Oh. Oh, goddess.
My chair scrapes backward as I surge to my feet. This is sinful. This iswicked. This puts even the most depraved rumors about the fae to shame.
Calen suckles at his companion’s neck, glancing up just long enough to flash me a half-smile. Somehow, his doublet has disappeared, and now his friend traces the swell of his chest with eager hands. Needy noises pour from her throat as she catches at his drawstrings. Leather ties hiss through metal eyelets; she tugs at his trousers, her hands dipping beneath his waistband.
“What’s the matter, little one?” Calen’s mouth cants upward. “Don’t tell me this is the first time you’ve seen a man’s cock?”
Laughter ripples along the table, bombarding my burning ears. I want to swat at it, strangle it, bury it in a hole and pile so much soil on top that I never have to hear that sound again.
“Hmm. I’ll take that as a yes,” Calen continues. “But now that you’ve seen a man’s, you might as well see a goblin’s. See how they compare.”
Before I can blink, he…transforms. Starlit color courses across his skin, the dark brown giving way to deep indigo. Fangs sprout, muscles bulge. His companion undoes his pants entirely, and when I glance down, it’s not just his body that thickens, but also his?—
I wrench my gaze up with a gasp.
Calen laughs around a mouthful of pointed teeth. “Are yousureyou don’t want dessert?”
My attention swings wildly to Amriel. I expect him to be descending into the throes of madness like every other fae here, but he reclines at the head of the table as before, lording over this immorality with his wine goblet dangling from his hand. He stares at me with eyes that are no longer flat, but sharp with ruthless amusement.
Amusement that’sentirelyat my expense.
Goddess, I can’t think. Can’t breathe past the horror clawing up my throat. These heathens, these sinners, to do this out in the open, on thedinner table, no less?—
Without a word, without a single thought beyond escape, I turn on my heel and bolt. Hot tears smear my vision as I make blindly for the door.
Amriel’s laughter rings out behind me, cold and mocking, chasing me up the stairwell as I flee.
Chapter 6
Irun.
The horrible walls of this horrible castle melt together as my heels pummel the mossy floor.
I skid around one corner, then another, my legs screaming as I put distance between myself and that debaucherous dinner. Acid scorches up my throat, but I welcome the burn. Maybe it will scorch away the memory etched onto my eyelids. The sin seared into my soul.
Because I never should have seen that. I shouldn’t bear witness toanyone’sprivate passions—not when I’ve resolved to die a priestess, intact and pure, my hair so long it brushes the floor. I can’t even conceive of a man’s…part…inside me, anyway, not after what I just saw. The size of it, the sheerinvasiveness?—
My legs shriek as I push myself harder. I need to outrun these thoughts, this poison clouding my bloodstream.
I round another corner at a dead sprint. Fae cry out as I knock them from my path, but I don’t care. My mind will empty if I just keep going. If I run until my body burns to ash.
I give myself to the flight, letting the fire in my lungs scorch away the memory of that dinner. My body cries for mercy, but I don’t relent. I won’t go back to that dining room. Ever. I’d rather starve.
Up ahead, the corridor branches, and I pelt past at full tilt. A fae woman vaults from my path as I streak by.
She calls out to me, but the words are lost amid my pounding heartbeats and the desperate breaths wracking my lungs. I barrel onward as the hall slopes down and down and down and…
Oh. Oh, goddess.
My feet skate out from underneath me, the angle of the corridor pitching me forward. I go tumbling down the incline, my skirts pinwheeling, pain erupting along my side. Not even the moss underfoot can cushion me as I plummet end over end.
Then I see it. A great, yawning hole, up ahead. Because this corridor just…ends. Not with a solid wall, but with the emptiness of dark sky and white stars.
I’m about to go hurtling into space. Falling into that stupid courtyard that isn’t a courtyard at all.
Panic explodes inside me as I grab for the walls. My nails snag on a tree root, but it rips through my grip, taking a layer of skin with it. A scream shreds my throat, but that doesn’t help. Nothing does. I grapple for another root and miss. Meanwhile, the sky zooms closer, the tunnel’s end like a wide, dark mouth, preparing to swallow me whole.
Then a thundering bellow pierces my awareness. It arrives from a distance, but its tenor is like a shockwave aimed at my heart. And I know. I justknowit’s the Shadow, roaring his fury, his anger ricocheting off the walls as I careen past.
