My body convulses, back arching, teeth clenching as the orgasm rips through me over and over again while the fae continue to lap and suck at my wounds like a horde of leaches. At some point, the gag must have been removed or spit out because I can hear my own screams now. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” I shout. The horrific faces blur in and out, hooked beaks and sharp fangs blotting my vision. They stand over me and laugh. A fox face with blood-tainted lips crushes them to mine. I jerk my head in a weak attempt to jar him loose, but he won’t let me go. Then I feel it, just below the surface of my skin: buzzing. It washes over me like cool water, both soothing and invigorating.
The buzzing… I felt this before, felt it when…
I bite down on the fox’s lower lip and pull. The fox fae screams and pounds the side of my head. His thick, tangy blood floods my mouth and slides down my throat, and there it is, the buzz, that blessed fucking buzz. I could almost laugh at the irony. The fox fae stumbles back when I release his lip. Murder in his eyes, he raises a hand and steps forward, ready to strike me.
“Freeze,” I say, my voice taking on that strange choral sound.
He freezes. They all freeze, everyone within hearing distance, at least. “Unstrap me,” I tell the fox fae, whose lip now dangles from his face like a gnarled chunk of meat. Serves him right.
He obeys, unstrapping first my arm then legs while I finish the other arm. I roll over and push up onto my hands and knees. Just this tiny bit of movement makes the room spin. I fight back the bile in my throat and slowly, carefully rise to my feet on the table, so I am standing heads and shoulders above the crowd, when I shout, “Freeze.”
The entire room goes still.
Holy Mother. What do I do now?
I climb down from the table, the sound of my feet hitting the cold marble floor seeming too loud in the now silent ballroom. Leaning against the table, I take a few deep breaths and give myself a moment for the dizziness to wane. Blood drips from the wounds on my arms and legs, but it isn’t nearly as much as I’d expected, thank the gods. This is insane. I’m a blood fae. That has to be it. Which means my mother has been lying to me my entire life. Tears meander down my cheeks, and I swipe them away. I can’t afford to get upset right now. I need to focus, be strong. I glance around the ballroom. I’ve really shown my hand here. If they catch me, I’m dead. Unless… I lean in close to Fox Face’s ear and whisper, “You think slavery is wrong. You let us go.” Then, stepping back, I point a finger at Fox Face and shout, “This male freed the slaves.” Who knows if it will work, but it’s better than nothing. I pull a cloak off a man with a skull mask and wrap it around my sore, naked body. Scrambling over to the nearest table, I whisper, “Wake up,” into the young woman’s ear. Her eyes blink, as though she’s coming out of a dream, or more accurately, a nightmare. I start to unbuckle her straps as she takes in the scene around us.
“What happened?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I lie. “One minute, I’m overwhelmed with pain, and the next, I’m waking up to this.” I gesture to the statuesque faes surrounding us. I get her first buckle undone. “I’m not waiting around to find out, though. Finish this up. I’m going to get the others.”
She nods and starts unstrapping her other hand while I move from table to table, rousing the girls and giving them the same story. It’s not that I don’t trust them so muchas I don’t expect anyone here to last very long under questioning if they’re captured—including myself. They each wrap themselves up in cloaks, same as me, and hurry for the door. I peek out first. “Freeze,” I whisper-shout before the two guards flanking the doors even get a chance to see my face. I usher the girls through, then I turn back to the guards and say, “You never saw us.”
I duck out the front and rush to crouch behind a mound of stones covered in glowing-green mildew. “Anyone have any idea how to get out of here?” I ask.
“I do,” Jael says, raising her hand. “At least I think so. I tried to pay attention when I was captured.”
“Good. I need to get Aemon. Is there somewhere you can wait for us before leaving?”
She grimaces. “You’ll never get by the guards. This is your chance. Aemon would understand.”
I shake my head. “I won’t leave him.”
Jael’s eyes go hard, lips pinched, but she doesn’t argue any further. She points toward a tunnel on the opposite side of the river. “Just go down that tunnel. I’ll try to wait for you before the turn, but I don’t know how long we have—”
I cut her off. “All I need is ten minutes. If we haven’t caught up to you by then, don’t wait. Got it?”
She gives me a curt nod, then to the others says, “Try to act natural,” and gestures for them to follow her. I don’t wait to see the girls off. I close my eyes and project my thoughts, hoping and praying I can reach Aemon this way, because I’m leaving with him, or I’m not leaving at all.
38
Irub a hand at my aching bicep. Fuck, I think I might have pulled something. It doesn’t help that we’ve been at this for at least an hour, and with every minute that passes, without Katya coming back, I get tenser and tenser. I peek over my shoulder at the fat fae guard watching this section of the tunnels. He’s got his eyes pinned on one of the human girls working behind me. Asshole’s probably going to try something later when she’s alone. Makes me want to bash his head in now to save myself the trouble of doing it later.
“Aemon,” a voice shouts in my head, and I’m so stunned, I stumble backward, slip on the broken bits of rock coating the floor and fall on my ass.
Fat fae starts waving his arms and shouting at me in Ümbrian, but I just ignore him.
“Katya?”I say in my head. Gods only know if she can hear me. Fuck, what if I’m hallucinatingor she’s a ghost?
No. I’d know it if she were dead. I get back to my feet and pat the dust from my ass. “Katya?”
Her voice screams through my head again. This time, I’m sure it’s real. “I got away. I’m coming for you. I don’t know how much time we have.”
I glance around myself. Nobody else seems aware that I’m having a conversation in my head.“How are you doing this?”
“It’s the blood. My magic comes from blood. I’m one of them.”
Oh shit.
