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“Get the fuck out!” he barked.
“As you like,” Briar and I complied.
I bowed, the princess curtsied, and we quit the pavilion. Outside, I ripped off that monstrosity of a bell cap and shoved it into the bloated womb of a bush. Though, there was nothing to be done about the tacky nightmare they’d dressed me in.
Soon, I predicted. It will come off soon.
As sunset thrived in its final hour, crowds swarmed the grounds. Bonfires blasted into the sky, sparks somersaulting through the air.
Mind-slothing drink and petal stimulants led to elation, flirtation, and copulation. Debauchery set the people into a distracted haze. Drums pounded, torches writhed from poles, and lust saturated the atmosphere like the scent of lily wine.
The masks came out to play. Men exchanged their coats for horse, lion, and fox visors. Women unlaced their bodices, nipples peeking over the necklines and skirts lifting to reveal smocked garters. Couples ran barefooted, ground their hips into a dance, and lured each other into the recesses—or dry-humped outright for spectators.
Disheveled laughter. Indulgent moans. Wolfish singing.
I knew the gluttonous patterns of Spring. Too swept up in their inebriation and sexcapades, the throng had forgotten themselves.
They forgot us.
My jaw ticked. Briar and I exchanged looks, her features sketched in pulsing amber light. When she nodded, I clamped onto her hand and snuck past the masses with her.
Without stopping, I swiped a blade from someone’s harness. A row of stocks held born souls, their heads bowing and arms dangling limply like puppets with severed strings.
At the first stock, I flipped the dagger and spun the hilt on one upright finger. Then I launched the weapon upward, caught the handle in my fist, and rammed it against the latch.
The closure snapped and fell open like a shocked mouth. One by one, we released the people trapped inside. They stumbled backward, expressions ranging from baffled to distrustful to frightened.
We stepped back and watched as they sprinted into the wilderness at last. Their outlines shrank to blots of movement before slipping away.
Some would be difficult for Spring to track down. Others not.
But at least we gave them the chance and the choice. ’Twas the most we could do on this eventide.
My head swung to the woman beside me, who stared back with lustrous eyes. One mutinous desire had been satisfied. Now a hotter need burned like embers across my fingers. Without another word, I snatched Briar’s hand and dragged her out of there.
Mine.
She’s mine now.
On the way through the quagmire, a passing figure balanced a tray of delicacies that included tonics and a bowl of berries. Briar recognized the morsels, swiped one of the enablers from the vessel, and tugged on me. I stopped, watching as she held my gaze and draped the bundleberry on her tongue. From within the burnished luster of a neighboring bonfire, her jaw rotated as she chewed.
The fantasy of juice swirling across her palate set my cock on edge. The morsels were effective for days, and I had planned to give her one later. But that she remembered the potent little berry from harvesting at the cottage, that she remembered its preventative clout, and that she consumed it without hesitation, smoldered my blood.
For what happened next, we’d be safe.
She swallowed. And we ran.
With my hand clasped to hers, we fled the whirlwind of that place, the divine and the corrupt, unable to help or save the rest who languished in the dungeon. Not tonight. Not yet. The knowledge charred us to the bone and accelerated our pace, inciting us to reach for something provocative, something capable of stifling the rage—something long overdue.
Something worth every ounce of pain that came before.
Desperation launched me forward. We barreled into the woodland, into the deep lung of Spring. Torch poles crackled between the foliage, scattered blazes painting the trees in blood red.
We would return to the carnival, but not before the celestials flashed like asterisks and the moon crawled up the midnight sky. Until then, we ran from it all.
Audible fragments of gaiety and atrocity subsided, fading into wisps of sound. Then all at once, the noise vanished. The quiet swallowed the forest whole, and mist coiled through the snarling brambles.
My heart became a violent thing. It thrashed like a caged beast, because I’d been wanting this for an eternity. Damn my fate to hell if I didn’t shred through those bars, to grab what I thirsted for.
