Callie
I lifted my long dress, careful not to trip as my steps quickened to keep up with Mendax’s long stride. Walking in high heels was much harder than I had remembered having been without shoes for so long.
The dark castle seemed to shimmer with excitement and frenzy as we continued through the maze of opulent halls and passages until we stood in the same dark hallway from the night before. The same arched entryways stood tall, separating the grand ballroom from the hallway I had etched into my mind from my attempted escape with Walter.
Only now, the archways seemed to taunt me. Instead of beautiful architecture, they reminded me of open mouths that waited to devour me after I walked into their waiting gullet. It wasn’t far off from what would probably happen.
Mendax slowed his steps prior to the entrance and handed my leash of smoke off to one of his men. He was about to walk into the dark ballroom and leave me in the hall when at the last second, he turned and abruptly took up the space in front of me. It was like a dark shadow coaxing fear from every pore, even as I feigned confidence. Still, there was something undeniably alluring about the way he looked at me—at least until he spoke.
“When you walk into this ballroom, remember that you are a sheep among wolves. Only these wolves ache for even the thought of tasting you, the thought of using you, consuming you. That is one of the many reasons the Unseelie are no longer welcomed on earth,” he warned.
My eyes darted back and forth between his, deceiving my false bravado.
“Oh, pet, there any many, many ways to be consumed. Humans, though detestable to my lineage, are undeniably rare, a bit of a sexual delicacy among the Fae.” His words were coated with obvious disdain, though not enough to camouflage the long perusal he gave my body as he spoke.
“Why do you tell me this?” I clenched my jaw tightly.
It felt like I was walking into an overpopulated, starved lion’s den with my back wide open and unguarded. He leaned in closer, his cheek almost touching mine as his breath whispered against the shell of my ear.
“Because I like to watch you shake, little lamb,” he stated. “And this will be the last time I’m afforded that.” He pulled back enough that I could see his small smile. “You will not leave this room alive tonight.” He nodded to the tall Fae that held my leash before he took a step under the great arched entrance. The evil prince turned back to me casually as if an afterthought had just occurred to him. “And not in so many pieces.”
The way his eyes and body were taut with tension gave me the impression my death would be quite a relief to him.
He turned and walked into the dimly lit ballroom.
I debated trying to run, but I had no doubt that the smoke chain around my neck, an extension of Prince Mendax himself, would love nothing more than to choke me to death should I try.
After a few minutes had passed, a thunderous rumble and cheer came from the ballroom just before the guard pulled me forward.
Dozens of black chandeliers hung from a ceiling that seemed to be an exact replica of the night sky, complete with bright, clear stars. A well-timed breeze blew the hair free from my neck and shoulders, leaving a faint scent of pine and crisp open air. It was unbelievable.
The rumble of voices fell silent. Only the sound of a few clangs of glasses could be heard as we walked into the center of the room.
Hundreds of finely dressed Fae gaped at me, sending a cold sweat across my skin. I could feel some of their hunger just from their gaze. The guard that held my leash tugged theatrically as he guided me down a grand staircase that I hadn’t even noticed was in the room yesterday. The guard’s chest seemed to puff out proudly as he paraded me down like he himself were my owner.
A second wave of crowd amazement flourished when we descended the grand stairs. Fae stopped mid-sentence to turn and gawk at me. A few of the women seemed to squint their eyes in hate and disgust as I passed, while I saw several of the men track every curve of my body. Several nostrils flared and eyes darkened. That seemed like a bad sign.
I fell ungracefully to the ground as I stared at a particularly grotesque-looking man licking his lips. Yet again, the man who led me tugged on my leash, only this time it was too rough, too harsh. The horrible collar bit into my neck and pulled me to the dark marbled floor, cracking my knees against it like a hammer. Gasps and laughter rang out from the crowd. A few nearby women pointed and jeered.
How foolish of them to think they could possibly make me feel worse than I already had.
“Get up, bitch,” hissed the blue-haired guard that gripped my leash.
Giggles erupted to my left from a group of young women dressed in frilly ballgowns. A few winged men clanked amber-filled glasses together as they watched me on my hands and knees.
I really was going to die tonight.
I had been lucky before. The fox saving my life, Alistair, the forest bog, Walter. I had been so lucky up until now.
The white silk of my dress chilled to match the cold ground under my legs, but that wasn’t what elicited the shiver from me. I honestly felt my defeat for the first time.
Whatever was left of me wasn’t going to make it out of here alive tonight. If I ran, an entire room of much faster, clawed predators would be at my throat before I even made it to the end of the hall. There was no way out.
My hands and knees burned along with my eyes as tears of defeat tore away any mask of confidence I so falsely wore.
My eyes caught sight of the queen in the corner, near the back of the room. She covered her mouth as her lavishly dressed friends chuckled and mocked me. My eyes fell to the floor briefly before I felt the magnet of another set pulling at mine.
Prince Mendax sat on a black throne of long inky vines and thorns. The throne was seated in the back of the grand room on a dais at the top of four stairs.
His blue eyes held mine with an expressionless face, like we were the only two in the entire room. His dark gaze only seemed to match the harshness of his foreboding black throne. He spread wide in the large chair, looking bored as four beautiful women pawed at him.
Even I could understand their appeal to him as he sat like a king on the throne. He was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. Muscles and sharp lines sculpted together with wisps of danger and power.
He ignored the women completely; their body language seemed eager for the attention he didn’t give. Suddenly his expression darkened as he cracked his knuckles.
“The floor is no place for a beautiful woman, pet or not. Please allow me to help you up.”
The tall stranger stepped into my view, startling me as he grabbed my arms and gently lifted me up.
I immediately shrank back from the man’s touch. Like the other Fae, the stranger was beautiful in an ethereal sense. Tall with brown hair and green eyes, his crimson-lined wings were out on full display. He had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen, and I instantly shifted toward him.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
“No need to thank me, it’s my pleasure. We aren’t all wishing you harm.” He smiled an unbelievably friendly smile as he leaned in closer. “Though I’m afraid most of them are.”
His soft lyrical voice trailed over the shell of my ear, and for a moment, it almost brought me comfort.
The stranger’s red wings pulsed briefly as their span widened slightly. He absolutely beamed, and I couldn’t help but smile in return.
“Find your own pet, Andrey.” The rough words rumbled against my skin, forcing the hair on my arms to stand on end.
The umbra’s presence was like a knife held to my throat. Excitement and fear roiled through me as everything stilled.
Mendax’s gaze burned like fire as he took in the gentle grip the other man kept on my elbow.
“I was only helping the beauti—”
Andrey dropped to the floor with a sickening thud. The crowd gasped as his face rolled to the side, his eyes empty and void of any life.
My eyes shot to the man hovering over me. Mendax was idly wiping a dagger on a black silk square from his pocket.
“You killed him!” I yelled, unable to believe what had just happened.
I hadn’t even seen him pull the dagger out!
He looked up nonchalantly. “He was touching you.”
“Son!” The queen shouted in alarm from across the shadowy ballroom.
“He . . . just . . . he helped me up after your guard made me fall!” I stared in bewilderment at the scene before me.
Not a second passed before he turned and slammed the freshly cleaned dagger into the unsuspecting guard behind me, and he fell to the ground, dead in a heap next to the other man’s body. He hadn’t even known what had happened.
“What the—” I struggled.
He grabbed my arm with his gloved hand and leaned in to brush against my ear.
“I’ve recently decided I don’t like others touching my things, touching what’s mine.” His deep voice was barely above a whisper as he continued to clean the dagger and sheath it at his side.
He grabbed my leash and guided me to the center of the room, and I had to step over the two bodies that lay limply on the floor. I noticed he had stabbed the guard in the chest, but the winged man he stabbed just below where his left wing connected with his body. The wound seeped thick black blood.
The queen bristled at the edge, trying to get her son’s attention, but even she didn’t dare enter his space unseen after his recent wrath.
“Creatures of the Unseelie court.” Prince Mendax addressed the crowd like a king among men.
Where was the king? Was there no king? Why did Mendax not take the crown as king, then? I stood behind him in the center of the ballroom staring at the dark marble floor, afraid to peer into the eyes of all the evil that watched me.
“I’m certain by now you’ve all heard the humans sent an assassin that has failed to do as so many of you have.” His voice was even as he looked around the room. “Failed in killing me.” His eyes fell upon mine with heat. As he removed his gloves, his face was stern, but his eyes seemed to be in a silent war of their own. “But I have failed equally.” He held out his hand, and the smoke that clamped around my throat fell from my neck into his hand in a smooth wispy movement.
Instantly my hands flew to the raw skin of my neck.
“Three times I have tried to kill the human, and three times she has lived.” His voice boomed, echoing off the distant walls and staircases as the crowd listened in silence.
Hundreds of hungry-looking Fae stood frozen, hanging on the prince’s every word.
“Callie Peterson of the human realm, as Prince of the Unseelie court, I offer you a deal.”
My attention snapped to his. What was he doing?
“What?” I asked unsteadily. Surely I couldn’t trust him no matter what temptation he offered.
“I am a man of my word. I promised entertainment to my mother and people of this court.”
Cold fear crawled like a spider up my spine.
“As a human, you shouldn’t be nearly so hard to kill. Against my better judgment, I am quite preoccupied with you.”
The blood drained from my face as I felt it too go cold. I was going to faint.
Nearly faltering, I accidentally leaned into Mendax, steadying myself with his forearm.
He paused his speech to snap his eyes at where I touched his arm.
I expected him to shove me to the ground and pull his arm away, but instead, he just stared for a moment and then continued, leaving my hand clinging to his forearm for support.
“I will hold nothing but relief once you are dead,” he whispered, studying my mouth before his volume increased yet again. “A game,” he stated. “I will attempt to kill you three more times, human. If, by some gift of fate, you should live past my efforts, then I will return you to the humans alive.”
The crowd erupted into boisterous shouts and applause.
“No, please! I can’t—I’m just a scientist! Please!” I begged him, grabbing both his arms in a frantic haze.
That damned dimple appeared on his face as he looked at my hands and smirked.
“The first of the three trials starts immediately.” His voice boomed loudly as he held my eyes with his humorless expression.
His hands gripped my bare arms, mirroring my actions on him. His palm subtly grazed the skin below my shoulders as he stepped into me.
His voice was a soft whisper that only my ears could hear. “May your death be fast . . . for both our sakes,” his gravelly voice rumbled across my bare skin.
He took a step back, and instantly the room began to blur and spin as the stars above soon blanketed my vision and complete darkness consumed me.
Cold air blossomed across the skin not covered by my white gown. I opened my eyes to see the beautiful stars, the same that decorated the ballroom’s ceilings. I shifted to sit up and waited for the nauseating feeling in my mind to leave.
I was sitting in the dirt outside.
Distant cries and shouts crept around me as I hurried to my feet.
Where was I?
This was not the forest I had been in prior to being taken to the castle. No, this one was much more daunting. The moss was still green across the floor, and the bark was still a shadow-filled brown, but the foliage of the many trees and bushes were all various shades of red and crimson. Like the trees themselves bled.
The blood forest.
It had to be. How could it ever be called anything else? I had heard mention of its horrors in the dungeon.
Red fog covered the ground like a gory haze of bloody vapor.
I jumped as distant shouts and laughter echoed somewhere. Was that the crowd?
This was the first trial. What wa—
Without warning, small sparks dropped from the sky and seared into my skin like a cigarette as giant shadows shifted the moonlight overhead.
I cried out in pain and fell to the dirt floor, clutching my arm.
Small glowing circles of whatever had fallen and hit my arm lined the forest floor. I screamed in shock, having lay right on a few of the weird glowing droplets.
Blistering hot acid burned as the small balls embedded themselves into my skin.
My high-pitched wail seemed to draw whatever dark clouds held the acid orbs closer.
I ran to a path between two trees as I struggled to remove the searing orbs of acid from my arms and thighs.
My legs carried me fast. No longer commanded by my mind but fueled only by the unalloyed adrenaline that coursed through my tired system.
I ran as fast as my legs and dress would allow into the scarlet forest.
Red leaves thrashed against my face and body with each step as wind and my heartbeat slammed a taunting tune in my head, drowning out any of my remaining senses.
The black clouds trailed me, raining more acid droplets in their wake.
A scream I had no business possessing tore from me as a drop of the acid fell into the flesh of my head, burrowing itself deep against my skull.
I faltered, plunging into a somersault and landing on my stomach. The pain was unyielding, sending sharp, blinding waves down the entire length of my spine.
No sooner had I hit the dirt than the large clouds covered me, dimming what little light I had. I glanced at the sky.
No!
It wasn’t clouds that chased me. Two enormous creatures hovered above the tree tops pelting more acid drops.
Each one of their projectiles embedded deeply into my back.
They thudded loudly against my skin. No, that was my heart that pounded in my head.
I could hear them snarling—wicked hissing snarls all directed at me.
I tried desperately to get up, but my arms refused. My elbows bowed with pain slamming my cheek against the dirt.
Something sharp grabbed my head.
My spine cracked at the pressure, and another scream tore through me when I saw the size of the creature that had grabbed my head.
It was easily the size of an elephant. Long bat-like wings pulsed against the air enough to keep its large black body just above the ground. The air flapped at the surrounding leaves like a helicopter about to land.
Along its stomach rested line upon line of acid spheres waiting to be dropped. Glowing red eyes looked to the sky, not at me. It was covered in black feathers from the tip of their giant talon-encrusted feet all the way to their thin arms.
Two curved horns sat atop each of their long feathered heads. One all black, while the other looked to have red tips.
They were giant. Their large wings easily commanded a twenty-foot span. Equally bulky as they were lithe and agile, as the one that held my head angled its long wings at just the right slant among the trees. Bits of skeleton inlaid the huge muscles and tendons that ridged its entire feathered body while sharp rows of teeth glistened inside its long skeletal mouth. They were horrifying.
I grabbed a hand full of rocks and threw them at it.
Fuck!
I hadn’t even come close to hitting it as the rocks fell to the other side. Not that they would have done anything anyway.
Both monsters snapped their heads toward the sound of the stray rocks hitting the ground but returned their hazy red eyes to the night sky as if listening.
By sheer luck, I rolled at the same time and managed to not only free myself from the monster’s grip but also catch the orb burrowed in my skull against the monster’s talon, freeing my skull from the searing hot pain.
I rolled into the underbrush, tearing the entire bottom off my silk gown. I flung off the glittering high heels and pressed against the tree in an attempt to hide from the abomination of wings and claws.
If I was anything, I wasn’t stupid. They were much stronger than me, and I didn’t know how to fight them. I was a scientist. I worked with animals, not enormous monsters that pelted you with acid marbles. My eyes tightened shut in frustration and panic. How would I ever survive this?
Immediately I felt their presence over top of me.
My only choice was to run.
I collected my breath as the dark forest seemed to still. It smelled like musty, rotten leaves and blind fear. The only sound I could hear past the blood that pounded loudly in my ears was the crunch of dry leaves and nearby clicks.
I could feel their shadows even in the dark woods. Even for their vast size, the darkness of night and the red tint of the horrible forest easily camouflaged them. The moon still shone a silver cast, but the vibrancy cast red against the mist, almost like a spooky haunted forest with red fog machines and lights.
I bolted, hoping to catch them off guard. One stayed toward the top of the tall trees as the other trailed me.
Fast clicks between them sounded as I abruptly turned and circled back the same way I had come. I tripped over a stray branch and fell to the dirt. Fuck!
A small arm had shot out from the ground, no larger than a small child’s, and grabbed ahold of my ankle, tripping me. Blood dripped down the pale gray arm and hand.
I shuffled back, only to be grabbed by more bloodied gray hands as they tried to hold me in place.
“What the fuck!” I shouted, forgetting briefly my need to keep quiet.
I kicked the small arms away and scrambled to stand before I felt the acid drop hit my chest.
I shook with defeated rage, and my fists balled, digging tiny crescents into my palms.
I couldn’t continue. I was outnumbered in every possible way. They commanded this forest, and I had no idea of what dangers lay ahead if I continued to run, what trap I would waltz into. I was outdone in strength, size, and ability to fight—everything that would have kept me alive.
Heavy defeat settled like a weight in my chest as I pressed my back against the tree. I wiped my face with dirty palms as harsh realization settled over me for the first time.
Humans couldn’t survive beyond the veil.
Even with the queen’s protection, I would never survive in the world of Fae.
I grabbed the tree behind me for support as I felt half of my heart break.
A distant crowd laughed. I could pinpoint the higher-pitched laughs of glee and the deeper male chuckles.
Somehow they watched me, laughing at my defeat.
I felt the heaviness of the monster’s presence again as the air in the forest shifted.
I dislodged the burning marble from my chest and tore off just as both monsters shook the ground when they dropped down to grab me.
Click! Click! Click!
Blood poured painfully from my wounds, which now felt like they lined every inch of my body. The pounding of my heart as I ran only increased my blood loss.
Click, click.
I looked up to see the creatures easily trailing me in the sky again. They probably enjoyed this. This was easy pickings now that I was slowing, full of acid wounds. They knew I wouldn’t be able to last much longer.
Click, click, click, click.
Wait—
I stopped sharply and ran in a different direction as silently as possible.
Click, click!
After continuing flight for only a second, they turned back to my location.
Click, click, click, click.
There was no fucking way.
Click, click, click.
Oh my god!
They were using some type of echolocation to track me. That was why they didn’t look at me but watched the sky because they couldn’t see me! They were sending out some type of sonar to locate me.
I laughed.
I laughed so damn hard that anyone who had doubted I lost my mind would no longer question it.
The clicks. They weren’t talking to each other, they were sending out a sound, and the reflected sound waves told them exactly where I was. Just like bats or dolphins used.
The freshly oiled wheels of my mind began to spin as a flash of the winged man Mendax had stabbed popped into my mind, and I couldn’t help but smile.
It was a long shot, but it was the only thing I had.
My feet slammed against the mossy dirt as I ran back to where I had started. To where I had torn my dress.
This had to work or else . . . or else . . . I’d never get to see them again, and I’d die with a half-full heart.
Click, click, click.
No surprise they had found me as I was struggling to locate the strip of white silk I’d left in the brush. Where had it gone? I continued to spin and dash about like a mad woman on the hunt.
Like a beacon of angelic light, the fabric lay under the moonlight in front of me.
I grabbed it and ran. They could easily pluck me at any moment, but they seemed to be lazy and waiting for me to tire.
As if they had heard me, more acid drops pelted toward me, just missing me.
My legs continued to pump as I tore the fabric into strips. Thank god the dress was real silk or this wouldn’t work. I needed to pull the fabric at exactly the right direction until I got it torn a bit and then turn it the opposite way. That should force a spiral in the strips of fabric.
The silk coiled loosely at the ends in both directions. It was perfect!
I took a sharp left and stopped. I needed to move quickly if this was going to work.
I searched the ground for the thickest and sturdiest stick I could find and forcefully jabbed until two holes formed in the back of my dress.
The ground shook as both beasts landed.
They thought I’d given up.
Quick as my hands would work, I tied the spiraling silk to the back of my tattered dress. Fighting the cramps in my legs, I took off again just as they drew closer.
Click, click, click!
The luna moth had gotten me here, and they would get me out.
