by Sofia Daniel
Queen Titania sniffed. “That’s better.”
I lifted my gaze, met her merciless eyes and listened to a stream of complaints about how the outsiders had ruined the Isle of Fae with their rules and the regular import of human items. The rants continued until my eyes glazed, but one thing caught my attention.
“At sunset, each of my sons will attach hooks to your wings and drag you through all seven levels of our realm as a demonstration of the throne’s might. And when the sun rises, my guard will cut your body into quarters and display a piece in each of the human settlements!”
She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Prince Bradwell.
“How could you?” I whispered.
“I will never forgive you for what you did to my beloved mate.” He spat on the ground and left.
Tears filled my eyes, and sobs tore from my throat. Ladies Aster and Gala had inflicted lady Gazania’s injuries, but that didn’t matter to him. How on earth had I allowed myself to be so entirely fooled by Prince Bradwell?
“Now…” The guard approached the bars and rubbed his hardening crotch. “Did you know that faerie spunk is a delicious human delicacy? I’m going to keep you well-fed between now and sunset.”
Chapter 20
Treachery wrapped around my neck like a constrictor and sank its fangs into my jugular. A dull ache spread down to my chest and squeezed what was left of my shattered heart. The dungeon’s stone walls curved in around my curled-up body, adding to the crushing effect.
I stared through the bars at the empty space Prince Bradwell had occupied. He had tricked me, and it hurt worse than any of Elijah’s betrayals. For the first time in my bleak, little life I thought I had found someone who accepted me with my flaws and without any strings. But that had just been a clever act.
The guard’s harsh chuckle echoed off the stone walls, setting my teeth on edge and bringing forth a terrible truth.
My hurt feelings didn’t matter. Not right now. Because if I didn’t think of something fast, I was going to die a horrible death. But not before the guard made me wrap my lips around his filthy cock.
Candles flickering high up on the walls made the ends of his hair shine white, but his leering eyes remained as dark as endless pits. He ran his tongue along his bottom lip and said, “Are you going to come out of that corner, or will I have to drag you out with my power?”
The Prince of the Spring Court had proven himself worse than Prince August. I shook my head to clear out thoughts of Prince Bradwell and his wretched mother, and my wings curled further around my front for protection.
“Come any closer, and I’ll scream, then Queen Titania will punish you for traumatizing me before her punishment.”
“These walls are soundproof,” he said. “No one can hear you choking on my sword.”
The guard stepped toward the bars and clutched them with his gloved hands. “Do you know what this much iron will do to your pretty face if I jammed it against the bars with my magic? We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice.”
My head snapped up with the beginnings of an idea. “Alright, then.”
His hand dropped from the bar. “What?”
“Why don’t you come in, and I’ll suck you off?” I lowered my knees and stretched out my legs, giving him a good view of my bare breasts. “What’s the point of suffering when I can just give you what you want?”
His features spread into a wide smile that made his dark eyes twinkle, and he reached for the keys on his belt. “Wise choice.”
“One minute.” I stuck my hand in my hair.
He unlocked the door. “What are you doing?”
“Making myself presentable.” I unpinned my bun and let my golden locks tumble down my shoulders.
The guard strode into the cell with an excited hop in his step. A damp patch spread through his white breeches, making me wrinkle my nose. As I unraveled my bun, a round item worked its way loose. Sending Flora a silent word of thanks for fixing my hair, I palmed it and pushed back my shoulders.
“Don’t distract me with those perky tits,” snarled the guard. “It’s your mouth I want.”
I licked my lips. “Give me something to wrap my lips around then, big boy.”
With a dry chuckle, the guard unbuttoned his fly, and an abnormally large dick sprang out with a pointed tip. I would bet my entire DVD collection that the brute had glamoured it to make himself look well-endowed. With a pinch of salt, I’d probably find he was packing less than a toadstool.
“Aren’t you going to take off those gloves and yank my hair?” I gave my shoulders a little shimmy. “You’ve got to give it to me rough.”
He growled. “I knew you human girls were gagging for it!”
My ass shifted on the cold, stone floor. It made me cringe to say this, but if I was going to escape, I couldn’t do it naked. “If you take off your breeches, you can thrust nice and hard down my throat.”
The bastard kicked off his boots, and his pants fell to his ankles. He stepped out of the pool of fabric, holding that supposedly massive cock between his thumb and forefinger. I forced myself not to roll my eyes.
As he let it sway from side to side like a dancing cobra, I yanked off the silk covering the iron cock ring Flora had woven into my hair.
“How much do you want it?” he rasped.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I muttered.
The guard grinned. “Dirty human.”
He rocked from side-to-side, reminding me of a violent DVD Elijah once gave me where a criminal tied up a police officer and danced before cutting off his ear. My throat dried, and the pulse between my ears pounded hard enough to muffle his excited breaths. If I didn’t strike cobra-fast, he would find out what I was doing, and a cock down my throat would be the least of my problems.
“Y-yum.” I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice. “You’re making my mouth water.”
“Get ready for a good choking.” He made a tiny pumping motion between his thumb and forefinger.
A lead ball of dread rolled around in my stomach. The sooner I grabbed hold of his tiny dick and took control over the situation, the sooner I could escape and find Princes Caulden and Rory.
“May I touch it?” I said.
“Beg,” he said.
My shoulders drooped, and I glared into the guard’s shining eyes. What was it with these lowlives wanting girls to lust after them? Before he could swoop back, I wrapped my hand around his dick and pulled him forward with a jerk.
“That’s it,” the guard said through clenched teeth. “Take it.”
I frowned up at the oversized appendage. Was the glamor tricking my mind into feeling girth? Pushing those thoughts aside, I licked my lips. “You’re so big. May I use two hands?”
The guard threw his head back and moaned. “Take it all!”
My left hand shot out, and I slid the cock-ring over his dick, making sure to shove it all the way down to the root. A heartbeat later, the scent of burning flesh seared my nostrils.
The guard jerked back with a hiss and swayed on his feet. Sweat poured down his brow, and his face took on the pallor of ashes. He reached down at the cock ring, tried to pull it off, and snatched back his hand.
“What did you do?” he cried.
I jumped to my feet and ran at the guard, slamming my entire body weight against him. As he fell onto the bars, acrid smoke hissed out of the iron. He curled on the dungeon floor into a pants-less ball of pain.
The keys on his white uniform breeches clinked as I scrambled into them, but my disguise wasn’t complete. I snarled, “Take off your jacket,”
Pain etched his features, and hatred burned in his black eyes, but he pulled himself up and threw the garment on the floor. “You won’t get away with this. My shift will be over soon, and another guard will come in and teach you a hard lesson. He’s probably waiting outside.”
Ignoring what was probably a bluff, I picked the jacket up and slipped it over my shoulders. “Lie back down, or
I’ll roll you back into the bars.”
The guard flopped down to the stone floor. I stepped out of the door and locked him in the cell.
“What about my sword?” he whispered.
The urge to say something scathing about his tiny penis burned in the back of my throat, but the need to get the fuck out of that dungeon burned hotter. I patted the iron keys on my belt, rushed to the dungeon’s wooden door, and twisted the handle.
It was locked.
I knelt and peered through the keyhole. Two guards clad in white stood outside the door. My pulse quickened, and my throat went dry. What the fuck was I going to do now? There was no way I could fight my way through a palace full of guards.
After pulling myself to my feet, I hurried back to my old cell, where the guard lay on the floor, panting through clenched teeth.
“Come back to grovel, have you?” he whispered through his pain.
I slammed my palms on the iron bars. “Is there another way out?”
“Why in the Otherworld would I help you?” he groaned.
“Do you want me to pull the cock-ring off or not?”
The guard rolled on the floor toward me. “Take it off, and I’ll fly you out of the window myself.”
I shook my head. He was more likely to strangle me if I set him free. Turning around, I swept my gaze over the stone wall, finding nothing but candles flickering in the wind. “There is no window.”
Painful spasms wracked his body as he tried not to laugh. “Stupid human. The wall is glamoured to look solid. Free my sword, and I’ll—”
“Thanks.” I rushed to one end of the dungeon and placed my hands on the stone walls. There wasn’t much I knew about glamours except that they only worked if you believed your eyes.
Ignoring the guard’s pleas for me to return, I closed my eyes and felt around. There had to be an opening somewhere that was letting in all the cold air and making the candles flicker. My hands swiped up and down the cool stone, sometimes going over a point twice if it didn’t feel right. After several moments, my fingers curled around a dip.
My heart somersaulted with hope. This had to be the window.
Still keeping my eyes closed, I felt around its ledge, which was about five feet high but not impossible to climb if I got a foothold on the stone.
“Stupid human,” snarled the guard. “I hope you drown in the moat.”
“Thanks.” That was all the encouragement I needed to place my foot on a low piece of stone jutting out from the wall and hoist myself up. With an almighty heave, I placed myself up on the ledge and rested my back against the opening in the wall.
Cold wind blew through my hair and stung my face, indicating that we were high up. One leg dangled outside the palace, and the other dangled on the inside. I didn’t dare open my eyes in case they tricked me into believing I was sitting within a stone wall, so I swung my other leg over.
“How far is the drop?” I asked the guard.
He didn’t answer. I supposed in his situation, I wouldn’t help me escape, either.
“Calm down,” I whispered to myself. “Even if he was lying about the water, this will be a quick death. Ten times better than being dragged around the Mound and cut into quarters.”
The pep talk did nothing to soothe my frayed nerves, but I pushed myself off the ledge and jumped.
Terror wrapped its cold fingers around my stomach as I plummeted, and the wind battered my face with tiny fists. I tried opening my eyes, but could only squint. Beneath me was an unimaginable drop into a moat that looked only a foot wide. I might have screamed, but the roar and whistle of the wind in my ears muffled the sound.
This was worse than plummeting off the headmistress’s tower in Prince Rory’s arms. Worse than staring into the manic eyes of the Jack of Smiles. I was going to die, and my stupid wings, those wretched appendages that were only good for glowing at the sight of hot princes, were too terrified to flap.
My free-fall accelerated, and the sun emerged from behind the cloud, lighting up the vast palace gardens and the mountaintops beyond. Perhaps it came out to say goodbye. I didn’t know, because there was no way that moat was deep enough for a person to survive a fall from this height.
I squeezed my eyes shut and fell feet-first into frigid water. The fall continued as I plummeted the depths of the moat, sinking until the water got so cold, I could barely feel my own frantic heart or the burning of my lungs.
This was it. I was going to drown.
The soles of my feet hit something soft and silky, and I bounced up. Hope filled my chest, and I raised my arms, trying to make an upward crawl to the surface.
My head spun. My lungs screamed for air. My every instinct urged me to take a breath to stop the lightheadedness and to stay conscious. Instead, I opened my eyes and fought.
Something swam toward me in the dark. A figure with flowing hair that could easily have been one of the princes if that hair hadn’t been silver. I continued struggling toward the surface. It was probably a guard or someone who had noticed me fall.
Moments later, my head broke the surface of the water, and I gulped in a noisy breath of air. A manicured garden stretched out to a copse of trees, which looked like my best escape route. I swam to the water’s edge, each stroke feeling like pulling anchors in the sodden arms of my too-large guard’s shirt.
“Nay!” shouted a watery voice from behind.
Terror exploded across my heart, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the furious features of a male more beautiful than King Oberon and the princes. Long, silver hair flowed down pale, chiseled features like a mane, and his features twisted into a snarl that made my heart stop.
I spun around and flailed through the water toward the shore. This had to be a shape-shifter and not a very good one. There was something wrong with his mouth—oversized teeth set within inhumanly long gums.
“Nay!” he screamed.
A cold hand wrapped around my ankle and dragged me under the water. Holding my breath, I swung my arm out and whacked him across the face, which only lengthened into the muzzle of a horse.
“Fuck,” I screamed into the water. “Kelpie!”
The kelpie flung me out of the water as if I weighed nothing and then caught me on its horse-shaped back. I flung my bodyweight left to fall off the monster, but he rolled along with me and plunged deep into the water.
My pulse hammered on my eardrums with both fists, urging me to do something or face an even worse death. Kelpies were terrifying creatures that often took the shape of a handsome man to lure females to death. They ate anything—faerie, human, or beast—they weren’t fussy.
I scrambled through my hair for metal but found nothing. Regret slapped me across the face, chastising me for not taking back my cock ring. As I lowered my hand, my fingers brushed against something hard.
The guard’s keys.
Trying not to inhale the moat water, I unclipped the keys from my belt and pressed the iron into the kelpie’s neck. The creature surged up to the water’s surface and screamed.
A memory popped in from nowhere. Elijah said he blew in a kelpie’s ears to make it take him in and out of the United Nations stores.
By now, the kelpie had transformed into a white horse with a mane of silver. I clung to its neck as it tried to dip back into the water.
“No, you don’t,” I yelled, filling the kelpie’s ear with my breath.
“Nay!” he screamed.
I pressed the iron keys against its neck, not feeling a trace of guilt. It would have dragged me to the bottom of the moat and eaten all but my entrails.
“Take me to the Royal Fae Academy and make sure nobody sees us!”
With a speed that made my stomach lurch, the kelpie leaped through the air. Wings that at first appeared transparent sprouted from his shoulders, making me rear back with a scream.
I gripped the creature’s flanks with my thighs and wrapped my arms around its neck. The kelpie’s wings shimmered like water on a lake, and I turned and stared
at Snaefell Palace.
Sunlight glittered off its white walls, adding to the majesty of its tall towers. I wondered how high up my dungeon had been located, turned back in the direction of the academy, and sighed.
“What a pity such ugly people occupy such a beautiful place.”
“Nay,” said the kelpie.
“Oh, shut up.”
Elijah was right about one thing. Riding on the back of a kelpie had several benefits as long as you knew the secret of controlling them. We overtook faeries flying solo, fast-moving flocks of birds, and flying carriages pulled by white horses. Not a single person noticed us.
The wind blew through my wet hair and soaked clothes, chilling the outer layer of my skin to freezing point, and my teeth chattered so hard, I struggled to blow in the kelpie’s ears. I couldn’t feel my fingers, couldn’t feel my toes, and hunger gnawed at my insides with sharp teeth, but none of that mattered.
I was free, and I needed to find my princes and put things right.
The sun shone down on my face, warming my numb skin, and tears stung the backs of my eyes. Last night with Prince Bradwell had been so perfect. He had looked me in the eyes with warmth and humility and then betrayed me in my sleep. How could I have been so gullible?
“Nay,” said the kelpie.
“Are you reading my mind?” I asked.
“Nay?” he replied.
I blew into his ear, and his wings flapped faster, propelling us toward the castle in the distance. As the sun continued to warm my clothes, my spirits lightened, and the anguish in my heart cleared, allowing a little room for hope. Maybe Queen Titania had forced Prince Bradwell to say all those things. Perhaps if I had stayed, the princes would have staged a rescue.
“Nay,” said the kelpie.
My lips tightened, and I glanced down at a vast lake, noticing that neither of us cast a reflection. He was probably right.
I blew into his ear again and said, “If you take me to the huge apple tree in the Royal Fae Academy, I’ll set you free.”
