- SEVEN
Jasper
I guess the average person or fae might have thought I was a coward. When shit was going down, a man fought, right? Yeah, well the average person or fae had no fucking idea what it meant to be up against my father and his lackeys. There was no escape. There was no hope.
I was led down into the dungeon, the stone floor scattered with hay, the air rank with sweat, piss, shit, and the metallic scent of blood. As I was led past the cell doors, I couldn't help but wonder who was behind them, what their supposed crimes were, how long they had been paying for them.
The dungeons were a vivid, unforgettable part of my childhood.
Even my little eyes and ears knew it was wrong, foul, evil.
The only light came from the gunked-up windows.
It was always cold being situated almost ten feet deep in the ground.
My father had taken me down there before I had even learned to walk.
He himself being immune to it, the screams, the begging, the moaning, the whimpering, none of it affected him.
But I remembered the way my belly wobbled, the way my eyes stung.
"One day you will be in charge of doling out their punishment," he told me when I was five and doing my best daddy-impersonation, walking beside him with my shoulders up and my hands clasped behind my back.
"I was around sixteen when my father gave me the task," he'd admitted, sounding proud.
"You still have a long way, but in a few years, you will start coming down here to witness the interrogations and punishments. "
And I did. At the ripe old age of eight, I watched as a man was strapped to a table on his stomach and beaten until welts broke out over his skin and broke open, bleeding everywhere.
And then I got to hear the screams as the man got the word 'traitor' branded onto his shoulder.
The smell of burning flesh had made my stomach turn over and I had vomited all over my own feet as my father and his men laughed heartily at me.
"You get used to the smell," one of the guards said, still chuckling.
But the man had turned his head on the table and had looked at me like maybe I could help, like I had any power other than to stand beside my father and watch, as if I, little and scared and confused, could be his savior.
I had been pulled back into the house where my father recounted the tale to my mother who had given me an icy smile. Then I had been dismissed and I flew up the stairs to Jade's room, throwing myself onto her bed and crying so hard that I couldn't breathe.
Then I had started plotting.
"Get in," the guard barked, bringing me back to the present. I was shoved forward and slammed against the back wall. Then the door closed and the lock slid into place.
Alone, I slid down the wall, crouching an inch or so from the ground.
I knew my father. He would make me wait for a while.
He would want the dread to fill me up. But I'd be damned if I allowed that.
It would only make the inevitable torture worse.
Instead, I closed my eyes and let down the veil I had put up to block out Doyle and Cece.
There was no Doyle.
That realization filled me with dread before I reminded myself that Doyle was strong and fast, that he had very likely made a dash for the trees and safety.
In which case, he was too far to sense. Doyle was smart.
He wouldn't do something stupid and come for me immediately.
He would wait it out until dark again. He would find some allies. He would make sure the time was right.
But, he could also be dead. There was no denying that possibility.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, pushing that thought away, knowing it wouldn't do me any good until I knew for sure.
I sighed and thought of Cece instead. For a long moment, nothing surfaced, making my guts clench and turn over and I was suddenly fucking thankful that I hadn't been eating because if I had, whatever was in my system would have been all over the straw floor.
But then it came up, slowly at first, blurred around the edges like a dream.
First, the barn. When I was a child, my father had caught a faun, dropped his flute down the well, chained him in iron to keep him in pain and submissive, and let me have him as a pet to ride.
But the faun was gone and the inside of the barn was set up like a house.
What I was seeing was skewed, like from a low perspective.
The floor, probably. A piece of fabric blocked most of the view.
Then there was fear, dread. And then I saw something.
But no. Fuck no. No way had my family gotten so ballsy, so incredibly stupid. No fucking way were they keeping a draca prisoner.
I was so dazed that I missed Cece's intention until I saw her flying out from under the bed to stop the beating.
I heard myself yell out "no", the sound echoing off the walls of the dungeon.
God, no. But it wasn't her fear I was feeling, it was my own.
When I forced my own feelings down, all I felt from Cece was determination.
She was trying to save the draca who must have been good to her, helped her hide, tried to protect her.
Brave, brave girl. But also incredibly stupid.
But then the draca mumbled something that my father's man repeated and I could see his mouth clearly enough to read 'Will-o'-the-Wisp'.
And I knew that the draca wasn't done protecting her.
He created a story for why she had been on the property.
I felt gratitude the likes I had never felt before swell inside toward the unknown creature.
He saved her. She wouldn't be brought down to the dungeons.
I wouldn't have to listen to her scream as she was beat, burned, drowned, branded, or, I thought and had to swallow hard against the bile, raped.
I had no delusions about my father's men.
They were the epitome of evil. They were as bad as an unaligned fae could be.
They would have done that. They probably had done that countless times over the years.
She had a chance. She would be brought into the house and if she could come off silly and clueless enough, they would likely flick their wrists at her and send her on her way.
She was of no use to them. Stupid changelings were forever wandering around aimlessly into The Green without knowing what they were doing, indeed without even understanding how they got from their homes to where they ended up at all.
They wouldn't hold it against her. She seemed pretty much powerless.
If she wasn't, they might have held her.
They liked collecting fae with powers. But Cece had shown me nothing in our days together.
She would be sent away and become a running joke at dinner parties.
I closed the veil again as I saw her being pulled away entirely too roughly, but in good shape. Not hurt.
She would be okay.
She had to be.
I heard footsteps in the hall. They weren't the heavy shuffling sounds of his guards.
It was purposeful, measured steps that could only belong to my father.
I stood, pushing back against the wall, squaring my shoulders, planting my feet wide.
I crossed my arms over my chest, doing my best to seem bored and unworried.
The door opened, objecting to the movement loudly. I saw my father mostly in shadow, the sun at his back, making his cheekbones look sharp and hollow. "I never thought I would see the day when my son was in one of my cells," he remarked, the words clipped and deliberate.
"It's not usually a place a parent puts a child," I spat back.
"Most children don't disgrace their entire family," he shrugged, but his words had the slightest trace of anger.
If there was still anger after all these years, I didn't even want to think of how pissed he must have been when he first noticed us missing.
"I don't blame your sister, of course. She was always a bit of a feather-brain, a follower.
She must have gotten that from your mother's side. "
I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.
My mother was a snake. I couldn't imagine a single fae in her lineage had been anything other than sneaky and strategically intelligent.
Opal Winters, on the outside, was every bit a devoted mother and loving wife.
She was calm, collected, even warm. But when appearances were allowed to slide, she was colder even than my father.
She was careless and quick-tempered. I remembered the servants shuffling around the house silently, hugging the sides of the rooms. Because they knew that if they got within arm's reach, Opal would backhand them across the face. Without reason.
"It keeps them in line, dear," she'd told my father when he'd raised a brow at her as a servant ran from the room holding her face.
"If they never know if or when they are going to get hit, they will never slack on their duties.
Honestly," she'd said, rolling her eyes at her husband, "men know nothing of these matters.
It is exactly why they should keep their noses out of them. "
And, as far as I could recall, my father never corrected or chastised her. They never fought.
Jade and I used to sit up whispering theories about what my mother had over him to keep him so respectful, so non-argumentative. Was she more skilled than we realized? Did she have hidden powers? Was her family very important? Was she why we were so rich?