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Roth came with a roar, and that was my cue to leave. Erix chuckled, standing with me and clapped me on the shoulder as we waded through the bidding hall. “You’re off tonight, Vaz.” Several concubines sashayed past us, running their hands over our shoulders or fluttering their lashes our way. Pixies danced on the balconies overhead, their wings fluttering prettily. “Don’t tell me I need to send a nymph to your bed again…”
I chuffed him on the shoulder and shook my head. “Fuck you.” My lips twitched. Nymphs were notorious for liking rough, violent fucking, and sometimes that was exactly what I needed. Soft, human cunts were too fragile, and even though they begged for my cock, I needed to let loose and fuck like the beast I was on the inside. Scanning the room, I searched out a head of dark and golden runes, but couldn’t find him. “Where’s Riven at this hour?”
Erix sighed, shucking off the touch of a male concubine who skimmed his lips over the hollow of his throat, whispering to him promises of pleasure he never dreamed of. “Haelo had him warding a room for our new princess. I doubt we’ll hear from him before the morning.”
He was referring to the crimson-haired halfling. The one who intrigued me more than she should have. The princess who was not a princess. The one and only bounty who had ever evaded capture. Theprincesof the Hunt weren't too happy about that. I was one of their best hunters, and together we’d been outsmarted. She was petulant and feisty rather than cowering and afraid. It was odd to say the least, but I always welcomed a challenge.
Erix wasn’t like Riven and I. He was half mage like Riven, and a skilled hunter like me, yet he didn’t take concubines to bed, nor did he pay them any attention other than to serve him drinks. He was an odd male, but I didn’t give him a hard time over his celibacy. And neither did the princes or any other member of the Wild Hunt.
As bounty hunters, none of us had the privilege of taking a mate. Our lives were too complicated to add the fuss of attachment. Sometimes, I wondered if Erix had a secret mate out there that he was hiding from us. Why else would he choose a life without the feel of a warm cunt around his cock? But Riven, I would have expected him in the hall by bow.
The bidding hall was alive with music, drink, dancing, and fucking. It was a place for tired soldiers, wealthy merchants, and royals to rest between travels and engage in the sort of depravity one couldn’t find in the courts. The Auction House was nestled deep in the Void Wood hosted by the Wild Hunt once a year as our cages were filled with our newest bounties. It was a place with no hope for escape, and nothing but a forest filled with monsters down below.
Faeries writhed on the moss-covered floors, entwined with their chosen concubines on beds of feathers and silk. Golden bird cages hung from the vaulted ceilings with dancing humans or halflings inside them, dressed in all manner of vibrant costumes. Some were naked, wearing only body paint and jewels stuck to their skin in enticing places. The Auction House was truly a treasure in a world full of desolation.
Erix and I parted ways and I headed out into the crisp, night air. Unfurling my wings, I perched on the edge of our highest sky bridge soaking in the sweet scent of the forest before letting myself drop. The wind caught my wings, slowing my descent as I veered around trees, more twisting bridges and dangling vines.
I reached the forest floor, landing with force, sending dirt and moss scattering around me. I must have startled the beasts, because there was a sudden frenzy of stomping hooves, snapping, hissing, and growling. On the ground level beneath the auction house were the stables where the Hunt kept their beasts. There were dozens of them, and I was their master.
There were elhorns, Sabers, Chimeras, and some that had no formal names. They were fae, but more animal than their riders. As a drach, I was higher on the food chain than any of them. In my true form, I could snap each and every one of them in two with the twitch of my jaw.
After tending to the beasts, making sure they were well fed and watered, I decided it was a good night to fly. The skies were clear and the moon was full. I could soar through the skies until the sun rose the next morning and nobody would miss me here tonight.
I chose a clearing not far from the edge of the treetop city that once belonged to my kind alone and allowed the change to come over me. Pleasure rolled though my muscles as I shook them out, allowing them to stretch and bend, growing larger and larger as magic swirled round me. To anyone else it happened in the blink of an eye, but I savored every moment.
One second, I was a winged man with skin like night, and the next, I was a dragon. My true self, my most coveted form. As I took off into the skies, my wings carrying me higher and higher until the canopies and lights danced below me, I decided I was happy to be alone tonight. Soaring through the heavens was far more satisfying than the warmth of a female could ever be.
Kyre
Ispent days locked in a small room with a bed, a table, a toilet, and a writing desk. There was no window to tell me the time of day. It was disorienting and I was getting frustrated. Meals came at regular intervals, and I made sure to clean my plate.
Despite the stories that warned humans not to eat faerie food, I couldn’t risk becoming too weak to fight back if I needed to. I still had no idea what was coming. Besides, I was half faerie, so I doubted those same rules applied to someone like me.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I tried for hours to pry the collar off of me, even digging my nails into the vine, hoping to saw through it, but every time I made any headway, it only fused back together, healing itself.
I spent the night in that room, alone with no bath, no clothing, and no answers as to what came next for me. Haelo said I was going to…servethem, whatever that meant. There were so many ways to interpret his words, but being that he was a faerie, I knew I should probably take them in the most literal sense.
I shivered at the thought of touching any of them, even dreamed about it all through the first night, tossing and turning on the unfamiliar bed. It wasn’t that the princes were particularly repulsive. No, they were quite the opposite, and that was what terrified me the most. Even Cadoc, with his dark scowls, depthless eyes, and constant grumbling, was more beautiful than any human man I’d ever encountered.
Haelo was the epitome of the wordetherealin every way, and his soothing, musical voice was almost enough to make me want to follow him willingly. Then there was Riven. I wasn’t sure what to think of him at all. He was beautiful, too, of course, but there was something calculating and almost cruel about him.
I wondered if all three of the princes lived in this massive place, or if they simply showed up to torture their prisoners whenever they felt like it. Maybe Riven was in some room nearby, having his way with one of those pixies. My stomach curdled at the thought. Did they really have their pick of pixies at their disposal, ready to serve them whenever they wanted? Dread pooled inside of me.
For the rest of the night, I waited for one of them to come and collect me—to give me my first task as a slave to the Wild Hunt. Only no one ever came. Not that night, not the day after, or even the day after that. Meals came and went, appearing as if by magic on the top of the bookshelf each morning. It was just a platter with some fruit, a chunk of cheese, and a slice of bread. I didn’t mind the lack of options, given the fact that it was an effort just to choke it down in the first place.
Over the last three days—at least I assumed days had passed, since there never seemed to be any sunlight here—I’d awoken from a dreamless sleep to the sound of a horn. It was the same horn that heralded the Wild Hunt before answering my summons and before coming to collect their prize. The first time it sounded, I’d run to the door, trying to listen through it.
After every sound of the horn, a flurry of activity would wake the forest. Hundreds of faeries would cry out in excitement, presumably for the hunt to come. I’d put together that the horn was a type of signal or a summons. It was a call to action—a call to a hunt.
The rest of my days and nights for the next week, I assumed, were filled with tossing and turning while that strange ache in my back persisted. Sometimes it burned, while other times it stung like needles poking through my skin and penetrating the bone. I tried ignoring the pain, but no matter how I tried to lie or position my body, my spine found a new way to torture me.
On the eighth day of captivity, the door to my room opened without warning. I stood from the bed, placing my back against the wall, wishing I had some sort of weapon. I sucked in a sharp breath as I laid eyes on the faerie who stood in the doorway.
I knew those eyes, those blue tattoos. It was the pale-haired faerie from my nightmare, the one who whispered to me as I was strung up in chains. The one whose touch I could still feel on my thighs like a brand. He was dressed pretty much the same as when I’d first seen him atop his elhorn. I knew it was him who had chased me down with those other two riders. This time, he wasn’t wearing a cloth mask over the bottom half of his face or his hood. He was tall, too, I realized. Much taller and much stronger than myself. Even if I did have a weapon, I had no hope of overpowering him.
His eyes dipped down my body, brows knitting together at the bedraggled state of me. “Have they not ordered you to bathe?” he asked by way of greeting. His tone was accusatory, but not toward me. He glanced at the guard standing outside the door. I hadn’t paid any attention to the nameless faerie guards who checked in on me every few hours, and they never spoke to me. “Follow me, Princess.” Turning on his heel, he walked away, expecting me to follow. “And keep up. This place is crawling with beasties who would love to gobble up a tasty thing like you.”
I did follow him. Anything to get out of that fucking room. I’d follow him anywhere just to be able to stretch my legs and breathe fresh air. I took his warning to heart, scanning the halls for grabbing hands or out of place shadows.
