Indignation coils through my guts. Well, fuck him. I’d like to see how brave he would be if he was abducted by aliens.
“What a shame. Hopefully, he will settle and show his fire and then you will get to punish him.”
My gaze flicks up to the fey who has just spoken. It’s the one with the long lilac hair. His dark horns curl tightly behind his head. He is resting his elbows on the table and his chin on the palms of his hands. The look in his eyes is positively salacious.
“Sew his lips shut for speaking when not spoken to,” he suggests.
“Seal his ears and eyes shut with hot wax,” says someone else.
The fey with night dark hair laughs. “Cut off his pretty little cock and keep it in a jar.”
A squeak escapes me at that. Rhydian’s hand on my shoulder pushes me back down into my chair. I hadn’t even realised that I had risen. The princes all smirk at my reaction. Assholes.
I really fucking hope that they are winding me up. Mocking me. But I have a sinking feeling they are not. Cruelty seems as if it suits them. My mother would probably say something about their auras pulsing with it.
The conversation drifts on. I’m already forgotten. A toy they are bored with. It shouldn’t rankle, but it does. I guess my self-preservation skills are not that great after all if I’m thinking bad attention is better than no attention. Now is so not the time to be a drama queen.
Slowly, my heart rate returns to normal as my body registers that the danger has passed, and I survived.
I keep my gaze fixed on my plate. It’s time to stop freaking out about everything, and pull myself together. I have to start being clever. I need to listen to the brothers talk. I need to learn. If I have any chance of surviving here, or escaping, I need to understand this world.
My life depends on it.
Chapter four
My head is spinning, and my knees hurt. After lunch, spending what felt like eternity kneeling by Rhydian’s feet as he worked at an obnoxiously large desk was a strange form of torture. I’m very relieved to be moving once more, even if it means following a few steps behind him while he holds my leash.
All my listening and paying attention has done sod all so far, but I’m not giving up that easily. It has only been one day. These things take time. I assume.
He takes me to a fancy sitting room. I think it is his, but I was only in his rooms for a few moments earlier today and all the extravagant parts of the palace are blurring together in my mind.
“Can I go to the toilet?” I ask. Yikes, it is like being back in school again.
He nods and drops my leash before heading over to a drinks cabinet without so much as glancing in my direction. Fine. Great. Whatever.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take me long to find a bathroom. I waste a few moments gawping at all the marble and gold, then I quickly relieve myself, wash my hands and hurry back to Rhydian. I want him to continue to think I’mmeek and no trouble at all. Fool him into trusting me so I can escape.
He looks at me over his glass of amber liquid and raises an eyebrow when I offer him my leash. He takes it and drapes it casually over his arm. I think I may have just passed a test. Or aroused his suspicion with my apparent overly extreme docility. This bastard is impossible to read.
He doesn’t release me from his gaze. I’m caught, helpless, as the air around us thickens. We are only standing here in his fancy sitting room, but the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I want to flee, but my muscles are frozen.
Suddenly, he puts his drink down and strides away, yanking me forward with the leash. I glare at his stupid back and the long fall of his pale hair and the intricate braids that weave around the base of his antlers. It is a sight I’m becoming depressingly familiar with.
He stops walking. Several facts hit me all at once. We are in his bedroom. It is nighttime. I’m his pet. The abrupt realisation of this combination of things is like a punch to the gut. It’s disorientating. A few heartbeats ago I was glaring at his back, now danger is dancing all around me and I’m drowning in it.
My mouth goes dry. I can’t breathe. My thoughts have stuttered to a halt. The bed seems to be a living thing, ominous and brooding. Mocking and taunting me insidiously.
The prince unclips my leash and drops it onto a plush chair by the dresser. The chain clinks loudly in the silence. I don’t feel any freer. He might as well still be holding it.
“Undress,” says Rhydian.
I look down at my clothes. I don’t even know where to begin.
He sighs as if the weight of the world is upon him. Two strides bring him right up to me. His fingers pick at a knot at my waist. He pulls the lace free, and all my layers of silk fall. They slide off my shoulders, skim past my hips, and pool at my ankles.
I’m naked before him.
Wearing nothing save for his collar around my neck.
