Page 11 of Curse the Fae

“Tell me how you resisted.” His head dips. “And let it be the truth.” His orbs trail near my lips. “For if you lie, I will know.” Then his gaze lifts. “And I will punish you for it.”

From this angle, the scales tracking over his cheekbones appear sharper. His threat resurrects the memory of him attempting to blind me. “I have no idea,” I trill. “It just happened. Truly, I had no control. Not that I would have prevented it if I could, as I have no wish to lose my sight, as I’m sure you understand. Otherwise, you wouldn’t use that vile magic against innocent mortals who—”

With deadly calm, he sets a finger on my lips. I clam up momentarily as the intricate fingercap presses against me like a talon. His digit is a hot poker sizzling my flesh.

My eyebrows slam together, and exasperation wells in me until I’m overflowing. “Is this—” I jerk my chin, indicating the offensive finger, and speak against it, “—supposed to mean something?”

From beneath the hood, his aspect shimmers with a thousand painful threats. “It means answer me.”

“Or?”

“Or be silent. Answer me or be silent. Comply or do not. Both options will suffice.”

Because I don’t know what to make of that, I furrow my brows. In response, satisfaction filters through his visage, as though he can see me. Not once have his lips twitched in anything remotely close to a grin. In fact, I have misgivings about whether he knows how to smile. All the same, his eyes betray him, revealing gratification. He likes that I’m baffled.

I recognize this trap. Regardless of whether I answer him, it won’t serve me well. I’ll be giving him an incentive to retaliate, which is what he’s after.

Since when does this Fae need an inducement? He’s my captor, a viper, and a ruler. Not to mention, I gave him a motive years ago to punish me, long before I’d trespassed into his world with my sisters. He doesn’t need another reason.

His hand steals out, though not with the same rapid-fire speed as before. This time, his arms flow like he’s swimming, or like he’s stirring liquid, or like he’s fluidly plucking the strings of an instrument. It’s hypnotic and harmonious, the way his digits move. He captures a tendril of my hair and loops the teal lock around one digit, his sharp fingercaps winking as he thumbs the strands in contemplation. I suspect he’s less interested in learning the texture of my hair and more preoccupied with how hard he’ll need to pull it, to make me wince.

The Fae pauses with my hair shackled between his fingers. “I would not keep me waiting.”

I can’t take this. “Who are you?”

“You know that already.”

“Yes, Ruler of the River and Lord of the Water Fae. But neither of those are your name, and they’re not the entirety of you.”

“Because you indeed know me.”

So, there it is. He remembers me, just as I remember him.

Regardless… “No,” I dispute. “I never knew you. Not truly.”

“Yet I have not changed,” he quotes, hurling my earlier judgment back at me. “Not. At. All.”

The contradiction in his tone is unmistakable, the response teeming with malice because, yes, he has changed. Despite the little I know of him, this much is certain: The one secret time I’d encountered this monster, he hadn’t been blind.

Moreover, unfounded accusation festers in his reply. That, I can’t account for. In our past, I’d done something to this Fae that he likely hasn’t forgotten, but it has nothing to do with his impairment. It’s about something else entirely, so perhaps he’s compiling his anger and looking for any human to resent.

Of all unforgivable reactions, pity leaks into my chest and deviates from everything else I presently feel. Although this monster doesn’t deserve compassion, the impulse toward benevolence has been my salvation for such a long time. How ironic that I should experience it with the one being who’s ever inspired the opposite in me, the one creature who taught me what it’s like to feel absolute hatred.

I thrust up my quavering chin and channel my sisters’ bravado. “It’s partly true. You’re still a monster.”

“You are still a mortal,” he counters.

Meaning, I’m still the weaker one, especially without my weapon. But what he doesn’t know is I have more than one means to protect myself. And I may have been raised in a loving family, but that’s not how I began. Before that, I’d survived on my own, with nothing more than ten fingers and a quick sleight of hand. “You may have taken my spear, but I’ll get it back.”

“Yes, you will try.” His rippling accent deepens, submerging me within its confines. “I hope you will try.”

What sort of mind game is this? Faeries are riddlers and tricksters, but I can’t tell if he’s being thus, or if he’s in earnest.

We’re speaking so closely, and we’re pressed even closer together, with his dark form smoldering over my pale one, and his black robe grazing my white dress. The room blurs. His breath clashes with mine to the point where my head fogs, the way it would if I’d swallowed an intoxicant.

So much heat radiates from someone so cold. I wonder if all his body temperature resides in those golden oculi, so laden with color one could drown in them.

I will drown you.

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