“Oh. Um… I’ve warmed up a little. I didn’t want to bother you if I didn’t have to.”
“You’re not bothering me. Stay where you are.”
I want to. “I shouldn’t...”
“I don’t want you to go. You’ve given me a gift by allowing me to touch you. Let me repay you, Leannán. Stay and I’ll give you whatever you want.”
I’m momentarily speechless. An offer like that from a fae? It’s almost too good to be true. Especially since we both know we’re even right now. He’s done so much for me. The least I could do was let him be the one I trust with my touch.
Still...
“What if I want an answer? You told me in our old bargain that I wasn’t allowed to, so can I ask you a question?”
“You say that like I’ve ever been able to stop you,” he tells me. A hint of amusement colors his tone. “If that’s what you want, then yes. Ask me anything.”
For the first time since this morning—since well before my ordeal with Veron and Dusk—I smile. I would’ve thought it was impossible, but something about Rys right now is lifting my spirits.
It’s triggering my curiosity, too.
Rys might have been quiet while he was holding me, but I was, too. In an effort not to think about what happened to Dusk, I was focused on the Seelie male I’m with right now. And, as amazing as it is to be held in his embrace, there’s something that I can’t ignore.
“You said deal. I’ve heard that before. Deal… bargain… Dusk brought it up, so did a couple of the other guards.”
The amusement fades. Not only that, but his hands drop from my waist, hitting his thighs with a slap. “Ask me anything but that.”
Why am I not surprised that he’d react like that? Same ol’ Rys, huh?
“You just said—”
“No.”
“Does it have anything to do with me?” His silence is all the answer I need. “If it’s about me, you should tell me. I want to know. I think I deserve to know.”
For a second, I think Rys is going to lift me off of him and set me on the dirt. I can’t see his expression, but I can sense his annoyance. He really doesn’t want to tell me.
But he doesn’t. Instead, when his hands return to my waist, he doesn’t use them to lift me up. He tightens his grip, keeping me right where I am.
“Rys. You said.”
He lets out a breath of air. The warm breath causes one of the stray strands of my loose hair to flutter. I brush it out of my face, keeping my gaze locked on his.
I win.
“It was a simple enough bargain,” he tells me. “I gave my word to the other guards that I would be a model prisoner and give them no trouble. In return, I would take any punishment that they devised to give you. I would take them all.”
I blink, then pull back from him. I don’t go too far—I still want his warmth and, well, he’s not letting me go—but I’m definitely shocked by his response.
“What? Why would you do that?”
He goes quiet again. It only makes me realize how silent it is underground. There’s my breathing, and his, and that’s about all. I shift closer to him, the rough denim of my jeans rustling against the thin material of Rys’s pants leg.
His sigh seems to echo all around me.
“I thought I found my mate once.”
I go still. Okay. Definitely not what I expected him to say. “I remember. You told me about her.”
“I was convinced she was mine. Nothing was going to stand in my way of claiming her. Not the Fae Queen, not her soldiers, not even the girl. I’m fae. Seelie. I waited for her for so long, but it wasn’t long enough.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Time flows differently in Faerie. When I first saw her, she was barely out of her human mother’s arms—”
He can’t honestly mean—
I recoil. “You’re fucking kidding me. She was a baby?”
He keeps going, pretending like I didn’t just interrupt. “I left her and vowed to return for her when she was of age. I was still too soon, though. She was young—”
I can’t get the idea of Rys looking at a baby and seeing his mate out of my head. “How young are we talking here?”
“Fifteen.”
“That’s gross.”
“I didn’t see her as a mate, Leannán, but more the promise of one. Does that make sense to you now?”
Some? Maybe… I don’t know. And it’s not like Rys is that old. Sure, the scar makes him appear harder than the other fae, but when I look at his flawless profile, I’d put him at maybe twenty-five.
Only... aren’t fae immortal? So he may look young, but that doesn’t mean he is.
“How old are you?” I suddenly ask.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six. Your turn.”
“Older.”
That’s not an answer. “How much older?”
“I told you. Time works differently here compared to the Iron.”
“But—”
“Shh. You asked me a question. Would you rather I not finish explaining myself? I know I’d prefer the quiet.”
Promising myself that we’re gonna circle back on this later, I tell him, “Go on.”
“Time…” Rys sighs again. “It flows so quickly. It passed like a blink of an eye while I served the queen, and I was afraid that, when I returned for her again, she’d be gone. I sought to take her with me to Faerie, to hide her away, and then when she was old enough, I’d take her for mine. But she wasn’t. The Shadow always belonged to the Dark but I was too blind to see it until it was almost too late.”
The Shadow? What does that mean?
Before I can ask, Rys continues. I’m so spellbound by his soft murmurs, I let him.
“She refused me. I tried to save her, and she refused me to protect another human girl. I lost my temper and I thought…”
“You thought what?” I whisper.
“I thought, if the other human was gone, mine would give into me. Without a reason to stay in the Iron, she’d follow me across the veil.”
I know this story. I know what happens.
Rys told me before.
“That’s the sister you killed, isn’t it?”
“You ask me why I want to protect you. Perhaps it’s because I realize now that even a human’s life has value. I didn’t then. I was young. Arrogant. Foolish.” He pauses, his voice dropping. “Cruel. I’ve killed before. I was a soldier and a guard. But that human girl… I regret that one now.”
“Because it lost you your mate?”
“She was never mine,” he says. “But that’s not why I regret it.”
“Then why?”
Rys takes in a breath. “I belong in Siúcra, Leannán. The queen might have chosen this punishment, but I don’t deny my crimes. I’ve done whatever I was told to do, and I’ve done whatever I thought was right. I’ve never apologized for it, though I’ve made my amends. Still… the look on your face when I told you I killed her sister… that’s when I regretted the kill the most.
“You asked me why I shielded you from the cruelty of the guards? I won’t see another human harmed because of me. And if it means that I agree to every lash, every lost meal, and every hour in the shadows, I’ll do it gladly. I’ll do it for you, Elle.”
“But… why?”
“Hush.”
It’s not like the last time he told me to hush. There’s no heat to it, no cocky arrogance, either, just a plea for me to be quiet.
I know what it’s like to be open and vulnerable. For one of his kind, it must be even harder. Despite my nagging, he didn’t really have to share all that with me. I’m glad he did. It’s like I know him better now. I’m still trying to understand how I feel about Rys chasing after a teenager and killing another one, but that’s the thing. He’s fae. The same kind of rules don’t apply in Faerie.
I did learn something really significant from his confession, though. Rys doesn’t just tolerate me.
> He actually kind of cares about me.
Good.
I can totally use that.
10
I decide that the entire time we spend in the oubliette counts as day twenty-six.
Time loses meaning in the hole. It could be a couple of hours. It could be a couple of days. A few times, light appears a few feet above our head seconds before a satchel full of faerie food rains down on top of us. I never feel any cramps so the meals are pretty regular, but when that’s the only way to gauge the passing of time, I don’t bother.
I’m kind of preoccupied with something else.
So, yeah. The touch is a done deal. Accepting Rys’s obvious attraction for me?
That takes a little longer to come to grips with.
Because that’s what it is. I’ve been working hard to ignore this crazy draw I felt toward him and all it took was one touch to cause Rys’s shields to come crashing down. He… he wanted to touch me. And he liked it. The erection I felt under my lap as I curled up against him is a clear sign of that.
Now, I’m not a complete idiot. I know that any fae male would go hard with the amount of pleasure that passed between us with the touch magic. If it affected Rys anything like it affected me, he’d have to be dead below the waist not to react to it—no matter who was touching him.
No. It’s what happens after the buzz wears off. It’s in the way that he refuses to let me move away from him, insisting on keeping me close, even leaning in to nuzzle his face against my neck in a moment of weakness.
It’s in the way he softly calls me Leannán and promises that, no matter what debts he has to call in, I’ll never see the inside of the oubliette again unless necessary.
I cling to that. Knowing that I’ll survive this punishment and never have to live through it again… it makes it more tolerable. Plus, I have Rys. I don’t ask him how many times he took my place down here because I’m afraid of the answer. When he disappears from his cell, sometimes it’s for days at a time. How did he survive the shadows on his own?
With him for company, I can deal. It’s kind of peaceful once I push past my fear. While the hole itself is probably as big as my bathroom back home, Rys refuses to let me get too far away from his reach. We could probably each sit on opposing sides of the pit and not touch but, now that I’ve opened up that can of worms, he likes to keep me close.
I can’t say I mind.
We lay curled up together, Rys’s long, lean body the world’s best heated blanket. He shares his heat with me, keeping me cozy, making me feel safe and secure for the first time since I realized Faerie was a real place and I was trapped in it.
Because the dark makes it hard to know whether it’s night or not, I doze off whenever I’m tired instead of sleeping for long stretches of time. Even if he doesn’t, Rys lets me cling to him, stroking my hair until the soothing gesture lulls me to sleep.
He does that a lot. He seems amazed by the blue strands, even lifting a palmful of faerie fire so that he can get a closer look at it.
I’m not surprised at his honest interest. I’ve caught him peering at it a few times before now and I always thought it had to do with the unnatural color. Not that that really makes much sense since I’ve seen all kinds of strange-looking people during my time in Faerie, yet everyone seems to have a problem with the teal.
Jim did, too, I remember. It… actually was the reason behind the last fight we had before I stupidly stormed off and ended up walking through the fairy circle in the park near our apartment.
Well, no. It’s easy to blame that last fight on my hair. Jim’s never been a fan of how often I would experiment with my look, but he always conceded that it’s my body and I can do what I want with it. But when two weeks past before he noticed that I did such a drastic number on my hair, I knew then that what we had was over.
Jim stopped caring a long time ago. Looking back on it, I think I did, too.
Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself as I grow closer and closer to my scarred Seelie.
And, while everything between us has changed with a single touch, one thing hasn’t. If I try to get Rys to open up even more about his past, he goes stiff beneath me—and not in the good way. He reminds me of our bargain. I have no choice but to drop it.
Instead, we eat the meals they bring us and talk to each other about stupid shit. Rys gossips about the guards, a satisfied edge coming to his voice when he tells me stories that make me hate Dusk all over again. He tells me about the Fae Queen, his time serving her in the Seelie Court, and how he’s relieved that Oberon, the Summer King, is back on the throne instead.
He talks about what Faerie is like outside of Siúcra. I didn’t see much in my few days on the outside—though I don’t ever want to go to the Faerie market again—and I like hearing about the inns the guards frequent, the small villages tucked in the Faerie forest, and the mountains where the trolls live. Then there’s the fae cities split into the two ruling factions: the Summer land, home of the Seelie Court, and the Unseelie’s Shadow Court.
I know I’ll never get out of here, but he paints such a vivid picture, I’d like to see more of this world. The regret that slips into his voice tells me he misses it but, when I quietly wonder why he doesn’t try to leave, he goes eerily quiet. Only the way he slides his hand up my back tells me that he’s not angry with me—but the message is clear.
I don’t ask again.
We don’t talk about his imprisonment or his scar, either. He also doesn’t bring up his almost mate again, though I can’t stop thinking about her. And not because I’m jealous, even though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t, but because of Jim.
As I snuggle even closer to Rys, pressing my hand over his bare chest, running my fingers along his heated skin, I have this overwhelming urge to tell him about my… boyfriend? Ex? The man I used to love, but who’s been pushed further and further in the back of my mind as I fall for my cellmate?
Shit. Is that even what’s happening here? It was so much easier when Rys was being guarded. Gruff. Keeping me out. Now that he’s letting me in even a little bit?
I’m falling like a felled tree right after the lumberjack yells, “Timber”.
In the dark of the oubliette, I twist my promise ring and wonder if I’m making a mistake. All I wanted was protection, even if I had to sell my pride to get it. If Rys touched me, I was hoping no one else would try to.
But now that he has? I want him to do it again and again and, oh boy, I’m in fucking trouble.
So when it comes to Jim? I can’t tell him. I can’t.
How do I explain it to Rys when I can’t even explain it to myself?
That’s one good thing about spending so much time around the faerie folk. I’ve picked up a few tricks. Because it doesn’t seem right to lie to him when he’s being vulnerable around me, I don’t. But it’s easy to twist my words and tell him about my life in the human world without mentioning Jim even once.
To my surprise, he doesn’t like hearing about my life back at home. He mentions that he’s been to the Iron before and he’s not impressed, and now that I’m talking, he’s more interested in what’s happened to me during my time in Faerie. So I tell him all about it, up to and including being purchased by a Seelie noble.
Which, of course, leads me to confess what happened directly before I burned Dusk with the faerie fire. With everything that happened, I almost forgot about how I was dragged from my cell to face my old captor.
He… doesn’t like to hear about Veron.
That’s okay, Rys. Me, neither.
He goes quiet again after that, but it’s a thoughtful quiet that has me relaxing into him. Some time after my last nap, I insisted that he take his shirt back, but he only would put it on if I stayed huddled up next to him so I can continue to share his warmth. Which I do because, well, there’s something about the way his touch affects me.
Damn if it isn’t addictive.
But, of course, it has to end eventually...
It
seems like forever, but then it seems like no time at all before the light appears again. When something drops down into the hole, I’m expecting some more food, maybe another faerie vial of water. Nope. The long, thick tail of a length of rope slaps into the ground next to Rys.
He looks like he’s been expecting it.
With a gentle hand, he helps me to my feet. “Up you get, Leannán. They think you’ve suffered down here with me long enough.” Once I’m standing, Rys grabs the edge of the rope, fitting it into my hand. “Can you climb?”
“Are you kidding?”
He laughs. Have I ever heard him laugh before? I… I’m not sure—but I like the sound of it.
“Allow me.” Rys slips the rope out of my grasp before bending low. He loops it around my waist, his slender fingers working near my hip. He ties the end in a secure knot, yanking on it twice to make sure it’ll hold. He backs up. “There you go. You’re all set.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind you.”
He reaches over my head, tugging on the rope. It must be a signal because, with a rough jerk that nearly leaves my stomach behind me, the rope lifts me off my feet as it starts to move. Within seconds, I’m being pulled upward and out of the oubliette.
Finally.
Rys lets me use the shower box first.
Since it’s the first time he acknowledges me since he climbed out of the oubliette on his own, I guess I should be grateful he hasn’t forgotten I existed.
Then again, I wonder if I should be insulted. He all but opens the door to the facilities and shoves me in himself. I get the hint. After all that time in the dark pit, I can only imagine what I look like.
It makes it worse that he looks as perfect as he did before they took him away. There’s not a speck of dirt on him, his white prison uniform still pristine. His hair looks like he’s fresh from the salon. I know for sure that he sat in the dirt and even wiped some on his pants, but you’d never be able to tell.
I kind of want to hate him. But I also want to invite him to take a shower with me.
I don’t, though. Mainly because I’m not sure what his reaction would be. Once the guards take us from the oubliette, Rys goes cold and distant again. I’m not so surprised, but I am a little bit hurt. After he told me about the bargain he made to keep my safe, I decided that my instincts were right. If there’s one person in Faerie that I want to hitch my wagon to, it’s my cellmate.
Trapped Page 10