Yield (Sanctuary #1)

Chapter 1

The Incident

FIVE YEARS EARLIER

Well, shit.

I’ve had some reckless ideas, but this one wins.

I regret everything as the unfocused gazes of a man and a woman, both reeking of stale ale, rake over my finery.

The man, older and stockier, nudges his companion’s ribs with an enthusiastic elbow.

The woman does not flinch. The pair managed to back me into an alleyway.

An unfamiliar pitch rings in my ears. An erratic thumping pounds in my chest. Fear paralyzes my thoughts.

“Look at this one! Isn’t that a pretty dress for a shit city like ours?” asks the man, his growing impatience clear as his friend studies me. Even the shadows from the tall buildings we’re sandwiched between cannot hide the absence of his front teeth.

I open my mouth to speak but only taste panic.

I slipped my keepers shortly after arriving in Aston.

The pointed stares I received from passersby infuriated me.

The interest on their faces as they wondered who I was to warrant four kingdom guards.

One would think after a childhood of solitude, I might enjoy being seen.

Quite the opposite. I wish to remain invisible.

Curse these showy gowns Mother and Father require I wear.

I could never be invisible in a costume like this.

“Very pretty—I wonder how substantial a purse accompanies a dress that fancy,” slurs the woman.

She is younger than the man but older than me, taller.

Dirt streaks her cheeks, accentuating the dark circles under her bloodshot eyes.

She stands close enough now that the smell of sour spirits on her breath turns my stomach.

“What brings the likes of you to Aston?”

Curiosity, and a lot of begging. I begged Mother and Father for this day out. I cited my desire to explore. I promised I would behave and instead snuck off at the first opportunity.

“Are you daft, girl?” the man tries again.

Quite so. But I only allowed one to call me “girl,” and they were far from human. A twinge of rage joins my rising dread.

“Perhaps she’s mute,” the woman says. I am cornered—trapped. More so than I’ve ever been in my gilded cage. My breathing shallows. Fucking corset. I glance over her shoulder, to where the morning light bathes the square like a shiny beacon of safety, for once praying to spot a guard.

The man’s calloused grip finds the back of my neck with surprising swiftness, considering his state. He drags me closer to him and my trembling hands rise automatically. He grabs both of my wrists with his free hand, shaking me hard.

“Speak, girl!”

I still don’t. He slaps me across the face. In my frozen, stinging shock, the woman takes liberties patting down my body.

“A girl like you with no purse? No gold? What a waste of our fucking time.”

A girl like me? They have no idea. Carrying clinking coins is uncomely for a girl like me. Princesses are not burdened with pocket change.

Princess. One word and my title will become my shield. All I have to do is speak.

Yet, I can’t. I don’t. And when the woman’s fist strikes my cheekbone with a sickening crack, I find myself outside of my own body.

In odd, visceral flashes, I am again seven years old, falling from Charles the horse, my radius snapping on impact with the ground.

Eleven, and I am snagging the skin of my bare calf climbing a broken fence near the vegetable gardens.

Thirteen, and spraining my wrist as I trip face-first through a hidden corridor running from my tutors.

Now I am seventeen, and I have never known pain like this.

“Oi! She could be good for something else, ya know,” the man spits, his voice echoing in my skull as though from a great distance. But his friend is too far gone.

Fury darkens the woman’s face as she strikes me again, splitting my lip. I taste blood, metallic and hot. Then, I am on my knees and dealt another strike that sends my narrow world spinning. My body curls at their feet as they kick me senseless.

Once my guards catch up, the thieves pay for their mistake—and mine—with their lives. Through swollen eyelids, I watch as they are cut down. My last conscious thought?

I wonder if our blood will blend together on these dirty city streets.

Present Day

“For fuck’s sake,” I hiss when Alma snags my unruly curls with the brush. “That’s not what I meant when I said I liked it rough.”

Alma tuts, rolling her eyes. Almost five years have passed since the incident and, on top of haunting nightmares of the day itself, I also suffer from spontaneous bouts of disquiet.

Especially with unwelcome or unexpected touch.

I perch on the edge of a cushion in my cavernous bedchambers as she begins twisting and pinning my hair.

Alma is my lady-in-waiting, technically.

She knows me too well after attending to my every need over the last few years.

Her hand squeezes my shoulder. A silent order to still my tapping foot.

I groan, feigning annoyance, but I am grateful for her grounding and familiar warmth.

She has a gift for sensing when my panic rises.

When I dream of that day, that man and woman, I always wake with a leaden weight anchored in my stomach. It was hard to feel sorry for them, and yet, how could I not? I lived. They didn’t.

That was the last time I left Castle Gale.

The healers had said I was lucky. Lucky gold was all those drunks wanted to steal from me that day and nothing more irreplaceable, like my virtue.

Lucky is an odd word to console someone who was almost beaten to death.

I doubt they would have attacked had I found my voice and said who I was—even in their altered states.

My parents believed this event would teach me a valuable lesson: to never wander off on my own again.

To fear the world and its people. Our people.

But they were wrong. What did I learn? That I could take a hit, a punch, a kick, and survive.

They hoped it would make me more wary, but no—it hardened me.

Sparked a piece of flint already living deep inside.

If anything, it ignited my stubborn defiance.

Next time someone put their hands on me, I would not freeze. I would speak. I would defend myself.

Mother died not long after. Despite knowing she had been ill for quite some time, I blamed myself. What if what had happened to me in Aston caused unnecessary stress, triggering her decline?

Once she was gone, Father was no longer easily swayed. He couldn’t forget the messes I made, however infrequent they were.

“Nerves got you today?” Alma teases at my obvious absence, with a soft, lilting accent I adore. Ah, yes, the leaden weight residing in my gut today is not brought on by nightmares.

Today I will ask my father for permission to leave the castle grounds.

I am already imagining every way in which he will deny my request. I sigh and wipe my sweaty palms on the skirts of my dress.

A dress with another corseted bodice that is all too tight.

Alma, evidently finished with my hair, dabs at my cheeks with a soft brush.

The bristles tickle and I flinch. I glance up into her gray eyes and offer a small, strained smile. She chuckles at my pathetic attempt.

“It’s fine, we don’t have to talk, but…” Alma starts. She ponders, no doubt wary she may cross the unseen line between duty and friendship. I consider her a friend, but I often worry she cannot see past my title. Past her own status. “May I speak freely?”

“Of course, Alma,” I say without hesitation. My voice is too loud. It echoes back at me. “There’s nothing I would like more. Well… that and for my father not to deny me a simple privilege granted to most everyone in the kingdom. You know—free will.”

“Your Highn—” She notes my scowl and corrects herself. “Thea. I suggest you be honest with your father.”

The fae can’t lie, you know. But there are other ways to deceive. Mavick’s screechy voice floats through my head. Mavick—my faerie friend. My only friend, really, if we’re not counting Alma. Thankfully, I am a mere human. I’d rather lie.

My present invented excuse to travel to Aston seems flimsy and vapid the longer I dwell on it.

But I hope to have some sort of newfound sway on Father, now that I’m of age.

I accepted, and excelled at, every boring lesson required of me.

I performed my royal duties without complaint.

Most importantly, I behaved—as far as he knows, at least. Plenty of time has passed since the attack, and no one in Aston will remember my face.

It’s much changed since then anyway. I will go in plain clothes and blend in.

I crave independence. Freedom to explore what is technically my kingdom. Otherwise I may snap soon—suffocate within these castle walls. Do something far more drastic. That is the honesty my father would not appreciate.

Alma, done readying me, takes my hands in hers. This effectively lifts me out of my head and seat. “Just tell him how you truly feel, Thea.”

Ugh. I’d much rather wear a collar that chokes me every time I laugh. Sneeze every time I take a bite of food. Anything else. Instead I say, “You’re right, Alma. I will certainly tell the King that oftentimes I wish I was not a princess.”

Alma laughs humorlessly. She has never understood my distaste. You’re the bloody Princess, she once hiccupped, when we stole wine from the kitchens and overindulged. I know she thinks me ungrateful, and perhaps I am, but she’s never dared say it aloud.