Page 36 of Owned By the Fae
I stare up at him with wide eyes, forcing myself not to look at the boy.
‘I’m sorry!’ I gasp. ‘I lost control of it. It surged up as soon as you ordered it. I didn’t mean to kill them, too!’
He lets out a resigned breath. ‘I’ll let you have this one, girl, because I know your control is poor at the best of times, but if you ever kill without my authority again …’ He looks at the boy, his meaning clear.
‘I understand,’ I nod vigorously as I stand on unsteady legs.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, berating the Harbinger as well as myself for putting Ryon in danger.
I hear the door, and Varrik looks past me. ‘I want to see her properly,’ he says.
I look down at myself as my injuries reappear. Rikoth must be the one behind me. My shoulders tense.
‘You already look much better.’ He glances at Rikoth. ‘You may begin tomorrow. I expect her to be bred within one moon, or she’ll be given to the others, and you’ll be punished harshly.’
‘No!’
I step toward Varrik as I look back at Rikoth’s cruel face, willing to promise almost anything in this moment if only he doesn’t do this to me.
‘Please. I’ll do the things you want. I’ll kill whoever you tell me to, but please … not this.’
Varrik tilts his head at me thoughtfully. ‘You’ll do everything I tell you to do regardless,’ he says, glancing at Ryon, who’s still playing quietly in the corner and oblivious to the rest of the room. ‘And you’ll do this. Besides,’ he waves a hand, ‘all you need do is lay on your back. It’s an easy thing.’ He chuckles. ‘Foolish girl. Was the cell not severe enough that you would fear taking Rikoth’s cock a few times? Am I not benevolent enough? I let you back up to your room. I let the healer tend to you. You forget yourself, Thalia,’ he sneers. ‘And after you killed two of my guards, as well!’
He strides forward and slaps my cheek with his palm as if he’s trying to smack some sense into me. ‘You will be bred by Rikoth and whomever else I give you to, and the get of a Harbinger will be mine. That is your true punishment for trying to kill me, Thalia. Now, shut your mouth and do as I wish, or I’ll torture little Ryon right now in front of you. I’ll make him scream and cry and beg. You know I will,’ he hisses. ‘Don’t you remember little … what was her name … Magia? You didn’t think I’d do it. But did I hesitate, little human?’
‘No,’ I whisper.
‘And do you want that to happen to any other child? To the next one I bring here, who’s all smiles and adoring gazes to Uncle Varrik? Because it will be your fault, Thalia.Yours.’
‘No.’
‘Take her back to her room. Have her bathed if you like. But do your duty, Rikoth.’
Rikoth snorts. ‘She isn’t pretty, and smelling her natural human stench won’t help my cock get any harder for her cunt. I’ll close my eyes and nose and think of someone else while I rut her.’
Varrik waves his hand and nods absently, hardly listening now. My bruises disappear, and Rikoth takes my arm in a punishing grip, dragging me from the room.
On the way back to my chamber, Rikoth thankfully doesn’t speak to me, but I can feel his gaze as we traverse the halls.
He leaves me in my room with a curt order to be ready for him as per the instructions he gave me before. After he goes, I sit on my bed listlessly, thinking of the orc I just killed, as well as the guards. I feel very little. My torturers had it coming, and the orc probably did as well, keeping company with a fae like Varrik. But killing them makes me think of the countless others’ lives I stole on Varrik’s orders, all the times I murdered entire rooms ... whole villages in an instant just because he told me to and cajoled me with made-up stories.
I may understand the Harbinger now, and I will release it when necessary. But that doesn’t change the way I feel about the past. The less I try to think about it, the more I feel the weight of it. Like the binding, it’s slowly crushing me. Thanks to what Kallum did in the forest all those weeks ago, I know that there’s only one thing that will make the guilt of it recede for any length of time, though I promised that I’d never ask for it.
I snort as I look down at the floor in despair. It’s not as if I could anyway.
Something catches my eye, and I frown, bending down slowly with a groan to see a flower that’s fallen between the bed and the table. I stretch to reach it with a whimper of pain, but I’m able to grab it.
A little yellow flower. It’s fresh, only a little wilted, and my heart does a flip. I know where this came from because he admitted to me it was he who always left them for me. Kal’s been here. I glance around the room, wondering when and if he still is, but he doesn’t appear.
I thought I’d be angry. I should be, but all I really feel is a yearning. I miss him and Grey … and, if I’m honest with myself, Dane too. Even after what they did. Perhaps it’s just the loneliness that makes me so ready to forgive because they certainly don’t deserve it.
I shake my head and stare at the flower. Rikoth was right. I am pitiful. I should get rid of it, stamp on it, throw it out the window. But I don’t do any of those things.
Instead, I slowly open the drawer next to me and carefully place it inside, shivering as a gust of wind blows through the window, causing me to burrow under the useless blanket on my bed.
I bark a small laugh. Maybe it’s only the heat of their bodies I miss and not their cunty selves.
Grey
