Contents
TITLE PAGE
RIGHTS
Dedication
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
DON'T FORGET
ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STALK HER!
"Escape from the Green"
Jessica Gadziala
Copyright © 2018 Jessica Gadziala
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.
"This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."
Cover image credit: Shutterstock .com/Vladimir Sazonov
DEDICATION
To everyone who begged for this series to continue.
With my unending gratitude for allowing me to do so.
<3
ONE
Amy
It was time to go.
It literally could not have been a worse time to finally grow a spine and make the decision.
I moved across the floor of my bedroom to look out onto the grounds out front. Everything was white, not white like the ugly, sterile starkness that my mother decorated our home in. Outside it was expansive, new, fluffy, blanketing the whole world in freshness. Snow always looked like new beginnings to me. Even as an adult, I would stay up late and watch the flurries turn into a blizzard. Just as I had the whole night before, not falling asleep until the pre-dawn hours when there was already a good twelve inches deep covering everything as far as the eye could see.
Over a foot of snow and I was going to be trudging around in it for days with no shelter, limited food resources, and little working knowledge about the geography.
But the fact of the matter was, I had little choice.
If I didn't run and run that evening, my fate was sealed.
That fate, well, let's just say it was infinitely worse than possibly dying of exposure to the elements in The Green.
So it was time to go.
I had been planning my escape since I was fourteen years old. Luckily, as unhappy as I might have been my entire life in the confines of a house that was more of a prison, I had always been prudent enough to know that I was too young, too naive, too uneducated, and too small to be able to survive on my own, even if I left in the ripeness of summer when food would be plentiful and shelter all but unnecessary.
That had always been my plan.
When I was older.
When I had studied more.
When I felt 'ready.'
But I was never ready.
And at twenty-two, I had accepted that maybe I would never actually feel ready.
It just so happened that situations outside of my control were pushing me into doing something I was terrified to do, in conditions that would make it infinitely more difficult, with no real, concrete plan because I literally only had one day to try to come up with one.
My belly twisted, a pang uncomfortably familiar. I had spent most of my life with my stomach in knots. I guess that was a side-effect of having a living, breathing, evil entity as a mother who played me like a toy, pulling my strings because she liked to watch me dance.
My father, until I was seventeen, had been no better. In fact, throughout the vast majority of my life, those two were perfectly matched. There was not one redeeming quality to either of them - no lightness, no kindness, no good. There was certainly no love for me.
I truly wasn't even sure if I even fully grasped the concept.
But that, I decided as I exhaled hard and pulled out the bag of dried fruit, squeezing as much air out of the bag as possible so it would fit better, was something I could think about when I was free.
Hopefully.
No, not hopefully.
I had to get free.
I had one chance.
And I was not going to screw it up.
My bed was splayed with my supplies. I had two cross-body bags I had bought in the human realm, conveniently made of cotton so I could bring them back with me. One was packed with what food I could find to spare - several large bags of dried fruit, another two of mixed nuts, and a few pieces of fresh fruits and vegetables for the first several meals when they would still be good to eat. The other bag had the other things I thought I might need: honey and some dried herbs for possible ailments, extra socks to switch off to, some gemstones and talismans, and human money. My clothes were there as well- the warmest things I owned. I had boots that went up to my knees and lined in wool, another find from the human realm as all of my clothes were. We had no wool in The Green, but being that it was, for all intents and purposes, a natural product, I had no issue bringing it back in with me. The pants were wool lined, as was my jacket, with leather on the outside. Then I had three layers of thick cotton sweatshirts and pants to slip into as well.
I didn't know much about the concepts of frostbite, but I figured it was something unpleasant that I would do my best to avoid. How well I would do that with my few supplies, I wasn't sure.
I guess all I could hope for was to move fast and not have any more snow.
It was almost time too.
You would think my best bet would be to wait until my mother was asleep. But the fact of the matter was, she slept lightly enough to hear me moving around in my room and come in to scream at me to get into bed and stop keeping her away from her beauty rest.
So I was leaving while she had company. It was company she was eager to please which meant she wouldn't care overly much about hearing me moving around. It also meant that the guards would be more occupied in watching out for threats than trying to make sure I didn't escape.
They had long since given up watching me as closely as they once had. I had never given them a reason to think I was a flight risk. No, sweet, innocent little Amethyst Winters had no brain in her head, no wishes of her own, and certainly no desire to go out into the big, bad Green.
They were correct about some of those things. Being as cloistered as my family kept me, I was a bit innocent and ignorant. I also had little desire to be anywhere in The Green. And compared to all their awful, twisted selves, I was sweet. But they were wrong as well. I did have a brain and I absolutely had plans and wishes and desires for my life that did not involve being my mother's puppet any longer.
Also, whether I liked it or not on a normal day, I also happened to inherit some traits from my mother - namely a strong will, a good poker face, and the bone-deep need to be the one pulling the strings.
As it turned out, that was working in my favor as I slipped out of the gown my mother had laid out for me to wear down to greet the company when I was called. It was lovely, as all her clothing choices were. It was a silky, almost translucent in the right light, white that didn't cling, but draped over my breasts, butt, and hips. She wanted me to look innocent, but womanly at the same time. Virginal, but with the promise of a good time to the man who would claim me. Which was why I was not allowed to wear anything under to keep my nipples from poking through the thin material despite the cool of our stone ho
use.
Oddly, leaving that dress, expensive as I knew it was, discarded on my floor almost felt like a bigger betrayal to her than my running away.
The heavy layers felt thick and oppressive indoors, making a sweat break out across my scalp under my hat as I carefully slung my bags across either side of my body to distribute the weight, then slipped my jacket on, then my gloves.
My feet slid into my shoes and I was, technically, outwardly ready.
Inside, though, was a complete other story.
I could feel dinner pushing its way out of my belly and up my esophagus, seeming to lodge at the back of my throat, making me genuinely worry that the run I was about to have to do might make it force its way fully out.
Nausea, like the belly-knots sensation, was one I was all-too-familiar with. Truly, it wasn't even all that uncommon for the worrying to make me actually vomit. I would think anyone in my situation would have the same issues. I was, every second of every day when I was inside my mother's walls, a nervous wreck.
Because I always knew she was going to have plans for me someday. When I was old enough to be of use to her.
Apparently, I was old enough.
And my use? Oh, yeah, it would definitely work in her favor.
Never mind that it would be torture for me.
That wasn't a factor in the least.
Daughters, in many ways in the fae world, were still seen as pawns. Funny, that. Fae looked so down on humans. Yet for the sheer millisecond they had been in existence compared to fae, most cultures of humans had still managed to stop such archaic practices with their girls long ago.
Weakness. That would be what my mother called any loving softness toward your offspring. What was the point of reproducing if it didn't advance where you stood in The Green?
"Ugh," I growled, taking a deep breath, holding it, then letting it go. "Now or never," I reminded myself as I moved toward the door to the hall.
And it was absolutely now.
Even if I threw up the whole way.
Each creak of the floorboards made my heart skip a beat as I made my way down the long hall to the side to go out that exit, knowing it was the least likely to be guarded. The stone floors were blissfully silent, but the reprieve was short-lived before I stepped outside, the frigid air biting at my exposed skin, sending shivers across my over heated body.
But I took a calming breath, noticing immediately that my path was clear.
I could make it to the woods in under thirty seconds.
Then I could be too long gone before anyone could even think to look for me.
There was simply one problem.
I wasn't going straight to the woods.
Always, always, as far back as a young teenager, my plan didn't only involve my freedom.
That wasn't good enough.
I wasn't the only one prisoner in that fortress.
There were the men in the dungeons, sure, but I always knew there was no way I could free them, no matter how much I wanted to.
But I could save him.
Him who I had watched suffer for so many years of his life for no reason other than him being different, special, rare, a trophy pet for a powerful family.
I had needed to stand by and watch my father's men keep him in iron chains that burnt the flesh beneath, whack him with canes to make the shields pierce through his skin, damage those strong but delicate protective barriers, making it harder for him to heal.
For no reason.
Just their own evil, sadistic enjoyment.
So the plan always included freeing him as well.
Even though my father had softened a bit over the past few years, he never showed any signs of letting the Draca go. This was mainly because he was a cover story. Though, with Jasper and Jade obviously alive and well, there was no need for that.
Maybe it was just that old habits die hard.
Or pride.
He liked saving face.
Whatever the reason, it was unconscionable.
I could never actually be free if I knew he wasn't.
Maybe that was silly or sentimental of me.
But whatever it was, it was the deal I made with myself long ago.
So I sucked a deep breath in, my nostrils flaring with the freezing air, and I ran. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, faster than I even knew was possible, so fast that I almost toppled forward when I skidded to a stop beside the familiar barn door.
It wasn't locked.
It never was.
Occasionally, I would sneak around as a kid and crack the door, throwing flower crowns or nectar or ripe strawberries, or whatever it was that I found delight in at that age for him. I was pretty sure I didn't know that he was being so mistreated that young, but I knew that he was different, attractive, and therefore fascinating to my small brain.
It wasn't until many years later that I realized my gifts often ended with a beating for him because the guards did random checks of his room. From what I could tell, they never knew it was me, he never gave me up, or maybe he wasn't aware it was me either. I never got in trouble. But once I learned the correlation, I stopped putting him in harm's way.
It was good to know that, even many years after I stopped my visits, some things never changed.
My gloved hand pressed into the heavy wood and pushed it inward, cringing when it groaned.
The inside was dark thanks to the complete lack of windows and only specially enchanted little lanterns, one small kindness my father showed him so he didn't live in complete darkness in the winter months. The floors were stone and kept clean. It was chilly inside, thanks to the lack of insulation of the wooden walls and the fact that he wasn't given a stove. Though, that didn't stop him, it seemed, from building a small one within a pot that he must have stolen from one of his meals.
It was no way as warm as being indoors, but I guess it kept him from freezing.
There wasn't much inside, of course, him being a prisoner. There was a bed against a wall with blankets, a nightstand, and a dresser. That was just about everything.
Except, I realized as I stopped just inside the doorway, there was one small dried flower on his dresser.
Sure, it might have been any dried flower.
But I knew, I knew down to my bones that it was one from one of the crowns I had left for him as a girl.
"What..." a deep, rough, gravelly voice said, making my gaze snap from the dresser and look around.
My eyes found the chains first, the one thick, huge chord of it that was attached to a hook bolted into the floor. It was long enough for him to step outside a few yards from where it moved up his back and crossed over his chest in a huge X, the skin beneath always raw and red and painful.
I hadn't been so close to him in longer than I could remember. And I wasn't sure if it had always been true of him and I just didn't realize it until I had the eyes of a woman, but he was almost alarmingly good-looking.
He was a huge mass of a man, both tall and wide of chest and shoulder. And because the chains needed to be on his bare skin to keep him in pain and almost powerless, there was nothing masking his work-hardened, muscular body from view. Most fae I knew were lithe, just shy of thin, even the ones who did manual work. Our diets generally kept us trim. But he was a wall of muscle, down his corded arms, firm chest, and stomach with indentations deep enough to sink a fingertip into, ending in these delicious lines that disappeared beneath the waistband of his thin hemp pants.
His face was masculine, V-shaped, wide of forehead, sharp of cheekbone, then thinning toward the chin. He had strong, almost stern-looking brows, and what I thought were brown eyes, though I had never seen him close enough in good enough light to tell.
"What are you doing here?" he tried again, his voice odd-sounding, like it was rough from lack of use. That, I realized quite sadly, was exactly what it was. No one ever spoke to him, so he never had any reason to talk.
That was even more proof that I needed to get him out as well.
"I don't have a lot of time," I said, rifling through my pocket with clumsy, glove-covered fingers.
"Honey, you have to go," he said, shocking me enough with the endearment that I jerked my hand out of my pocket, the key slipping and clattering to the ground, loud in the quiet space. "It's not safe for you here," he added, looking at me hard, brows drawing together as I just kept standing there like an idiot, mind wiped, completely blank for a long, embarrassing second.
Then it came back to me.
"I'm running away, but I am getting you free first," I declared, bending, and grabbing the key before walking toward him.
TWO
Drake
Sunflower in a tower.
That was the silly, sentimental way I had always thought of Amethyst.
The fact of the matter was, I had very little going on in my so-called life. I did work when it was forced upon me. I took my beatings. I fought the Change.
Aside from that, it was a hell of a lot of nothing.
So I noticed things.
I knew that one of the guards had a bad knee and hip and was doing everything in his power to not let the other guards, Declan, or Opal see that because he knew it would mean the loss of his job. And because he was so good at hiding it, and such an old and loyal guard, he was given the front which was a really important post. It left the grounds all but unprotected because there was no way he could run anymore. The man could barely walk when he wasn't being watched.
I also knew that Opal, bitch supreme she was, had a lover that I was pretty sure no one, let alone her husband, knew about.
And, well, I watched Amy. First, because she was just refreshing to watch. Even from a young age, she was so unlike her parents. There was a kindness there that, while she often tried to hide it, always shone through. She was good to the staff.
Hell, she was good to me.
Seeing as I had been a fucking prisoner since, hell, I didn't even know how long, and shown nothing but mercilessness and pain, goodness was like a beam of sunlight in the depths of winter.
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