Escape From The Green

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "You okay?" Drake asked, and I could feel his gaze on me.

  "Just nervous, I guess," I admitted. "The last time we were here, we were - essentially - running for our lives."

  "I get that," he agreed, giving my hip a squeeze as he kissed my temple. "What are you taking?" he asked when I pulled out the vile, feeling my uterus squeeze painfully, knowing the cramps would only get worse as the day went on if I didn't get the oil in my system. Taking the vile from me, he sniffed it. "Ah," he said, nodding. "No little Draca running around the harvest this year, then?"

  "Maybe next year," I told him with a small smile as he pocketed the empty vile, slipping it into his bag.

  "I can wait," he agreed, kissing my temple as we started walking.

  A part of me maybe expected danger at every turn.

  In reality, there were simply birds chirping happily above us, glad for an end to the freezing weather, a chance to find plentiful food again, for mating season to begin. We even passed the occasional fae who offered us smiles or general pleasantries as we moved past, looking very much like a couple who were on their way to the Light Court or possibly a day at the market. Maybe even one of the many Ostara festivals that were bound to be going on.

  It was a few long hours of walking before we finally closed in on some big nest of sorts, a place Drake claimed Sal had once called home, thought the only thing that it was home to now seemed to be a small mouse family who very much enjoyed the privacy of their new home.

  "We never did settle on a time,"Drake reminded me, trying to ease the anxiety that was clearly overtaking my system at being left waiting.

  "Right," I agreed, angling my head up to watch the trees, knowing how Smoky preferred to travel between them. Partly because it was safer, sure, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was just as much because she could avoid all other fae by staying way above them, unseen, unheard, free to continue her solitary existence.

  I wanted to know how she was. If she had maybe put some more weight on. If Sal had made any progress with her.

  I think especially now that I had found my people, that I knew the warmth of connection, the sweet taste of love, I wanted it all the more for her. This woman who had lived a harder life than I had, who deserved more happiness - if such a thing was possible - which I was starting to think didn't exist - than I had.

  "Breathe, honey," Drake demanded, giving my hair a playful tug. "They will be here eventually."

  "I miss home," I admitted, leaning into him.

  "We've only been gone a few hours."

  "A few hours too long. Your mom is probably scrubbing the shine off her floors right about now."

  "She's a mom. She worries. It comes with the job title."

  "Kieran looked like he was barely able to hold himself back from charging ahead with us."

  "He understands his responsibilities now."

  "You don't need to feel guilty about his choices, Drake," I told him, not having found the right opportunity to do so before even though I knew it was something that had plagued him since his return to find his friend stuck in a lifetime role he hated.

  "I am the only reason he joined the council."

  "His love is the reason he joined the council. And that passion is exactly the reason he belongs there. They need that. His youth. His open-mindedness. If not for him, Foren and Borena would get their way all the time. He is a challenge. He is balance. It will serve the greater good for him to be there. He will see that eventually, even if right now all he can see is his own pride. You can help show him how valuable his choice is. What?" I asked when his smile went soft.

  "Nothing, honey. I just..."

  "Just what?"

  "Love you," he declared, shaking his head at the declaration.

  The first one.

  We'd loved.

  Shown love.

  Given love.

  But the words always stuttered and stuck on our tongues.

  My heart seized and swelled in my chest, as close to bursting as possible.

  My smile was immediate, big enough to make my chest hurt.

  "I love you too, Drake," I told him, meaning it more than I ever meant anything.

  "Sunflower," he murmured, making my brows draw together.

  "I'm sorry?" I asked, sure I misheard him. there were no sunflowers around, wouldn't be more months still.

  "Sunflower in a tower," he told me. "That was what I used to think of about you when I watched you up in your room. "Always bright. Always beautiful. Happy-looking. But you weren't happy. Now, now you look happy. Now you're my sunflower."

  "But no more towers for me," I told him, snuggling closer. "I much prefer our little house with the lumpy bed and the drafty shutters.

  "I'll fix the shutters," he told me. "I would have gotten to them last night but someone kept distracting me."

  I had been waiting all day for him to get in from helping some of the others chop firewood. The moment he came in the house, I had jumped him, clawing frantically at his clothes until I got his skin bared to me, taking him in my mouth, then letting him pin me to the wall, taking me from behind until I came four times, the last time loud enough to wake everyone all the way back in town.

  He never got to the shutters.

  And I was okay with being a little chilly in the morning if that was the reason for it.

  "Well, when we get back, you have a few days to fix them up before I start... distracting you again."

  A loud crack had us both stiffening, turning, trying to find the source.

  "Maybe I should take a page out of Smoky's book," he suggested, nodding his head up to the tree above him.

  "That might be a good idea. Get a better vantage point. Maybe you'll even run into her up there."

  Had I known those were the last words I would speak to him, maybe I would have chosen other ones instead.

  I stood beneath him, watching as he climbed so high he almost looked small.

  And it was then there was a crack to the back of my skull, sending a blinding pain shooting through my head before there was nothing.

  The piercing in my head was what I was aware of next time I was aware of anything at all. It was a sharp, unrelenting pain that made my hands raise instinctively, pressing into my temples as though the pressure might be able to ease the ache.

  A low, throaty whimper escaped me before I remembered.

  The woods.

  Drake.

  Watching him climb a tree.

  Then the pain.

  Someone had hit me.

  Someone had hit me and taken me.

  The latter part I knew because if I was still with Drake, his hands would have been all over me, comforting me, trying to ease my pain.

  There was nothing soft or sweet or comforting about how I felt right then.

  I fought back a wave of nausea as I tried to think past the migraine threatening to split the hemispheres of my brain.

  Cold.

  I was cold.

  Too cold to be out in The Green still.

  In fact, it was so cold that I must have been in a cellar, deep where the ground had yet to thaw out, keeping everything dark and damp and near freezing.

  The side of my face was numb, whether from trauma or the cold stone floor it was resting on, I didn't know.

  Taking a breath, my eyes slitted open, looking around, trying to get some idea of where I might have been, who might have taken me. And why.

  Not that the why really mattered that much. Fae didn't always have a good reason. Like the sex fae who had simply wanted to drain me of all my desire to feed himself.

  The idea of that fate - and the dozen or so others that immediately came to mind - made my stomach twist and knot painfully as I planted my hand on the floor, pushing myself up, closing my eyes as the worst of the spinning subsided.

  It was as I tried to move to sit up that I felt something around my ankle, something cold and hot at the same time.

  No.

  Not hot.

  Burning.


  My leg yanked back instinctively, trying to dislodge it before I saw what was there.

  A shackle.

  Iron.

  That was why it was burning even though it was technically cold. Even through the layer of my pants, the thick metal was searing into my flesh,given enough time, I was sure it could burn right through the skin, muscle, right down to the bone.

  This was what Drake felt like all the time.

  I had to swallow back the bile that rose up my throat at the idea of my fate, the idea that there was no way to get it off unless I wanted more pain on my hands and fingers.

  "Staying still helps," A low, scratchy voice called from my side, making my spine run cold even as my head jerked around, searching in the dark for the source of the voice.

  When my vision adjusted, I found a woman. Old. Older than the elders in the council, which was saying something. But her long gray hair was stringy, thinning, framing a face that was curling into itself with advanced years, making the lids fall so heavily over her eyes that it was impossible to make out the shade even if there were enough light to do so.

  "If you move, it just bites into fresher parts, starting the process all over again," she went on, waving a hand to her leg where an identical chain was attached to an ankle that looked brittle enough to snap, the flesh beneath raw and filthy. "Who are you?" she asked, head tipping to the side, eyeing me up. "You must be someone important to be here with me instead of in the cells like all the other prisoners."

  "I'm not important," I insisted, seeing as I wasn't entirely sure who had taken me, why, or what would possess a fae to put irons on another fae.

  "Sure you are, dearie. They put you here so they can come and talk to you without anyone overhearing."

  "Why are you here then?" I asked, brows drawing low.

  "Because I gave life to the monster who keeps me here," she said, shrugging as though that was a normal thing to do - lock up your mother, make her suffer with burning flesh.

  Then again, I could see some mothers deserving of such a fate.

  "Who is the monster?"

  To that, she snorted, shaking her thin neck, making me worry she might break it with the way her head lobbed around. "Why the Unseelie King, of course."

  "Cass." His name hissed out of me, rekindling the fire of fear within me, making me jerk against the chain, pain be damned, my hands clawing, looking for any small space I could use to pry it open.

  "Yes, Cass. Calm down, dearie. They solder them on. There is no getting them off unless they cut them. And, seeing as you're here, I don't think they have the intention of doing so. Who are you to that beast? What does he want from you? You're young to be worth the trouble of keeping you."

  "Cass' mother was Queen herself. You're not Cass' mother," I decided, having seen depictions of her, murals drawn of her stunning beauty. And, sure, maybe several hundreds of years before, this woman might have been lovely as well, but her forehead was too big, her chin too pointed.

  "The Bastard King doesn't like anyone knowing he was a bastard," she told me,breaking off onto a dry cough. "The Unseelie Queen never gave birth to a live babe. The King found his pleasures elsewhere. Like his slave quarters. Where I so unluckily lived my life, forever at the prey of the hands of the guards and dinner guests. And, when I caught his eye, the King himself. When he found out I was with his child, he let me have it. Then locked me down here."

  "And Cass never freed you?"

  "Cass thinks very highly of himself. He wants the world to think he was the legitimate offspring of the most beautiful, powerful royal family in generations. Not the bastard of some slave whore with not an ounce of power to her name, no affinity to speak of unless having a ripe womb counted."

  My saliva tasted bitter, acrid in my mouth, making it hard to swallow back. "But... why keep you?" I asked, shaking my head.

  "Oh, he likes to come down here and hurl insults, let me know how much better he is than me. Cass is not right. I wonder if he ever had been. But he is certainly more crazed than usual these days. Which brings us back to you, girlie. How am I supposed to help you if I don't know what you've done?"

  "Done," I snorted, shaking my head. "Other than have the misfortune of being born into a convenient family with important ties and an opportunistic matriarch? Nothing. I have done nothing but try to live my life."

  "Who are you connected to?"

  "My brother is the partner of the Light Court's long-lost Princess."

  "The one who can burn things with her hands?"

  "Yes. Cass' daughter."

  A low sigh escaped the woman whose name I hadn't gotten. "So, I have a granddaughter out there then. What is she like?"

  "Nothing like her father. I guess she takes after her mother instead."

  "And Cass wants her back from the Light Court then. To have her rule, or steal her powers for himself, I wonder."

  I wondered too.

  And I prayed he never got his hands on her.

  Even if that meant I had to sacrifice my freedom.

  I couldn't claim to be brave, strong, to have a high tolerance for pain. But I would do my best to be the first two things, to develop the third.

  Drake could do it.

  Drake had done it.

  Year in and year out for decades, he had been brave, strong, he had withstood beatings instead of giving up his kind.

  I had to try as well.

  No matter what fate befell me.

  Even if this cuff ripped clear through to my marrow. Even if I was beaten and tortured.

  I couldn't turn on my people.

  There were so many of them now to protect.

  Cece. Jasper.

  Drake and our clan whose safety was only ensured based on everyone's ignorance of their existence.

  "How long have I been here?"

  "Oh, time is a funny thing. You lose it when you've been here long enough. But I would say half a day."

  Half a day?

  Oh, hell.

  Where was Drake?

  Was he taken too?

  "Was I brought in alone?"

  "As far as I can tell. I don't exactly have a great view down here."

  Right.

  There were a set of barred windows nestled up high near the ceiling, the panes cracked in spots, likely letting in frigid air all winter, the outside crusted with muck from passer byes, from the spatter during storms. Years of neglect making it almost impossible even to see light out of them. Not that there was any light, of course, since it had been half a day since I had been conscious, since it was night out now.

  "Did you hear anything about a Draca?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from giving too much away.

  "Draca," the old woman snorted, rolling her hooded eyes. "Guess you were hit harder on the head than I realized. Draca don't exist, girlie. They're legends."

  I figured if guards had dragged me down into the basement and knew of Cass being in possession of a dragon-changing fae, then they would have been gossiping about it.

  So hopefully he was free.

  Safe.

  Not beaten or killed in the forest.

  And, hopefully, he wasn't coming for me.

  He would want to.

  He would move heaven and Earth - and The Green - to locate me, get me safe, bring me home.

  Hopefully he didn't know it was Cass, the Dark fae. Hopefully he figured some other creature got a hold of me. Would be tracking down leads for a while.

  Giving me time.

  Time for what, I wasn't sure.

  I couldn't exactly escape if I was soldered in.

  But if there was a chance, I was hoping I would be brave enough to take it.

  I'd rather die trying to escape than spend the rest of my long life withering away in a basement.

  Alone.

  Going half-crazy.

  "Does Cass come down here often?"

  "Depends on what you consider often. More recently than usual, but maybe every few weeks.

  Weeks
.

  I couldn't last weeks without at least getting to face my kidnapper.

  Surely he would need to speak to me, get proof of my existence so he could use it to get Jasper and Cece to come.

  But how soon?

  Was he in a rush?

  Would I be festering away down here in my own filth for weeks or months before he decided it was time to talk to me?

  Why else put a shackle on me that would need to be cut off? It would be an inconvenience to go through that each time he wanted to drag me out to use me.

  Then again, men like Cass never had to do anything for themselves, so I imagined the thoughts of inconveniences never crossed his mind.

  "Stop those gears a'turning," the old woman told me, shaking her head. "Been down here most my life. Not so calmly either as I seem now. If there was a way out, I'd have found it. I was young and pretty once true. Tried even to use that. Flashing my cunt around to the hungry eyes of the guards. Get yourself used, that's for sure, but not free."

  I couldn't find a nice way to say I was not the kind of person who would flash around any part of her anatomy for freedom, so I stayed silent, thinking, trying not to let her pessimism ruin my chances of hope.

  "It ain't so bad. They feed us most days."

  Most days.

  "And they keep it clean enough in here. Cass hates the stench of flesh and sweat and shit and piss, so they come in, take care of things every week or so."

  Week or so.

  I knew she was trying to be helpful, but all she was doing was increasing my doubts about the whole situation, my assurance that I was not going to be able to withstand this situation long term.

  "What's your name?" I asked, wanting to change the subject.

  "Venia."

  "Venia," I repeated, rolling the sounds around on my tongue. "I'm Amy. Amethyst."

  "Not skill-less like me then."

  "Actually, any skill I might have has been stunted for some reason."

  "Well, that's all for the best. You don't want him draining you on top of everything else. Don't know exactly what that feels like, but you can hear the screaming from over in the prisons when they do it."

  Lovely.

  My stomach turned itself over, making me wonder if the contents of my stomach might come up after all before I was able to carefully breathe the urge away.