Pinned down to the soil, an invasion of powder into my mouth, hitting the back of my throat, coughing, choking, suffocating…
If I wasn’t sinking into slumber, I might flinch at the memory.
But I only stare at the gloves I didn’t put on, and the vague understanding that the warrior himself gloved my hands and bound my wrists.
I’m relaxed, too relaxed in the hum of fae conversing all around me, murmured chats that should stiffen my shoulders.
Instead, I am sinking into the soil, my gaze on the black fabric that reaches the tether coiled around my wrists—the sleeves of a jacket.
Not my jacket.
Not the one I was wearing before.
The material is different, coarser, like a rain-jacket, not soft like the Kathmandu puffer.
That fae must have had another piece of clothing for me or maybe stolen a fresh jacket from one of the captives.
It’s a distant thought that only touches my mind before a weary sound unribbons from me, and I force my head to angle back.
The strength is a dwindling flame in me.
I manage to scrape my cheek over the ground just an inch or so, neck arching, before my sight fails me.
The hand of sleep grips tighter and wrenches me back under.
It holds me for a while.
I don’t know how long.
I just know that when I wake again, I’ve rolled onto my other side, turned my back on the flames burning through the spine of the rain jacket, and I’m now facing boots.
Boots, planted on the foliage, leather dusted with frost and dirt, smeared and blotted with dried blood.
I frown at them for a moment, the muted leather, before awareness comes back to me.
My neck arches.
Stiff from a rough sleep on the unbalanced forest floor, I drag my gaze up the dark fae parked on a mossy log.
Forearms braced on his parted thighs, he lazily picks strips of strange, cured meat from a bowl that’s cupped in one hand.
As if feeling my eyes on him, his cold gaze slides to me—and for a long moment, he just stares back.
Then he bites into that otherworldly jerky, his white teeth sinking into the tough meat with ease.
His mouth moves with a slow chew, like he isn’t starving, his belly is full—
I feel the exact opposite.
The scent from the bowl snakes down at me.
The meat has a mild spice to it, but there’s a familiar play-doh fragrance reaching me, too.
But I’m so hungry that saliva is fast to wet my mouth.
I swallow, my gaze flicking to the meat pinched between his fingers, and I just now notice the oddness of his fingernails, not unlike mine, but with a greyish hue.
His hand shifts, into the bowl, then out again.
