AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Probably not.
The man on the horse climbs down, and my stomach churns. I don't want to go into that house because I don't know what they want with me, or what they'll do to me. Not that I have a choice.
The man hauls me off of the horse roughly, grumbling incoherently as he does so, then tosses me over his shoulder awkwardly.
“Yeah, be rough with the girl who’s hogtied. Real gentlemanly of you.” The second the words leave my mouth, I regret them. I won’t be able to do much if this man beats the shit out of me.
Luckily, he ignores me and carries me to the house. Rapping at the door, he says, “It’s Grif. I got the girl.”
The sound of a lock of some sort turning comes, and then I hear the door creak open. Beyond the door comes conversation and laughter. From far too many people.
Fuck.
Carrying me inside, he dumps me onto the dusty floor, while I desperately try to ignore the pain radiating through my body. I struggle against the ropes, hating being this helpless, hating that they can do anything to me now, and I can’t stop them. Tears of frustration fill my eyes, but I blink them away angrily and twist and turn my wrists and ankles to no avail.
“Would you look at who finally joined the party?” A familiar female voice asks sarcasm dripping off her words.
I strain my neck, glancing up to look at the woman who kneels over me. The woman who helped kidnap me, I’d recognize her voice anywhere, even if the mask had concealed her face.
She’s not at all what I expected, and yet, I don’t really know what Ididexpect. Some of her attributes I’d been able to see, even with her mask on. Like her short, dark hair and equally dark eyes. But there are other things I could never imagine, like the scars that cover nearly every inch of her body that’s visible. They look like they came from hundreds of painful injuries that were never allowed to properly heal.
Yet, they don’t distract from her harsh beauty. If anything, it makes her more interesting to look at. If only because someone like her must have lived a strange and terrible life.
“You were expected, a while ago,” she says, and her voice is deep, almost masculine.
My anger grows, but I tap down my emotions. Some part of me can’t believe that a woman would do this to another woman, and yet, it’s stupid for me to think that way. In my short life, I’ve already seen enough of women and men to know they’re equally dangerous, even if they are in different ways.
Still, some part of me doesn’t want her to see how upset I am. It’s like my responses are the only thing I still have control over. “If you wanted me to come visit, you could’ve just sent an invitation.”
She laughs and grabs ahold of my face, painfully twisting it so that I’m facing the man who brought me. This… Grif. It’s the first time I’ve truly been able to look at him, and now I’m amazed by what a strange pair they are. Just as her skin is marked by scars, his is marked by tattoos. Tattoos that cover his throat, his neck, the bit of chest I can see, and his arms and hands. His hair is shaved clean on the sides, but the top of his hair and the back are left long. It’s strange, these two would stand out anywhere they go, and yet, no one seems to have thought they were suspicious enough to link them to my kidnapping.
They must be good at what they do.
“I'm Etha, and this is Grif, whom you've already met a few times now.” She smiles as she gives me her polite introduction, and I want to tell her to shove it up her ass.
“What do you want with me?” I ask, choosing to be calm instead of irate. Maybe I can get a straight answer. Maybe I can talk my way out of this. They're not going to respond to me being wild anymore. They’ve figured that out–if my bindings are any indication. I have to play it cool and use my brain.
At least, for a hogtied woman surrounded by enemies in a strange place, that seems like the only option.
Grif smirks. “She wonders what we want with her.”
Etha gives him a look that wipes the smirk from his face, and I don’t have to ask to know she’s in charge. “The fae are stupid like that.”
I snort. “They are.”
She gives me a strange look and continues. “The reason you’re here is simple. We’re tired of your kind.”
I stare in confusion.My kind?I'm the same kind as her, but I stay quiet and let her finish.
“All you fae do is rule over us and leave us with your scraps, and we're tired of your very existence.”
She's tired of the fae and how they rule? Well shit, so am I. The hours I worked to make so little money. The extravagance I witnessed before going home to my meager home with stolen food in my apron. The way that they've watched my father suffer with his illness all my life without offering him help that they could so easily give. And the way that my grandmother was thrown out of the palace for simply going blind.
Fuck the fae.
She continues before I can reply. “As the mate of all four princes, removing you from the picture removes any chance of them having children, at least legitimate children, and if they don't have legitimate children, there will be no more royal fae. Then, things will have to change.”
I can’t decide if I want to yell or laugh. “Now wait a minute. I’ve lived as a human all my life. I know exactly what it’s like. I’ve had to scrape what little pennies I had together to get food for my family. We lived in a tiny home on the far outskirts where the other nobodies live. What the hell makes you think that having me as queen is going to bebadfor humanity? Seriously.”
