Page 39 of The Fae Queen's Captive
She pulls back enough that I can see her eyes glittering like emeralds. “That’s right, little one. You’re to be the tithe tonight.”
Fear somehow finds its way into my blood, washed away quickly by the haze of the fruit, but its metallic tang lingers in my mouth. “No,” I say, turning to look at Morgana. “She promised I could leave Faerie.”
I see Morgana sitting across the little glen from us, her full mouth set in a regal, distant line. I know her well enough now to know that cool mask hides quite a bit, and sure enough, her chest is moving quickly with some deep feeling. Her obsidian eyes flash as they meet my gaze, and for a moment, I’m struck by how painfully beautiful she is. Those high cheekbones, those perfectly arched brows. The long neck and delicate clavicle and those slender but wicked hands.
“She promised,” I say again. “And she can’t lie.”
“Of course she can’t,” Acanthia soothes in my ear. “But think, pet—what did she actually promise you? Was it to let you leave? Or did she only make you think so?”
You shall be my pet, my everything, until the final night of Samhain, and you will not be harmed until you leave Faerie.
Leave Faerie—that had felt so unequivocal to me. I’d get to go home, right? Unless…unless leaving Faerie hadn’t meant going home at all. Unless leaving Faerie meantdying.
I let out a shaky breath. She’d been right the night of the feast. She’d tried to warn me herself. There are many, many ways to lie.
And she’d lied about this without having to do any work at all; I’d practically handed it to her with my own assumptions.
“You see now,” Acanthia says softly. “You are the obvious choice for the tithe. The alternative is chaos and madness for every fae, demigod, or creature in the realms. You mustn’t blame her, though,” she says sensibly. “It is the way things are and always have been. And I do promise you that it will hurt her. She will hate every moment of killing you.”
This is my consort, a mortal worthy of a stag’s heart and a stag’s kiss. So too shall she be worthy of a stag’s fate.
I think of Morgana’s hands on the crossbow, of the thick wooden bolt sinking into the stag’s chest. Of how we ate its raw heart, blood dripping down our chins.
A stag’s fate.
I swallow, staring across the glen at the queen I fell in love with, at the queen I trusted. The fruit is making me dizzy, making my hurt blurry, my fear fleeting.
“But you could leave before the tithe is due,” Acanthia says thoughtfully, as if this has just now occurred to her. “You could go back to your mortal lands before midnight and get far away from her before she can pay the debt.”
“What happens then?” I ask. We’re quiet enough that I know Morgana can’t hear, but the longer we speak, the more and more displeased she looks. “Will someone else have to be the tithe?”
“Perhaps, but perhaps not—the tithe must be beloved of the ruler, and how many do you think in the Court of Stags are beloved of the crown? Morgana’s courtiers? Her dour little Spaniard? The brother who curses her every footfall? Doubtful. So maybe she will not find someone else.”
“But then the tithe will fail,” I say slowly. “Isn’t that also a problem?”
“But you will bealive,” Acanthia says. “That’s what matters.” And then she adds, “This is not your problem to solve, Janneth. You were chosen for this without your knowledge; you were brought here against your will. You have no duty to Faerie or its woes. Flee and live, and let Faerie pay for its own sins for once.”
“But how can I leave?” I ask. “Without her noticing?”
“Oh, little pet,” Acanthia says quietly, with a quick kiss to my head. “Let me worry about that. Take your chance when you see it—and don’t stop running until you reach the Castle Docherty. There’s a doorway to the mortal world there.”
She stands up behind me, and I feel her skirts fall to the grass as she does. She steps around me toward Morgana with her hand outstretched.
“You have excellent taste in pets, Morgana,” she says loudly. “And I’m well pleased with your gift of her. But we must, as you intimated earlier, focus on the matter at hand. Take a turn with me, away from the ears of our courts, and allow me to make my case one last time.”
Morgana looks at me. “She needs salt.”
Salt. My mind drifts to my ugly polyester coat. To its pocket.
“She’ll be fine,” Acanthia croons. “Won’t you, pet?”
This is the play. Acanthia will lead Morgana off, and I’ll run the minute I can. I will run home, and it won’t matter that I’m running away from the one person who’s chosen me, who’s wanted me, because that person is also probably going to kill me for a magical fairy tax, according to someone who literally can’t lie about these things.
And maybe I’m in love with Morgana, but I’ve also watched her torture a servant and eat a heart raw. I’ve also heard about how she magic-stalked me for a year.
I’m not sticking around to find out exactly how safe I am.
“Yes,” I say softly, ducking my eyes so I don’t have to see Morgana’s cold beauty as I speak. The fairy fruit is still pounding in my blood, swirling in my gut, demanding more, demanding pleasure, hedonism, sex.Good. I want them to think I’m drunk, stoned, too dazed to escape. That I’ll stay exactly where I’m left, bound by the need for more fruit. “I’ll be fine.”
