Page 44 of Escape from the Green

"She freed me," I admitted. "Don't even know how long I was chained up, but it was long enough that I forgot my way around The Green. And she saved me. Freed me from it. I owe her the same."

"What does the Dark Court want with her? She special?" he asked, clearly meaning skill-wise.

"From what I can tell, she doesn't have any known skills. At least none that have presented themselves yet."

"Yet? If she's got your eyes like that, she's got to be old enough."

"Her parents sent her to the human realm to age her up. It might have screwed with her internal timing. They may still be dormant."

"Possibly," he agreed, nodding. "So if it isn't some skill the King can drain to try to inject into himself, what would he want with her."

"I don't know what the deal was, but I know the Dark Prince was getting her."

"As in as a whore?" he asked, eyes going small.

It wasn't exactly a secret that the Dark Court was full of sex slaves, the most beautiful of all kinds snatched, imprisoned, made to suck and fuck their lives away for the enjoyment of men - and women - who would get off on their pain.

"If I'm not mistaken... as a wife."

"Really?" he asked, turning fully to face me. "Who was she the child of?"

"Winters," I supplied, figuring there was no way to keep it secret for long.

"They're Light."

"Only in theory."

"I'm sure she knocks your socks off and everything, but what would the Unseelie King want with some offspring of a Light family? Even if they are rich."

"Opal Winters has a way of making things work out in her favor."

"Maybe she promised that new Light Princess," Sal suggested, tone indifferent as he rubbed his palms together, smoke filtering up between before he spread them flat, fire dancing up from his skin.

Salamander fae were fire fae.

Much like me and my kind.

We controlled it.

We brought it forth.

We could warm ourselves with it in the cold months.

Or use it to burn down your village.

I could only control it in Draca form.

Sal, apparently, was not so restricted.

But even as my eyes stayed transfixed on the flames as Sal pressed his hands to some downed branches, letting them crackle and spark to life, all my mind could focus on was that possibility.

Was that Opal's grand plan?

Did she intend to use Amy's arranged - and wholly unwanted - marriage to draw Jasper out of asylum?

If Jasper was planning on breaking into the Dark Court to save his little sister, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that his woman - the Princess with burning hands - would follow.

Was that what Cass - the Unseelie King - would get out of the arrangement that seemed better for the Winters than he and his son?