Page 61 of Given to the Fae
Both sets of eyes take in the girl at my side, their gazes moving over her. Jak swallows hard and casts an incredulous look at me. Locke’s jaw ticks and he looks away from her.
‘Sit,’ I murmur, planting myself on one of the upholstered seats.
She sinks to the cold floor next to me and I growl.
‘No, in a chair, Bryn.’
Her mouth opens and closes at least twice. ‘You want me to...sit with you...like a master sits?’ she finally asks, sounding shocked.
‘Aye.’
She looks at the others warily, as if she believes this to be a trick, but then rises from her place on the floor and chooses the seat next to mine. She sits upright, straight and prim with her feet on the floor and glances around the room as if taking it in from this new angle.
‘Bryn,’ Locke begins. ‘There are some things we need to discuss.’
She folds her hands in her lap and I see her twisting them together anxiously.
‘You won’t be in trouble,’ I say to her. ‘No matter what you say. Just speak the truth.’
She nods, still looking uncertain. ‘What do you want to know, my lord?’
Locke’s gaze is unwavering. ‘I want to know what happened this morning, why Warrior took you to that place. It’s very important that you tell us everything you remember.’
She doesn’t speak for a moment, her brow furrowing, and part of me wants to tell Locke to leave her alone. But information is crucial for our mission, and none of us have ever been into a breeding house. They’re exclusive and notoriously difficult to gain admittance into.
‘Warrior woke me early,’ she finally says. ‘He told me to get up, and that he was taking me somewhere. He wouldn’t say where.’
‘Go on,’ Locke murmurs when she goes quiet again.
I glare at him. There’s no need to force it out of her.
‘He put the collar on me and led me to that...place. Inside, the demon took us to the room you found me in. He...asked Warrior what he wanted.’ She looks away from us, her expression uncomfortable
‘What he wanted?’ I ask, not sure what she means.
‘How he wanted me to be...bred,’ she clarifies with a wince, making me wish I hadn’t asked. ‘Whether he wanted me to be free to try to run away...or put in the block. He chose the biggest bulls. They took off my collar and my dress and subdued me. I struggled and they told me...’
She wraps her arms around herself, looking so alone that I find myself wanting to hold her, to comfort her.
‘They said that I was making it worse for myself,’ she continues in a smaller voice. ‘That when the masters left, they’ddo what they liked with me.’ Her throat works and she wrings her hands absently.
‘They told me the masters wouldn’t care what they did so long as I was seeded well. Then the demon said I should be disciplined because I wasn’t calming down, so they took a cane from the wall.’
My hands curl into themselves so tightly that several of my knuckles crack, the sound reverberating around the room.
She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m getting angrier with every passing moment. Breaking his neck was too quick for that cunt. I should have broken his fingers first, then his arms and legs, then his ribs followed by his spineand thenhis neck. If I’d known all this...
She closes her eyes, and I frown, glancing at Locke and Jak who see it as well. Her next words won’t be the whole truth. We all know it.
‘Then, something fell off the wall and...hit one of the bulls in the head. He fell into the other one who landed on part of a broken pot. He was killed, and the first one was knocked out. Warrior said something about leaving because the demon’s bulls were clumsy. The demon convinced him that wasn’t necessary. He took a phallus off the wall and...then you came.’
She glances up to find us watching her and looking grim. I wonder what the lie was, because there was something in the last bit of her story that isn’t exactly what happened. Fucked if I know what it is, though, because everything I saw in that room was the way she told it down to where the bodies lay and the injuries that had killed them.
‘That’s all,’ she murmurs, shifting in the seat where her rump likely still hurts from the lashes she was given with that fucking cane. The potion will have sealed the flesh, but the pain will persist for a bit longer.
We say nothing for several moments.
‘But why?’ Jak murmurs almost to himself. ‘Why did he even take you there? Why spend the coin? It doesn’t make sense. And, if he truly wanted to...do that...why not just take you downstairs? We were offeredthe service,’he spits, ‘in this very establishment. There was no need to go elsewhere with you.’
