Chapter 33
JESSAMINE
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious when I finally came to, but I certainly didn’t have to wonder who had abducted me. I was sitting down, my hands and legs bound to a chair.
Finding Lord Gael sitting on a silken gold chaise in front of me, smiling while sipping his wine, sent a wave of nausea over me. I bent my knees toward each other to close my legs as best I could.
“Good to see you again, my lady,” he said in that syrupy sweet voice that grated my nerves.
It was that obsequious sort of tone that my father’s ambassadors always used.
We were in some sort of parlor with no windows.
A wall of books was on one side, paintings of stern-looking moon fae on the other, all depicted wearing the blue and silver colors of Lord Gael’s family.
My gaze went to his two guards standing at attention near the door, both of them bearing the same color of blue wings.
“You’ve truly gone native with your beast fae, haven’t you?” His gaze wandered down my dress and boots, his lip curling in disgust.
He looked every inch the light fae lord in tailored silk and brocade with shining silver buttons. His dark hair was combed to satin perfection. He looked elegant and sophisticated, yet there was nothing noble about him other than his name. My stomach curdled.
“I thought I was getting a compliant, noble lady of Morodon.” He swirled his goblet of wine. “Instead, your father sold me a disobedient whore who’d rather spread her legs for demon fae than be the Lady of Mevia.”
“Yes.” I finally found my voice, though it trembled. “I am Lord Redvyr’s woman. It is my privilege to stand at his side. I will never stand at yours.”
“Glad to know you haven’t lost your voice. I was afraid Selwyn had used too much of the sedative. An overdose would’ve killed you. But you’re a healthy girl, aren’t you?” His sinister gaze slithered over me again. “Now, we are going to renegotiate our betrothal terms.”
“Did you not hear what I just said? There will be no wedding,” I hissed.
“Oh, that is for certain. I would not sully myself by parading you in front of my people as the Lady of Mevia. You’ve ruined any chance of remaining a part of the nobility, or of having a place in good society. But you can still be of use to me.”
“No.” He wanted me to use my magick. That was all he ever wanted of me.
“There will be a binding ceremony, Jessamine, but not a wedding.” His voice had gone cold, losing all civility. “It will include a contract that has new terms in place to bind you to me.”
“I will not do it.”
“I’ve already bought you from your father. And since he’s washed his hands of you after you fled from the palace, disobeying his wishes, I have the authority to do whatever I want with you.”
He picked up a piece of parchment and waved it casually.
“This right here says you’re legally mine.”
Though I wasn’t surprised, tears pricked my eyes to hear that my parents had officially abandoned me. That my own father had given me to this malevolent monster.
“And this,” he picked up another piece of parchment with his good hand and waved it in the air, “is a list of the fae you will kill for me.”
He wore a steel prosthetic and glove on the hand where his three fingers had been cut off by King Gollaya.
Everyone had heard the story. I had once felt sorry for him for being humiliated and hurt in such a way, until I’d met him and he’d whispered all the wicked things he wanted to do with me.
He’d believed our children, his heirs, would have my powers.
And that I would have been his weapon to help him regain the kingdom of Lumeria for the light fae.
“No,” I grated through my teeth, trembling with both fear and fury. “I will not kill for you.”
“You know, I’d thought to let my guards have their way with you, to take turns until you softened your resolve.
” His lusty gaze roamed over me. “But they won’t even touch you.
” He laughed. “I had to pay Selwyn a bonus bag of coin to be the one to capture you and carry you back. They’re all afraid you’ll kill them with your magick. ”
I said nothing, glaring at him with the hatred burning up my soul.
“I have no patience left for you. Rather than waste my time with torturing you, and to be the honorable fae lord that I am, I am going to give you a choice between two options. The first option, you live here in my palace in comfort with all the luxuries I can afford. In exchange, you will obey my every command without question.” He leaned forward, his icy blue eyes menacing. “Or, you will burn at the stake.”
My voice quivered as I said clearly again, “I will never kill for you.”
“Then you will die. I have no use for a poisonous witch who won’t do my bidding. Especially one soiled from fucking a dark fae.” He snorted with disgust. “A beast fae, at that.”
He stood suddenly and I flinched back, thinking he meant to strike me. He laughed at my fear of him.
“They are cursing your name all over the city. The light fae whore who spread her legs for the enemy rather than marry their high lord and serve her own kind.”
I gulped at that.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s been told far and wide that Princess Jessamine Glynmyr fled to the Borderlands rather than marry her father’s choosing, running to live amongst the beast fae clans and fucking their king like the whore she is.
” He tugged on his silver-embroidered tunic to smooth out the brocade fabric.
“Even if you escaped my palace, the townspeople would stone you to death for betraying your own kind.”
“I haven’t betrayed anyone but you.”
He stepped close and pinched my chin between his gloved fingers, forcing my head to tilt up at an awkward and painful angle.
“And for that, you will become my witch to rule and obey. Or you will die.”
His gaze narrowed as he grinned wider. For a moment, I expected to see the black striations in his cold eyes as I did in that dryad and in those of Selestos. But no, the evil that ruled this male was entirely his own.
“You made a fool of me, bitch.” He pinched my chin hard. “You’re lucky I’m giving you a choice at all.”
“Just like King Gollaya made a fool of you, right? Is that why you want to kill him so badly?”
He backhanded me hard with his metal prosthetic. I gasped at the sharp sting on my cheek, panting through the pain.
“You have one hour to decide. My lady.”
He stopped in front of Selwyn and the other guard at the door. “Don’t leave your post for anything at all. Keep the door locked, and no one is to enter. Trust me, if you allow her to use her magick on you, you’d be dead before we found you.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Selwyn. I recognized his voice as the one in my ear right before I lost consciousness back in the tundra.
They exited and I heard the hard snick of the lock.
My thoughts instantly turned to Redvyr and the others at the tundra, knowing he would be beside himself with worry. I hoped he didn’t think I’d left on purpose, fled from him after that little scene at dinner. He had to know what he meant to me, that I would never abandon him.
I fought with the bindings, trying to weaken them, but I realized quickly that they had wound the rope several times around each wrist before tying the knot to the legs of the chair. I wasn’t getting out of this.
Focusing on my feet, I soon learned that they’d done the same to my ankles. Hanging my head, I focused on the red flowers embroidered on the neckline of my dress, the one Sorka had made especially for me. That was when the first tear slipped free.
Knowing there was nothing but death ahead for me, I hoped that Mishka was alright.
And I prayed that Redvyr would know I’d never leave him without telling him, that I’d never leave him at all.
For the first time, I prayed to a dark fae god, the god Vix, who the beast fae revered above all others.
Perhaps Vix might hear me and save me from the witch’s pyre.
Bound in a vegetable cart, I was barefoot and wearing the dress Sorka had made for me.
I believe Gael wanted the people to see me wearing the garb of the dark fae people I had been living with, to prove I was a traitor.
But it gave me peace that I was left with a piece of the only home I’d ever known, a gift from the only family I’d ever had.
Two work horses hauled the cart from Lord Gael’s palace on a hill toward the town’s center.
He rode his giant Pellasian stallion, his guards riding their mounts in front and behind me.
I recognized the auburn-haired guard who rode at his right side, the one who gave the speech at Hellamir. He must be giving mine today.
I noticed all of his guards were moon fae, bearing different colored wings showcasing the various bloodlines, but the townspeople yelling obscenities at me on the sides of the road were mostly wood fae.
A few moon fae aristocracy watched from their carriages and horses behind the maddened throng of townspeople.
“Traitor!” yelled one man.
“Whore!” screamed another.
“Burn the witch!”
Then someone from the crowd threw a rotten vegetable, hitting me square in the chest. I whimpered when the next one hit me in the head, then another slapped me in the neck before sliding off.
Pieces of the decaying vegetables clung to my skin and hair as more of the crowd threw things at me as I passed.
I kept my gaze straight ahead, even if my vision blurred from unshed tears that I blinked away, refusing to let them see my pain.
Up ahead, the stone platform built at the center of the square came into view.
It was eerily familiar to the one in Hellamir where we had saved the moon fae seer, Aelwyn.