Page 5 of The Fae Queen's Captive
I feel like I can’t keep hold of my own thoughts. “Come with you where?”
“To the court of the queen,” Maynard responds, as if there’s no other place.
And that’s when I decide to cut my losses. The site will just have to be trampled and god knows what else because these people aren’t going to leave on my account, and I have no interest in going anywhere with them that’s not a bright public place like the fair to lure them away. In fact, they sound an awful lot likethey’rethe ones doing the luring, and yes, I’ve done some dicey shit in my life in the name of having a good time, but this really feels like a line not to cross.
EvenIhave lines, apparently! That’s kind of reassuring because sometimes I worry I don’t. But following three strangers tothe court of the queenin the fullness of night screams BAD IDEA, even to me.
“No, thank you?” I offer.
Idalia clucks sympathetically, like she’s just watched a bird fly into a window.
“A shame,” Maynard says. “Then you have my apologies.”
“Apologies for what—”
It’s too late. Idalia and the cold one are close, on top of me—and a blindfold is wrapped around my head from behind—and I’m fighting—and then the blindfold is tied tight, and my wrists are bound. I struggle and push, but it doesn’t matter because these strangers are the kind of strong that defies human biology. It’s like trying to ram my shoulder against a rock, like trying to unpin myself from a fallen tree.
I’m trapped and I’m theirs, and now they will take me wherever they want.
I scream, and my scream pierces the valley. Faintly, over the sound of the waves lapping at the loch’s shore, I hear a rising trill of screams coming from the far side of the hill, chased by the sound of calliope music, frenetic and bright. My scream dies away as it sinks in: no one is at the farmhouse, and no one at the fair will hear me over their own shrieks of delight, over the music that promises big smiles and light pockets.
“There now, poppet,” Idalia says. “Save some of your screams for the queen, there’s a good girl.”
And then I’m slung over a shoulder and carried away from the shore and the dig site and any sliver of safety I might have had.
Chapter3
After a moment, the person carrying me ducks, and then the air becomes still and close and the world smells of old wet stone.
I stop struggling as he—I think it’s Maynard—straightens back up. I’m certain we’re inside the cairn itself, and I rack my brain for any way to use that to my advantage and come up dry. The inside of the cairn was empty when we started our excavation outside, long ago robbed of its bones and grave goods, and so there’s nothing in here remotely resembling a weapon. Nothing but earthen floor and chambered ceiling large enough to rival that of Maeshowe in Orkney.
My headlamp slides off my head and falls to the packed earth with a smallthud.
Before I can wonder why they’ve brought me inside a tomb and consider how sinister a move that might be, Maynard ducks once more, and then I feel breeze and mist-kissed air, and the world smells again of autumn, turning, dying.
Back outside.
“Please,” I say. The word is practically a wheeze—I’m not a small woman, and being slung over someone’s shoulder like this has driven all the air right out of me. “Please, let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”
“A vow from a mortal means very little,” the cold one says.
“It doesn’t matter, Morven,” Idalia says, seeming a little irritated at his bad attitude. “There’s no one she could tell who would believe her. How many mortals have gone back to their world singing songs and telling tales?”
I don’t like all thismortaltalk. Because—well, look: after spending the past six years dissecting medieval narratives about demons and witches, I’m hardly one to jump into Satanic Panic mode, but there are alotof the right ingredients here. I’m being carried off from a pagan tomb on Halloween night by attractive but possibly sociopathic strangers, and they’re talking about queens and mortals, andoh god—I’m going to die, I’m really going to die, and it’s not even going to be while I’m having an irresponsible but murder-podcast-worthy good time…
I struggle on Maynard’s shoulder, trying to shove off my blindfold with my bound hands, but I’m given a hard, impatient spank for my efforts.Spanked. Like we’re playing naughty French maids or something.
And I like playing a naughty French maid game as much as the next pervy grad student—particularly if there’s spanking involved—and I’m not saying Ihaven’toccasionally dreamed of being kidnapped and tortured with sexy shit—but this isn’t a dream, this is my real-ass Halloween night.
“Are you going to squirm the whole time?” Maynard asks.
“You won’t notice me squirming if you put me down,” I suggest helpfully.
“But then you’ll run,” Maynard says, as if he’s explaining something to me instead of the other way around. “No matter. The way to the queen is not long. In the right conditions, at least.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I say. I try squirming again, but all I get is another swat, and a tug on my hair from Idalia.
“It means there is a shortcut. The castle could be merely a question away instead of a few hours’ walk away,” Idalia informs me. “But it must be a true question, a curiosity. Burning in the mind like the tongue of a flame.”
