“Maybe you need some convincing,” Corden said, prowling through the clearing. I followed his lithe form to where Leisha now sat wide-eyed, her arms twisted behind her back by another fae. Fear had bleached her face of its color, and pale streaks of tears painted her cheeks with luminescence.
My heart sank into the roiling pit of my stomach and I swallowed thickly. Corden snatched Leisha from his companion and urged her in front of him. He thrust her forward, and she tumbled into a heap at my feet with a high-pitched squeak. My heart thudded slowly in my chest and blood rushed in my ears. I inhaled through my nose to try and maintain a sense of calm. I needed my head clear, but panic made it extremely difficult to think.
Our lives would depend on it.
“We’ll go with you,” I said.
Leisha looked up at me. “No!” she screamed. I gave her a stern look, but she continued to shout it over and over again. One of the other fae grew impatient and kicked Leisha in the stomach with the pointy toe of his boot.
I wrenched to my feet, but Corden was there in a flash, holding my arms behind my back. I managed to swallow my screech of pain and choked out, “Don’t hurt her.”
“Ah, so you want to bargain,” he said, a gleam of anticipation in his eyes. “We could do with some entertainment and this one here looks like a lovely little morsel. She may do quite nicely.”
“No,” I growled, “You may have me. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Corden slithered next to me, hissing in my ear, pulling me close to his body so his front was pressed against my back. His lips caressed the curve of my shoulder. “Now that sounds delightful.” He shoved me away and I tripped over my feet, sending me spiraling into the frozen earth next to Leisha’s sobbing form. “Dance for me, girl,” Corden said idly, but there was no mistaking the purr of anticipation in his voice, despite how relaxed he seemed.
I got to my feet and the other fae joined Corden in a circle around me. Their magick hung thickly in the air, causing my nose to twitch and the air to warm. My fingers tingled as it made its way through my body.
Faerie circles. I’d heard about them, too. How they made mortals and shifters alike dance, quite literally, to their deaths. They could go on for days, until I was wrought with starvation or dehydration. Until my feet were too bloody to move, and they grew bored, leaving me helpless to die on the ground in the middle of the forest, an exhausted heap of bone and sinew.
I began to dance, swaying my hips, my hands above my head. The moves came to me naturally, more from magick than any kind of talent of my own. My feet counted out the steps, mixing the dirt and snow and making my already frozen feet grow numb inside my inadequate shoes.
One of the fae pulled Leisha from the ground and held her by the jaw, her face turned toward me so she could watch my punishment. Their smiles were even bigger now, stretched across their luminescent faces like horrible masks. As I spun faster and faster they all blurred together until it began to feel more like a dream than reality.
Before long, I lost all feeling in my feet, and for that I was grateful. By last glance they had grown bloody, blisters forming in the places where my shoes rubbed against my heels. I didn’t know what would be worse: the pain from the dance, or the frostbite that would surely set in if they made me dance long enough. The orchard was magicked so trees could grow in the snow, so there was still plenty of it on the ground.
At some point, I heard Leisha’s sobs and their jeers fade away, too, until all that was left was a pleasant sort of darkness. Sweat coated my skin, even in the cool night air, and I shrunk away from the reminder of where I was and what I was doing and sank into the welcoming darkness.
I realized the exhaustion, the helplessness, was really the undoing of all the unfortunate souls captured by the fae. Once all feeling had been magicked away, once your body grew too weary from the dance, the beckoning call of nothingness felt like the best way out. My ears roared with the rise of unconsciousness, and it caused a smile to spread.
At last.
A delicious heat spread over my entire body, causing me to groan with the warring feeling of pain and pleasure. Tingles and shocks raced throughout my arms and legs, and most of all, my feet. Oh, stars, my feet. Soon, a fog consumed me.
I sat up with a moan, bedraggled and confused. I winced, putting a hand to my forehead, but that did little to dispel the spinning or the muddle. Blinking, the clearing in the forest came back into view and I had to shake my head, which I immediately regretted, to register what I was seeing.
A magnificent dragon,my dragon, crouched in front of me, his teeth bared and licks of flame spewing front his flared nostrils. His spiked tail whipped behind him, keeping two of the four fae at bay as he stared down Corden and his accomplice, the one guarding Leisha.
Despite the gnawing ache in my wounded feet, I scrambled to them, gripping a tree to keep upright. The dragon eyed me for a moment before baring his teeth at Corden.
“You dare come to my land and steal my mate,” the dragon seethed. I hadn’t even been aware he could speak, though his voice seemed to emanate from the space around us rather than from his mouth.
Warmth that had nothing to do with the flames shooting from his mouth spread throughout my body.He came for me.
“Your mate?” Corden said, flicking an accusing glare at me. “If she’s your mate, perhaps you ought to keep a better leash on her. We found them…traveling away from your castle. Seems like you can’t quite keep one, can you?”
Rhys growled, spitting flames at a smirking Corden. “Leave. Now, before I reduce you to ash where you stand.”
The fae blinked, and then they were gone.
Relief weakened my knees, and I slumped onto a pile of melted snow, the dampness seeping through the material of my dress and cloak, but I didn’t care. I hurt everywhere, my escape, such as it was, had been short-lived, but I was alive. For a while there, I hadn’t been certain I wanted to.
Rhys landed, shifting back into his human form. He stayed crouched on the ground in front of me, his tan skin luminous even in the pale light from the splintered moon. His chest heaved as he got to his feet and I didn’t need to see his face to know that his eyes were glowing bright red. When he reached for me, I couldn’t move, I was so numb with pain and a bone-deep tiredness.
“Can you move?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Is Leisha okay?”
