ONE #2
Even though my father had softened a bit over the past few years, he never showed any signs of letting the Draca go. This was mainly because he was a cover story. Though, with Jasper and Jade obviously alive and well, there was no need for that.
Maybe it was just that old habits die hard.
Or pride.
He liked saving face.
Whatever the reason, it was unconscionable.
I could never actually be free if I knew he wasn't.
Maybe that was silly or sentimental of me.
But whatever it was, it was the deal I made with myself long ago.
So I sucked a deep breath in, my nostrils flaring with the freezing air, and I ran. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, faster than I even knew was possible, so fast that I almost toppled forward when I skidded to a stop beside the familiar barn door.
It wasn't locked.
It never was.
Occasionally, I would sneak around as a kid and crack the door, throwing flower crowns or nectar or ripe strawberries, or whatever it was that I found delight in at that age for him.
I was pretty sure I didn't know that he was being so mistreated that young, but I knew that he was different, attractive, and therefore fascinating to my small brain.
It wasn't until many years later that I realized my gifts often ended with a beating for him because the guards did random checks of his room.
From what I could tell, they never knew it was me, he never gave me up, or maybe he wasn't aware it was me either.
I never got in trouble. But once I learned the correlation, I stopped putting him in harm's way.
It was good to know that, even many years after I stopped my visits, some things never changed.
My gloved hand pressed into the heavy wood and pushed it inward, cringing when it groaned.
The inside was dark thanks to the complete lack of windows and only specially enchanted little lanterns, one small kindness my father showed him so he didn't live in complete darkness in the winter months.
The floors were stone and kept clean. It was chilly inside, thanks to the lack of insulation of the wooden walls and the fact that he wasn't given a stove.
Though, that didn't stop him, it seemed, from building a small one within a pot that he must have stolen from one of his meals.
It was no way as warm as being indoors, but I guess it kept him from freezing.
There wasn't much inside, of course, him being a prisoner. There was a bed against a wall with blankets, a nightstand, and a dresser. That was just about everything.
Except, I realized as I stopped just inside the doorway, there was one small dried flower on his dresser.
Sure, it might have been any dried flower.
But I knew, I knew down to my bones that it was one from one of the crowns I had left for him as a girl.
"What..." a deep, rough, gravelly voice said, making my gaze snap from the dresser and look around.
My eyes found the chains first, the one thick, huge chord of it that was attached to a hook bolted into the floor. It was long enough for him to step outside a few yards from where it moved up his back and crossed over his chest in a huge X, the skin beneath always raw and red and painful.
I hadn't been so close to him in longer than I could remember. And I wasn't sure if it had always been true of him and I just didn't realize it until I had the eyes of a woman, but he was almost alarmingly good-looking.
He was a huge mass of a man, both tall and wide of chest and shoulder.
And because the chains needed to be on his bare skin to keep him in pain and almost powerless, there was nothing masking his work-hardened, muscular body from view.
Most fae I knew were lithe, just shy of thin, even the ones who did manual work.
Our diets generally kept us trim. But he was a wall of muscle, down his corded arms, firm chest, and stomach with indentations deep enough to sink a fingertip into, ending in these delicious lines that disappeared beneath the waistband of his thin hemp pants.
His face was masculine, V-shaped, wide of forehead, sharp of cheekbone, then thinning toward the chin. He had strong, almost stern-looking brows, and what I thought were brown eyes, though I had never seen him close enough in good enough light to tell.
"What are you doing here?" he tried again, his voice odd-sounding, like it was rough from lack of use. That, I realized quite sadly, was exactly what it was. No one ever spoke to him, so he never had any reason to talk.
That was even more proof that I needed to get him out as well.
"I don't have a lot of time," I said, rifling through my pocket with clumsy, glove-covered fingers.
"Honey, you have to go," he said, shocking me enough with the endearment that I jerked my hand out of my pocket, the key slipping and clattering to the ground, loud in the quiet space.
"It's not safe for you here," he added, looking at me hard, brows drawing together as I just kept standing there like an idiot, mind wiped, completely blank for a long, embarrassing second.
Then it came back to me.
"I'm running away, but I am getting you free first," I declared, bending, and grabbing the key before walking toward him.