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But my hands would not move.
Voices began to fill my ears. They were coming from close by.
“This? This is what everyone is talking about?” A woman’s voice. She sounded outraged.
“Indeed. I admit I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Plain creature, isn’t she?” A man’s voice. Bored and blasé.
My eyelids flickered, once, twice, closed. For a moment, I felt a start of terror, afraid they were not going to open at all.
I willed them open. Slowly they lifted. The effort took more time than it should have. The light was blinding at first.
“Yet he brought this fae bitch back.” The woman again. Harsh and accusing. She sounded very near me.
“Look at the little thing. Pale as snow. Eyes fluttering like a moth.” The man. It sounded as if he were standing over me. “Typical Valtain.” He gave a derisive snort.
They were talking about me. That much was clear. I was finding it difficult to care, however. They were only a small part of all that was disorienting.
Where was I? I knew I was lying down. And that was about it.
I felt horribly exposed. Was I even clothed?
I tried to move my head, but was held in place. I could only blink slowly.
The woman answered the question for me. I felt a hand touch my chest lightly and something was flicked off. A blanket or sheet. How far had she pulled it down?
I felt a swell of fury go through me and cursed my frozen limbs. Why couldn’t I move this time? Was I dead?
It was a stupid thought and yet suddenly I felt afraid I was trapped in some underworld where cruel strangers stood over my body, examining me and poking fun. Surely it was not far off from the truth of what was happening.
I screamed silently at my muscles to move, my limbs to raise. Nothing happened.
“Ah, I thought so.” The woman was amused. “Look at this, would you?”
Footsteps came closer on my right side.
“Why the girl has already been marked. And not by him, it seems.” The man sounded cruelly delighted. “A name. Florian? What the fuck is a Florian? Some man she let bed her, I suppose.”
I felt a wave of shame wash over me. So the scars had not faded as much as I had hoped. That bastard’s name was still legible upon my flesh.
Florian’s lasting legacy.
Well, he would have no other. I had made very certain of that.
“Perhaps it isn’t a man’s name but a woman’s.”
“Only a man would mark a woman like that,” the man said. “Men don’t want other men touching their things. She’s been used before, clearly.” I could practically see the sneer on his face. “I bet she liked it, too.”
“Secondhand fae bitch,” the woman spat, leaning down over me. “Yet he returned withher. Why? Why her? She is not even Siabra.”
The fury in her voice made me rejoice. She might insult me all she liked, but evidently my presence alone was enough to infuriate her. And this was a woman I could tell I would delight in infuriating with every opportunity. If only I could spit in her eye and tell her so to her face.
My vision was coming into focus as my eyes became accustomed to the light. I blinked and the woman’s face began to take shape.
Narrow bright black eyes. Sharp, angular cheekbones. Glossy black hair that hung long around her shoulders. She had every claim to beauty from the little I could see.
“To rub her in your face, I suppose. And it’s working all too well, isn’t it?” The man gave a lazy yawn. “She’s waking up. We should leave. Come on. Even you know better than to push him too far.”
“Shall I leave her in this state or release her?” the woman pondered.
