A Cage of Moonlight

by Jenna Wolfhart

  A chill went through her. Okay, so this punishment wasn’t quite as harmless as she’d thought.

  Prince Taveon pushed back his chair and stood. “I am certain many of you are curious about this girl I have brought before you.” He gazed around the expansive room. “This is Bree Paine, a slave I found during my travels through the Forest of Fireflies.”

  Frowning, Bree glanced at Rafe who turned his back toward the crowd and placed a single finger on his lips. How strange. Bree had never heard of the Forest of Fireflies but it must be a place found in the Dark Fae’s realm. Which meant the Prince did not want the rest of his Court to know where she truly came from. But why?

  “As a new slave, this creature does not understand her place in this castle.”

  “Creature?” Bree asked, her eyebrows shooting to the top of her forehead.

  Rafe winced, and the entire Court roared in response to her outburst. Their faces were twisted up in anger. Some even jumped from their chairs, pumping their fists in the air.

  Taveon’s face went grave. “Ah, a perfect example of what I mean. She has a temper and a tendency for outbursts. She will be punished tonight, so that she must learn her place.”

  Bree’s heart pounded in her chest. She’d known that the Prince was an absolute monster, and his little speech only confirmed that fact. How dare he call her a creature? How dare he make her dance in front of all these chanting Dark Fae? Were they all monsters, like the Prince? Was Rafe the only decent fae in this Court? She was beginning to believe so.

  The Prince turned to Bree then, his dark eyes glittering underneath the overhead chandelier—one that held dozens of tiny flaming candles. “Now, dance.”

  She glared at him. Everything within her wanted to rebel against his command. Despite what he thought, she was not his to order around. She was not some sort of creature to do with as he pleased.

  “Go on, Bree,” Rafe said, whispering into her ear. He stood and moved away, crossing his arms over his chest and turning away from the spectacle. Prince Taveon didn’t seem to care that his closest friend was helping his slave or that he didn’t appear to want to watch the punishment.

  But everyone else sure did.

  Bree could feel every eye of the room on her, collective breath held. They probably wanted to see her bite back again. They probably hoped she’d give the Prince even more of a reason to punish her. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

  Slowly, she walked forward on legs that trembled underneath her. The Prince nodded to the female fae who sat next to him, and she quickly moved over to a harp that stood taller than even Bree. When the female slid her fingers across the strings, a strange melodic tune filled the air.

  And Bree’s body instinctively yearned to dance. It was a strange sensation, almost as though her mind and her body were at war. Her arms began to shift through the air, and her feet stomped in time with the music. Her body twirled around the platform, swaying from side to side as her mind drifted away with the music.

  She felt light and free and alive, and the entire world dropped away. The sound of the harp filled her mind, the colors of the hall blurring into nothing but vague shapes and dim lights. Her world became the music and the dance, her heart throbbing painfully in her chest.

  And then her feet began to ache, her mind growing blurry. She could not stop, not even if she wanted to. She had to keep moving. On and on and on she went.

  How long had she been at it now? Some of the blurry lights had begun to dim, and that strange distant murmur of conversation grew quieter and quieter and quieter until Bree felt as though she were the only soul in the entire world.

  Her chest felt tight when she breathed in at the break of a song. She stumbled to a stop. It was so very quiet. Her soul ached for more of that music, of that blinding brilliant madness that yearned to take over her body once again.

  “Bree.” It was a familiar voice, one she struggled to place. A soothing, deep melodic voice that made her yearn for sleep. Her feet pounded from the pain. How long had it been since she sat down?

  She twisted toward the voice as he said her name again, and that was when her vision caught on a figure at the back of a hall now only filled with a handful of fae.

  A cloaked figure, one drenched in shadows. She squinted as she stared at him. She was certain it was a him. Probably. It was impossible to tell with all the buzzing in her head.

  “Look at that...” She raised an arm to point across the hallway at the cloaked figure that aimed a nocked arrow right in her direction.

  And then a whoosh went through the hushed hall. Bree’s eyes widened just a split second before the arrow hit its mark. The sharp tip sunk into her shoulder, and pain rocked through her core.

  Bree tipped back and fell onto the floor. Eyes wide, she stared up at the ceiling. Darkness crept into her vision, and she tried to blink it away. Didn’t the darkness know that she needed to dance?

  She needed to dance.

  Her feet needed to move.

  Rafe’s face appeared in her vision, and she cracked a strange smile. It felt like years since she’d seen his handsome face. “I need to dance.”

  “Taveon, snap her out of the spell.” Rafe’s voice was low and gravelly and far too angry. She reached up and touched his face, still smiling.

  “The spell is done,” a distant voice said.

  And then everything went black.

  Chapter 8

  Rafferty

  An arrow protruded out of Bree’s chest. Pain and fury ripped through Rafe as he dropped to her side. He pressed his fingers to her neck, sighing when he felt the unmistakable flicker of her pulse. She was still alive. For now.

  He jerked his head up toward Taveon, who had turned a strange shade of pale white. The Prince was speechless, and he seemed frozen to his chair.

  “I need to get her out of here,” Rafe said in a hurried whisper. Chaos churned through the hall. Half of the fae were delighted the slave had been shot while the other half were full of terror that they would be next. “I need to take her somewhere that I can heal her, but someone needs to go after the attacker.”

  Taveon hesitated a moment longer before giving a quick nod. “Go. Heal her. I will take care of...this.”

  Rafe didn’t even want to think about what the Prince faced now. Someone had shot his slave. If the arrow had gone even an inch to the right, Bree would probably be dead. He slipped his arms underneath her limp body and lifted her from the floor. Several of the Court members saw, exclaiming in shock that he would dare to move her.

  “Leave the slave!” one cried out.

  Another rushed forward, only blocked by the nearest guard. “The slave deserves it! Leave her to rot!”

  Rafe ground his teeth together and hurried through the back entrance out of the Great Hall. He was thankful, for once, that King Midas had been so paranoid. He’d built back entrances and secret side exits in every single room he ever intended to spend time in, worried that some ambitious fae would come along and kill him on the spot to take his crown.

  At the time, Rafe had thought the King was delusional. Now, he was grateful for it.

  He rushed down the corridor, Bree’s body soft and warm in his arms. He risked a glance at her face, and his breath shuddered in his lungs. She was impossibly beautiful like this, peace flickering across those pixie features. He’d never seen this expression on her face until now. When she was awake, she held far too much pain on her shoulders. She was weary. She was angry. And she was sad.

  And he hated that he was part of the reason she felt this way.

  Taveon had been wrong to punish her like this, in front of the entire Court. He may have lied to everyone, attempting to hide the truth of her origin, but word spread fast in these lands. Somehow, others had discovered who she was and why she was here, and they wanted to put a stop to the Prince’s plans.

  Rafe kicked open the door to the dungeons and jogged down the steps, keeping his arms wrapped tight around Bree’s body. It almost see
med wrong, bringing her down here, when she needed a soft bed and as many pillows as he could find. But they needed privacy to heal her, somewhere that no one could hear her screams of agony when they came.

  As much as it pained him, she was going to have to endure the worst in order to survive.

  Chapter 9

  Bree

  When Bree awoke, she found herself staring up at a tiny square window, the glow of the silver moon brightening up the incredible darkness that had consumed her mind. A strong hand encircled hers, holding tight. She twisted her head to the side to see Rafe hunched over her.

  He gave her a smile, those bright silver eyes of his lighting a fire in her belly. Even though she hurt all over, there was something about his face that made her feel as though everything would be okay.

  “There she is.” He squeezed her hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like someone blasted a rocket at my chest.”

  “I am going to assume that means something painful,” he said with a slight smile. Sometimes, Bree forgot just how little the Dark Fae knew about the human realm. There were no rockets or satellites or space stations here.

  “Let’s just say I feel like I’ve been shot.” She winced as she tried to move, pain lancing through her entire chest. “How bad is it?”

  “Fairly bad.” The smile vanished from Rafe’s face. “If you were not a shapeshifter, I might be concerned this wound would be your last.”

  A fancy way of saying she could die from this.

  “Do I have some special healing powers I don’t know about?” Bree asked, feeling a little bit more hopeful than she’d felt seconds before. Kael and the other Light Fae had never mentioned a healing ability to her, but maybe Rafferty knew something they didn’t.

  He winced as he gave her a smile. “Yes and no. You have a special way of healing yourself, but I am afraid to say it will be just as painful as the original injury.”

  “How fun,” Bree said with a grimace.

  “And you will have to undergo the pain a few times in order to fully heal. Perhaps six or so based on what I can see of this wound.”

  “Six times?” Bree winced as she attempted to move again, pain lancing through her entire body. She felt as though she was about to be split in half, and her left side would just fall off if she attempted to move again. Hell, she probably wouldn’t mind if it did, just as long as it meant this pain would stop. “You know what? Fine. What do I have to do to fix this?”

  “Shift into your beastly form. And then shift back. Every time you do this, your body will remake itself, slowly healing the wound until it is fully gone.”

  “I have to shift into the beast? Like this?” Bree gazed up at him, desperately hoping she’d heard him wrong. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am afraid so, Bree.” He took her hand in his and squeezed. “If it helps, I have undergone this pain myself. I was attacked by several members of the Wilde Fae. I was good enough for dead, and I thought the last thing I would see was my blood on their teeth.”

  Shivers coursed through Bree, a sensation that caused the pain to rip through her once again. “But you healed yourself? By shifting into your raven and back?”

  He nodded. “And I had to do it far more than six times. My wounds were numerous. I truly thought my entire body would be split into a million pieces, but I made it out on the other side. I no longer even have any scars. The attack on me is now nothing more than a distant memory, just as yours will be.”

  The attack. Two words that snagged in Bree’s mind. In the midst of all the pain, she hadn’t even thought about the reason for the wound in the first place. Someone had shot her with an arrow. Someone wanted her dead.

  Or someone wanted her to suffer greatly. That spark of hatred flared to life inside her gut. Had the Prince ordered this? Had he wanted her to endure this horrible amount of pain? Just because she’d kicked him?

  “Who shot me?” she asked. “Was that part of my punishment? Did the Prince do this to me?”

  Rafe’s eyes widened. “Of course not. You are far too valuable to Taveon, and he is not that kind of fae to cause such suffering in anyone, even his slaves.”

  “I find that hard to believe when he ordered me to dance until I collapsed from exhaustion.”

  Rafe pressed his lips into a thin line. “His hand was forced. He could not let you get away with it. If you had kicked him behind closed doors, that would have been one thing. But you did it in front of other members of the Court. In front of Lord Dagen.”

  Bree closed her eyes, both from the pain of the wound and the pain of his words. She didn’t know why she was upset that Prince Taveon was willing to inflict so much pain on her, but she most certainly was. It was one thing to lock her up in a cell and force her to train with Rafe, but it was another thing entirely to make her hurt.

  And he probably delighted in her suffering.

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Rafferty,” she said in whispered words, clenching her teeth against the pounding in her chest. “I forced his hand. He was already causing me pain. Maybe he didn’t think it was enough. Maybe he thought an arrow to the chest would really put me in my place.”

  Rafe fell silent. He was probably the only fae in the entire Court who actually felt remorse about what she was enduring. She could see it in his eyes. It was written all over the furrowed lines on his face. He wanted to help her. And no matter how much he wanted to think it, Prince Taveon didn’t. Bree had noted his absence.

  “Where is he?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  And why wasn’t he worried she would die?

  “He could not be seen running out after you,” Rafe said grimly. “If the Court thought he cared about the fate of one of his slaves—”

  Bree squeezed her eyes tight. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  Rafe let out a heavy sigh. “Very well. We should get started on your healing.”

  Bree nodded, swallowing hard. It was time to change into the beast, something she dreaded with every bone in her body. Rafe held her hand and talked her through it, murmuring the same words he’d said before. Bree pictured the beast, letting images of her other form consume her mind.

  Fury and pain roared through Bree. Her beast churned within her gut, sharpening her fangs and her claws. A strange, delicious desire tore through her, making her jaws ache with a need she’d tried so hard to throw away.

  She wanted blood. No, she needed it. Every fiber of her beastly form craved it in a way that made her mind feel delirious and damned to an eternity full of nothing but suffering.

  Suffering that Prince Taveon had demanded she endure.

  Another roar split from her throat, and her back arched so that her fists could reach for the sky. Moonlight slashed in through the tiny window overhead, its silvery glow calling to Bree. She wanted to be outside. She wanted to run through the trees. Searching. Hunting. Taking blood straight from the vein.

  “Bree.” A soft, melodic voice drifted to her and cut through the fog in her brain.

  The beast—and Bree—looked down at the creature below. The male was half her size, though he radiated a kind of power that made him feel ten times taller. A kind of power that the beast ached to consume. Saliva dripped from her fangs and splatted on the stone ground.

  “Hear my voice, Bree. The beast is not you, and you are not the beast.”

  But he was wrong. The beast was all-consuming. Nothing existed in this body anymore but the wolf who raged for flesh and blood.

  “You can control it, Bree,” he said softly, reaching out to place a single hand against her fur.

  A shudder went through her, and a soft sigh escaped from her mouth. It was a sound that was strange coming from such a monstrous creature.

  “That is it, Bree.” He clutched her fur in his hands, smoothing out the matted edges. He was...petting her.

  A soft delicious warmth spread through her, and that strange bloodlust became muted in the back of her mind. Her focus drifted to that hand on her f
ur. The ache in her jaw eased away, and her claws began to shorten.

  “That is it,” Rafe murmured, still stroking her side, even as the monstrous fur gave way to flesh. “You are doing so well.”

  Rafe’s arm slid around her back as her human form took hold. He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, keeping her tight against his chest when the sobs shook through her body. She had come so close to losing it. The beast had burned deep within her gut, making her feel things she never wanted to feel.

  This was not what Bree wanted to be. She’d tried so hard to escape this monster, and she’d hoped it was gone for good.

  But it wasn’t.

  “How is your wound?” Rafe asked.

  Bree suddenly became all too aware of the fact that his arms were wrapped tight around her and that her face was pressed up against his chest. And that she was very much naked.

  Her cheeks flamed, and she swallowed hard, grateful that he couldn’t see the redness in her face.

  “It feels fine now,” she said in a small voice.

  Should she pull away? Should she try to grab her clothes? Should she look at him?

  No, she couldn’t look at him.

  “Good,” he said. “Then it is time to get you back to your quarters so you can get some rest.”

  His words shot a bolt of clarity through her frazzled thoughts. Here she was, freaking out that Rafe was holding her while she was naked, letting her emotions get the better of her. Again. When he didn’t even react to the fact she had zero clothes on. He probably didn’t even notice. Instead, he was telling her it was time for her to go back to her damn cell.

  “Come on.” He stood, but he kept his arms tight around her, helping her to her feet. Her legs were still a bit wobbly underneath her, but Bree had a sneaking suspicion it had nothing to do with her wound and everything to do with the fae who held her close.