I know better than that though. I will find no safety anywhere in this house.
“Be not afraid, my love,” he beams at me.
I swallow thickly and force myself to look back up. My eyes meet the gentle brown eyes of a woman seated at the table. She is diminutive with dark hair and darker circles under her eyes. Her hand rests on her swollen stomach, and I feel bile rise in my throat. She is pregnant, but rather than looking joyful and radiant, she appears sallow and haunted.
I feel ashamed for staring and jerk my eyes away, only to realize that there are a handful of women like her seated at the table—eyes downcast and stomachs distended with child. A horrible suspicion about why Kieran has abducted me takes root.
“I have gone to the Rath, as Ygrette directed, and taken the bride she promised would await me there. We can begin our preparations to move to the summer court now that she is with us,” his voice is proud, and the bright smile on his face only serves to make my blood run cold.
The pregnant women look sympathetically at me and a single tear slips down my face. I know I have to escape before we move somewhere else. No matter the cost, no matter what it takes, I promise myself, this will not be my fate.
***
Kieran leads me up the stairs and down a darkened hallway, until he stops in front of a door and opens it, gesturing for me to enter. I hesitate, and something that frightens me flashes in his eyes. With a deep breath for courage, I enter the large room and look around me. It’s pretty enough, with a large tester bed in the center and a delicate settee across the room. I want to check the window and see how far the drop is, but know that it would be stupid to do it with him in the room.
“I would, that I could, stay with you, but I must begin making arrangements for our journey,” he says apologetically.
I clasp my hands in front of me and watch him, trying to keep my face composed so he can’t see the panic that builds when he mentions leaving this place. He runs the backs of his fingers tenderly along my neck, and I bite the inside of my cheek until I can taste the coppery tang of blood.
“In the meantime, you will find clothing in the wardrobe that is more suited to your new station.”
“What’s wrong with the clothes I’m wearing?”
“They are vulgar and demeaning,” he says, a slight curl to his lip as his hungry eyes sweep over me, resting on the bare skin between my thigh-high boots and pleated grey skirt that I had worn to the pub with my friends.
I wonder if they know I’m gone, if Jack has called Anna Beth yet so they can do damage control. My cell phone is lost along the road where I threw it, and my bag with my passport and identification is outside the stone circle where I had found Kieran. I wonder if they’ve found it yet.
“You are my bride, and you will not allow others to see what now belongs to me.”
“You aren’t my husband,” I whisper, my voice thick with regret. Jack was supposed to be my husband. I twist the sapphire ring on my left finger and feel my eyes sting at the thought of him and his betrayal. If I ever get home again, I swear to myself, I will hear him out. I regret hanging up on him and storming out of the pub. I have so many regrets that my head begins to swim with them.
“What is this?” Kieran roughly grabs my wrist and pulls the ring from my finger. He holds it to the light and frowns.
“That’s mine!” I yell and lunge for it, desperate to have it back in my possession. “It was a gift! You have no right!”
He wraps one hand around my throat and lifts me from the ground. I struggle to breathe, my hands grasping his, trying to pry his fingers away, as my legs kick wildly and my lungs burn and cry out for air.
“I have every right,” he glares at me, his eyes wild and fierce.
A wind kicks up around us, a tempest building with his words. I don’t know if it’s the lack of air in my lungs, but his whole face changes, melting away like candle wax, and I get a glimpse of the monster underneath.
He is terrifying, huge eyes—black with no pupils. His thin lips are bared over long, sharp teeth. His golden hair shines white and his skin pales like the moon, and his features are so perfectly symmetrical it is terrifying in its wrongness.
I can feel the sharp length of his nails pressing into the delicate flesh of my throat, breaking the skin and making me bleed. I would scream if I could breathe, if I could think to scream. Black spots begin to fill my vision, and I know that I’m going to die if he doesn’t release me.
I’ll die even if he does.
“I have claimed you, and by right, you are mine to be whatever I see fit, Wife. The only gifts you may accept are those given by my hand; and it would be wise if you courted my generosity. From this day on, you have no past worth mentioning and no future that does not include me. You are reborn in this moment, Annalise. This trinket is from a past that no longer exists.”
He shoves my ring in his pocket and drops me to the floor. I collapse before him in a heap, greedily inhaling air. Too dazed to even realize that the wind in the room has stopped, I smother a cry and try to control my shaking hands.
“What are you?” I sob and scurry away, until I feel my back slam against the wall. “You aren’t human, are you?”
“I am not,” he says as if I should have already known that. “I am Fae.”
“Faeries aren’t real,” I insist, shaking my head as if I can deny what my own eyes have seen.
He reaches down and roughly grabs my arm, pulling me to my feet and grasping my hand. He presses it against his chest, so that I can feel the slow, rhythmic beat of his heart beneath it. It is much slower than mine, and its beat is off, sounding in strange clusters with longer pauses, almost as if it were a song.
My heart races in response, like a jackrabbit recognizing the presence of a predator.
“I assure you that I am real, Annalise,” he watches me. “Now, if you are quite finished with your histrionics, the hour is late, and there is much to be done. Change into something appropriate and get some rest. I will come to you as soon as I am able.”
I wait until he storms out of the room and slams the door. I can hear the turning of a key in the lock, and I resist the urge to throw my shoe at the door in protest. Tantrums won’t buy me my freedom. Instead, I listen carefully as his footsteps recede and then rush into action.
I check the window and almost cry in relief when I find it is unlocked. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s a steep drop onto the ground. If I jump from the window, I’ll break something. and I won’t get very far anyway.
“Come on think,” I command myself as I look around the room. The bed!
I make quick work of the bed, pulling the sheets and the coverlet off and knotting them together. It won’t reach the ground but I can shimmy low enough on it that when I do jump, I can keep running. I tie one end of the makeshift rope to the heavy bedpost and drop the other out the window, careful to keep it away from any windows downstairs. If they see me, I’m dead.
Getting out of the window is the tricky part, and by the time I’m clinging to the windowsill by my fingertips, I’m convinced this isn’t going to work. But falling to my death is better than staying here with a house full of monsters who want to do god knows what with me. I feel guilty for a moment, knowing that I’m leaving behind those human women. Captives like me, but once I’m safe, I’ll get help. I’ll come back for them. I’m no good to anybody still locked up in Kieran’s cage.
High school gym class finally comes in handy when I wrap my leg around the makeshift rope and hold it in place with my feet. Ms. Brukowski would be proud of me. If I make it home, I’m buying that woman flowers.
Somehow, I manage to make it down the rope without hurting myself or getting busted. The light is glowing on the horizon, and I know that dawn is coming. If I hurry back to the garden, I might be able to find my way to safety before anyone even realizes I’m missing. Leaving the rope where it is, I take off across the field.
Thigh-high boots are great to look at. T
hey’re sexy and fun to wear, and they give you a ton of confidence. They suck for running in, though, and after the fourth time I tumble to the soggy ground, I stop to yank them off my feet. I’m faster bare foot anyway. I keep the sound of the ocean to my right and look for the markers I had identified earlier.
When I see the gnarled tree that reminds me of an old woman, I know I’m on the right track and manic laughter bubbles from my lips. It’s followed by a howling that makes my skin crawl. I’m worried about the beasts that Kieran warned me about, but in a draw between the two, I’d pick the beasties, so I keep running.
When I notice the rock garden in the distance, I feel a sense of relief wash over me. I’m getting closer, but so is the howling. I don’t stop this time, though, I just keep running. I’m nearly there, I extend my hand, reaching for the stone wall like its home base and I’m playing the worlds worst game of tag, when the howl sounds right behind me and I yelp.
Suddenly, I’m shoved down, my face smashing into the ground and I moan, dazed by the blow. It takes a moment for my vision to steady, but when it does, I scream again.
Above me is the biggest wolf I have ever seen in my life, except it’s not a wolf—not unless wolves are green and the size of a cow. The teeth look just as sharp as a wolf’s and it growls at me, a rumbling coming from deep within its chest. Drool drips from its mouth and splashes on my cheek, mixing with my tears. It stings like acid, but I’m afraid to move to wipe it away, knowing instinctively, that if I do, this creature will kill me. I’m too close to my freedom now.
“Nice doggy,” I whisper, trying not to let it see how afraid I am when it pushes its paw into my chest. It’s huge, the size of my dad’s hand, and revulsion rolls through me.
“That is not a dog, Annalise,” Kieran’s voice floats on the breeze and I choke back a frustrated shriek.
I am so close to freedom. So close to getting home!
“That is my Cú Sídhe. Imagine my distress when I came to apologize for frightening you and found you missing.”
“Imagine my distress when I found myself your prisoner,” I bite out angrily. Any pretense of playing nice is long gone. Kieran’s pet snarls and snaps its teeth at me, but I don’t care anymore.
Kieran does though and he calls his hound to heel and then pulls me—not so gently—to my feet.
“I should be angry,” he tells me as he twists my hands painfully behind my back and pulls me against his chest, pressing his cold lips to my cheek and letting them linger.
I struggle in his arms, but they are like a vise and I can’t break free.
“You are a wild thing, Annalise. Unmannered and undisciplined, but we will remedy that. Such a lovely spirit just begs to be broken.”
“The only thing that will be broken here is your arms if you don’t let me go!” I seethe.
He is unaffected by my threats. In fact, his eyes sparkle as if I’ve just turned this into the greatest game ever. He reaches in his pocket and produces a length of twine, and before I realize it, has secured my wrists and tossed me face first over his shoulder.
Revulsion rolls through me as his hands linger on my bare thighs.
“On second thought, you may keep your garments,” he says as he turns back towards the house. “But, I insist you only wear them when we are alone.”
“Keep your hands off of me,” I grit between my teeth, watching in despair as the wall gets further and further away.
“On the contrary, my love,” he chirps. “I think I’ll have to keep my hands, and my eyes, on you in the future. I came too close to losing you. We can’t have that now can we?”
When Kieran gets me back to the room, I’m angry and he’s angrier. I’m cursing at him using every vile word I know, and more than a few I’ve made up as I kick, scream, and threaten him—all to no avail. I tell him he is a fool to try to force me into loving him.
He stayed calm through it all, just running his cold hand over my bare thigh, right up until we got to his house, and I told him that I’ll never love him because my heart will always belong to Jack.
I should be pissed when he throws me off his shoulder onto the hard wooden floor, but I’m just grateful to have his hands off of me. I should be frightened by the black rage on his face, but in some twisted way, it brings me satisfaction.
“You’ll stay here until I have calmed myself enough not to tear your unfaithful heart from your chest,” he rages at me.
“You can’t keep me here!” I shout back at him. “First chance I get, I’m running again! And again! And again, until I’m free of you!”
“There is nowhere you can run that I will not find you. I have marked you as mine,” he growls, “and I will pursue you to the ends of this world and the next until I have you in my possession again, Annalise. You are mine, and you will love me. You have no other choice.”
Before I can say anything else, he storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him. I rush to the window, but they are all sealed now. I search for the lock, but can’t find any. Frustrated, I pick up the lamp off the night table and throw it at the window, intending to break it and get back out. The lamp only bounces off the glass and falls to the floor and I frown at it. Picking the light back up, I begin slamming it into the glass—again and again—but nothing breaks, except my rage, and it is replaced with fear.
“The Master has charmed it, my child,” a soft voice says. “You’ll not be leaving this room unless he is at your side.”
I look behind me and find a weathered but kind face in a chair in the corner. Her long white hair is braided and pinned to her head, but her eyes are lively, too young for the body they reside in.
“Who are you?”
“I am Grainne. The Master has brought me to sit with you and see that you do nothing foolish to hurt yourself.” Her eyes are apologetic, but that doesn’t lessen the anger that is bubbling in my chest.
“Why are you helping him?” I demand, moving to sit on the bed. “Can’t you see he’s holding me prisoner?”
“There is not a single human that resides in Tír na nÓg of their own free will, child. I am as much a prisoner here as you are.”
I feel horrible for snapping at her now, and run a shaky hand through my hair. It’s too much for me for one day and my eyes overflow with tears. “What does he want with us?” I cry pitifully.
“From me, nothing,” she says. “I have the Sight. I can see them for what they are when they walk in our world. So I was taken as a child, when they realized my gift. As long as I stay here, they leave my family be and my eyes stay in my head. From you, it is not so simple. Tis’ your womb they want, child.”
Visions of the pregnant women in the dining room dance behind my lids, and I know I’m going to be sick. “That’s not happening to me,” I insist. “They have their own women, I saw them myself. Kieran can pick himself out a wife from one of them.”
“Childbirth is a messy and dangerous business,” Grainne explains. “Fae babies are as like to kill their mothers as not, and so, the women will not consent. Their soothsayer sent him to fetch you, and the Master means to have a child off of you. He wishes me to tend to you as your maid, and hopes that, eventually, I will stand as nursemaid to your faerie babes.”
That’s the last straw. I curl into a ball on the bed and into my pillow. I have fallen into a nightmare and there’s no way out of it. “So I’m trapped here, aren’t I?”
Grainne watches me carefully. “You aren’t from around here, are you, girl? No family near by to claim you?”
“No. I’m here on vacation with my best friends.”
“Would they fight for you if given the chance?” Her eyes sparkle and I sit back up.
“Yes.” Anna Beth’s mistakes aside, I have faith in my friends. If I am in trouble they will do anything to help me.
“Where are they staying?”
“At the bed and breakfast in the village.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to snatch them back from the air. I long to believe Gr
ainne wants to help me, but I’m scared that Kieran will hunt them down instead.
“Are you baptized?”
I tilt my head and look at her. “No,” I tell her. My parents aren’t atheists or agnostics even. They just don’t care to ask questions about things bigger than themselves and that includes God.
“Listen to me, child. I will help you if I can, but you mustn’t anger the Master in the meantime. Flatter him. Make him think you’ve seen the error of your ways, so that he doesn’t harm you further. Fae are dangerous creatures and possessive enough. Give me time to see what I can do.”
“You would do that for me?” I ask incredulously. “Why?”
“I canna stomach another girl lost. You are not bound here yet, child. There is still a chance for you. But heed my words, you must not accept anything from the Master. Not food, nor drink, nor trinket. Once you have accepted something of this world, you are tied to it.”
I promise I haven’t, and that I won’t. Before long, the exhaustion of the day washes over me, and I fall asleep in the big bed as Grainne tells me stories to distract me of her childhood before the Fae.
***
The morning comes sooner than I want and brings Kieran with it. I open my eyes to find him next to me on the bed, tenderly gazing down at me, his cold fingers lingering on my cheek, as if yesterday had never happened,.
“Good morning, my darling Annalise,” he beams at me. “You look as vibrant and fresh as any flower in my garden.”
I narrow my eyes at him and ready a retort, when I hear Grainne make a noise in the back of her throat. I remember my promise and take a deep breath, schooling my expression into something friendlier.
“Thank you,” I say as kindly as I can, but even I can hear how the words are forced and unnatural.
“I have come to bring you to breakfast,” he stands and offers me his hand. I look frantically at Grainne and she shakes her head gently.
Tales of the Fairy Anthology Page 20