"What, did you think we'd become friends?" I ask, sweetly.
In one slick move, I turn her around, pulling a rope from my waist. She growls in frustration, slamming her head back into my chest to try and knock me back. Her foot hooks behind my knee and she spins out of my grip with lighting speed. I catch her wrist just an inch before the dagger she'd grabbed plummets into my abdomen. Fuck me, she's fast and strong for someone of her size. I hope she isn't too young, or I'd feel guilty for imprisoning her.
"Are you an adult?" I ask, tying another knot as she struggles against me. Lynna will never let it go if I imprison a child. The struggling stops and she remains in stunned silence for a brief moment, before resuming again.
"I beg your pardon?" She snarls, trying for her knife again. Oh, she'spissed off.
"How old are you? It’ll affect your imprisonment.”
"That's none of your business!" She takes a deep breath, her chest rising. "Onyx!" She screams, at the top of her lungs, her husky voice reverberating off of the gnarled trees that surround us. I finish binding her hands behind her back, which buys me a chance to admire her. She is not thin but strong, her body toned and her soft skin a golden warm of brown.
I turn to see a tall figure come out from a tree, stalking towards us with a long steel broadsword twirling round his hands. “Take your fucking hands off her," he warns me, in a voice laden with malice. The strange creature standing in front of me shakes her head.
“Drop the sword, Onyx.”
He assesses her for a moment, eyebrows knitting together in a frown, before doing as she asks. He drops his sword to his side, clearly not happy about it, and moves his hands above his head. "What happened?"
"He shot me," she mumbles, nonchalantly.
"Hewhat?" Bites Onyx, his hand shooting straight back down to the blade at his feet.
"Don't! Don't! He's the King," she pleads, finally losing her cheerful, unbothered demeanour.
I like to identify people's weaknesses, and she's just given hers up to me so easily. It's him, whoever he is. I take a lazy moment to take him in. He is an immortal, given away by bright yellow-orange eyes. Tousled sun-kissed curls sit atop his head, and a short brown beard lines his jaw. I want to know his relationship with this mortal beneath my hands.
"Your Majesty, I can only apologise on her behalf," he says, graciously. "She has behavioural issues. We're working on them. I'm so sorry. If you could please let her go, I'll make sure to give her an earful myself."
Naive, just like her. "And what do I get out of it?"
"What do you want out of it? I'll happily do it, my lord."
I wonder how these two are friends. I hope that is all that they are, for some reason. He seems the polar opposite of her, calm and respectful.
"She's your...wife?" I ask, wondering again why I am so keen for him to say no. Mortals never marry immortals, for obvious reasons.
"My sister, my adopted sister. She's only twenty-one; she's a mortal, so that's only a hundred in our years."
He thinks I’m an idiot. "I know how mortals age." Just like I knew when his sister told me she was of the River Folk, I can tell he hasn't told me the full truth. No parents would adopt an immortal child if they were mortal, and vice versa. They're liars, the both of them, and I will get the truth out of them sooner or later.
"My apologies, Your Majesty. My point is, she's young. She's getting in all sorts of trouble and putting her in prison won't do her any good."
This Evergreen is tall and muscular, and he looks like he'd make a good warrior. He also doesn't seem as irritating as his sister. I've known her for all of five minutes and I already know that the most agonising punishment for her would be to see her brother suffer. So suffer he will.
"Our guards are stretched thin this week. You'll do manual labour for one of my guards for the week in return for her life."
That fucking mouth drops open, and I watch it for a moment too long before I realise she’s complaining again. Five minutes with this woman and I’m already craving silence more than I’ve ever craved it. "What? You can't make him—no! I'll do it—“
Her brother silences her with a furious look. "Done, my lord. She won't trouble you again."
I turn the feisty huntress around, her brown eyes meeting mine. I break the eye contact first. I don’t entertain lust anymore, not with strangers. She's young, and I don't sleep with mortals. At all.
But this temptress is determined to test me. “Annaliya was right. You are beautiful," she whispers, eyes wide. "Such an awful shame about the personality," she adds, her voice turning slow and seductive.
"Ren, for fucks sake. Your Majesty, please just ignore her. It's a personality disorder at this stage.” Her brother clamps a firm hand over her mouth, stopping her talking.
"Two weeks of manual labour," I decide, jaw tense. I’ll ruin her brothers life if it’ll make her cry. Her eyes widen in protest, but her insults die inside her brother's palm. She's annoyed I've found her weakness, but she shouldn't have given me so much ammunition. I keep them both tied and drag them back to my palace, not letting them say a word.
"Frian, assign these two to a room each and do not let them leave," I bark, shooting them both an arctic look as she shrugs her dark velvet cloak off her shoulders, draping it gracefully over her forearm to reveal a tight black top with a deep neckline.
