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“She’s a kuri, too!”
The shout rips through my entire being.
My eyes snap open and I stare up at the dark fae and his hardened face.
“She is!” It’s Spike, calling from the van. “She has the freckles—see for yourself, they are on her right breast!”
Cheeks aflame, a whole new fear rises up inside of me.
Something dark and moody passes over the warrior’s face. His ember eyes shift into pits of blackness, and he stares down at me. The short knife in his hand—with a blade the length of my middle finger—betrays that he meant to make me suffer, to draw out my death.
After a long, terrible moment, he brings the wide edge of the knife closer to me until I feel its cold kiss against the side of my neck.
His voice is low, thickened by an unearthly accent as he says, “Show me.”
Instantly, I shake my head. The gesture frees trapped tears that are now rolling down my temples and into my hair.
“He’s lying,” I try to say—but no words come out of my mouth. Silenced, still. Then, I suddenly feel the pressure in my throat lift. It comes out of me in a choke so forceful that it jolts my body against the fae straddling me.
“Repeat,” the warrior growls.
I manage a croak, “He’s lying.” Sounds as though I haven’t spoken in years and moths and dust have lived in my throat. Feels like it, too. “No freckles. None.”
But of course he can see the faint ones on my face.
His eyelashes lower over burning black eyes. In the fading firelight, amber flecks dance like glittering threats.
“Lies,” he mutters, then he ghosts the blade down my neck.
I arch away from him, but it only invites the knife to cut over my throat. He passes over it, though, and moves down to my right breast.
I freeze. My fingers clench, toes curling in my boots, and a rigid ghost possesses me. Can’t move. Want to move, want to fight. But can’t.
Is this fae power again?
The blade slices suddenly, and a wince catches in my throat. I look down my body to where the knife cut; right between the bodice of my dress. The gash is long enough to reveal more of my body than I would ever dare to in front of a dark fae—or anyone.
Veins turning to ice, I shudder a breath and, finally, break free from the stiffness that plagued me. Is it instinct that has my hands flying up at the warrior’s face?
I claw out at him, my bitten-down nails doing nothing at all. But I switch my aim for his eyes—I don’t get the chance to connect before his large hand snatches up my wrists then slams them to the ground. He pins them above my head, the bones screaming in protest.
Undeterred—as though I hadn’t fought at all—he reaches his other hand for my ripped bodice and yanks back the material. My bra is revealed, and it’s a hammered heartbeat before he’s tugged it down and shown my entire breast.
Tears are spilling out of me now. My face twists with a stifled sob, but it escapes anyway and jolts my body. He pays me no mind.
Tilting his head, he clearly sees the three dotted freckles down the side of my boob. He considers the marks for only a moment before he’s pulling up my bra to shield me. His weight is lifted from me a moment later, and the aches in my ribs can finally breathe.
He stands over me, his dark eyes shifting between me and Spike who hugs himself closer to the van.
Then he lands his gaze on me. “You can be useful.”
With that, he storms off to the middle of the orange-glowing street. He reaches for the bloody remains of a steed. For a beat, I watch him—I’m still sprawled on the pavement—snatch up leather satchels and water-skins and ropes.
When I blink out of my daze of shock, I roll onto my side. A groan rumbles through me, but I push through it and manage to get onto all fours.
“Get down,” Spike’s urgently hushed voice snares out at me.
I shoot him a scathing look meant for murder before I shakily get to my feet. But that’s as far as I get. Don’t get the chance to run or free or stab myself in the neck with a discarded weapon.
