Bound (A Faery Story, First Person Special Edition #1)

Chapter One

Meg

Once upon a time, in a land closer than

you would think…

I’m having the weirdest dream. I try to take

in the scene around me. I call it a scene because this isn’t real. This can’t

be real. I wasn’t taken by some guy—demon—and transported to…

I’m in some sort of luxurious tent. There’s lush carpet on

the floor, but on the outer edges of the space I see grass and patches of loamy

earth. Odd lanterns illuminate the space. I call them odd because there doesn’t

seem to be a flame. The light is strong, but it’s almost like it’s moving

inside the opaque glass.

Like fireflies flickering.

“Are you okay?”

I turn to the sound of a feminine voice, looking through the

metal bars of the cage I find myself in. Bile rises. Cage. I’m in a cage. What

is my fucked up brain trying to tell me? I mean, honestly the cage totally

makes sense. I’m feeling trapped by work and the place in life I find myself,

so I understand the setting of this dream. The gorgeous, slender blonde chick

in the cage across from me I don’t understand at all.

“I get the cage,” I explain to the blonde. She’s naked, but

then everyone in the cages are naked, including myself. “I even get the nudity.

I’ve got a meeting with my regional manager next week, and I’m not ready for

it. Nudity is a sure sign of anxiety. The cage is because I hate my job and my

life, and I can’t seem to find a way out. Hence the luxury of the cage, though

I think my subconscious is wrong about that. I mean my paycheck is good enough

to keep a roof over my head, but nothing like this.”

The bed I’d “woken” on is the most comfortable I’ve ever

been on. The silk sheets are soft and lush. It’s why I thought at first this

was going to be some sort of erotic dream, or maybe I’m so tired my dream is

being kept in a cage like a beloved pet. I might need therapy because at first

I was cool with all of it. Some short chick had brought me lunch, and it was

delicious. It was when I requested coffee and the small serving lady asked me

what coffee was that I realized I was dreaming.

And it might be a nightmare.

I can still see his face. It had been too long, too

skeletal. Something inside me had known. Something had feared that thing in the

alley.

The blonde’s head turns as though seeing me from a different

angle might help her understand. “You speak too fast. I understand some of your

plane’s words, but not all. I am fresh from the old plane.”

Yeah, a gorgeous blonde who doesn’t speak my language and

flies on old planes. I have no idea how to interpret that one.

A withered hand reached out to me and when that hand

touched my arm, the world had gone cold.

What a find you are, my dear. I think I know just where

to take you.

I shake my head, forcing the vision back. That had been a

dream, too. A prelude to whatever this nighttime vision is supposed to teach

me. It hits me suddenly what all of this is about. I decided a few weeks ago

I’m going to take a step that could change my life.

“I’m going to a munch,” I explain to the only woman in the

tent who seems interested in me. “That’s a safe way to meet people in the

lifestyle. I’m going to see if this is for me, and no anxiety dream is going to

make me change my mind. That’s why you’re here. You’re the inner symbol of my

insecurity. I’m fairly certain I’ll be the worst-looking potential sub at that

munch. Yeah, that’s what this is about.”

The woman merely shakes her head and turns to the equally

stunning woman in the cage next to hers. They begin a conversation in a

language I don’t understand, and I sit back. Even in my dreams I’m easy to

ignore.

I take a deep breath and tell myself I’ll forget all of this

when I wake up in my own bed, tangled in crappy scratchy sheets. This will be a

blur in the early morning light, an echo of some dream life.

“Miss Meg, I need you to come with me. I know our ways seem

strange to you, but one day you’ll see what a great honor all of this is.” The

small woman who’d greeted me with pastries and claims she doesn’t know what

coffee is stands at the door of the cage. She’s dressed like she’s

participating in a Renaissance fair. And she’s seriously tiny. Like the

smallest human I’ve ever seen who wasn’t a kid. She’s absolutely a full-ass

adult with the body of a woman, but she’s maybe four feet tall. Maybe.

I stand, pulling the sheet around me because while the

Swedish supermodels might be cool showing the world what their mommas gave

them, I am not. I tuck the sheet under my shoulders, forming something of a

dress. “I’m sure being put in a cage is a great honor.”

Cara—she’d called herself Cara—holds a circle of keys in her

small hand. “You’ll be saving a life and maybe a whole kingdom if you are what

we think you are. Please come with me. Miss, if you try to run, you should

understand that there is nowhere to go.”

Cara enunciates each word carefully, as though she has to

think about each one.

“Well, naturally there’s nowhere to go. I think that’s what

this whole dream thing is about.” I move to the door of the cage as Cara opens

it.

I don’t even think about running because all that will do is

morph the dream into something terrible. All my anxieties will likely chase

after me and honestly, the running is part of a nightmare, too.

I think back to all my psych classes. Shouldn’t I try to

take control of the dream? Try to wake myself up? If I take charge, I’ll likely

find my way out sooner.

My gut rolls as I see that thing again in my head, the one

who wrapped spindly fingers around my wrist and pulled me close, and I swear I

could smell sulphur on it. I shove the image down. It’s not memory. It’s got to

be something else.

Had I been drinking? Or maybe someone spiked my drink.

Except I hadn’t been out partying. I’d been walking home

from a movie.

Still, I step out, clutching my sheet like the queen I am

determined to be in this dream space. I’m about to explain to Cara that I want

coffee and a TV brought to my room because I’m going to clear off my watch list

in this dream. Hey, it’s my weird fantasy.

I stop as I realize this fantasy just took a turn.

Two large men step out from the shadows, and before I can

pull away, each has a wrist in his grasp. Men? I study them, not wanting to

believe my eyes. I’m not sure these are men at all. They’re humanoid, but the

skin covering their muscled bodies isn’t a color that comes from human DNA.

Green. It’s a brackish green, and their heads are covered

with scraggly hair.

Fear snakes along my spine as they drag my hands up over my

head and the sheet drops away, leaving me naked and so vulnerable. Cold metal

presses against my palms, and suddenly I’m tethered to something above my head.

This is the part where the dream goes bad. So fucking bad.

I don’t want to be here. I want to be home. I know I

complain about it often, how boring it is, how I don’t belong, how I have no

one, but fear makes cowards of us all, and I want to be home in my bed.

A bright light sweeps through the tent, a tidal wave

crashing over my overwrought senses. Someone’s coming. The green dudes step

back. It seems like they’re not the ones who are going to gut me or rape me or

wherever this is leading. I can’t see them. They’ve moved behind me, but Cara

says something and she sounds further away.

A massive shadow blocks the sunlight that streams in from

the hole in the roof of the tent, and I shrink back in fear. Well, I shrink

back as far as the chains allow me to. Something is playing in the back of

mind. Some instinct telling me this isn’t a dream and I’m in trouble.

That shadow is a man. He becomes clear as he steps inside

the space they’d made private. The sun is behind him, so at first all I see is

the outline of his body. Strong shoulders that seem to go on for days, big

arms. He’s muscular and masculine, and I’m naked in front of him.

I swallow down my fear. Something about him…calms me.

He turns slightly, though his eyes don’t leave my body. His

deep voice calls out, saying something in a lilting language I don’t

understand. He’s got a lovely accent. A familiar one. Suddenly, the curtain to

the tent drops, and I can clearly see again. Yes, the shadow is a man, a

beautiful, terrifying man, but at least he seems human.

Maybe what I saw before was just…the dream. Yeah. I don’t

have good instincts. I’m back to dreaming.

“She does not speak Gaelic, Your Highness,” said the small

man who’d greeted me and explained a bunch of rules I hadn’t listened to

because…well, I was busy freaking out. He’s standing beside the big guy. He’s

only a few inches taller than Cara.

The man with the pitch-black hair grimaces, his sensual lips

curving down as he switches to English. “I have no title here, Reeve. Speak to

me as you would any other customer.”

He looks at me straight in the eyes for the first time, and

I swear I can feel something rolling off him. A thrill of excitement flashes

through me. Not excitement. Fear. The racing of my heart has to be fear, right?

I can’t be looking at him like he’s a treat and I’ve been starving.

I should be very afraid because I know suddenly that the man

standing in front of me can make me do the one thing I’ve sworn never to do

again—feel. I like my cocoon of numbness. He could pull me out of it, make me

want to really live again.

And isn’t that the cruelest dream of all?

I need to wake up and now. I don’t want to know where this

dream is going.

“What’s your name then?” His voice rolls over my skin, even

from across the tent.

And just like that I know where we’re going. I can play

along. I want it over with. I always wake up before the truly bad stuff begins.

When I have dreams about being killed, I wake up right before the first blow.

So all I have to do is push through and it can be over, and I swear I’ll stop

listening to true crime podcasts before I go to sleep.

He’d hit me, that thing that had taken me. He’d reached

out with his emaciated arm and struck me into darkness. I hadn’t imagined he

would be so strong, but then he hadn’t been a man at all. He’d been a shadow