“Got you,” the Fae exclaimed, accompanied by more buzzing in my head. If somebody clapped for him I wouldn’t have been surprised.
I headbutted him from behind, making myself see stars and stabbed blindly backwards with my knife hand. There was a terrible scream and I know the knife sank into something. I sprang forward with a vicious wrench of my knife hand and ran. The Fae were damn near immortal, I reminded myself.
It was a glorious three seconds before another Fae seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of me. I had one blink to recognize his traitorous features, not dissimilar to the blonde, blue-eyed Fae already chasing me before I ran right into his chest. I did my damndest to stab him, but he disarmed me with an ease that made the rest of the Fae look like incompetent children that had been playing with me.
“I’m going to kill you,” I screamed as Kheelan squeezed my wrist to force the knife to drop from my hand.
“You still can be bait with your arms and legs broken,” Kheelan said, grunting as my knee contacted his upper thigh. He had protected himself just in time.
Why had he changed clothes? I shook my head to clear it, sure I was seeing wrong. The buzzing was giving me a headache. Either that or the blows I had taken. I had to fight through the pain, escape before Kheelan got me back in his evil clutches.
He had already broken me with his betrayal but I couldn’t let him know it. “All the more reason to not let you keep me,” I told Kheelan, dropping my full weight onto his hands. I brought my feet up to curl as I balled myself, shrinking my center of mass and pulling him off-balance. I didn’t let myself straighten out, battling the reflex to open up and catch myself as he dropped me.
Kheelan stumbled forward and my ass landed on one of his knees as he stuck his leg out to catch himself. I headbutted him. This time it hurt even more but it still worked, his grip loosening. I headbutted him again and again. He released me to try to stop me or protect his head. I didn’t stay around to find out, pushing off his leg with my feet to spring backwards.
I fell on my ass like a crab and quickly flipped over on all fours. A moment later I was eating dirt.
“Should I break off all her limbs, my King?” asked the voice above me calmly, like he was inquiring about twisting the stem off a cherry.
My head was screaming, ice picks to both my ears. I blinked back against the tears that threatened to fall.
“Bind it,” Kheelan ordered and I almost whimpered against the pain. His voice sounded off, but it was probably the lack of glamour. I had noticed his pointy ears when I ran into his chest.
Icy magic crept up my legs like a snake winding itself, tightening as it climbed to my knees. My arms were wrenched around my back and lined up, so they were parallel, elbows each cradled by a helpless hand, then bound by the same magic. The chase truly was over this time.
I felt my quiver shift up as my arms were shoved against it, but the Fae behind me never noticed it. A small mercy of the glamour still powered by the charm in my bra. I breathed in dust and defeat, a bitter mix with the blood in my mouth, and started plotting.
“Bring it,” Kheelan ordered. I panted against the pain. Their voices were hurting me, but I didn’t know why.
I got another look at Kheelan’s face from upside down of the Fae shoulder I was being carried. The shoulder was bony or my captor wore hard pads, my soft tummy protesting the abuse and missing Dain’s broader shoulders. I glared at Kheelan, feeling hate. It wasn’t rage or fear or sadness. I hurt so bad and my focus was on returning that pain. All my plans started with taking an arrow from the quiver Kheelan had given me and putting it through his heart. I didn’t care if it came through the back first, either.
It was rapidly darkening in the forested park and I got a glimpse of the setting sun as the Fae got back to the main paved path. Closing my eyes against the dying rays, I concentrated to find the charm’s tiny snowflake in my bra, taking more precious time than I wanted before I could feel the cool magic tight against the chest band and my front clasp. For a desperate moment, I thought I had lost the charm when I got tossed over a shoulder to be carried, but no one had mentioned my quiver. I quickly mumbled the spell under my breath, opening my eyes to see if the sun was set yet. I couldn’t see it over the horizon but I mumbled the spell again.
“It’s spelling,” Kheelan warned, catching my moving lips. Another ice pick pierced my skull.
The Fae carrying me dumped my body on the ground. I landed hard, unable to catch myself with my hands and legs bound, hitting the ground equally on my butt and back, and then smacking the back of my head with the momentum. This final blow summed up the last of my consciousness as I shuttered my eyes against Kheelan’s tormenting stare. My last thought was of my bittersweet kiss of his traitorous mouth this afternoon and his demand that I not leave him.
I should have told Kheelan I didn’t believe in forever.
Chapter 18:
I WOKE UP SCREAMING.
No one was hurting me but the sound like a belt snapping brought me to consciousness with memories of waiting for Dain’s Claim, worried he would bring the leather down on my bare back and break me. It wasn’t the pain I truly feared.
My chest was squeezing the air from my lungs. Each snap seemed to stab me in the heart. I didn’t want to open my eyes, knowing the monsters were real, but I felt like I would die if this torture continued. Blinking back tears I hadn’t felt myself cry, I found myself in a metal cage with a front-row seat to an atrocity.
Someone else was living my nightmare. My eyes had flown open with adrenalized readiness tensing my muscles for fight or flight to escape. I immediately focused on the familiar features of the cold Fae that had led to my imprisonment. Kheelan was white-knuckling iron bars with his bare hands and facing me, bare to the waist as another Fae delivered punishing blow after blow to his back with a multi-tailed whip.
I flinched as something wet was flicked over me, my brain telling me it was Kheelan’s blood although I refused to examine my skin to confirm it was red. Barbed metal ends to the whip caught my eye. I bet they were iron as well. Every blow showed on Kheelan’s face as a tightening across his cheekbones, teeth gritted together as he silently endured the most vicious whipping I could imagine. He kept standing upright and his hands never left the bars, but his back arched as the whip met his flesh and the agony screamed from his eyes.
I felt each blow reciprocated in my chest, anguish that twisted a knife as I whimpered and screamed. I didn’t know which of us would pass out first.
“She’s awake,” yelled someone amongst the male-only crowd watching the whipping. The voices still hurt my head, but it was nothing next to the pain in my chest.
“I heard its pitiful cries,” called the voice I had associated with Kheelan.
I stopped screaming.
“Halt,” he said to the silence and the whipping immediately ceased.
Kheelan’s stormy eyes iced over, the agony masked in his gaze. He stared forward at nothing, like a zombie, only the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he heaved air in and out to give away he was alive. My own chest felt numb from the piercing pain that had finally eased.
What was happening? Kheelan’s twin had led the chase and captured me and now he was torturing the real Kheelan, who still was the bastard that had betrayed me to this waking nightmare. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to explain what was going on. I would pinch myself but the pain I was feeling seemed all too real already.
“I told you it would wake up with sufficient motivation, bastard. We barely got in a couple dozen lashes before it started squealing for its master,” the asshole that looked like Kheelan said. As Kheelan was an asshole most of the time, I guess this guy was the bigger asshole.
It hadn’t been Kheelan to capture me, although he had set me up. Now, he was being punished. Why?
I crawled over to Kheelan on my hands and knees, realizing with a shudder that I had been put in leg irons. Kheelan didn’t acknowledge my presence or the asshole’s tau
nt. I wrapped my hands around Kheelan’s white knuckles and helped myself up to my knees, wincing as my own painful injuries from capture made themselves known, starting with my pounding head.
The Fae I had mistaken for Kheelan came into view, walking towards us and spouting more taunts. “See how it begs for the bastard’s attention even though he gave her leash to us. You can’t break a human bitch of her old master until you kill him.”
“Bigger, buggering asshole,” I muttered. I tried to pry Kheelan’s fingers off the iron bars. “Get out,” I whispered desperately, but he ignored me.
“The only one allowed to kill Kheelan is me,” I yelled, much louder. Kheelan deserved to be stabbed through his black heart, but I couldn’t do it and I wouldn’t allow anyone else to threaten to do it, either.
“Will you beg for his life, Halfling?” the bigger asshole said.
“You will beg,” I retorted. I was building a new list, this one of Fae I had promised to kill or torment. Bigger asshole was at the top.
Kheelan’s eyes came back to life and they were furious at me. I stuck my tongue out at him, a little bit off my rocker with fear and anger.
“Such a rabid pup you brought home, bastard. Wherever did you find it? We ought to eliminate the source before such crazed ferocity infects any other Halfling girls. It will make the breeding a tad more difficult and hardly worth the effort.”
Nobody threatened my mother. “Why don’t you crawl into my cage and say that to my face?” I said, looking away from Kheelan to see his evil mirror. “I’ll wrap this iron shackle around your throat before you can beg for my forgiveness.”
Bigger asshole was close. Less than ten feet from where I was kneeling. I felt the weight of my quiver on my back and wondered how fast I could loose an arrow and if one day’s lesson was enough to give me hope to put it somewhere very painful and disfiguring. I could put it through one of his eyes with Aeric’s accuracy.
“Do not,” Kheelan said, voice hoarse.
He didn’t get to tell me what to do anymore. I shot him a dirty look for even trying.
“I wouldn’t bother myself to discipline a mutt like you,” dismissed the bigger asshole, drawing my attention back to him.
I curled my lip up into a sneer. “Little baby light fairy afraid of the dark?” I asked, crawling back from Kheelan to the darkest corner of my cage. I licked my lips and shot the bigger asshole a come-hither stare, knowing I looked like the deranged animal he claimed, covered in blood splatter revealed by the flickering torches.
He smiled, and it put Falin to shame, showing me the meaning of frightening beauty.
“Toss the bastard in with it, fully shackled. If he can’t silence its yapping, then cut off its tongue as a memento for him to remember it by because I will have it killed by sunrise if my son doesn’t show.”
Was he talking about his son Aeric? The bigger asshole was the splitting image of Kheelan right down to the cold attitude. Of course, he was also completely insane. Kheelan didn’t get to plead that excuse.
“Wow Kheelan,” I yelled. “I never knew cowardice ran in your family. I think we’re going to have to break up.”
The bigger asshole had turned on his heel to dismiss us, but my comment hit him square between the shoulders, tightening them up. He didn’t even turn back around to respond, just muttering like he was excusing his dog for pissing on somebody’s car tires. Your car is a junker, anyway.
“The Halfling is my bastard, although his whelp of a mother died birthing him, so he was raised amongst his betters in my stables, instead of as a changeling that could have at least been useful in obtaining another whelp to replace her and eventually breed.”
I had no words. Kheelan’s father was a complete sociopath. I had already figured that, but the fact that Kheelan was a Halfling, like me? Total shock. I looked over and met Kheelan’s eyes, no longer zombified. I bet Kheelan hadn’t planned on me finding out.
“Better only half an asshole,” I muttered, keeping it quiet enough that only Kheelan heard me.
We were dismissed again, Kheelan’s father walking away while guards ripped Kheelan from the bars. There were black marks left where his hands had wrapped around, and I didn’t go over there to check out what they represented. I hoped it was only sweat.
They tossed Kheelan in literally and I got an up-close visual of the torn meat of his back. I closed my eyes. I wasn’t this brave. I wanted to be back in my apartment, lying beside Orin and the little scratch he had in comparison to Kheelan’s gruesome wounds. How could you even knit together his back when there was barely any flesh?
The cold burn of a Fae touching me forced my eyes open. Another blonde Fae was unshackling me, using a key. Two of them were in the cage with us, which was raised and on wheels like an old-fashioned paddy-wagon. The quarters were tight, and I could hear the second one hissing a complaint as one of his shoulders brushed against the iron bars.
It was a show of weakness in front of a chained, wild animal. I would maul those cowards.
“Get out,” I growled at them as the second shackle loosened. It would be their only warning.
“Should we cut its tongue out now?” said the one touching my leg shackles.
I kicked him right in the head with a sideways swipe, letting the iron shackle hanging loosely from my ankle rest against his neck and the side of his face. He screamed even better than when I blew Bubblicious up in Falin’s face.
I felt terrible satisfaction.
The second Fae rang my clock, grabbing me by the shoulders and throwing me against the bars so my head smacked with a clang. I blinked away stars. The rest of my body had made our cage rattle as it hit.
“Do not touch her,” Kheelan said in a cold, deadly voice I hardly recognized.
The other Fae ignored me and immediately turned to face him. Kheelan was kneeling still at the front of the cage, dripping blood. How was he a threat?
“Shackle him,” the Fae that had thrown me ordered the other.
“You do it,” the other Fae said.
“You have the key,” the first one insisted.
“Let’s do it together,” suggested the second.
After the beating that Kheelan had taken, they were still that afraid of him? I had to take advantage of this. Finding my way back to my knees, I looked at Kheelan.
“Should we rip off all of their limbs?” I slyly asked Kheelan, remembering his father’s threat to me in the forest.
The two Fae shuddered and looked back at me. I bared my teeth at them in my mock of Falin’s smile. I had a monster of an example to follow.
“They won’t die from mere amputations. Do you wish them to live and suffer for their insult?” Kheelan asked me.
He sounded deadly serious. Strict Kheelan never threatened anything unless he could deliver. Even I got the shivers, and the two Fae were nearly pissing themselves, looking around for an escape and realizing that Kheelan was blocking the only way out.
It was time to bargain. I hoped I had learned to do it better.
“I want supplies to clean and dress Kheelan’s back. You will leave the door unlocked and only one of you needs to leave to get the supplies. The other will be shackled in here with us,” I said, laying out the terms.
They didn’t even look at me, watching Kheelan like a canary does a cat in the room, but my bargain was acknowledged.
“What makes you think we would agree to go against orders?” asked the Fae I had burned with my shackles.
“What makes you think I was giving you a choice?” I responded.
Other Fae that had been watching Kheelan’s whipping were milling around, some openly watching our exchange with curiosity. None of them volunteered to intervene for the trapped Fae with us.
I looked out and called to the heavy fighter staring at our cage, built more like Dain, arms crossed as he stood there bored and useless. Everyone else gave him a wide swath. We needed a distraction and picking a fight seemed like a good way to get one. Big, dumb and full of Fae
arrogance was perfect.
“Come, drag this weakling excuse of a fairy out to serve me as I’ve commanded,” I boldly told him, beckoning by extending my hand and crooking my finger.
The big guy smiled and came forward. That had been simple.
“Move, Kheelan,” I warned, and then stood and kicked the Fae that had taken off my irons right in the back, so he flew towards the door. He had been looking at Kheelan so he hadn’t seen the kick coming, but he also seemed especially slow, failing to dodge my feet again. His head hit the floor and slid into the metal bars with a bang.
“Oh, oops, missed,” I mocked, although it had been accidental luck.
The big guy dragged the first Fae guard out head first, dumping him on the ground. “Get going before Kheelan gets bored with the Lady’s mercy,” he suggested with a kick. I knew he was spoiling for a fight.
The other trapped Fae guard dropped down to sit beside the shackles and slapped himself in them over his pants. He didn’t turn the key, so I walked over and held my hand out for it, making sure I locked both cuffs nice and tight before I turned and shoved the key into my bra.
I had expected to see Kheelan’s angry gaze but the big guy I had called over was kneeling behind me. I hadn’t even heard him enter our cage, although he was so huge he had to duck as well as kneel, shoulders hunched to fit him in the tight confines.
“What do you want?” I curtly asked.
“Kheelan, is that your Mark?”
His eyes were a deep, dark brown that bordered on black and his hair short but shaggy, white blonde with the Elf braids on his left that were a very interesting mix. Combined with his swarthy build it set him apart from the elegantly proportioned, blue-eyed males that made up the bulk of Fae here.
“It is mine,” Kheelan confirmed.
“And she Marked your chest?”
“I did,” I said, not willing to be ignored by this potential new threat. They could stop talking around me. Kheelan was likely kneeling on his last legs right now no matter how frightened the other Fae guards had been of him and I had to bargain for help.
No Faerie Tale Love (Faerie Series Book 1) Page 28