Something cold touches my wrist, followed by a snap. I glance down at my right hand, finding a brass band encircling it. It’s curved on one end with a flat bar on the other. A chain leads from the flat side to another cuff. An open cuff held by my mysterious bench mate. I lift my eyes to his, but my gaze falls to his widening mouth as his canines slowly stretch into sharp tips.
I try to flinch back but the man on the other side elbows me in the shoulder, forcing me to surge up against the man with the cuffs. Before I can react, the mysterious stranger leans in and brings his lips to my ear. His voice comes out a low, deadly rumble. “Come quietly or I’ll tear out your throat with my teeth.”
4
ASTRID
The man waits for me to nod. I know better than to scream. Know better than to cause a scene. It wouldn’t matter if I called for help now. Even with my last dose of Crimson Malus still warming my blood, I’m too shocked. Too frightened to feel anything but terror. Which means anyone who met me for the first time now would only see their worst qualities reflected back at them. I’ve lived with my cursed magic long enough to know that people may have a love-hate relationship with their best qualities, but their worst? They have a hate-hate relationship with those. No one would defend me now. My only hope is that maybe we’ll come across Norace, the security centaur. Surely he’d stand up for me, with his admiration for justice.
For now, all I can do is follow my captor as he tugs me off the bench by my cuffed hand. “Struggle and I’ll cuff the other one,” he says as he drags me away from the arena, away from the seats, and up the walkway that leads toward the spiral staircase. With the hall lights dimmed, the stairs are dark, the only light coming from the arena behind us and a pale hint of light from the very top floor above. No one else is around. No patrons, no security officers, no waitstaff. As we begin to climb, he glances at me time and again, his sharp teeth glinting even in the dark. I don’t doubt he’ll make good on his threat. Handsome man or no, there’s something supremely deadly about him. I still haven’t made eye contact long enough to get a read on his qualities, but his actions tell me enough. He’s working for my stepmother. I just know it. How he found me, though, is beyond me.
And if he brings me back to her…
Panic surges through me. Despite his threat, I know I can’t succumb to whatever fate awaits me. At least now I have the cover of semi-darkness. We climb a few more steps, and I wait until he glances at me one more time. As soon as he turns away, satisfied that I’m still compliant, I tug my cuffed hand with all my might. The still-open cuff slips from his grasp and I quickly dart back down the stairs. While there’s no exit outside on the bottom level, I can at least hope to hide somewhere and sneak back upstairs with the rest of the crowd after the fight.
I make it no more than two steps before I trip in my anxious haste. Muscled arms encircle my waist and drag me upright. I swing my arm, knocking the loose cuff into the side of his head. He bats it away before it can make contact, then tries to snatch it back. Before he can grab the cuff, I swipe my nails toward his cheek with my free hand. What I wouldn’t give to have claws like Helody right now. Or any useful unseelie form. Unlike most fae—even those with only some fae blood—I don’t shift between two forms. Instead, my seelie form ismewhile my unseelie form is the reflected version others see. Blooming useless, in all honesty.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to fight.
My blunted, futile, too-human fingertips are less than an inch away from his face before he grabs my wrist in one large hand, angles my back against the wall, and pins me there, wrist over my head. His other hand secures my shoulder against the wall. I swing my remaining weapon—the loose cuff—at his arm. Instead of striking his forearm or slicing a gash in his flesh, the curved end hooks around his wrist. His eyes widen as he stares down at the cuff. The flat end still hangs loose, open. He freezes, eyes darting from me to the cuff. As his gaze returns to mine, he speaks in a low growl. “Don’t you dare.”
That’s all it takes for me to reach the rest of the way with my cuffed hand and slam the flat portion shut. With a click, it locks in place.
A cold terror shudders through me as I realize what a horrible mistake I just made.
His eyes snap to mine with a furious glare. “Why did you do that?”
I stare at the hand now connected to mine by a brass band and less than a foot of chain.
When I don’t answer, he repeats the question, louder this time. “Why theblooming fuckdid you do that?”
“Because you didn’t want me to,” I say in a rush. “I thought…I thought…” I don’t know what I thought, for I couldn’t have made a worse choice. Because now I’m firmly attached to a man who threatened to tear out my throat.
He mutters a curse under his breath and glances down the staircase, then up it. “Very well,” he says through his teeth and takes another step closer. Even with one of his feet on the stair below mine, he still towers over me.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, my voice a trembling whisper.
“What you deserve.” He purses his lips into a tight line and releases my uncuffed left hand. I’m only given a millisecond of hope before his fingertips come to my chest. My pulse thrums as he splays his hand just above my breast. Images of the worst sort run through my mind.
Then I realize something about his touch.
It isn’t hard. Isn’t groping, roving, or squeezing. Only the pads of his fingertips make contact with my blouse, and it isn’t my mound of flesh he’s after.
It’s my rapidly beating heart.
The images in my mind take a far more gruesome turn, and I know then that he is going to kill me. He’s going to rip my heart from my chest. Even with fae blood swimming in my veins, I can’t heal as fast as full fae can. In fact, I’ve learned the hard way that I heal nearly as slowly as a human. Even if I did heal quickly, there is one way to kill a fae that I hadn’t considered. Remove one’s heart and it won’t grow back. It’s just as final as a beheading.
I bite back a cry and wait for claws. Surely if he can summon sharp canines in his seelie form, he can summon claws too. I haven’t a clue what his unseelie form is, but many fae can partially shift between their two physical manifestations or summon only fragments of their other forms.
My heart slams against his fingertips, my chest heaving with sharp breaths. Breaths that will be my last.
My only consolation is the hope of an afterlife. Then I can be with my father—
With a growl, the man pushes away from me, tearing his hand from my chest. His breaths come out in ragged gasps, pointed teeth receding into his gums until they look square and flat. Ordinary. “What magic are you using on me?”
I meet his eyes, every inch of my body trembling, and try to see what he must see in me. No matter how long I stare, I can’t make out the qualities that are normally so easy for me to decipher. For a second, I think I glimpse something—weakness, vulnerability—but it’s gone as fast as it came. As I study him again, I see neither of those qualities written in his features. This giant of a man is anything but weak.
And yet…he didn’t kill me.
