“Don’t disappear again,” he says, his voice muffled against my hair. “It scares me.”

He finally lets go of me.

“There’s blood on your trousers,” I say, noticing the crimson stain.

He eyes me, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “There’s a bruise on your face.”

“What was that?” I ask, my voice sharp.

“What?” He tries to kiss my lips but I shove him. For years I begged for a kiss, now he wants to give them freely and I want to stab him in the face.

“In the courtyard,” I say.

“Sorry. I suppose I get a little excited.” He grins. “I am a Faerie after all. Where did you go?”

“No, you’re not done explaining yourself.” I start pacing towards our room.

He follows me like a puppy. “Well, it’s the court. You feel a pull towards the dance and the fruit. I feel a pull towards my deeper instincts.”

“I fight my instincts.” Most of the time, at least. “You can learn to fight yours.”

“Okay.” He skips ahead, clasping his hands behind his back and stopping me in my path. “Your turn, where did you go?”

I skirt around him and say, “I’m not telling you.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” I say, finding our bedroom door and walking in. I try to slam the door on him but he beats me to it. The second we’re in his room he crowds me, grabbing me by the hips and throwing me on the bed. He pulls my wrists up and holds them high above me in one hand. He buries his face in my stomach as I squirm and twist.

“Get off me,” I spit, twisting harder.

He hums before pulling my t-shirt up and licking my bare stomach. I scream in frustration. One of my hands escapes his grasp and I use it to punch him in the ribs. He jumps up, holding my arms down with his knees as he pulls his top off. He catches my hands and ties them together with the top.

Picking me up, he throws me further up the bed as he pulls off a pillowcase and uses it to tie my ankles together. I scream and spit and swear, but it’s like he can’t hear me. He kisses my stomach again and starts pulling my trousers down.

“What are you doing?” I snarl.

“Punishing you.” He whispers against my hips. “You said you would behave and you didn’t. You punched me in front of my court. I have to do something.”

“I never said I would behave,” I say, but he ignores me. “Dae. Stop this,” I use my strictest voice. With my body bound it’s my only recourse.

“I promised you it’d be my fingers between your legs one day.” He ducks his head down and takes a deep breath. I scream in anger.

With his head bowed and his top around my wrists, before I can get anymore words out, he plunges his hand down my trousers and cups my pussy.

He pauses, just holding me, like he’s giving me time to adjust. I use the opportunity to curse him, his mother, his father, and his entire kingdom.

He laughs, his fingers circling my clit. I gasp. It feels so different when it’s someone else. Without my permission, my hips rise to meet his fingertips.

“Tell me where you went,” he whispers against my ear.

“I’m going to kill you,” I whisper back. He chuckles, the sound sending a shiver across the skin at my throat.

He dips the tip of one finger inside me and gathers wetness before using it to circle my clit again. “Who’s the boy you were talking to?” I’ve never felt so ashamed. So exposed. He doesn’t comment on how wet I am, but I can feel the evidence from the slide of his fingers.

“ Boy ?” I say between gasps. “He’s bigger than both of us. Probably older, too.”

Dae groans. “You’re tormenting me.”

I buck my hips. “Dae, stop it.” He doesn’t. And I can’t take how desperately my body is begging for him to keep circling, soon, really soon, I’m going to be screaming if I don’t find a way out of this, and not in rage. “You’re just humiliating me because you hate my father.”

He hums. “Trust me, that’s not why I’m doing this, but it does sweeten the deal.”

I scream out, thrashing about as hard as I can. I need to get out of this. I look around but there’s nothing and no one to help me. “I think I went to Hell. I met someone named Dorian.”

Dae stills. Fuck, thank god. “What?”

“I think I found a demon, he said he’s going to help me.” I leave out how frantically I fled Hell.

“Where?” The warmth from his hand still seeps inside me. I need him to pull his fingers away before I buck up again and give him the wrong idea.

“Through a doorway, two floors up,” I say, biting my lip against the whimper that threatens to escape.

Dae jumps up, his hand leaving mine in one quick pull. I shiver against the sudden cold. He grabs my cheeks and pulls me up, but with half my body still tied, he’s carrying my entire weight. He runs his fingers along my face, eyes wide and darting. I think he’s scared.

He opens my mouth and looks inside. “You didn’t eat anything?”

“What?”

“Elly,” he talks slowly, like I’m a two-year-old, “did you eat or drink anything in hell?”

“No.”

He sighs, dropping me back onto the bed with a thump. He runs his shaking hands over his face. “Did you make any deals?” he asks between his fingertips.

“Not really, no,” I say.

“Not really, or no?” He looks like a fallen angel from a book. On his knees. Desperate. My wetness still clinging to his fingertips.

“No.”

“Elly,” he leans down, pressing his forehead to mine, “I need you to think really, really carefully. Whatever you did, it’s okay. But I need to know.”

I tell him everything I did from the second I left the courtyard. I’m not sure why I’m trusting him, but I suppose it is his domain.

He rolls over, falling onto the bed. Letting out a shaky breath, he says, “Okay, that’s okay. Just, promise me you’ll never, ever eat the food in Hell. Please, this is serious. Promise me.”

“Fine, I promise,” I say. He lets out a shaky breath. “Dae.”

“Yes, love?”

“Are you going to untie me?” I wiggle about.

He laughs and, with deft fingers, undoes the knots around my wrists and hands. The second he’s done, I swing my fist towards his face. He catches my hand mid-air and laughs. I try to swing the other one at him, and he catches that one too.

“Alright, let me go,” I say when I realise I’m not going to win. I spit at him and he just smirks. With the fingers he fucked my pussy with, he wipes the spit off his own face and sucks it and my wetness off his own fingers. His tongue dances around his fingertips until they’re clean. “You’re disgusting,” I say.

He shrugs.

“Who is Dorian?” I pull my trousers up and try to ignore the ache in my pussy. My eyes dart towards the bathroom. I’m needy and desperate, and I want to go in there and finish myself off, but he might hear me, and I’m not giving him another excuse to take something that isn’t his. “And who are the seven? Is it like the seven circles of hell? We’ve got that story on Earth.”

“Yeah, he’s one of the seven. You’ll meet him again in a few weeks.” His eyes darken. “And yes, it’s like the seven circles.”

My eyes dip to his trousers. He’s rock hard. Harder than I’ve ever seen him. But he looks so relaxed. I cross my legs. “So, do bad people go to Hell and good people go to Arcadia?”

“No, everyone just dies. The God of Death takes them all into her realm, far beyond the darkness.” He crosses his legs. “But if you take back that curse, you won’t even go to Death. Your soul will be torn from your body. Your life will be shoved into the core of a kingdom. There will be nothing left of you to linger. I won’t even feel you in the trees. Elly, don’t die before you’ve even lived. Please. Think this all through carefully. You deserve to live.”

“If we can save me, great, but if not… it’s called a sacrifice, Dae.”

“That’s not what this is. Death for someone you love is a sacrifice, but life isn’t all you’re giving up. If you let Aberith,” he spits my father’s name, “do this, then there will be nothing left of you for me to find once we’re dust. I will wander, eternally lost. Don’t do it, Elly. I understand sacrifice. I really do. But not for him.”

“It’s not for him. It’s for my mother. It doesn’t matter, I know you won’t understand. You’ve never sacrificed anything in your life. You follow every passing fancy.”

He flinches. “That’s not true. Now,” he leans back, “come for me.”

“What?” My mouth falls open.

“I know your body like I know the crevices of every tree in Faerie. I know you’re desperate. Let me watch you come.” His tongue darts out, tasting his bottom lip. I wish it was my tongue. He smirks. “I can threaten you, if that would help? Come for me, or I’ll kill that boy you were talking to.”

“Spiteful little sprite,” I spit, but my fingers are already finding their way down my waist. His eyes follow their movement. “I thought you don’t kill.” He told me that, years ago.

“I said I don’t like killing. I don’t. You took that how you took it.” He swallows, a hungry wolf eyeing its prey. “But I will, if it gets me what I want. And what I want right now is to see your delicious fucking thighs tense and your back arched. Touch yourself, Elysia, before I come over there and do it for you.”

“No.” My voice is nothing but a whisper, and my fingers seem to have a mind of their own.

He just smirks, tipping his head a little to the side. “Pull your trousers off.”

I bite my lip. He’s right. I am desperate. And he is threatening me. I pull my trousers down.

“Knickers.”

I take those off too. I was sure the room was cold, but there’s fire surging through my veins.

“Give them to me.” He holds out his hand.

“You’ll really kill him if I don’t?” I shiver.

He chuckles. “Sure.”

With shaky legs, I place the half-soaked knickers in his hand and get back on to the bed. He presses them, wet side first, to his nose and lips and takes a deep breath. A rush of electricity bursts through me, settling deep between my thighs.

“Start,” he says, the knickers still pressed against his large, hooked nose. I shake my head, but it’s more nerves than fear. He raises an eyebrow. “Go slow. It’s just me and you in this room. Tell me what you usually think about when you touch yourself.”

My fingers finish their pathetic crawl towards my core, and with one desperate press of my middle finger against the centre of me, I already know going slow won’t be an option. “I think about anything but you. I think of getting fucked by five other guys, all at the same time. You’re not even in the room.”

He lets out a groan, but forgets his gripes quickly as tension builds up in my legs, and I whimper.

“That’s it, baby.” He doesn’t take his eyes from me as I tip myself closer and closer to the edge. A wave builds within me. I can feel every inch of my skin. My back arches, and Dae leans forward.

“Wait.” His voice is stern, but I can’t stop. I’m too far gone. I close my eyes, shutting him out as the wave drowns me. My vision goes blurry, and I hear my gasp from far away.

I fall back down to the bed, aftershocks rippling through my body. I pull my hand away from my core as though it’s burnt me. Blinking, I catch sight of Dae watching me so intently—it’s almost enough to tip me over the edge again.

He takes a ragged breath and then says, “Again.” I’m not conscious enough to form full words, so I just give him a look. “We keep going until you do it right.”

I let out a shaky laugh and say, “I can’t. It’s too sensitive.”

“Elysia,” he leans so close I can barely breathe, “again.” My fingers find that spot again, and my eyes immediately roll into the back of my head. I circle once, twice, three times, and I’m back on the edge, one foot dangling off the top of a tall skyscraper. “Good girl,” he says, “don’t come until I say you can.”

I become hyper-aware of how much of me he can see. How much has been hidden from him all these years that’s now completely on show. He wants me to beg. He’ll keep me here until I do. I’m sure of it.

And with another wave nearing the shore and my legs tight and tense, I find I couldn’t give less of a shit. I plead with him, half wild, half screaming.

“Say it again,” he says. “Beg me.”

“Please, please, let me come.” I barely recognise my own voice.

“Yes.”

We haven’t even had our first real kiss yet.

This wave crashes harder than the first. Much harder. As if his approval is all my body needs to release itself completely. I fall, a little piece of nothing, back onto the bed again and shut my eyes.

Minutes pass as I let my body adjust. I pull my trousers up and finally open my eyes. He’s leaning back, rested, calm, no tapping fingers.

“What do we do now?” I ask, because what else is there to say?

He shrugs. “Whatever you want.”

“Cool, send me home.” I give him a sweet smile.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.” He rolls his eyes.

“How can I trade with one of the seven?”

“You wait and let me do it in two weeks.”

I get the feeling I’m not going to like whatever deal he has planned. And if the only way to save Mum is for me to die, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, and he isn’t.

“Tell me something,” he says.

“What?”

“Anything.”

I want to tell him I love him. That he reminds me of the forest. That I know every curve of his face. That I know his favourite music and his opinion on all my favourite TV shows. That no one else could ever compare. Instead, I just tell him, “Don’t touch me again like that without asking.”

He smirks. “You want to keep me off, you’ve got to build up those muscles. You’ve been slacking since you got here.”

“It doesn’t matter how strong I am. You have to ask.”

“My domain. My rules.”

I don’t bother arguing. I need to get back out there and start looking for either an escape or something good enough to trade with one of the seven. “Let’s go back to court.”

He frowns. “Elly, it’s a bit demonic down there.”

I laugh. “Isn’t that the point?”

He shrugs. “I don’t like it. I prefer it out in the Wilde Lands. We could go now, if you want?”

I consider his words. I’m guessing there’s no escape in the Wilde Lands. Anywhere I could run, he’d catch me. “No, I want to go back to court.”

He jumps up. “Your funeral.”

I know he doesn’t mean literally. He’s not letting me get away that easily.