Page 42 of A Dance With Fire
So the Fae had been planning on shoving a dagger into him?
Perhaps that would have been preferable. Preferable to feel the pain of a blade, rather than that of her presence.
* * *
Shula’severy step pained her. It wasn’t an ache in her body, but in her mind. Her head pounded, and she felt like with every grueling step, she was going to be sick. Again.
Her stomach roiled and she gagged, stopping to bend over with her palms against her thighs as she heaved.
That fucking bastard prince, she thought viciously. He’d glamored her, made her see terrors that weren’t really there. While she’d known it was all part of some trick, her mind had been unable to separate fantasy from reality.
Once the sensation in her stomach ebbed, Shula stood up and wiped her sweaty brow. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she knew who it was based on the lightness in foot alone.
“Go away,” she growled to Clay.
“Not a chance, Fire Dancer.”
Shula straightened and began walking away. He followed closely at her heels, giving her the smallest illusion of distance, but she felt him close.
“What do you want from me?” She hated how weak she sounded, how small they’d made her voice. They were going to keep her here against her will. And really, did that make them any better than the Brotherhood that had taken her? They claimed they were protecting her, going to save her. But she was just their prisoner.
“That’s a loaded question, isn’t it?” Clay asked. He sauntered next to her, his hands shoved into his pockets as if nothing had happened. As if her mind and sanity hadn’t just been thoroughly violated. “We want you to stay here, Shula. Is it so wrong for us to want to be together?”
Was it? Was it wrong?
Her answer came with complete honesty. “No, it’s not wrong.” Everyone needed someone. For as much as Shula professed to be alone, it was Fanny who got her through the loneliness. Which made her betrayal hurt all the worse. “What’s wrong is that you’re no better than the emperor’s soldiers.”
Clay’s feet skidded against the ground. He tumbled and then rushed to catch up to her again. “Why would you say that?” He sounded genuinely offended. “We are in no way the same.”
“Aren’t you?” Her palm went to touch the knife pressed against her pocket. This time, the blade didn’t bring her comfort. These Fae were obviously powerful. At least, the prince was. She still wasn’t sure what powers the others had, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. “They stole me away and kept me prisoner. You all did the same.”
“We wouldn’t hurt you!”
All Shula did was give him a pointed look, but she remained silent. She didn’t want to speak anymore. She wanted to be free of this place, of them.
Beside her, Clay raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “Look, Valerio is—” He broke off with a soft curse, as if his mind couldn’t quite conjure up the words to describe exactly what Valerio was. The old myth about how the Fae couldn’t lie? It held no standing with the Seelie. It was complete shit, and yet it seemed to apply with Clay.
“Don’t,” she warned quietly. Her fingers dug into the side of her pocket. She wanted to feel the blade dig into her skin so she could feel something other than the tumultuous storm inside her. Instead of betrayal and panic, she wanted pain so it would ground her. So she could focus. “Don’t sing his praises. I don’t need to hear them.”
Clay sighed again and stopped her, his hand tugging gently at her upper arm. He turned her to face him and his features were smoothed over with regret and sadness. “Shula, I am sorry. The truth is, we didn’t expect this either. We don’t want any of this to happen. We just want to go back home.”
Home.
To Tir na Faie.
He said it with such longing, she wondered if he’d been there himself, but couldn’t bring herself to ask. Her parents hadn’t told her stories of the Feylands, of the magic beyond the borders of the Ley Line. They hadn’t been born there. They’d been born on human lands in the midst of a war and had lived through the eradication of Fae rights.
They hadn’t taught her about the wild, fun stories of the Unseelie, but stories of fear. They hadn’t taught her to use her magic, but they’d taught her to hide. They’d taught her the most important lesson in life: survival.
If Clay knew what a home was, if he knew the magic of Tir na Faie, it meant he was old. Older, even, than her parents would be, had they survived.
“If there’s a chance that you can help us have our home back… Valerio is going to take it. He’s a bastard. A fucking bastard, but he cares about our race. Our future is on his shoulders.”
She admired Clay for a moment, she really did, but he was trying to excuse his prince’s abhorrent behavior as if that could make a single difference. It didn’t.
“What… what did he make you see?”
Horrors. Absolute horrors.
