“If you have an affair,” she spat, “can I drag you through court and use you a pin-cushion for my swords?”
He tilted his head, a small mischievous smile on his lips. “You have no swords.” At her intense glare, Rain added, “I will not and will never have an affair. I am loyal to you, my wife.”
Callie’s narrowed eyes flew open into wide orbs of shock. For a fae, that was a bold, terrifying promise. It curled her stomach with dread and prickles of excitement—excitement that she stomped down to the pits of darkness where it belonged.
“But if you did,” she pressed. “What would be your punishment?”
“Divorce.” Rain shut his eyes and lolled his head back to bask in the fresh rays of sun. “As a prince of the court, I am not subject to these rituals, but I am bound to them as an enforcer. Should I betray our vows, you would be presented with an offering of wealth, a divorce with full protection and access into our realm, and forever remain a human of my court.”
“What if we had kids?”
Rain brought his bright eyes down at her. “When we have a child, as per our bargain, it remains—”
“If you cheat,” she said. “What about the kid then?”
Callie had no intention of ever having a child with Rain, or even getting to the part where said child could possibly be made.
But she had to know everything—every right that she possessed in the fae realm, any loophole that might hang nearby within reach, and every scrap of protection and safety she might find along the way to her escape.
“Read the next chapter.”
Callie pursed her lips.
She hadn’t fully finished the chapter of The Judas Kiss, and hated to skip ahead. But she flicked the pages, narrowed eyes on the stoic prince, until she reached the chapter titled ‘HALFLINGS’.
The first section was the one that drew her attention.
“All offspring between human and fae fall into the guardianship of the fae parent,” she read in a tedious voice, as monotonous as an electric hum. “In the rare instance of a birthed sickling, the human may take ownership of that child or the child may be traded as a changeling in place of a healthy human babe.”
Rain pushed away from the balcony and strolled toward her, his movements lazy and yet, swelling with a silent danger. “The child will remain with me, in all circumstances but one—a sickling. I have no use for a poorly heir.”
Callie leaned forward as he came up to her side then slid down between her back and the wall; making himself into a chair of sorts.
He’d grown to favour sitting at her back, where he could wrap his arms around her, kiss along her shoulders, bury his face in her hair. But that day, he only hiked up his own knee to a higher height than hers, and rested his hands on her hips.
He brushed the pads of his thumbs over her sticky skin in the gaps of her lace skirt.
A moment later, Davina came through the open balcony doors, balancing a silver and jewelled tray that held pitchers of freshly squeezed juice from the orchard, and fruits from the markets.
As Davina set the tray down on the claw-footed table and began to pour their drinks, Callie eyed the juicy-looking fruit slices piled in a silver bowl. “Will I ever leave this castle for more than the court?”
Rain stiffened at her back, a ripple of muscles clenched in tension.
“I would like to visit the markets,” she added, leaning back against him. “You know, Meghan and I were travelling before we ended up here.”
Slowly, his muscles were relieved from the taut grips, and he ran his fingers along her arms softly. “Where were you travelling to?”
“Nowhere.” Callie shrugged, picking the corner of the beige page. “And everywhere. But I always—alwayssss—dragged her to the markets. Sundays all around our world is market day. My grandparents sort of kick-started my hobby.”
“They owned stalls?” He asked and, with a lazy flick of the hand, he dismissed Davina.
“No, but they loved to visit them. Six o’clock in the morning, every Sunday, some Saturdays, they would take me to the markets. I wasn’t allowed to have games, you know? Like electronic games and that. But at the markets, that didn't matter. I would always find puzzles, fun books that were spooky and had multiple choice reading—”
“What is that?”
“Multiple choice reading? They’re books that make the reader the protagonist, and you get options at the end of every chapter, like option A would be ... enter the haunted carnival; B, run home and lock the door; C, wait for a friend. I always chose the safe options.”
Rain hummed a neutral sound and, pushing Callie closer to her folded legs, leaned towards the table to grab his goblet of fresh juice, the colour of fresh blood. “I imagine that cut your journey short.”
“They’re children’s books,” she added quietly. He wasn’t nearly as excited about them as he should have been. Those were her all-time favourites as a child. “Anyways,” she went on, “market visit? When can I expect that?”
“Long after I release your friend.”
Callie’s mouth made a grim line and she slumped against him, a heavy sigh shoving through her.
“Fine.”
She flicked the page to the next section of ‘HALFLINGS’, but Rain nudged her hand away and touched his fingertips to the tome. Then he drew his hand back to her arm and, in a blink, the pages had gone into a frenzy. They flipped on their own, so fast that it was a blur of black stains and beige, aged paper.
The flipping stopped—and Callie found herself staring at a page with a title that made her stomach turn.
“Runaway humans,” she murmured, sweeping over the passage. “Human runaways who abandon their marriages are to be captured and returned to their respective court. Subsequently, the human must endure one whole year in the Eternal Dance, and a further year of punishment to be chosen by the scorned fae spouse.”
Callie dragged her shaky finger down the only three options:
Twelve full months of complete isolation, darkness, and hunger;
Twelve full months of service in the Wild Hunt, where the human will be used for various duties, including trap-setting, body disposals, and target practice for participants. However, the human will not be killed, hunted, or sacrificed as an offering in the Wild Hunt. Maiming is possible;
Six full months in the allied court of the Northern Darklings as a temporary offering of servitude. Human’s survival is not guaranteed.
Voice as shaky as her hand, Callie tensed in Rain’s arms and hissed, “Are you threatening me?”
Resting his chin on her shoulder, Rain answered in a quiet murmur, a rare small voice from the proud prince; “If anyone is, it is the book.” She felt his cheek lift against her neck, as if a smile took his lips. “Though it does not promise death by papercuts.”
“Why did you show me this?” Callie cringed in on herself. But it didn’t little to help her escape from him.
Rain looped his arms around her firmly in what she thought was meant to be an embrace—something of comfort and not a cage. But she only thought of cages.
“I suspect you know why, Callie.”
He didn’t know. Callie was sure of it. How could he know what she was planning?
No, he didn’t know.
But he feared it, and that was why he showed her the details of the ritual. A ritual she would never have to face because that would mean he would have to catch her to perform it.
The sun was dimming in the sky by the time the flames erupted in the fireplace, and Davina carried out platters to the balcony.
Rain was dressing after a quick bathe in the wash-pond.
But Callie hadn’t moved from the nook beside the open balcony doors. Even as the fresh flames warmed her bare arm to the point that her skin began to itch, she couldn’t move—she couldn’t stop reading the book.
Aches seized her eyes, burning them the way that the fire burned her arm, but she only squeezed them shut a few times, then zoned in on the words.
Of all the sickening practices she’d read in the book, the one that twisted her gut the most was the chapter, ‘THE BOND OF NEWLYWEDS’.
A bond that tied the pair together in such a strong spiritual connection of nature that a fae could always feel their human.
Callie felt sick reading it, learning that when Rain went away to battle, he could feel her in every moment. He felt her fear, her agony, her longing—and most terrible of all, her presence.
That bond would lead him straight to her when she escaped, no matter how far away she fled. He would find her.
“Callie.”
Rain’s disproving tone yanked her itchy eyes up from the book to the balcony doors. He moved around Davina, who set out their dinner on the low table, and kept his silent gaze on Callie.
“Put the book down. You have read much today.”
“Just—” Calle sighed, picking at the corner of the page, her hooded, tired gaze on him. She watched as he sank into the cushions opposite her, then pulled her bare feet onto his lap. “Just one more chapter—I’m almost finished it.”
Rain’s eyes flashed with danger, and his sharp nails pressed into her ankles. “I did not ask, Callie.”
She challenged him with a tired stare, but his eyes were his tell—and they were solid gold. No soft rosy hues in sight.
He was volatile. Too volatile to fight without risking her own life.
Grudgingly, Callie slammed the tome closed and threw it onto the cushions at her side. But she kept her jaw clenched, and even after Rain had eaten half of his meal, Callie refused to be baited into talking.
It did little to soften him.
After he threatened her into eating at least a third of her meal, then forced her to bathe the day’s sweat and dirt away, he ordered them both to bed for his beloved rest.
Callie left the book out on the balcony.
It wasn’t until morning, when Rain let her out to retrieve the book, that she got to read the rest of the chapter.
And she learned that the only way to appease the Bond, to let it slip away back into the grains of nature, was to finalise their marriage.
Callie and Rain had to truly share their bed, and they had six months since the day of their ‘vows’ to do it.
Callie turned her gaze to the rose in the glass dome that sat upon Rain’s desk.
She was tucked up on his chair, and watched as the petal closest to her began to dry and wither. Ready to fall to join the two dead petals at its stem.
Almost three months had passed, three petals remained, and she finally understood the meaning of the rose that neither of them could touch. The dome protected it, shielded it from harm, and it sat proudly on his desk as a reminder—but not to her.
Maybe that was why he let the tome fall into her hands.
Maybe he guided it there, a whispered nudge to where they must take their marriage. For if it wasn’t to happen before the last petal fell from the rose, their marriage would be dissolved and she, by the laws, would be taken as a prize in The Chase—an ancient sport where fae hunted humans through the woods, stabbing them with shallow cuts until they eventually bled out and died.
Callie shuddered and turned her cheek away from the rose.
Her gaze found Rain who stood at the parted drapes in his official finery, doublet unbuttoned to reveal a slice of his chest, watching her.
They stared at each other, and the weight of understanding pressed down on them.
She knew, and he knew. Callie had no real choice.
“Callie.” The gentleness of his tone surprised her. He reached out his hand for her, across the wash-pond, and curled his fingers in beckoning. “Leave the book. Come with me.”
“Where?” she croaked, too tired, too exhausted, to beaten down to muster up any strength to fight any of it anymore.
“The gardens.”
Callie left the book, this time knowingly and willingly, on his desk, beside the damned rose. And she went with him to the castle gardens without a scrap of enthusiasm at all.
17
It started with a bud.
A small bud just below her heart, hot like burning coal.
Tucked into the armchair in her alcove, Callie flicked through the crisp aged pages of the old tome, but the words melted together before her eyes.
She mostly watched the dust flitter above the pages, feeling the clench hardening and hardening on that bud.
Face twisted, Callie drew her hands back from the book and pressed them, hard, to her chest.
“Rain!” she hollered through the parted drapes.
He was somewhere, there, outside the alcove.
“Rain—come here!”
She’d never summoned him before, or heard any of his subjects command him in such a forceful way. Maybe it wasn’t wise to boss a prince of war to her side, but Callie decided that the pit of fire twisting her heart was a bigger concern than pricking Rain’s ego.
There was a rustle of paper before the scraping sound of a chair’s legs on a pebbled floor. A moment later, Rain was beside the armchair.
“Callie,” he said, then was at her feet, his strong hands gripping her arms.
“It hurts,” she gritted out, the bud of hot pain growing—spreading into a fiery fist around her heart.
A blinding tear of pain speared through her suddenly, enough to sheet her sight in white, and leave her face twisted in a silent scream. The jolt shoved her forward, the book sliding to the floor.
Before Rain could peel her off the chair, Callie’s entire body was shredded by the pain. And the scream was no longer silent, but a glass shard cutting through the castle walls.
Rain scooped her into his arms, a calmness about him and his smooth movements that warped her screams into panicked cries.
Was he just going to let her suffer? Die, even? Wasn’t he going to do anything about it?
“I’m dying...” Callie’s words came out in a scrambled lump of tears and searing pain. “I’m ... dying.”
It’s a heart attack. It’s a heart attack.
“No.” Rain spoke as softly as the way her carried her, golden eyes crystallising into rosy rocks.
Pity.
If a fae prince as brutal and cold as Rain could feel anything close to pity or sympathy, it was that—right there, in his eyes as he gazed down at the pinched pain in Callie’s face, and treaded them both into the water of the wash-pond.
“Another petal has fallen,” he said, lowering her whole body into the warm, soothing embrace of the water. “You will feel it for a few moments.”
Callie’s head was the only part of her above water, and she used it to turn her gritted teeth on him.
Face charged with hatred born from the ugliest of places, Callie hissed, “You should be the one suffering—you ... you did this to me.”
If he disagreed, he didn’t make it known.
Rain tilted his head, rose-gold eyes running over her twisted lips, crinkled nose and pinched brow. Then, he floated them to the edge of the pond and sat on the ledge, fully clothed, settling Callie’s body over his lap.
Rain gathered a handful of the natural soapy suds that grew like algae on the water’s surface and brought the pile to her breasts.
Callie’s breath hitched and she made to stop him from touching her. But he was quicker, and flattened his hand to the crevice between her breasts.
The relief was instant.
Whatever healing remedies were in the natural soaps prickled through her skin to the fire consuming her heart—and as her eyes fluttered shut to exhaustion, Rain kissed her temple.
The rose—that blasted, damned rose from hell—was warning her.
Time is running out…
18
Time is running out...
The thought of what the rose’s final petal falling would do to her body, the sheer agony it would consume her with, sent shivers down Callie’s spine.
Even if she appeased the rose and consummated her marriage to a cunning prince, it wouldn’t be on h
er own terms. It wouldn’t be ... right.
So Callie avoided the rose and its final petals—she avoided the desk it was perched on, she avoided thoughts of it, she avoided the instructions in the book about it. Because the pain only became worse with each petal, and she wasn’t sure she could survive any more from it.
Two petals left on the rose.
Callie couldn’t bear to imagine what the final petal’s fall would do to her, how it would tear apart her insides enough for her to wish for death, but not enough to bring it.
Not enough to prevent The Chase from having her.
She knew what she had to do.
The relief of a fully formed plan overwhelmed her. The hope sparked life through her, and she bided her time.
Callie was sprawled out on the feathery bed, flicking through the pages of Beauty and the Beast. Only, her mind ran over and over what she had to do until every detail etched into her brain, like carvings on stone.
Rain, smelling of fresh pond water and rose petals, climbed onto the bed behind her.
She didn’t have to look over her shoulder at him to see how he moved.
Her mind flickered with images of his predatory crawl, the heat in his intense stare, and rose-gold flecks dancing in his eyes. It’s how he looked most of the time in the passing days.
His nose found the unbrushed knots of her hair and buried deep, then a long inhale stretched his muscles over her as though he tried to merge their bodies into one.
Callie smirked into the pages of the book, and supposed that is exactly what he wanted.
Rain’s desperation grew. It clung to his every breathy word that he spoke into her hair, “I must have you.”
Ignoring the prickle of her skin, Callie flicked the unread pages before her. “So free Meghan.”
Her voice came clipped and distant, though she knew he wouldn’t free her. Callie planned to save Meghan with the Dowry, but until the time came when he whisked her back to the High Court, she wouldn’t stop fighting for her friend. Perhaps the Dowry could be useful another way if she succeeded.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 24