Page 37 of The Fae Queen's Captive
“Morgana, do you plan to keep me waiting all day?” comes a high, musical voice. I look over to see a woman with light-green skin, pink hair, and thorns growing from the ridges of her ears and along her cheekbones. She wears a pale green gown made of velvet, heavily boned and embroidered. “My time might be infinite, but your mortal pet’s is not, so perhaps we should get started?”
Chapter15
Morgana’s shucked her cape, exposing the beautiful glass skin of her back as we follow the Thistle Court to a small clearing near the waterfall. She is glassed and there’s Idalia’s moths, and everyone else is tailed or furred or horned or thorned, and I feel very conspicuous.
Not simply because I’m the only mortal here, but because I garbed myself like a pet back at the castle, imagining myself purring at the queen’s feet while she sliced some unwitting diplomat apart with her inscrutable eyes—but now I just feel cheap knowing I’m in front of her bride-to-be dressed like a slut. I’m wearing a gown of fluttery red chiffon, a strappy number made with some fairy clothing magic that holds it up even with a barely there bodice and no back to speak of. The dress sports a high slit and is thin enough that in the right light, you can make out the curves and dips of my body.
I’m very glad I grabbed my mortal coat at the castle to cover up with—not trusting some Tudor-esque cloak to do what good old-fashioned water-resistant polyester can. But then the Thistle Queen and the Queen of Stags sit on chairs carved to look like berry-laden brambles, and Idalia slips the coat from my shoulders, and I’m there in all my slutty glory. I take a deep breath to steady myself as the Thistle Court folks rake their eyes over me. I’ve been far sluttier in far more compromising positions, after all. I once spent twenty-four hours in Berlin wearing nothing but nipple pasties and a neon-green tutu.
The chairs the queens took are the only two chairs in the small clearing, each set at opposite ends of the space, so the queens will face each other when they sit. And when Idalia nudges me toward the queen, I understand I should sit at her feet. Both my pride and my sad, pulpy heart flail at this, but then I see the Thistle Queen watching me with eerie green eyes, and I remember the blood of her courtier spilling across the floor of Morgana’s castle. Blood that was meant to be Morgana’s.
The Court of Thistles will see you as a threat if they understand what you mean to me.
No, I can’t test Morgana’s patience here. If I succeed in provoking a reaction from her, they will see that I can affect her feelings. If she’s lenient with me and allows some display of defiance, they could interpret that lenience as affection. Both are dangerous for me and for her, and so I don’t fight Idalia when she nudges me again. I sit quietly at Morgana’s feet and lean my head against her knee, the way I would have before I knew she was getting married. And I hate that it feels so right. I hate that I never want to move.
“I see why you like her,” the Thistle Queen says, her voice carrying as she regards me with grasshopper-green eyes. “She’s pretty.”
Morgana drops a hand to curl into my hair. “Very pretty,” she replies, her voice cool. Yet I hear the tautness in it. “But I’m not here for compliments, Acanthia. Tell me your terms and I’ll decide if they’re worthy of consideration.”
The Thistle Queen tuts. “So direct, little doe.” Morgana’s hand in my hair tenses the tiniest bit at the endearment. “But you are young,” concedes Acanthia, “and you do not know how the game is played.”
“If you’d like to blame my youth, you may,” says Morgana, sounding very much as if she’d like to say more and is only barely holding herself back. For the first time since I’ve met her, Ifeelher youngness, her inexperience. She is uncertain here, in a way Acanthia is not. “You have offered marriage, and I am willing to listen to why I should accept it, but as you’ve noted, I have a very pretty pet to play with and would rather not spend the rest of my Samhain here.”
There’s no mistaking the irritation in Morgana’s tone, and I’m relieved to see she is no more in love with the Thistle Queen than I am…but I’m also a little worried now. At her display of emotion, at how she’s brought me back into the conversation unprovoked. I suddenly feel like more of a liability to her than her glassed back.
“You already know my terms, Morgana. I’ve made them plain enough in my letters. Let thistles crawl up the antlered throne, and reunite two courts that never should have been sundered in the first place. Let my child inherit and let their issue become the rulers of the Court of Thistles and Stags.”
“I’m still unable to see the benefit in it for me. For my folk.”
“Is peace not enough, Morgana? Knowing that if these talks fall through, you will have more war from us, and that eventually we will win?” A smile curls the Thistle Queen’s pink mouth. “Or perhaps you are worried you won’t have enough time for your mortal pet if you have a fae wife? But that won’t be a problem after tonight, will it?”
Morgana’s hand goes still in my hair, and even though I can’t see her face, I’m certain she’s angry. Or afraid?
But that can’t be right.
“Besides, you’ll find me as diverting as any mortal consort.” Acanthia looks at me again, dark green lashes dipping as she works her mouth to the side—an expression that would look coy on almost anyone else, but which on her looks dangerous. “But perhaps I underestimate this one. Maybe she should show me what it is about her that has you so interested?”
I can feel the tension coiling in Morgana’s thigh and calf, like she’s about to stand, and her hand has dropped from my hair to the back of my neck in a way that feels protective and possessive all at once.
And I see the trap Acanthia has laid here. I was right earlier: I am the liability, I am the weakness that can be exploited, and as hurt as I am by Morgana keeping this whole thing from me, I’m also not ready to be the reason she gets dicked over by her fairy rival. As stupid as it might be, she has my heart.
And if I’m leaving tonight anyway, maybe I can leave her a little better off than I found her—or not worse off diplomatically, at the very least.
I get to my knees. “I’d be happy to show you, Your Majesty,” I say to the Thistle Queen. I glance up at Morgana so she can see that I want to do this, that I’m more than happy to. Morgana looks down at me, and I see the question in her inky eyes.
I see the warning.
I nod my head the tiniest bit. And quickly, before I can react, Morgana takes my jaw and delivers a kiss on my mouth—hot and open and velvet soft. I know right away what she’s doing: she’s making sure the first fairy fruit I taste today is from her. It’s a claim on me and my body, a display of ownership for Acanthia’s benefit. And maybe also for my own.
I don’t care, I love it. And the minute the fruit hits my blood, I love it—and her—so much that I can barely breathe for it.
“I do not want you to do this,” she whispers against my mouth. “Only signal, and I will stop it. I will stop it all.”
I press my hand to hers where it still curls hard against my jaw. “Let me.”
She searches my gaze and then sighs. She releases my face. I stand and walk over to Acanthia before Morgana can change her mind, and then I sink to my knees.
“Your Majesty,” I say, ducking my head, and she leans forward to lift my chin with one long thorn-knuckled finger.
