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“What is this place?” I asked as he led me through a series of corridors that looked as if they’d been hewn from the trees themselves by some kind of fae magic, and they probably had.
“You’re in a unique position,” he said cryptically without turning around. “It’s rare for a human to possess The Sight, but it does happen. As a halfling you’ve had it all your life, and yet you’ve never quite belonged to any one realm, have you?” He paused at a set of tall, wooden double doors, pivoting to look at me. “It’s dangerous for the human world to know about the fae. Humans are primitive creatures who care about nothing but themselves. They attack, destroy, and eliminate the things they do not understand.” He placed a hand on the door and pushed. “So, when we find a human who can see us, or who wanders a little too close to the veil, we take them far away where there’s no chance of our existence being discovered by the wrong sort of people. We keep them here like pretty treasures to serve us, to live a life amongst us.”
I blinked in awe at what awaited me on the other side of the threshold. Dread filled every part of my body and soul. “When Cadoc called them merchandise…” I said, unable to disguise the tremor in my voice. I looked at him in horror, shaking my head as I took a step backwards. My back hit something solid and I jumped away from it, peering over my shoulder to find a pair of solid-black eyes staring back down at me.
“He does have a special way with words,” he said, gesturing to Cadoc who’d appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I stood between them, like a gazelle caught between two lions. “He and I will be here to make sure you make it where you need to go. Handlers, if you prefer.” His lips twitched at the widening of my eyes as my head swiveled between the two of them.
Myhandlers.More like jailers.
Cadoc casually rested a palm over the knife at his hip, as if at any moment, I would make a break for it. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t seriously considering it, but something told me staying put would be safer. Besides, I knew he didn’t need a weapon to control me. He had dark magic that he wielded like an extension of himself. I still had bruising on my ribs to prove it.
I squared my shoulders, hiding the shaking of my hands by balling them into tight fists. “I’m not some whore for you to dress up like a fucking doll.” I gestured to the room beyond the double doors where the steam-filled air smelled like sweet jasmine, and naked bodies were being waxed, plucked, and prodded at.
Humans and halflings were lined up in front of several beautiful pixies in long white dresses who wielded metallic paints that they used to decorate bodies. Almost every human in the room was either completely naked, or draped in sheer fabrics that showed every curve and dip of their bodies.
My back hit the stone wall, all of the breath whooshing out of my lungs. Cadoc held me in place with his arm across my chest, pushing just hard enough to keep me from wiggling. That phantom pain I’d been fighting in my spine flared and burned. His thigh was braced between my legs, so I couldn’t run or stomp on his foot. I glared at him, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something that might compel him to use that knife on me.
“You’ll do as you’re told. You’ll fall in line with the rest like a good, little servant. Maybe then I won’t be forced to punish you for your disobedience.” He raised a dark brow, as if daring me. As if punishing me wouldn’t exactly be such a chore.
The faerie chuckled, and I met his eyes from over Cadoc’s shoulder. “Already a success with the new concubine, Cad.” He shook his head as if this behavior was typical. I believed it.
His words hit me a moment too late and I froze, my mouth drying up as I spat, “Concubine?” Struggling against Cadoc, I tried to push with my whole body against his chest but he was utterly immovable. He was a stone wall and I was a puny ant. “I’m not your doll and I’m not your fucking whore!”
He pressed in harder, cutting off my air supply even more. His face was so close we breathed each other's breath. His was icy, as if a void of nothingness lived inside of him and his eyes were the only window. “It’s either that, or you can spend the rest of your tiny life scrubbing floors or cleaning toilets.” He tilted his head, looking me up and down skeptically. “I don’t personally see the appeal, but Erix and Haelo seem to think you could be our most sought-after concubine. You could have wealth and luxury at your fingertips.” With his other hand, he touched my hair like Haelo had. Then his eyes dipped down my body suggestively. “I wonder if you’re crimson everywhere—”
With a snarl that sounded more animal than I knew I was capable of, I pushed against him again, expecting him to choke me out, but to my surprise he took a step back, sending me stumbling forward. Erix caught me by the arm and steadied me.
I ripped away from his touch with a sharp sneer. “So, this is some kind of…faerie brothel?” I screwed up my nose in disgust. Not at the sex work. No, I respected anyone who was smart enough to use the talents they had to make their way in this world. No, it was the lack of choice that had me raging inside. I wasn’t a sex slave.
I glanced through the open door again, watching the slaves get turned into living sex dolls. They were being dressed, decorated, and painted for the pleasure of these faeries. Each one of them was stolen from their lives and given no choice but to serve…all because they were born with the sight.
It wasn't fair. It was cruel. It was inhuman.
Cadoc
“It’s not a brothel,” Erix said, chuckling at her naivety. I readied my shadows to snatch her up if she tried to run. I didn’t particularly care if I scared her every time I used them. The defiant ones were always more trouble than they were worth, even if I could count how many we had on one hand. “It’s an auction house.TheAuction House. Faeries from every court come here to bid on servants and concubines that the Wild Hunt provides.”
“Slaves, you mean,” the halfling spat.Kyre, I reminded myself internally. The exiled princess had a name. Not that it fucking mattered. They were possessions now. Property. They could be given new names if their lords so chose it. Her auburn eyes blazed with loathing as she looked between us. “You’re disgusting.”
Spittle hit my cheek and fury ripped through me. I moved so fast she couldn’t have seen it coming, pulling the dagger from its sheath, letting my shadows writhe and twist around the blade. The dark power passed to me from the beast my mother bore me from was allconsuming, filling my body with coiled darkness that was ready and willing to bend to my will at all times.
Erix stopped me with a hand on my chest and a firm look of warning not to hurt this one. Her eyes went wide. She was defiant, but she couldn’t hide her fear as well as she thought she could. I wanted to drag her pretty ass back to the cell we’d been keeping her in and let her sit in her own filth for a few more days until she learned some manners. She had no understanding of who she was speaking to. The things I’d done…
She held my stare, chin up and fists tight. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to fuck me against my will. I don’t care who you are.” She tried to hide the way her gaze flickered to my dagger, and the turning of the wheels in her head. She was contemplating how to disarm me. How she could escape us. I wanted to laugh. We’d been following her for a week before her capture, and nothing I’d seen so far pointed to her having any sort of competency with weapons aside from that flimsy dagger she had.
I could smell her rage—the rise in her temperature and the sweat forming on the nape of her slender neck. It sparked a fire in my chest that expanded outward, simmering under my skin. I’d never had a concubine be so openly combative. They were all scared, little creatures without backbone. They did what they were told without question, cowering in the face of predators that could end them where they stood with little to no effort.
But Kyre, despite her fear, didn’t go quietly into her fate. No, she was prepared to fight us all the way to the end. A part of me was thrilled with the idea. I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t crave her physically. I was a fae male, after all, with all of the cravings that came with it. She was a stunning creature, especially for a halfling with long curls of vibrant copper, freckles across smooth skin, and eyes that were just a little bit too orange to be called brown.
Humans and halflings were plain, dull, and fragile things, and I took concubines only when I couldn’t be bothered to start something with a fae female. They were complicated and tended to resent one night stands.
After weeks on the road in search of our latest bounty, I liked to fuck. That’s all it was. Sloppy, drunken, and emotionless. I liked to fuck for hours and hours while I decompressed, and usually it took a rotation of concubines to satisfy me. Vazden had a similar problem, only for that behemoth it was more of a logistics issue. He was a giant compared to human women, and he had to be careful.
I had no such desire. I wanted my concubines feisty and ready for anything I commanded of them. I wanted them on their knees or strung up in chains as I had my way with them. I wanted them writhing in unimaginable pleasure as I teased and tested them, as I brought them to the brink of insanity.
My lips curled as I stepped closer toward her, crowding her against the wall. She was taller than the average woman, but dainty compared to me. “When I fuck you, it won’t be against your will.” Her lips parted and her brows knitted in frustration, but color bloomed on the apples of her cheeks. I fingered her hair gently. “When we fuck, you’ll be the one begging me for it.”
And Iwouldfuck her. She would become a concubine, because there was no other option for her. Kyre was too beautiful to scrub kitchen floors or polish boots. She would have the choice, of course, but it would come down to convincing her otherwise.
