- NINETEEN #3
Cass sighed, running a hand through his hair. "That would explain it. It will be fun to hunt down whatever witch would act against the laws. Children can't be taken from their fathers."
"What did you do to my mother?" I asked, trying not to feel guilty at the idea that someone would suffer for protecting me from him.
"She was... questioned extensively."
"She was tortured," I corrected. "Let's not mince words. Subtlety doesn't suit you."
"Fine. You want crass, I will give you crass.
I stripped her and hung her by her wrists in a dungeon for twelve weeks.
She was never let down. She was beat. She was burned.
She was spelled. Eventually, she cracked.
Her brain, mind you, not her will. She impressed me in the end.
I never had her pegged for stubborn. Trusting and a bit simple, but not stubborn. "
"You made her crazy and then her parents came and saved her."
"That about covers it."
"Thank God I got more of her than you in me," I mumbled, looking out the window.
"Really?" Cass asked, drawing my attention as he rolled up his sleeve. "This is your mother?" he asked, making me feel nauseated. "And that auctioneer in the market? Face it, daughter, you have a hell of a lot more of me in you than your mother."
I had the gut feeling that he was right and I didn't like what that said about me.
"What? That's all?" he asked after I was silent for several minutes, just looking out the window.
I looked over at him, considering everything I had been through the past several months, the truths I had been forced to confront about the world, my friends, and myself. No, that wasn't all. It didn't even begin to scratch the surface. But what more could be said?
"Maybe I'm not good. But at least I have a capacity to love and be selfless and giving. Maybe my powers bring out something nasty, something of you in me, but I'm nothing like you. Not really."
"What, because you love some empath and made friends with a matchmaker and a nymph, you think you're better than me."
"Not torturing people makes me better than you. Not enslaving fauns as pack mules makes me better than you."
"They would enslave you as well, you know..."
"Oh, I'm fully aware of that. The one out..." I clamped my mouth shut hard, realizing my mistake.
"Had a close call, did you? And how did you feel when you realized you were this close," he said, pinching his fingers together, "to becoming a sex slave until you were too worn out to be any fun anymore?
" At my flinch, he sneered. "What? You wanted crass, didn't you?
Do you have any idea what a faun cock looks like, Celestine? "
"Shut up," I said, shaking my head, knowing he was just trying to get a rise out of me. "So what now, Dad? Take me to your big castle and show me all the things that could have been? I mean, in theory. In reality, I would have grown up in the dungeons."
"Maybe. Maybe not. I didn't have you long enough to make that decision."
"Don't you think it would be better for your... subjects to have me around? Being the only heir and whatnot."
"Who said you're the only heir?" he asked, surprising me.
"I have a brother or sister?"
"I think I am done answering your questions for now," he declared in such a way that I knew not to press.
That just left me with nothing to do but sit and let my brain race around the possibilities of a sibling.
Just because he or she grew up in the Dark Court didn't necessarily mean he or she was as evil as Cass.
I mean, look at Jasper and Jade. True, they got out young, but Amy was still there.
And there was good in her, I just knew it.
So maybe there was hope they weren't completely evil.
The coach slowed then pulled to a stop. Before I could even look out the window, my wrist was snagged and I was dragged out onto a stone pathway.
Well, no, not a pathway. It was a courtyard, like that you'd see in movie recreations of medieval times.
Complete with the freaking castle. No lie, it was a long, sprawling, gray stone castle.
Fae milled about, all stopping and looking over, most bowing their heads at Cass.
I looked over at the fauns, bodies sweaty, lash marks on their backs.
And while I knew I could have easily been a mindless sex slave to one of them, the guilt was enough to make me choke back bile.
Suddenly, Cass was reaching underneath the driver's feet, grabbing something that caught the small amount of sun that was visible in the Dark realm. I noticed way too late what it was.
His arm flew up then sliced down and I heard a scream, knowing it came from me, as the blade ripped the head off the shoulders of the faun I had encountered months before.
I fell to my knees beside his body as it crumpled, tears stinging my eyes, blood splattering my bright orange sweatpants.
I wanted to look away, but couldn't seem to make myself, watching as the head, the very human-looking head, rolled toward me.
The eyes were still open, his face completely free of fear because he had never seen it coming.
"Enough of that screaming," Cass snapped, sounding disgusted with me.
I looked up at him, my heart slamming so hard in my chest that I felt lightheaded.
And he was calm. He had just decapitated someone he had already enslaved and beat and he was fucking calm.
I flew to my feet, my hands slamming into his chest with every bit of strength in my admittedly weak body, making him stumble back a step.
"What is wrong with you!" I shrieked, pushing him again, not completely unaware that every set of eyes in the courtyard were suddenly on us, likely wondering who the crazy woman was who was attacking their king.
"He would have taken my daughter as a sex slave? He deserved to die for even thinking that."
"He didn't know I was your daughter. No one knows. You can't punish him for breaking rules he didn't know existed."
"Well it's too late for that now," he said, shrugging. "Quit that crying, Celestine. Weakness isn't exactly a good thing to have on open display in this realm. Get yourself together," he demanded quietly, turning and walking toward the enormous open doorway.
I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes, refusing to look behind me, not wanting to see the faun again.
My hands curled into fists and I knew they were starting to spark with fireworks judging by the heat I felt.
I heard a few gasps as I turned and made my way toward the castle, soon to be my prison and torture camp.
When I was climbing the first step, I could have sworn I saw a flash of another set of honey-brown eyes in a floor above me.
But the male figure was gone too soon for me to see if it might have truly been a sibling or if my imagination was running away with me.
I walked into a foyer, seeing my father waiting beside the giant staircase.
"Let's get you settled and changed into something more appropriate and less... blood-stained."
With that, he moved up the stairs, expecting me to follow. With a hoard of redcaps still at my six, I had little choice. "Why the pretense at civility, Cass?" I asked as I was led down a hallway. "Why not straight to the dungeons for experimentation?"
"Despite my better judgment," he said, stopping beside a round-top wooden door, "I have decided to get to know you a bit.
I had figured the human realm might soften you, make you weak and wimpy.
Aside from that pathetic misguided conscience of yours, I think I was too soon to make that judgment.
You will stay in here with men outside at all times.
Don't get any ideas of escaping. You will dress properly and you will act civilly.
If you can manage that without pissing me off too much, you might just be able to keep your life," he said, opening the door for me.
"Gee, how generous of you," I drawled as I stepped inside.
Again, before he closed me in, I saw the ghost of a smile there.
Christ, what did it say about me that I amused or impressed or whatever-it-was the sickest bastard in The Green?
--
Jasper
It took me all of ten minutes to get the key and free myself.
But ten minutes was too long. I realized that as soon as I crossed into The Green and they were already long gone.
And they were headed to the Dark Court, no doubt.
Where I, unaligned, wasn't exactly unwelcome.
But I knew without a doubt that I would be used by Cass against Cece so he could get whatever the hell he wanted from her.
I'd like to say her parentage shocked me.
But, honestly, it just made sense. She was simply too powerful to not be from the Courts.
Though, I had to admit, everything about her powers seemed to point to the Light, not the Dark.
Her name was angelic for fuck's sake. But while her powers sparked white, not black, the ability to cause so much damage was certainly a case for Dark ancestry.
I walked back toward the woods with her fucking taste still in my mouth and the knowledge that I was shit out of luck when it came to any hope of getting her back.
Maybe that made me sound chickenshit. Maybe I should have been making some action-movie plan to go in there and get her out.
But this wasn't the human realm, it was The Green.
Guns couldn't be brought in and Cass had every kind of big and bad protecting his Court.
I couldn't think of a single fucking thing I could do to get her back.
"About time," a familiar voice said as I crossed over.
"Of for fuck's sake," I hissed, exhaling hard. "I don't have time for your shit, Dad. I've had a hell of a couple months and I really have nothing against ending this thing between me and you right fucking now."