Page 68 of Fake Dating a Human 101

White hair abounded. Blue eyes. Lovely wide smiles.

Who were these people watching her being dressed up like a doll?

A memory tugged on her brain, one that felt like a case on the brink of being solved… Who else had white hair like this? Slanted blue eyes? A heart-fluttering wide grin? She knew someone, she was sure of it.

The second part of the statement that stood out to her was“prepare her for transport”because somehow, the human was positive that in a hostage situation, the likelihood of finding the victim decreased significantly if the kidnapper moved them to a new location.

Was that what she was? A victim? A hostage?

She looked around, finding it difficult to concentrate on the high walls with dragon paintings or the finely stitched tapestries or the family portraits or…

The human’s gaze settled on the portrait in the exact middle of the line on the wall. She squeezed her eyes shut to try and clear them so she could see better, but the image of the person remained a blur when she opened them again. Still, the guy in the third portrait looked familiar with his shapely jaw and a certain curl to his smile. He reminded her of someone hiding a secret.

“Shayne.” She whispered his name, not sure how she knew it.

She recalled his voice, too. She heard him say,“If you ever go see my brothers by choice, I won’t go after you. I won’t help you. I’ll leave, and you’ll never see me again.”

Her gaze dragged back to the other young guys in the room, the ones who stood before her now. One of them had long white hair in a bun on top of his head. The other one, the slightly taller one, was the one who’d spoken before. His voice sounded eerily similar to Shayne’s when he’d said,“Our brother shall now learn the cost of his actions.”

Ah. The human nodded as she realized. They were all brothers, weren’t they?

That was why the Shayne guy never came. Why she was here, and why he wasn’t. It wasn’t a lot of evidence, but it dropped an unusual ache into her chest. It made her realize that maybe she’d been waiting for him all this time. Maybe she’d hoped he would come for her anyway.

But no, of course he hadn’t come. He’d been upfront that he wouldn’t.

All these thoughts swirled as the women pinned gold trinkets into her braid and fastened glittering bracelets to her wrists. Someone tossed a pinch of sparkling dust over her that stuck to her skin.

The taller of the two guys stepped forward. He used a flute to push her chin up so he could look her in the eyes. His smile widened, and he said, “Perfect.” Then he tilted his head and added, “You must be famished. Get the human something to eat!” The last part he said to those standing nearby.

A platter of berries appeared before her. She didn’t have to be told what to do next, her hand moved like it was the only thing she knew. She took a small handful, and she pressed them into her mouth.

“Go get your beauty sleep,” the guy commanded with a twinkle in his eye. He dropped her chin, and she obediently turned and headed for a hallway, dragging one foot in front of the other. The women who’d decorated her accompanied her. But as she walked, the sour taste of the berries grew sharp against her tongue, and a short memory of a warning trickled through her head.

“Lily Baker, don’t eat the food!”

She stopped chewing, her mouth frozen around the berries. She had yet to swallow.

That voice had come to her several times in bouts of slumber, saying the same thing, but she hadn’t regarded it as advice. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that she should listen—she’d been sleeping, after all. It was only a dream.

An odd feeling came over the human as she reached her room. She brought her feet together and waited while the women tied a thick vine around her right ankle—one she overheard was there so she couldn’t ‘leap from the balcony’. The women set up her bed, tidied up her nightstand, closed the drapes of her balcony doors, and left.

Dizziness tried to sweep in as the berry juice leaked down the human’s throat. But now that she’d started latching onto her judgements, she realized shehadto get her thoughts back, that something incredibly important was on the line, and even though she couldn’t remember quite what it was, she needed her head straight so she could think.

She channelled her willpower until the shuffling sounds of the women disappeared down the hall. Then she raced for the doors to the balcony, stumbling over the teetering floor, and she burst outside into the cold night air. She spat the berries over the rail.

The human inhaled deep breaths, clutching the railing with white knuckles as nausea washed through her stomach. She sank to a sitting position and hugged her middle, the vine pulling at her ankle telling her she couldn’t take one more step or even attempt to climb down the side of this tall house and find a way out. Though, she couldn’t imagine why she would run from these people. They fed her, clothed her, and gave her a bed to sleep upon.

So, what exactly was she trying to run from?

The human fell asleep on the balcony. The night came with the sounds of howling creatures, and when she awoke, shivering, she pulled herself to her feet and headed back inside, sealing the balcony doors closed behind her. She looked out the glass, realizing she could see many trees outside, their pink blossoms swaying in the wind. She realized she could see the room, too.

A shiver rolled up her body, and she rubbed her hands down her arms as she scurried over the floor to the bed. She curled up beneath the heavy duvet to get warm, but she couldn’t sleep, and it wasn’t because of the cold.

It was because she was thinking.

She had no idea how long it had been since her thoughts were clear. Since she remembered her name.

After hours of thinking, thinking, and thinking some more, the human whispered into the darkness, “Shayne, you’ll come for me, right?” She had to believe it. Because if he didn’t, she was sure she wasn’t going to survive.

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