“Tell me something true,” she said, smirking at the inhale he gave. “Something honest.”
Rain took some time before he finally answered. “You are not my first wife.”
Stunned, Callie jerked up from the cushions and glared at him.
“What?” Her shriek ripped through the woods surrounding the small castle. “You have another wife?”
It was his turn to smirk. Delight danced in his eyes, and he reached for her hand. “Is it jealousy you feel?”
“No!” She wrenched her hand back. “Disgust, more like it. I’m not into the whole group thing, ok?”
His smirk broke into a grin that bared his razor-sharp canines at her.
“You are not my first wife,” he said. “But you are my only wife. My first died some time ago.”
Callie blinked, a strange twist of pity inside of her. Not for Rain, of course. For the boy in the library. She didn’t know what he was to Rain, whose child he was, but there had to be a reason he was there in the castle.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Was she … like you?”
“She was not fae.”
Callie rolled her eyes and fell back down on the cushions. “I’m starting to think you like the flavour of humans.”
“A sour flavour,” he said. “And less complex than my own kind.”
At the insult, she puckered her lips and bit the inside of her cheek.
“So she didn’t have children?” she asked.
Rain watched her quietly.
At first, she thought he was taking his usual long pause, but when the flames turned green, she realised he wasn’t going to respond. He stood and helped her to her feet, then took her back into the room.
Her cage.
As if sensing her swift mood change, he made to kiss her shoulder.
Callie pulled free of his light hold and went to the other side of the divide.
Sometime during the night, Callie woke to Rain’s lips on the shell of her ear. He touched flakes of kisses there as tenderly as she would expect from a man besotted with her. But she knew better. She hoped for better. His affections would complicate her plan.
She grunted a tired protest.
Lips still grazing her ear, Rain kept his arms around her and said, “A dressmaker will come this week. She will dress you for the court.”
In her rough morning voice that had come far too early, Callie echoed the word back to him, “Court?”
“I must attend,” he said. “And you have proven yourself trustworthy enough for our first appearance together.”
“What’s the court?” she asked, rolling away from him.
Rain only slid after her, and soon she was trapped between him and the bed’s edge. “The High Court, where you danced.”
Against the rush of terror, Callie shut her eyes. The last place she wanted to go was back to the High Court. But before she could let herself deny him, she realised that her plan blossomed into another stage.
It wouldn’t be long before she’d be reunited with Meghan.
And then, she could flee.
13
Callie winced as another pin stabbed her waist.
“Pardon,” the dressmaker mumbled, rows of needles poking out from her fanged mouth. She plucked out another pin and pinched some fabric at Callie’s outer thigh.
Callie braced herself for another prick, but the dressmaker seemed to want to avoid hurting her when Rain came out of his mysterious alcove, dressed in his black doublet, leather trousers, and silver-toed boots.
His footfalls thumped heavy on the floor as he approached, his greedy gaze drinking in the almost-dress wrapped around Callie.
It was a simple gown, not yet finished. A lace bodice hugged her tightly—too tightly for comfort—and without anything under it, it revealed too much of her. Scowling, Callie folded her arms over her chest, careful to hide the silhouette of her breasts from him. But it did little good.
Rain dropped his gaze to the light blue skirt, a single layer of chiffon that might as well not have been there at all. She was glad she’d pulled on her only knickers before the dressmaker had started.
Rain brought his gaze back up to her narrowed one. “You have pleased me these past few days.”
His light mood wasn’t affected by her scowl. She’d been careful not to press him too much that week, careful not to block her own plan. Rain was delighted. As delighted as a fae could be, she supposed.
“Your alcove will be fixed as your reward.”
He stepped in, and the dressmaker cringed back from him as though his shoes were venomous and would kill her for just being too close. Rain seemed not to notice. He took Callie’s hand, pried it from her chest, and placed his routine kiss on her knuckles.
Her middle finger ached to flip up in answer.
“Can I go to the library today?” she asked.
Rain ran her over with a veiled look. “You have been every day this week, and you haven’t come back with a book to read.”
“I will,” she promised with a nod. “I’ve mostly been enjoying the smell.”
His eyebrow raised. “The smell of the library?”
“It reminds me of something.”
“Of what?” he asked, tucking a lock of now-washed-out-black hair behind her ear. The deep blue dye didn’t survive many washes in the magical pond.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. A memory misplaced…a memory taken. “I can’t remember. But it’s nostalgic.”
A knowing smile slipped across his face, and his eyes sparkled with devious understanding. But all he said before he left was, “If you wish, but only for an hour. We leave for the court at twilight.”
Callie stared at the vines that slithered shut behind him, wondering when they would vanish entirely. Weeks in his world, in his bed and in his room, his trust was not yet gained. She had scraps of it, strewn about. Not enough.
What she’d said about the library had been the truth, but not the absolute truth. She went there every day in hopes of finding the boy again.
Questions swarmed in her mind for him, and she was desperate to know he was all right. His fear still rattled her, a fear she couldn’t show around Rain.
“Ow!” Callie almost fell off the small podium, a pin embedded in her hip. “That wasn’t an accident!”
The dressmaker smiled up at her, all teeth and needles, and plucked the pin out from her side. Her eyebrows glittered blue, braided and swept back to join her ashy hair neatly.
“Pardon,” she crooned, then went back to work.
The dressmaker didn’t leave until a few minutes before Davina entered with a tray full of human food.
Callie scoffed down as much of it as she could before she scrambled to leave for the library.
Davina bustled after her to the alcove. “Please, we must get you ready for the court. The prince expects you prepared before twilight.”
Callie glanced at the balcony doors through the drapes. Light still whispered into the room, but it was wispy and wedged, littered with dust. Time wasn’t on her side.
“I won’t be long,” she said. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Anxious, Davina chewed her lip and wrung her fingers together. But she didn’t stop Callie again, and watched her sweep through the alcove and into the library.
Easton wasn’t there this time. It was Senah, a guard with emerald eyes and blue lips.
She bowed low at the sight of Callie, then slipped into the shadows of the library.
Callie rushed to the human section, which took five minutes to reach. A quarter of her time. Then, she grabbed a book at random—Beauty and the Beast—and parked herself on a cushion in the corner.
And she waited.
Her time ticked her by. One minute, two, three, four.
Callie counted off the seconds on her fingers. And when she reached seven minutes, she admitted defeat and made to rise from the cushion.
Then, a wink of silver caught her eye, and she looked up at the mouth of
the aisle.
The boy was huddled to the shelf, silver shoes gleaming brighter than his lilac eyes.
He flexed his fingers in an unnatural gesture, and it took a moment for Callie to realise that he was trying to wave. He must’ve read about waving in the books around him, but had never quite seen it done before.
She smiled and waved him over.
“I’ve been hoping to see you again,” she whispered when he stopped a bit away from her, as if afraid to get too close. As if she was the dangerous one. “You haven’t come by.”
The boy picked at a splinter on the shelf he cringed against. “I had lessons.”
“Lessons,” she repeated. “What kind?”
He pinched his lips, and didn’t answer. Lessons didn’t interest him.
“I’m Callie,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Angus,” he whispered, rosy-cheeked.
Callie couldn’t hide her surprise. It was a decidedly human name. “Did your mum give you that name?”
“My father,” he said, shaking his head. “It is a fae name, older than the name in your world.”
“It must’ve gotten out,” she said. “It’s a popular name in my country. I’m from Ireland. Do you know where that is?”
He nodded, turning a little to face her more directly. Callie grinned at him. It seemed to urge him some.
He inched closer, and said, “Father showed it to me on a map. He said you were from there.”
“Oh, so you know about me,” she said. “But I don’t know about you. Doesn’t sound fair, does it?”
“They call us the fair folk, but we are not very fair.” He leaned his temple against the shelf and watched her, as if she was a wild dog who might bite at any moment.
“You’re Rain’s son.” She said it in a way that suggested she knew about him and clicked her fingers. “And your mum was his first wife.”
A smile slipped onto his lips, and with a shudder she realised how right she was. The shock of the resemblance crawled through her. It could have been Rain smiling at her, it was so striking.
“He did not tell you that,” he said slyly, as though catching her in a naughty lie. Which she supposed was right. “Father warned me that your kind lies. He told me you lie sometimes.”
“What else does he say about me?”
Angus shook his head, his gaze downcast. “I’m not supposed to say.”
“Fine.” She smiled tightly and looked up at the balconies, making sure the guards hadn’t spotted them together. “Tell me one thing before I go, and I’ll tell you one thing you want to know.”
Interest ignited his eyes into smears of lilac glitter. The greediness couldn’t be hidden. He wasn’t skilled yet, and he crept closer. “Deal.”
Callie leaned towards him. “Tell me how your mum died.”
If she had expected any hurt to cross his face, she would have been wrong. Angus kept his devious smile and crept closer in a way that was so much like Rain.
“Mother died at my father’s hand.”
Callie was the one to look horrified. She pulled back from the smiling fae child and stared at him, as though he might try murder her himself.
“She betrayed him for a human servant,” he said. “The vows of their bargain were broken, and she received punishment in the Highest Court.”
“What was her punishment?” Callie breathed, books clutched tight to her chest.
“Mother had to watch as the human servant was killed, then father ran her through with a sword.” He tilted his head, fascinated by the horror that twisted Callie’s face and prickled her eyes with tears. “Mother first did it when I was inside her womb. Father forgave her, because humans do strange things when they are with child—but after I was born, she was caught again. I don’t remember her.”
With a gulp, she realised that Angus thought she wept for him. She didn’t. As selfish as might be, she wept for herself. Her possible future.
“Why didn’t she leave after she gave birth to you?”
Angus swayed on the spot, growing bored. “Mother’s bargain was not the same you have with my father. She came to him—she found the fae realm and offered herself to him. Mother wanted to stay in this world.”
“But he has you.” Callie’s tone rattled. “He has a child. Why does he need me?”
He shrugged, and looked up his eyelashes at her.
The smile crept back into place. “Now it is my turn.”
Callie flinched as the fae boy came closer.
He was no longer timid and shy, but bold and so very like them. He rested his hand on her white knuckles, and held her gaze.
Malice swept away from his eyes, and again he looked the innocent boy he had been before. But she knew, he wasn’t innocent then, and he wasn’t innocent now.
“Are you going to leave?”
Callie tightened her jaw.
Of course she would. Of course she would race away from the castle of horrors the first real chance she got. But the boy wasn’t to be trusted. And so she took his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“No,” she lied. “I won’t leave. I won’t risk my life.”
Satisfied, he slipped back from her, a tranquil look on his face. She’d pleased him, but she couldn’t place why. Then, he was gone, swallowed up by the dark shadows of the aisles.
Callie sat there on the cushions for too long.
Her twenty minutes were in the past, and she couldn’t bring herself to care much. Shock was rooted too deep in her mind, and it was all she could do to make her way back to the chamber.
Though cross with Callie, Davina managed to have her ready on time.
Callie sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the mirror above the vanity table. Her hair was spiralled around a golden crown, and swept down the nape of her neck to between her shoulder blades, all raven and coal hues. A golden dress was held to her body with a brown rope-belt, and cut apart at the thigh.
Dead eyes stared back at her.
Davina had been careful not to cover up her human complexion with powder. The only makeup she wore was the rouge on her lips and the streaks of shimmery gold over her eyelids.
Rain mistook her shock for nerves.
Dressed in the same armour she’d first seen him in, he placed a box beside her on the bed and assured her, “No harm will come to you in the court while you are under my protection. Wear this as a show of our union.”
Dazed, she turned her gaze to him, then to the box. She flipped off the lid with a lazy tug of the finger. And she remained just as disinterested as before when she saw the woven-gold choker in the box.
“It will protect you from glamours and enchantments. Wear this, and you may drink and dance all you like without fear of becoming trapped.”
Callie let him pull her to her feet, then turn her around. There was nothing sweet about Rain clasping the choker around her neck. In fact, she had the fleeting thought of a dog being awarded a collar by its owner.
He could call her his wife as much as he liked. She knew what she was to him.
A pet.
14
Callie stood between two watchful guards at the wrought-iron gate. Through the little square gaps, she could see sprinkles of the outside—obstacles she would later have to overcome.
She couldn’t hide her excitement. It worked her jaw and steadied her gaze on the shimmery circle that surrounded the castle. A moat, she was certain of it. But with the gate in the way, it was hard to see what lingered beyond the moat—and what was inside it.
The suspicious stares of the guards flanking her didn’t go unnoticed. She cleared her throat and turned her back to the outside, then looked at Rain.
Easton had taken him to the far side of the courtyard, next to an enormous painting of a woman with purple eyes darker than plums, and silver hair sharper than a blade. Callie felt the portrait’s gaze on her, and it wasn’t a friendly feeling at all.
Rain and Easton spoke in low murmurs, which Callie only started to i
nterest herself in when they both paused and turned their unreadable stares to her. She swallowed, hands finding each other at her back.
“Are we not going anymore?” It was the closest to innocence she could pretend. Acting wasn’t her strongest talent.
Rain only pierced her through with his gaze. Easton fought off a sneer.
Callie scraped her heeled sandal over the stone floor and puffed out her cheeks as if disappointed. “Shame,” she muttered, and turned back to the gate. “I really wanted to see that moat.”
Through the gate, a stable servant steered a black steed onto the path. A black horse draped in a silver saddle, wearing a studded collar, and a muzzle.
Callie recognised the horse from the lake she’d first fallen into. When she’d seen Angus for the first time, Rain had been with him. Of course, she knew that. She’d seen him later in the court.
Still, the sight of the foreboding beast pricked her skin not unlike the dressmaker.
Rain finished with Easton who swept through a dark doorway, and he turned his whole being onto her.
Callie felt it all, shifting in the courtyard. The downcast eyes of the guards, the tension, the familiar taste of fear. This time, she wasn’t the only one afraid.
Slowly, she looked over her shoulder at him. He strode towards her, pulling on his leather gloves, then stopped at a lever by the gate that he wrenched downwards. The gate lifted open.
Callie reached her fingers to the retreating gate, where rust had corroded the iron to reddish brown flakes. She looked at the stains on her fingertips.
“Can you touch iron?” she asked.
Rain’s answer didn’t come, and he strode by her to the horse.
Callie hesitated between the stiff guards, unsure whether or not to follow him. But the gate didn’t close, and the guard closest to the lever didn’t pull it.
With a nervous step, she moved out of the castle, then paused at the start of the path. None of the guards made to stop her. Rain kept his back to her as he adjusted the saddle on the black steed. Then, in a swift move, he mounted it and looked back at her.
“Come, human.”
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 21