Page 17 of The Fae Queen's Captive
“I will always want more,” I say, turning back to look at her. “That’s what I can offer. I will always,alwayswant more.”
Her attention is wholly on me now. “Oh?”
She doesn’t believe me, I think. There’s a slight arch to her brow, a skeptical tilt of her head. I imagine she’s seen enough people grow bored with indulgence to think I’m spinning tales, childishly asserting things I cannot possibly know about whatalwayswill mean to me.
And in one way, she might be right to doubt, because I can’t know whatalwayswill mean to me. But I do knowme—I know who Janneth Carter, horny archaeologist, is.
And if there was ever a time for insatiability to be a superpower, then this is it.
I stand and meet the queen’s stare, pretending I know exactly what the fuck I’m doing.
“I’ll prove it,” I say lightly and step off the dais.
Chapter7
“Janneth,” the queen calls.
I’m off the dais now, and so I have to look up at her on her throne. The antlers twisting from the back of the throne stretch behind her, and from this angle, they look like they’re part of her crown and maybe like they’re a part of her. It’s unnerving.
It’s beautiful too.
She doesn’t speak for a moment, and I barely know this woman or this place, and so I have no idea if she’ll speak to forbid me from doing something stupid or if she’ll goad me into doing something even stupider.
But when she speaks, it’s neither warning nor encouragement. “Your dress,” she says.
I look down and see the edge of my hem has dragged against the small lake of green blood on the floor. It’s grown even darker since it first spilled, nearly black at its perimeter, and now the blush-colored fabric of my dress is stained with it.
I have a moment of—well,blanknessis the wrong word. But so ishorror.
It is the space where horror should go, I think, where disgust and terror should twist together, but instead there is nothing, an emptiness. Just the feeling that I should be more upset than I am. That I should not already be turning around and continuing to the platform.
That I should not already be thinking of mouths and hands and spread thighs…
But here I am at the edge of the platform, my dress wet with blood, my heart thumping against my chest not with fear but with lust. Or perhaps the fear is still there, but it’s feeding the lust too, because there is something thrilling, however sick, in feeling afraid and aroused at the same time.
I’m about to crawl right into the fray—the few sex parties I’ve been to have taught me the valuable lesson that there’s a time and a place for shyness, and orgies are not it—when I feel a finger run over my shoulder. A moth flits above the moaning pile atop the platform.
I turn to see Idalia, dressed in silver, her moths no longer around her neck but high above her pewter head like a cloud. And then behind me, I feel another presence. Maynard.
“Pretty things should be played with,” Idalia murmurs, coming closer. She leans down to speak in my ear, her lips warm against my skin. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” I murmur back. I mean, I wasn’t about to climb into an orgy to ask about skin-care routines.
“Both of us will play with you, if you’ll have us,” Idalia purrs, a hand trailing down my back to find the laces of the dress’s corset. “Right here, in front of the queen.”
“Do I—is there—” I’ve never needed to have this conversation with people who weren’t human before. And I’m not worried about contraception—I just had my shot last week, but there are other things to worry about it. “When fairies and humans are together…I mean, to be safe—”
Idalia nips at the lobe of my ear.“Fairies and humans can’t pass infections to each other, if that’s what you’re wondering. But you might have to think about what else you’d likesafeto mean. For example, doessafemean no pain?” She sinks her teeth into the place between my neck and my shoulder now. I shudder, the pain streaking through my body like rain, washing me clean. Leaving me hot and shivery.
“Or doessafemean no shame?” Maynard says in my other ear, his rich voice turning the last word into a melody of lust. His hand has joined Idalia’s on the back of my dress, and the laces are being loosened, loosened, until I feel the front of the dress start to gape and sag in front.
“I like both of those things,” I say, a little breathlessly.
“You need only cry mercy,” Maynard says, “and we will give it. But mortals so rarely ask for mercy, do they? Especially if they’ve already tasted what we can offer…”
Tasted.
I wonder if he means the fairy fruit. Thank god I’m not foolish enough to eat any while I’m here.
