We pass them, the fae watching us, some grinning, others outright laughing—and my gaze finds more, the deeper into the camp he takes me, and every fucking one of them is watching us.
They laugh atme.
It’s a sickly thing, coiling in my gut, nausea burning around the panicked thumps of my heartbeats.
How they can watch me—some pushing up to stand, as if to get a better look, others sitting by campfires, grinning around bottles of purple liquid—andlaugh.
It strikes me silent.
Even my serrated breaths mute.
My fingers are gripped onto the leathers as tightly as they can be, and I wonder, fleetingly, in this horror, how silly I look to them.
Ridiculous.
Weak.
A human draped over the shoulder of a dark fae warrior.
I wish I was stronger than what I am. I’m too accepting when I should be fighting, writhing, biting. But those are just thoughts, fantasies, and then, a fae with yellow hair like buttercup flowers, cropped and tidy, lifts his nose—andfucking sniffs the air.
His lopsided grin widens with a scoff, and he elbows into the female fae standing at his side whose nose is crinkled… and she rinses her disdainful glare over my backside.
Oh.
The pee.
I wet myself.
I forgot about that.
The reminder throws me back to the hood of the car, where I was sprawled like a doll, and he, the cold warrior, was crouched down… just looking at me, considering me.
And I fucking pissed myself.
I shouldn’t have forgotten, not with the damp sensation sticking layers of fabric to my inner thighs, but I did.
And now I’m reminded of it in the laughter, the stares, the jests shared between the ones who watch this beast cart me to theheart of the camp—before he stops, sudden, and the hooves of the steed go quiet just as quickly.
Before I can even suck in a breath, his hand shifts from my thigh to the small of my back—and he fists a bunch of my jacket.
A hollow cry chokes out of me as that grip yanks, once, and I’m ripped off his shoulder.
The ground rushes up at me.
I smack down, hard, on the frozen earth. My arms thud, legs bounce, and the back of my head erupts with fresh aches.
The grunt that jolts through me on impact is fast silenced by the sudden pressure on my chest.
I squint through the stars dancing in my sight.
The warrior stands over me, a face carved from ice and fury, his boot pressing down on my middle.
Faces are aimed at us from all around, some snarling, some with curled mouths and humour dancing in their eyes—but most just watch, as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening, nothing beyond a scene that’s slightly interesting.
But those faces belong to my peripherals.
He steals my blurred focus.
