Chapter 5 Trapped
TRAPPED
Iwatch as he lifts his finger to his mouth, tongue dabbing at the blood. By the time he’s done, the wounds are already healing, and I’ve gotten a good peek at the tiny canine fangs barely peeking past his bottom lip as he gives Binx a curious once-over now.
“I thought the beast was made of shadow. His bite was nothing less than solid.”
“That’s because he’s a Sombra beast,” I find myself compelled to explain. “He’s part shadow, part living creature. If you touch past the edge of his shadows, he’s as firm as you and me.”
I tested that, too. While I can turn to mist in Mom’s human world, just like in Sombra, I’m trapped in a solid shape with the extent of my shadows curling up around my boots until I gather them together so that I can create a portal and walk through it.
While we watch each other, silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken things. Like, oh, how he’s my mate, and how he must be wondering who I am and how I’ve come to Noctavara.
That’s why I linger. Not because I’m finding it difficult to resist our fledgling bond, but because I need some kind of sign that he feels it… or that he doesn’t.
His eyes dart over my face, taking in my own golden peepers and how—thanks to my Dad’s demon side—they glow as notably as the fae’s skin.
His eyes are dim, and if I choose to, I can dampen the glow of mine until they’re as dead as Mom’s blue eyes, but while my eyes don’t seem to interest him, it’s the inch-long black horns sticking from my mess of yellow hair and my colorless skin that has him frowning for a moment.
I don’t like the way he’s scrutinizing me. Shifting Binx so that the ungez is resting on my shoulder, his fluffy tail wrapped around the back of my neck, I beat a quick retreat in case he remembers he has a sword and uses it on Binx.
It’s not Binx he’s paying close attention to at the moment. Instead, his gaze follows me before he gestures near my hairline. “From the look of those, I’m thinking you don’t have any coin I can convince you to part with.”
Pausing when there’s a demon’s length between us, I run my fingers over my right horn. That’s right. Like my human mother, he doesn’t have any horns. I don’t see how that has anything to do with my having… what was that word again? “Coin?”
“Gold?” he suggests.
Gold is a color. I know that. Like my eyes, and his deliciously tempting skin… I don’t have to be the daughter of our clan’s artist to know that. In Sombra, we have the gold moon that arrives and brings fertility with it, and golden chains that the mages conjure for Duke Haures’s prisoners.
I shake my head.
“Money?”
Oh. That’s what he’s asking me about? “We don’t have money in Nuit. We trade for what we need from the rest of our clan.” I pause for a moment. Convince you to part with… with the help of a sword, huh? “You’re a thief?”
The fae male grins at me. “In the Shadowed Woods of the Gilded Court, we prefer the term bandit.”
My brow furrows. “This is supposed to be Noctavara.”
“Yes. But the Gilded Court rules the realm, with the Shadowed Woods being only a part of it.” His fingers tap of the hilt of his sword, drawing my attention.
Just like I thought, the marks from Binx’s fangs are completely healed.
“And, like I said before, you’re not supposed to be here. But since you are…”
Maybe I’m not, but that’s not going to stop me. “Is it forbidden?”
In Sombra, it’s forbidden for humans to learn about demons. I have no idea what to expect from Noctavara, especially now that my essence is telling me that a fae thief—oh, sorry, bandit—is my one true mate. All the more reason not to tell him so, especially when my focus is on finding Rafe.
Which might be easier said than done if I’m not allowed to be here…
He blinks, his easy humor fading. “Forbidden? Now, why would you say that?”
I shrug. “I have my reasons for visiting this realm. If I can expect others like you to greet me at swordpoint, I should know now so that I can expect it.”
“In the Shadowed Woods, you can almost guarantee it—”
Wonderful.
“—and those aren’t the worst of the dangers here. What about your shadows? You’re from Sombra, yes? Can’t they protect you? Don’t you have shadow magic of your own?”
How does he know about Sombra, I wonder. Unless Rafe isn’t the first one of my kind that’s been captured by soldiers from this world… “Have you met another Sombra demon before?”
If the fae notices that I’m being as careful with my words as he’s been, he doesn’t show it.
“All sorts pass through the Shadowed Woods,” is his answer. Leaning back against the tree again, he adds, “But they’re usually accompanied by members of the Gilded Court.”
That’s the second time he mentioned the Gilded Court. Hmm… “So if I was searching for someone, that’s where I should go?”
“Everyone in Noctavara is brought before Queen Celeste sooner or later.”
I don’t care about a queen. I just want to find out who took Rafe. Anything else can wait. “Thank you—”
He winces.
Binx claws at my shoulder, as though making sure I saw that. Since I did, I ask, “Something wrong?”
“You’re not fae.”
I’m not, and I shake my head. He already saw the horns that are a dead giveaway to my demon heritage, and he seems to know something about Sombra. “No.”
“Don’t thank the fae,” he tells me, his voice full of amusement while his expression is anything but. “Unless you want to owe us a debt. And there are many of us in Noctavara who want more than gold…”
The way he lets his sentence trail off, it’s as though he’s waiting for me to finally introduce myself.
I can’t believe I haven’t already. Mom would cluck her tongue at my lack of manners if she were here.
Maybe if I’d run off once he took the sword away from my throat, he wouldn’t need to know my name, but I’ve lingered despite knowing I shouldn’t—and all because I can’t bring myself to walk away just yet.
He’s my mate. My mate. He won’t let me thank him for the information he’s shared so far, but the least I can do is give him my name for now. “Alana,” I supply. “Of Sombra.”
This time, the humor reaches his eyes—or maybe that’s a sense of satisfaction I can’t deny. “You may call me Thane. Thane Aurex.”
Thane. I roll the name around my head. Thane. It suits him.
“You’re lucky you found me, Alana of Sombra. Or that I found you. There isn’t another bandit in the Shadowed Woods who might be willing to help you find your way out of it.”
Is that so? Then why is he offering? Could it be that he does sense the mate bond the same way that I do?
“Why? I don’t have any gold,” I remind him. “Why would you be willing to help me?”
“Because you’ll never be able to do it on your own.”
Huh. Is that so?
Later, I’ll admit that letting the easy way Thane dismissed me upset me was a mistake.
He was right. I’m in a world I don’t know, with no leads, and a forest unlike the shadows I grew up around.
My powers are failing, Binx is chittering at me to figure out how to return to Sombra so we can get help, and a cocky fae is looking at me as though I’ll swoon and act like I’m a damsel in distress and he’s the hero in one of the romance books in the EL.
So I’m undeniably attracted to him. So my instincts are telling me that he’s supposed to be my mate. If he is my mate, he’ll learn sooner or later that you can’t tell Alana of Sombra what she can and cannot do.
Binx knows. He digs his shadow claws into the fabric of my dress while I grab my skirts, ready to walk away.
And that’s when, over Thane’s shoulders, I see another one of the orange-and-black butterflies. It’s not the same as the one that led me into Noctavara, but that doesn’t matter. If the monarch butterfly helped me arrive in the fae realm, maybe it’s all I need to track down Rafe.
Thane never expected me to run. Maybe fae women don’t, and there are plenty of demonesses in Nuit who might sniff if I did in the village, but as the butterfly continues to flap behind Thane, then beyond him, I don’t hesitate.
His eyes widen, though he must not think I’m any sort of threat because he leaves his sword hanging at his side as Binx and I dash right past him. He realizes too late that I wasn’t moving toward him, reaching out to snag my arm after I’ve already made it by.
His voice chases me, though he doesn’t.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m following the butterfly!”
“What? No! Don’t—”
Too late, Thane. I’m already running after it, and if part of me hopes that the fae male might feel a pull toward me and finally realize that I’m supposed to be his mate, the guilt over abandoning Rafe is stronger than my libido.
Step one: follow the butterfly, find Rafe, and rescue him from Noctavaran soldiers.
Step two: show Thane that I can do anything if I put my mind to it—and maybe see if he knows anything about a mate bond or an essence exchange.
Step three—
Gods damn it, I never even make it to step one.
Not yet, at least. Too consumed with following the butterfly while also keeping an ear out, listening for some sign that Thane is following us, I don’t pay attention to my surroundings.
I just keep running, one hand on Binx’s rump so that I don’t lose my ungez, until the monarch butterfly suddenly winks out of existence.
I dig my feet into the too-hard ground, spinning around wildly, swallowing some of Mom’s most creative curses as I realize that I’m alone in another clearing that’s surrounded by shadow-dark trees without any clue where to go next.
I walk around, looking up, my head swiveling back and forth, frustrated and alone when something snags around the ankle of my arkodaskin boot. It catches, going tight, and before I can revise how I should approach step one, the world flips upside down.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Very brave or very stupid, huh? Guess which one I am.
So… I’m trapped.
My claws aren’t sharp enough to cut through the twine that’s wrapped around my ankle, keeping me flipped over as I sway about three feet off of the ground. As a halfling, I can’t shift to shadows so that I can escape its hold on me, either.
And that’s not even the worst part.
These days, it’s the fashion in Sombra to wear undercoverings woven from shadows.
It’s something our human mothers brought with them, calling them panties, only instead of the panties being made from fabric like my dresses, they’re shadow.
If I had any doubt that my magic was somehow being blocked now that I’m in Noctavara, the slight breeze blowing against my lower half makes it clear. My shadow panties are gone.
Building some momentum, I swing back and forth just to check. My skirts have fallen, tangling around the bodice of my dress. I clamp my arms to my side and, on an upswing, I peek, groaning softly when I see the yellow curls instead of the shadow coverings.
Great. Just great. I’m hanging upside down, my cunt on display... this is not how I planned on making a good impression on my one true mate.
Hopefully he doesn’t change his mind and follow me after all. I’d barely left Thane in the other clearing before I found myself in trouble. Good going, Alana. I wanted to prove that I didn’t need his help, that I could do this on my own, only to end up in a snare trap as Binx paces beneath me.
Leaping up, my soul-pet bats at my hair.
I close my eyes and wonder how long I’ll be hanging here before one of those bandits that Thane mentioned finds me.
Or a hunter. It could be. I know that Nuit has more than a few, each one using traps like these to catch the larger shadow beasts to provide meat for the clan.
Before I was born, the hunters used to catch ungez.
After Kennedy’s soul-pet, Freya, proved how useful they can be when they bond to a human, a demon, or a halfling, Duke Haures decreed that they no longer be caught and cooked.
I couldn’t imagine eating something as adorable and personable as Binx, but considering the trap was set for prey as big as a halfling, I’d hate to see what the hunters were expecting—or what they’ll do when they find me in their trap.
No. I have to get down. I have to—
There isn’t even enough time for me to scream. Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement in the shadows behind me. There’s a rustling sound, then a whistle, and I’m falling—
“Oof.”
Someone catches me. I was almost sure that I was going to land on my face. Luckily, that doesn’t happen. Before I know it, there’s an arm around my back, one tucked under my knees, and my savior shifts my body so that I’m cradled against their chest instead of hitting the ground with my head.
I look at them. No wonder I couldn’t see who it was.
A deep black cloak—like shadows, but made out of an impossibly dark fabric instead—covers my rescuer from head to toe.
Even their hands are covered by the cloak.
It doesn’t matter. My heart trips to have him near again, almost as though my body recognizes his even when my eyes can’t see him.
Reaching up, I find the seam where his cloak folds in on itself, hiding his face.
If all of the bandits wear cloaks like this, it explains how Thane was able to sneak up on me with his sword in the first place, and how he was able to cut me down from the snare trap that had me hanging from the tree.
He must have. Because, as I push back his hood, his eyes seem to dance with laughter as I reveal his face.
“Thane,” I breathe out. “You’re fast.” I think about how he snatched me from the air, holding me easily as though I weigh nothing at all. “You’re strong.”
He shrugs. “I’m fae.”
So he is.
And I’m in big, big trouble.
I clear my throat. “Than—” Nope. Don’t thank the fae. “I appreciate your help, but if you could put me down…”
Without a word, he tilts me so that I can stand on my boots before reaching down, smoothing my skirts so that I’m fully covered again.
Avoiding his gaze, I see Binx rising up on his back legs, forelegs folded in front of him as his nose twitches.
Right next to my ungez is Thane’s silver sword.
Just like I thought, he probably pulled his sword to cut me down, dropped it to catch me.
But why?