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I huffed, exhausted from a day of riding in the countryside with my parents. “I don’t want to attend the gathering tonight.” Throwing myself onto the bed, I flopped onto my back. “No one will notice I’m gone anyway. Father holds these so regularly…it’s the same event on repeat.”
When Amina didn’t respond, I craned my neck up to see her studying me with an unimpressed face, her lips thinning. She laid my violet dress on the bed across from me.
“Shall I inform your mother then, you’ve chosen to spend the night in your room?”
I groaned under my breath, frustration bubbling in my chest. “Yes, fine. Go ahead.” I knew the moment Amina left the room, mamma would storm up to my bedroom, but I didn’t want to get dressed up tonight.
Once she left, I pushed myself up on my feet. Then I staggered across the room to the window and stared down where carriage after carriage lined up along the driveway to drop off important dignitaries, extended families, and other boring old people. I huffed at the sight.
Father would say that his functions were to unite all the different supernatural families, to avoid division. But that didn’t mean I had to attend each one.
A man I’d never seen before climbed out of a white carriage. Lean and tall, with flowing silvery hair cascading over shoulders, he held himself proudly, completely ignoring everyone who bowed in his presence. Even from up in my room, I could see the sneer on his face like the castle was beneath him. Why was he attending then?
No one else emerged from the carriage, but he scanned the place like he might be imprinting it onto his mind. When his gaze rose up to my window, our eyes clashed, and I froze. A shiver danced down my spine with the intensity behind his pale eyes.
There was a glint behind them, and his pointy ears slipped out from behind his white hair.
Fae—he was the Fae King. Father had told me he’d be attending tonight and why the function would be important.
It had taken him a long time to finally have the Fae King agree to join our ball.
My skin crawled the longer he stared up at me, but when the thundering footsteps sounded outside my room, growing louder, I knew mama was about to burst in here any moment in a flurry.
The Fae King was still watching me when my door flew open. I glanced at my mother.
“You’re still not dressed?” Mama demanded from the doorway, her voice rushing like it always got when she was stressed.
But I snuck another glance outside to watch the Fae King stroll into our castle. I knew with everything in me, I didn’t want to be anywhere near that man. And for the rest of the night, a sickening sensation rose through me each time I remembered those pale eyes seeming to stare right through to my soul.
I flipped open my eyes, trembling because I must have passed out. What an insane dream.
I was still tied up to the chair in the bathroom with the door ripped off its hinges. I peered into the hallway ahead of me at the beautiful woman still slumped in the hallway. A smear of blood streaked the wall she’d hit before she fell down. The reality that I’d been kidnapped by a crazy woman came at me in panicked waves.
I pull again at my ties…but they didn’t loosen at all.
The air felt heavy around me, and fragments of the dream about a fae king flared over my thoughts. Nothing in that dream had made sense. She must have hit me in the head at some point, that was the only explanation I could come up with.
I did the only thing I could think of—I attempted to hop out of the room in my chair. Small jumps that at first had me staying in the same spot. Leaning forward, I used my body’s weight and shoved myself forward on each hop. It was working until I leaned a bit too much on one side. Suddenly, the chair was lurching to my right.
I cried out as I fell over. Hitting the tiled floor with my shoulder, I groaned from the pain, thankful that at least I hadn’t whacked my head into the side of the ceramic toilet.
But now I’d ended up in a worst situation. I cried out in pure frustration, shaking with anger over what that bitch had done to me. My whole body was shaking as adrenaline coursed through me.
Once I’d gotten control of my emotions again, I shoved myself closer to the doorway, thinking maybe I’d find a knife or something on my kidnapper.
Before she woke up.
Once I escaped, I would work out how to get my memories back.
The room kept spinning with me, the arm I’d fallen onto screamed with pain every time I moved. But I couldn’t stop now. And I sure wasn’t going to be found dead, starved to death still tied to a chair in a bathroom.
By some miracle I shuffled awkwardly all the way to the doorway, frowning when I realized how hard it was going to be to get the chair through. I scanned the woman for any weapons, for something sharp I could use to cut the ties…but I couldn’t see anything. I also took a quick look up and down the hallway that led to other rooms. Nothing looked familiar.
I turned back to the woman, and her eyes flipped open. I screamed out of pure fright, flinching backward.
She groaned, rubbing her head, then glared at me. “What did you do to me?”
“I could ask you the same question. Now let me go before I do it again!” I was completely bluffing seeing as I had no idea what happened earlier and where the gust of wind came from.
