Page 8 of The Fae Queen's Captive
She lifts a silk-clad shoulder in a shrug. What Janneth Carter considers to be reality and unreality doesn’t seem very important to her.
“What happens now?” I ask. Even in a dream, it feels important to know.
“You are a guest here,” she says. “And as such, you are permitted any freedom you’d like, save for one.”
I’d be a fool not to ask. “And what is that?”
Her fingers tighten on my jaw. “The freedom to leave.”
I blink up at her. Her expression betrays nothing, gives me nothing, save for this: she means it.
I am not to leave here. Or her.
There’s a strange curl in my chest at the thought.
“And how long must I stay?” I ask.
“Two nights,” the queen pronounces. One finger traces along my jaw, and then she releases me. “And on the third, you can leave Faerie.”
She does not elaborate on the last part.
“Two nights,” I echo.
“And now there will be a feast in your honor,” she says. “You will sit by my side, and drink from my cup, and together we will see what revels Faerie has to offer on Samhain night.”
“And I’ll be able to leave Faerie on the third night?” I ask to confirm. This is how they always get the unsuspecting high school heroines in the fan fictions—a twist of language, a trick of words.
“You will,” allows the queen.
“And it won’t be like a hundred years have passed or something? I won’t go back and find out all my friends and family are dead?”
“Three days will feel different passed here than in your lands, but not that much different. One day here is longer than a day in yours.”
A new fear takes hold. “Wait. Promise I won’t be like a million years old when I go back.”
There is a slight lift to her eyebrow now. “You’re very preoccupied with this.”
“You would be too if you were mortal,” I mutter, and the eyebrow goes higher. I suppose I’m not being very respectful right now.
“You will leave Faerie the same age you entered it, plus only a handful of hours more. This I swear.”
“If you say so,” I say, and she runs her fingers across my jaw again. Her touch is warm and lingering. Her fingers move to my lips, and that curl in my chest twists lower.
“I do say so,” she says, one fingertip making a slow line over my lower lip, dragging over the place where the skin of my lip becomes smooth and damp.
I think it would be charming to claim that what happens next happens out of some resonant instinct, that I do it because I sense it would please her and I want to be pleasing—but the truth is more immediate than that, and much more selfish. I do it because I am greedy, and my greed very rarely listens to common sense or exigent circumstances like abduction.
I part my lips as she touches me. I open my mouth enough for her to see the pink of my tongue and the edges of my teeth. To show her she could push her fingers into my mouth if she’d like.
BecauseI’d like her to. Because even though I was kidnapped by someone named Maynard and carried to a mushroom castle, even though I’m so very certain this is a dream, it would be a very good mushroom castle dream if she put her fingers in my mouth.
Something moves in the queen’s eyes then, but I can’t say what it is—only that for an instant, the black irises seem darker than ever, less the spaces between stars and more whatever came before the stars kindled into being. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I do think I could sink into the inky well of her gaze and never resurface.
And then, as quickly as it came, it is gone, and her stare is as cool and remote as before.
“You will go with Morven,” she says, her hand dropping from my face, “to make ready for the meal. He’ll show you where you’ll sleep as well.”
She snaps her fingers, and the doors to the library swing open. Morven stands in the doorway, looking faintly pissed off. She doesn’t speak to him, but he seems to know what she wants all the same. He jerks his head toward the hallway.
