Page 123 of Wrath of the Fae Queen
The moment he pushes me into the cage and slams the door shut behind me, my power winks out and my connection to Aldrin is completely gone. I can’t breathe without the mate bond, no matter how I suck in air. Some vital piece I need to survive is gone, deprived, and I will surely die in seconds like this.
I didn’t realize how much I had grown to need the constant warmth of his presence within my mind. My body shakes from the loss of it, like an addict suddenly cut off from the drug they depend on. Panic rises within me in the tiny enclosed space of the cage, the golden bars suffocating me.
Torin’s voice distantly floats to me. “And what about Rainier?”
“Toss him in the dungeons. He is no use to us right now.” Titania dismisses both men.
“I could kill him now and save us all the effort,” Torin snaps.
His mother lets out a long-suffering sigh and speaks as though to an idiot. “Rainier has been useful. I intend to keep using him. I will not kill him because he doesn’t have the stomach for torture and got in the way when you suggested as much. Who knows, maybe he has a little crush on one of these two pretty, pathetic women. Maybe you should be less heavy-handed next time and try to use your words while he is still able to speak.”
“It was more than that,” Torin grumbles softly. “You only care whenyouare defied, not me.” He grabs Rainier by the feet and drags him away. Sasha screeches, and the sound is heartbreaking. It melds so perfectly with my own torment. I don’t dare look at Drake’s face.
In all the drama, I don’t immediately notice the guards approaching our cages with huge, curling spikes in hand that match the golden bars. Others circle around them with spears, converging on each of us. I try to scurry away from them, heart racing frantically, but there is nowhere to go. They approach from all directions.
I throw up my hands in surrender.
I pull on my magic to fight back, but nothing works.
Four guards thrust their spears between the bars and skewer me from each direction, the sharp tips sliding across my armor until they find gaps between the plates. The screech of metal on metal is horrendous. From the screams beside me, I know they do the same to Drake and Sasha.
My vision blacks in and out.
Agony shoots through me from wounds that are expertly placed to penetrate flesh and muscle, but not organs. Those spearheads twist a little as they hold me in place, refusing to release me from this torment.
Confusion floods me until the guards holding the spikes sweep in, slotting them into place within the cage. They workwith frantic energy, rushing to get away from me as quickly as possible, like I am a dangerous, unpredictable creature, and not a powerless, caged beast.
Those spearheads are finally pulled from my flesh, and blood gushes from the wounds, spilling down my body and all over the floor of my cage. I cry out. My head spins, but I cannot collapse. Not with those spikes in place around the edges of the cage. If I fall, I will be impaled upon them. They are tall enough to reach the middle of my chest and each as thick as an arm, coming to an incredibly sharp point.
The guards do not leave me in peace. No, they use longswords to slice away the straps of my armor, expertly removing my chest plate and arm guards, leaving cuts all over my body.
Titania stalks right up to my cage, but stops a foot short, her lips curling into a self-satisfied smirk. “Try not to die too quickly,Queen of Nothing.”
There is an icy chill to the air up here, strung so high on the palace wall with the city sprawled out beneath us. The strangest calm sits over the streets, as though every single person holds their breath, waiting for the calamity to unfold when the sun dips below the horizon. It sits heavily over that precipice, illuminating the churned clouds with the prettiest pink light.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, has the right to be beautiful in this moment.
The siege remains in place around the palace. The rows of the Spring Court army hold their places. A lesser force of Wildrose Guards and Truth Templars face off with them at a distance of twenty feet, but they do not engage.
It is like we are all frozen in a single heartbeat of time, too afraid to breathe. Waiting to learn who won the election.
I sway, my head becoming fuzzy, but quickly catch myself as my arm brushes one of the spikes. That gentle contact slices both fabric and flesh, and a long, red line appears across my arm, adrop of blood rolling down it. I curse inwardly as I suck in a breath at the pain of the shallow wound.
The spikes must be magically enhanced to be so damned sharp. There are six of them, placed around me and only inches away in all directions, forcing me to hold perfectly still in the center of my cage.I am covered in my own blood, large amounts dried and crusted, with fresh trickles running over the top. I can’t stop shaking, and not from the cold. Shock has set into my very bones.
Something scampers across the top of the wall that our three cages hang from, and I whip around too fast trying to get a look at it, earning myself another stinging slice. I only catch the tips of long, pointed ears and a bushy tail belonging to a small creature.
“By the fucking gods,” Drake spits. “Sasha, please tell me you can make sure the pixies, doxies and puka don’t try to eat us alive. Or any other vermin.”
My eyes widen as I stare at him, my skin flushing. “Are you joking? Please tell me you’re joking!”
“I wish I fucking was. These cages are relics from the dark ages. Fae would be left in them to die. You can imagine how long that takes for our kind, even with the beasts nibbling on you. Thank fuck there are no crows in this realm.” Drake runs his hands over his face and across his short-cropped hair, only succeeding in smearing blood over burgundy skin.
“I could keep them away if I had access to my magic, but I don’t.” Sasha’s voice is flat and her eyes look dead already. There are tear tracks down her face, creating clean channels among the pink smeared there.
“How? How can you do that?” I gasp.
“It is my extra ability. Some of us have them. I can control the mindless beasts. I have an affinity for low fae, and charisma with high fae.” She shrugs, as though nothing really matters anymore.
