Page 26 of Owned By the Fae
He shrugs. ‘When Varrik has decided you've truly suffered enough and lets that boy heal you properly? When I can stomach it? Who’s to say?’
I'm surprised by his words. I would have thought he wouldn't have bothered to wait, just thrown me on the bed and got on with it. But a stay of execution is a stay of execution. I don’t question it.
He tilts his head, staring at my body impersonally. ‘I suppose if I pretend you're not human, there is a certain prettiness about you.’ He looks vaguely sick as his gaze moves away from me. ‘Anyway, it's only until you’re bred.’ His eyes narrow. ‘In case you’re thinking of using any human tricks to stop my seed from doing the job, consider this ...’
I look up at him. Human tricks? I wonder what he imagines those to be.
‘Varrik has told me that if you aren’t breeding within one moon,’ he continues, ‘you’ll be staked out in the hall, and each of the male elites, as well as the higher-level Skilled, will be allowed to seed you to increase the chances of it taking root.’
I shiver at the threat. ‘I won’t use any tricks,’ I whisper.
‘At least I won’t have to contend with that sick cunt Grith watching me rut you,’ he mutters with a snort, half to himself. ‘He definitely would have.’
I don’t ask, but he sees the question in my eyes.
‘He died on a mission,’ he stuns me by elaborating with a smirk. ‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’d orchestrated it somehow. You hated him more than I did, I think. But you’re too weak under the binding.’
Almost as an afterthought, he gives a snap of his fingers. I watch as all of my injuries melt away.
‘There,’ he says. ‘Now you don’t look as pitiful as you really are. You’re welcome.’
He goes to the door, but as he opens it to leave, he turns back and looks at me, still standing in front of the mirror.
‘When I come to you, you will be unclothed with your hair hiding your ears so that I can at least pretend I’m fucking a fae girl. And be bent over either the bed or the table. I'll let you choose which, but I don’t want to see your face.’
With that, he leaves, and I stare at my reflection for a few minutes.
I look normal. Unharmed. I heave a sigh. I’m alive. I outlasted the dungeon once more. Now, I just have to survive Varrik’s new plans for me until I can escape again.
I consider the binding, wondering what’s different about this one and if it’ll slowly stop working as the ones before it did. Once the Harbinger is no longer subdued and my injuries have been healed, leaving this place will be possible, especially if it can open Varrik’s Gate.
I allow myself a small grin. At least I won’t have to worry about Grith anymore. The knowledge that I'll never see him again, never have to endure his words, touches, or fists, is at least a little bit heartening after learning what’s in store for me next.
As I walk slowly back to bed, I notice there's water and some kind of thin soup on the table. Although my stomach revolts at the thought of eating anything, I know that I need to regain my strength, or I won’t be able to escape even if I do get the chance. So, I drink the water, and I slurp the cold bowl of slimy broth that tastes half rancid, hoping it doesn’t make me ill.
Afterward, I give my body a cursory wash in the ewer of stale water on the washstand by the mirror to get the worst ofthe dungeon’s grime and stink off me before I get back into my cold bed with its one thin blanket. I was right in the dungeon. The weather has turned colder, and the hearth isn’t lit. I think warm thoughts as a breeze comes through the window. There’s no glass in it, only metal bars, and I think it may even be colder up here than it was in my cell.
I need to come up with a plan to escape this place if only so I don’t freeze in this room.But the Harbinger was right. I need to kill Varrik first, and this time I need to make it stick.
When I was a child, he told me he made his Skilled for the protection of all. He made me happy to use the Harbinger with hollow words and lies, with praise and small rewards. I knew a few months before I escaped that what he was doing wasn’t for the reasons he said, but I didn’t know the worst of him.
I still don’t. Not really. But when the Harbinger spoke of Varrik stealing it, I began to consider what I knew of the Skilled. Varrik’s creation of them …us,has always been a secret he holds close. He’s alluded to magick and alchemy, but that’s not the whole truth. He thieved from the Dark Realms. He made his Skilled with what he took. He stole from the very fabric of it. That’s why it’s coming for him.
Maybe I could leave without killing him if he’s going to die anyway, but he’s a slippery cunt. He might escape his comeuppance somehow. If anyone could, it would be him. And I want to stop him from hurting any more innocents. That’s always been my goal, and the Harbinger was right about that too. It should include the fae he brought here who are in danger now if the Harbinger is correct. None of this is their fault.
I wonder at its altruism where the Skilled are concerned. Is it just pretending? Does it merely want to ensure its own personal revenge for what Varrik has done by shifting my focus so I’m not in control of it properly when the time comes? I suppose that so long as he’s dead, it doesn’t matter. At least our desiresare beginning to align. That makes things easier. We won’t be fighting each other once this binding is gone. I will use it though I vowed not to. It’s the only way.
The Harbinger isn’t what I thought it was, and soon Varrik and the others will see what both of us are truly capable of.
Kallum
My plan worked. As soon as Varrik got word that one of his Skilled could become fully invisible, I was called to him and fed a story about how I’d always had a place with him and that, finally, I was ready to become one of his elite.
I pretend to believe everything he says, pretend the love I used to feel for him when I was a foolish boy with no one else. I look at him in front of me, his cold eyes level with my own, and I don’t know how I ever thought them warm. He doesn’t care about any of us. Why was I so adamant that he did?
I wonder about this as he drones on about my new duties and how amazing everything will be, and I begin to wonder if my skill is more than I thought it was. Everyone here, over three hundred fae, so I learned recently, loves Varrik over all others. But, no matter what he’s done for them, it doesn’t make any sense.
Unless one of Varrik’s skills is that he’s able to make everyone care for him.
