Page 41 of The Fae Queen's Captive
And all because I hadn’t wanted to bother Dr. Siska about lights around the excavation site when she was enjoying her evening tipple.
“I encountered a rumor once,” he says quietly, “in a fae record from Devonshire. That the people there had once paid the tithe another way. That a lifepaiddidn’t have to mean a lifekilled. That you could sacrifice a life without ending it. But it was written like a riddle, and while I’d hoped I would untangle it before the Court of Stags had to pay the tithe again, I never could. And here we are.”
I want to cry. I’m about to bemurderedand he’s talking about riddles. “Why did you drag me back?” I whisper, tears burning at my eyelids. “You’re mortal too.”
“Not truly,” he says. “Not anymore. I have no mortal salt left in my blood, Janneth. If I go back, all the long years spent here will turn me into dust the moment I cross over. I can’t ever leave…and so I must make sure I can stay. I must make sure I’m in the queen’s favor, that Faerie stays safe and stable. You are the price for that.”
He steps forward and touches my bare foot with his hand. My slippers are gone and so is my coat, and I’m just in that skimpy red thing, the chiffon skirt falling up to reveal my thigh, my tits spilling out of the tiny bodice. But there’s nothing sexual in Felipe’s touch. It seems more like an apology.
“Forgive me for not being there to watch tonight,” he says. “Trust me, I take no pleasure in any of this.”
And then his touch leaves my foot; his shadow moves. He leaves me alone, chained to a stone and waiting to die.
* * *
It’s sodark down here, and fairy time is so meaningless that I have no idea how much time passes between Felipe leaving and fresh footsteps coming down the corridor. A candelabra appears in the rough stone arch that marks the entrance of my cell, and I close my eyes against the bright glare.
I try to swallow back the panic. I try to tell myself that it’s better to act calm now so maybe they’ll lower their guard and I can escape. I tell myself that if I can’t escape, then I at least want to die with some shred of dignity left.
But it doesn’t matter. They’re here to drag me off to my killing place, and the tears are burning hot tracks down my temples and into my hair, and I can’t breathe, and I’m terrified. I’m so, so, so fucking terrified.
The candelabra lowers, and I hear the whisper of silk on stone. “Janneth,” Morgana says. “Please don’t be frightened.”
She’s alone, but it doesn’t matter. She probably has some special fairy-queen magic that would make it so she could drag me to my death without much effort at all. Hell, all she has to do is kiss me, and it would be that much harder for me to resist following her wherever she wanted me to go. Maybe that would be a blessing. Maybe wrapped in orgasmic ecstasy would be the best way to go.
The queen sets the light on the far edge of the slab and then strokes my hair, fingering the tresses like she’s already forgotten how it feels between her fingertips.
“You are,” she says, and there’s a hitch in her breath when she speaks, “so very beguiling like this.”
“Trapped?” I ask. “About to die?”
She doesn’t reply, but her eyes answer enough for her. They linger over the cuffs on my ankles and wrists, on my nearly exposed breasts, with their tips taut from the cold. On where the skirt parts enough to show my thigh, where it could be parted farther to reveal my naked pussy.
She climbs up onto the slab with me, crawling over my supine form, and the white silk of her gown gapes at the bodice. I can see right down her dress like this. I can see her breasts, the perfect handfuls of them, the rosy nipples as hard as mine. I can see the line of her stomach and the well of her navel. There is a torc of antler bone around her neck, its points resting against her collarbone, and I wonder if it would dig into my skin if she kissed me. If it would leave marks all over me if she kissed her way down my body.
Despite everything, I respond to her. My heart is kicking. My belly is tight. I’ll be wet very soon.
“Oh, Janneth,” she murmurs, her fingers pulling at the chiffon covering my breasts, moving it to the sides so she can look at my nipples. They jut up, tight with cold but also ready for attention, and then, like that’s not enough for her, she sits back and pushes the skirt of my dress apart so she can see my cunt too. She presses her thumbs to my labia and parts me, a satisfied noise leaving her at what she sees.
I’m twisting on the slab now, but to my great shame, it’s not because I want to get away. It’s because I want her to keep touching me, keep looking at me.
Because I want her to keep me, period.
“I could spend years just looking at you,” she says in a murmur, echoing the squirming hopes of my stupid heart. Her gaze rakes from my spread cunt to my bared tits to where my head rolls on the stone. “Years and years. You look so beautiful right now. Let me feel you too, Janneth. I must feel you now.” She says this last part as she slides her fingers deep into my core. I arch off the stone, and she leans forward, bracing her free hand by my head.
“You’re so soft,” she says. “And so sweet. Doesn’t that feel good, pet? Doesn’t that feel exactly like what you need?”
I shouldn’t answer. She doesn’t deserve an answer. But the answer is pulled from lips anyway. “Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, it feels good.”
She likes that, I can tell. Something like a smile curves her mouth as she drops her forehead to mine, truly fucking me now with long, delicious strokes, moving up with wet fingers to play with my clitoris. I pant underneath her, everything so tight in my stomach and thighs and chest, and here’s the truth that I have to live with for the rest of my very short life: I never needed fairy fruit to become trash for Morgana. Even stone-cold sober—even knowing she’s about to kill me—her amused little smile is enough to drag me to the edge. Her hand between my legs is enough to steal my breath, to drive all thought and reason from my mind.
Pleasure spikes through me, sharp thrills up my belly and into my chest, and I can’t move, I can’t do anything but arch and whimper and wish she would kiss me.
She doesn’t. Even as she fucks me, even as she gives me hard, slick strokes, she does nothing more than press her forehead to mine. Her mouth isso close, close enough that I could catch it, and I try, I try to find her lips, but every time I do, she moves back. Not much, but enough that I can’t reach her.
I feel her breath against my lips. Her nose bumps into mine.
“Kiss me,” I plead, but she doesn’t, at least not in the way I want. She kisses my cheeks, my nose, my jaw. She gives me wet, biting kisses along my neck and my collarbone. She moves down to pull my nipples into her mouth, all searing velvet and pain-bright teeth, and then she moves so she can lower her head between my thighs.
