Page 46 of The Fae Queen's Captive
I take Morgana’s hands in mine, holding them tight. Mine are cold; hers are warm. She looks at me like she wants to eat me whole and also like she wants to tell me to run.
“I’m paying the tithe with my life,” I say, loudly enough that everyone in the stone circle can hear me. “I’m leaving the life of Janneth Carter behind. Forever. My parents are dead, I have no other family, and leaving their graves behind, along with my friends and my work, will come with pain. But the pain is what makes it a sacrifice, and so I pay it gladly.”
Morgana’s lips are parted in confusion. “What are you saying?”
“I’m staying in Faerie,” I tell her. “I’m saying I’m sacrificing my life—except instead of surrendering my body and breath, I’m surrendering my future as a mortal archaeologist, as a friend and as a student.” I take a deep breath and meet her gaze once more. “I’m saying that I’m yours, Your Majesty. Utterly and completely. Forever.”
The air splits, cracking like glass and then burning like fire.
It fills everything and everywhere—the air in my lungs, the space between me and the queen, the tiny space of a gap between her palms and mine. Light spills into the world, lightning forking down from the sky and joining to the trees and the standing stones, making a cage of sizzling heat.
And in that cage, I see visions of realms upon realms upon realms. I see them all suspended in space and time, joined, a tangled skein of kingdoms and dimensions.
And one by one, they vanish from view, tucked away once more.
The sizzling light fades, and the air becomes breathable again, light and easy and sweet. The electric feeling is gone, the ominous clouds are gone, leaving behind stars and a large, pleasant moon.
I look down and see roses have sprung up around my and Morgana’s feet. Their dark petals flutter and drift as the breeze tears them away.
We are still holding hands.
“You paid the tithe,” the queen says, her face young and open with shock and hope. “You paid the tithe, and no one had to die.”
“It was a lucky guess,” I say, pulling the queen close by her hands. “I had to try. And now you’re stuck with me.”
She searches my face. “You know I love you,” she says softly. “You know I’d want you to stay here, to live as long as one of us lives, like Felipe has. But you didn’t have to—”
“I love you,” I say, stopping her right there. “I love you so much it hurts, in the very best way. I love you so much that I still wanted to save you, even when I thought you wanted to kill me. Where you are is my home. For always.”
She touches her forehead to mine. “For always,” she echoes, her lips nearly grazing my own. “Forever, for the girl who will always want more.”
And I give up pretending I care about the people watching us. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her as hard as I can, shivering the moment she gives me her tongue and a taste of fairy fruit.
She tastes amazing, perfect, like a ripe eternity to be taken one bite at a time but swallowed whole. Heaven for insatiable girls; heaven when being hungry is half the fun.
And oblivious to anything and anyone else, I slip my hands into her soft hair and give her all my hunger and all my greed.
Enough to pay every tithe from now until immortal, monstrous, magical, cruel forever.
* * *
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Want to know how the Shadow Market began during this Samhain? Definitely check out The Death God’s Sacrifice, which is the story of a gorgon assassin sent to kill a death god…but who becomes his sacrifice instead.
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* * *
“Don’t look at her,dipshit. Do you have a death wish?”
I let the barest hint of a smile lift my lips as I strode through the massive stone archway and past the guards who apparently thought I couldn’t hear them. The king in this realm refused to embrace the dress and customs of the modern mortal world, so the fortress stood unchanged from mortal antiquity: walls of stone and guards in bronze breastplates and tunics.
I looked out of place in combat boots and black fatigues, but I hadn’t had time to wipe the spattered blood from my boots, much less change into something that wouldn’t offend the ridiculous king.
I’d like to do far worse than offend him.
