Page 24 of Curse the Fae

“Do not worry. When you lose, you shall get your choice.” He strides to one of the crescent tables, traces the stoppers, selects a pair of corked carafes, and returns to me. He holds up the blue vessel. “This one suffocates slowly.” Then he exhibits the green container. “This one suffocates quickly.”

I will drown you.

Somehow, he’d always known this would happen. Fables forgive me, but whatever my future holds, and until my dying breath, I shall never despise anyone as much as I do this Fae.

He’s making me play a losing game. However, for my sisters, I’ll do it. A thousand times, I’ll do it.

Now it’s me who draws closer, moving on quavering limbs until our chests bump. I feel anything but brave, yet I gather my wits and whisper, “If that’s the way it must be, then tell me precisely when this game began.”

Elixir wears a similar look of contempt and whispers back, “A very long time ago.”

I falter. Half of me understands while the other half doesn’t. He’s been waiting to punish me for what happened between us nine years ago. The water lord has a vendetta against me, not exclusively the mortals who breached Faerie. This game isn’t just about saving his world.

It’s about us. It’s personal.

But I was a child. Why hold our fleeting past against me for so long?

Elixir absorbs my distress, as one might a heady swig of wine—with indulgence and gratification. I search the inclines of his face for a shred of contrition, yet I find none. He’s as solid as these cavern walls. Even Juniper isn’t this impenetrable.

As for what dwells behind those imposing Fae eyes, I can’t say. It’s a shock to the system, encountering this much of a blockade. When have I ever had to work this hard to reach someone? Who has this amount of willpower to keep themselves shielded? To say so little yet wreak such havoc on others?

I inhale a quivering breath, then let it out. “You like having power over others, and you like unnerving them with few words, and you like striking them down when they least expect it, and you’re good at it.”

Elixir’s eyelids hood to an unnerving degree. As my gaze travels across his countenance, so does his gaze seek out mine. And when my attention wanders to the rest of him, he does the same with me. I scan the toned bulk of his arm, and he locates the slender length of mine.

It’s as if we’re standing on opposite sides of a mirror. Wherever I look upon him, he looks upon me, from my bobbing throat to the ravine between my breasts, to the private recess between my hips, to the thighs flanking that intimate slot.

We move in sync, so that every place he traces scorches me. Morbid curiosity wells up. It’s hypnotic and frightening, but not in a way that causes me to recoil. And I detest myself for that.

Our mutual inspection gives way to something new, something that leaks in and disrupts the pure, unfiltered hatred boiling in the cramped space we share. This new thing sparks a violent sort of friction, eliciting another treacherous invasion, a perverted and unforgivable sensation that tightens in a low, scandalous place. My core pulsates. I have no clue where this vile urge is coming from or why, but the hate seems to fuel it, the conflicted feelings surging together.

Our breathing escalates, equally scornful and roused. The impact causes my head to pound with confusion. I’ve felt scores of emotions in my life, but never this one, and I don’t know what to do with it.

All that gold smolders in Elixir’s orbs. When the flimsy bodice of my caftan brushes his robe, the tips of my breasts heave centimeters from his torso. The color of his eyes intensifies. It’s not like the first encounter, when he’d sought to blind me. Instead of piercing like blades, this time the irises flow like lava.

“How brightly do they burn?” I wonder, then realize I’ve spoken aloud.

Elixir stiffens. I blink, astonished. And the trance breaks.

At some point, the surrounding environment had vanished. Now it returns, clearer and sharper than before, with hundreds of poisons dangling from nooses.

The Fae draws himself to his full height, his frame backdropped by writhing flames and resident serpents. He looms there, the ruler of all things cavernous and otherworldly. “Play and die later. Or condemn yourself now,” he murmurs. “Make your choice.”

Play and die later, but spare Lark and Juniper. Or condemn myself now, along with my sisters.

All of us win—or none of us win.

That’s the rule. Yet I’ve been idling in this spot, lost in the hellish gaze of a villain. The shame of it!

He’s playing mind games with me. That must be it. To that end, he’ll continue to play them while I’m here, while I’m fighting for my life, while I’m seeking to break a curse he fully deserves to endure.

The last droplet of terror drains from me. “How long do I have?”

His face slants with gratified menace. “Until your first attempt.”

In other words, I have until myonlyattempt. Rather than a shortened period with several chances at my disposal, he’ll give me as long as I need, but I’ll only get one shot to win. One move in which I’ll have to be certain. That could take days or years, assuming my sisters have as long, a fact I can’t rely upon.

Mind games, indeed. How sadistically clever.

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