I answer, “Somewhere safe, and enchanting, and lavish. Where I can spoil you senseless and plot the demise of those who have wronged you.”
“Why would you want to do something like that?” Her sweet voicebreaks.
“Why?” I murmur, pushing us out of the club and into a balmy night. “Because.” My tone blackens. “Doesn’t it sound likefun?”
Before she has a chance to reply, I locate the nearest trod to Faerie, step through, and let the cool night breeze of my domain guide us up the path toward my palace, which is now—and forever—to be my beloved mate’s newhome.
Chapter 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, at least, this could suck more.
So.
I’ve been kidnapped.
By a faerie man of all things.
Sitting on the plush floor of a gilded bird cage that lies centerpiece and rises to the high, glass ceiling of this vast bedroom, I swallow. There are no windows in this room apart from the ceiling, which starts far higher than I can hope to reach. There are no perceivable exits beyond the one this man—thisfaerie—glided me through moments ago.
That single exit lies beyond him as he sweeps across the tile floor away from me and out of this elaborate bird cage, black robes silent upon the marble. Without flourish, he tosses the golden door shut, obscuring my view with thin metal bars. My heart twists as a small key appears between his fingertips, magical and unattainable.
When the lock clicks and the key vanishes just as quickly as it came, the weight of hopelessness settles on top of me.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Frelsi, my tiny pixie companion for all of three short months, demands, flying through the space between bars to beat her fists against the fae man’s shoulder. “Let my Dani out of this monstrosity!”
The man waves her off like she’s an annoying bug and focuses his blindfolded attention on me. When a fanged smile crawls over his lips, I drop my gaze.
His eyes turn people to stone. He said that earlier. Earlier, before he brought me through a dark forest filled with gleaming red eyes, up a long path framed in white flowers and violet berries, and into a palace crawling with even more monsters.
Things have…not been going great for me tonight.
After two solid weeks ofnot dyingand—bonus—not being molested, my glorious streak of freedom has come to a horrific end.
“Comfortable?” the man’s silken voice skates across every inch of my exposed flesh.
I tuck my legs a little tighter beneath me, tugging my skirt as far over my thighs as it will go.
Outside the cage, above me, the stars sprinkled in the night sky cast an eerie glow over the shadowy furniture in the large room—including a bed cloaked in a black canopy. Within the cage, I’m on a plush white rug. Behind me, hung from golden chains, a large bed rests suspended. Heart-shaped ivy crawls up those chains, all the way to the top of this elegant prison.
Which, upon further perusal, contains nothing more than a single armoire, the bed, and this rug.
“What, no water bowl?” I ask. “No seeds?”
The man chuckles.
I clutch the fabric of my skirt. “No bathroom?”
All graceful beauty, he directs my attention to an ajar door across from the massive black bed outside the cage in this bleak room. “The bathroom.”
I blink at the slice of ebony counter that is visible. Beyond the bars. Of this cage. I say, “I know you’re blindfolded, but please tell me you see the problem here.”
“Should you have use of the facilities, I will escort you.”
My life has gone majestically from bad to worse, hasn’t it?
Sure, my mother wouldn’t let me keep my toothbrush in the hall bathroom because of theclutterandwhatwillguests think, but at least she let me use the toilet without a chaperone.
