Page 1 of Blood of the Fairest

1

Verena

I don't know why I'm supine with a thin blanket draped over me as men chat somewhere up ahead, but I do know one thing: they think I'm dead.

And they couldn't be happier about it.

"Told ya that poison'd work!" one man crows. The rhythmic glugging of a seasoned alcoholic follows before he smacks his lips and grunts, "After all, that peddler swore a single drop could kill even a faerie!"

"Watch your words, lest one of the faeries overhears and curses us just when our trouble's over," a second man's voice warns. "Besides, just because this bitch is finally dead doesn't mean we're over the mountain yet. We still need to figure out where to dump her corpse so not even the witchfolk can give her a kind burial."

The fabric resting over me tickles my nose. I wrinkle it a few times to combat the itch, frowning in the dimness under this thin blanket as I try to get my bearings. Somewhere nearby, I hear the clopping of hooves.

A third, nasally man speaks. "Let's go to my cousin's farm north of Grellheim. He despises this man-eating harpy as much as anyone. All we have to do is drop off her corpse, and he'll cut her up and mix her in with the slop for his pigs to chow down on. Not one bone of her will remain for the witchfolk to collect."

Faeries, curses, witchfolk…

This is obviously a dream, but when did I fall asleep?

Vague, murky excuses for memories surface when I wrack my brain for clues about where I am in the real world. A nagging awareness scrapes against my mind, as if before I must've dozed off, I was in the middle of doing something that I should remember.

But I'm curious to see what direction my imagination will take this strange scenario. So I stay still under the blanket and wait for the dream to change into something fun, like a sex dream.

Not with these three creeps, though. Like any modern lady of good taste, I like my fictional men a little murdery—but I draw a line at them murdering me, even if it's just a dream.

Plus, the pig slop thing? Ew, pass.

"We can't take her corpse to your cousin for slop!" Lip Smacker exclaims.

"Why not?"

"Her blood, you oaf. You've seen what nightmarish sorts of things just one drop of it does to people. Who knows what it would do to those poor swine? Besides, the witchfolk won't collect the bones of someone like her—that's why we've got to dispose of the queen ourselves without anyone else catching wise, remember?"

So, I'm a queen in this dream? I don't mind that.

All right, time for this queen to get railed. Bring on the romance.

Except no matter how hard I try to convince my subconscious that any number of my celebrity crushes could absolutely be into me if only in my dreams, none of them are manifesting to whisk me away for a hot date.

Tragic.

The third voice drips with disappointment. "Ach, right. Shame, though. Digested and shat out by pigs would've been a most fitting end for this bitch. Don't you think, Otto?"

"Indeed, it would've been," the scratchy second voice agrees. "How sickening it is that the most striking beauty in all of Isenmere was in truth a living horror. Alas, she was but a sinfully wicked creature sent from the bowels of hell to drain the life from men."

Hey now, that's not bad. I might make that last sentence my next tattoo if I can remember it when I wake up.

A horse whinnies, and whatever I'm lying on jostles slightly. Am I supposed to be in some kind of…horse-drawn wagon? What a weirdly specific scenario to dream up.

When Lip Smacker loudly offers one of the other men his flask, I realize I'm also thirsty. Really thirsty. I should probably wake myself up, down a big glass of water, and get back to…whatever I was doing.

What was it again? I feel like it might've been important.

"Think we'll be suspected of offing the queen?" the third man asks.

"Nah, no one would dare accuse us, three of her Favored. But Schultz will be fuming when he finds out what we've done," Lip Smacker adds. "Not about her being dead, of course—he'll thank the Crones that we've managed it. It's only that he wanted to question Queen Reinhilde about the princess's disappearance."

Oof. Kudos to whatever dark, demented corner of my mind this dream pulled a name like Reinhilde out of.