“Oh my goddess, this is rich. What a disgusting surprise,” a tinkling female voice said above me.
I blinked open crusty eyes and immediately wished I hadn’t woken up.
I’d been having a horrible nightmare that I was drowning in a sea of my blood.
Of course, because my life was depressing, I woke up to arguably worse circumstances. Which was hard to do.
The first thing I noted—the voice belonged to evil lady number one, aka the fae queen.
She leaned casually against the bedroom wall like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Glad she was feeling relaxed.
Not relatable.
The second thing I noted—there was a breeze against my vagina.
On closer inspection, I was buck naked, with my limbs like a starfish’s, tits up, scars on display, lying in the middle of a massive bed.
“What the flying fuck?” I asked. My broken voice was extra scratchy, a stark contrast to the queen’s melodic tone.
I struggled to sit up, but my entire body ached with phantom pain, and I didn’t even bother to preserve my modesty.
Unlike what they’d taught us in school, modest was not hottest. You know what was hot? Not being kidnapped by psychotic evil fae rulers.
The last things I remembered: Cobra and Jax had been drugged unconscious. Ascher had betrayed us. The queen had attacked me with her blue fire, which was painful as hell but didn’t burn like a normal flame.
Then we’d all been transported from the shifter realm to the queen’s palace in the fae realm. Aran had turned out to be a girl in disguise and the fae princess. A guard had knocked me out.
If I weren’t so tired and sore, I would have burst into tears.
My life, which had been training for war at a fortress with alpha and beta shifters who were all stronger than me, had somehow gotten worse. I was so tired that I couldn’t attack the fae queen like I wanted to.
Instead, I settled for raising my head slightly and death glaring at everyone in the room.
It was the best I could do.
About two dozen women cringed as I struggled to sit up.
They were the queen’s servants.
They wore unique white dresses that I’d seen depicted in a book growing up. Each woman was gorgeous and had slightly pointed ears like all fae.
As I glared around the room and tried to act intimidating, the women grimaced as they stared at my torso.
My gut told me they weren’t wincing because they were overwhelmed by the beauty and prominence of my nipples.
They were horrified because thick white scars covered my golden skin.
The queen walked closer to the bed, and I stopped playing the staring game with the servants.
Bright sunshine streamed through gold windows, and her hair sparkled a rich dark blue. The queen had dark eyes and a perfectly symmetrical face, and she wore a gossamer spider-silk dress.
It reminded me of the spider fae whose web had shredded my flesh in battle.
My neck cramped, and I flopped back onto the bed in a poor imitation of a dead fish. Not my strongest moment.
The queen sneered down at me, “Does Cobra know how brutalized your skin is? How ugly you are?”
Who asked someone such a rude question? Clearly, living in a palace didn’t make you classy.
I perched my right elbow beneath me, coughed, and said, “What a trashy question. And really, you don’t like my scars? I thought they were pretty.”
Yes, I had just called the evil fae queen with insane fire abilities “trashy.” It was called living without regrets, and it was my new motto.
There was a pregnant pause as everyone in the room stared at me like my tits were out and I was crazy.
Both were true.
Of course, I hated my scars and low-key suffered crippling anxiety, but I wasn’t about to tell the evil queen that.
I might look dumb and was probably concussed from the guard knocking me out, but I still had a few brain cells left.
The queen arched a perfectly trimmed eyebrow. “You’re quite annoying, aren’t you?”
I grinned, wrinkled my nose at her condescendingly, and asked, “You’re quite the bitch, aren’t you?”
The servants gasped and bowed their heads, and for a long moment, the queen and I stared at each other.
I tried to act like I wasn’t five seconds away from losing consciousness because sitting up was too much effort.
Finally, the queen leaned over the bed and said softly, “You’re barely a beast, while I’m a full-blooded fae with eons of experience crushing crass little fools like you. I’m going to break you.”
“Where is Aran? What did you do with her? You better not hurt her,” I whispered back, and her face was so close to mine that our breath mingled. If she’d hurt my friend, I’d kill her.
Her eyes lit with anger. “It’s Arabella, and since she’s my daughter, I will do whatever I want with her.”
I punched her in the throat.
People must not punch her often, because my fist landed hard. She sputtered and fell backward.
There was one universal truth to life: no one looked elegant after a chop to the trachea.
While the queen choked, I collapsed back onto the bed as the room spun around me.
Every muscle in my body was exhausted, and the only thing standing between me and a coma was sheer willpower.
Beside my bed, servants scrambled around the gasping queen and tried to help her, but she slapped their hands away and straightened her spider-silk dress.
She slowly turned toward me, her pretty face contorted into an ugly mask of fury. I sneered back.
Then the bitch lit me on fire.
With a whoosh, blue flames consumed every inch of my naked body.
My mouth opened, back arched, and eyes watered as her power consumed every one of my cells in stinging pain.
It was agony.
Once again, the flames didn’t burn like fire. It felt like a thousand needles stabbed into my skin and ripped the flesh off my bones.
I gasped and twitched as tears streamed down my face.
Seizing on the bed, I reached into the dark recess of my mind and tried to flick on the numb.
My homicidal alter ego, which shielded me from pain, hadn’t recharged. I must not have been unconscious for long.
With no way to relieve the anguish, my naked body twisted and convulsed on the satin covers.
Through a wall of blue, the queen smirked at me.
I tried to scream, but my broken voice only made weak, gasping noises as I gurgled air.
Tears poured as the misery continued.
The queen snapped her fingers, and the flames disappeared.
Gone, like they’d never existed.
Every single muscle and bone in my body relaxed.
I’d never been so relieved to not be on fire.
For a long moment, I gasped and stared up at the painted ceiling of fae wielding the four elements—water, earth, air, and fire.
A water fae held a massive ice sword, an air fae was flying, an earth fae swung a boulder, and a fire fae was covered in flames.
I focused on the first three images because the last one was triggering.
Pretty, my overstimulated brain supplied unhelpfully as I stared at the gorgeous female water fae.
In the aftermath of torture, my body trembled with relief and my brain was only functioning at half capacity.
I choked and said to the queen with a gravelly rasp, “I always preferred the water fae in stories. Their weapons are cooler than your little flames.”
It was a bald-faced lie; I’d always been obsessed with the stories of the fire fae.
They were the strongest, the masters of pain, makers of kings, and slayers of gods. Notably, they seemed less cool now that one was literally lighting me on fire.
The queen laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Please, the water fae are pathetic compared to the fire wielders.”
I argued back, “Maybe, but the half warriors would still destroy you in a fight.”
At the mention of half warriors, the queen’s perfect smile fell.
Her tone was sharp as knives. “They are no longer a threat to me or this realm. It doesn’t matter how powerful they were. I broke them.”
“For sure, dude.” I rolled my eyes like I was bored and not panicking.
I’d grown up worshipping the half warriors; part alpha and part fae. They not only shifted into beasts, but controlled a fae element.
They were called the Big Three—three half warriors who roamed the fae lands, fighting off monsters and protecting the realm from evil.
If the queen had somehow defeated them, I 100 percent didn’t stand a chance.
As if she could read my thoughts, she smirked at me, then turned to address the servants. “I wanted to wait until the prisoner was awake to announce the good news. Today, we have a special treat for the realm. Cobra is back.”
Immediately, the women squealed with excitement.
My first reaction—embarrassment flooded through me just hearing Cobra’s name. He was an asshole. Literally, he’d fingered my asshole while he ate my pussy like dessert.
I didn’t know what they’d put in that wine at the Ianuarius party, but boy had it really lowered my inhibitions. I’d been fighting with him the day before, then I’d just let him put his face in my vagina.
That had not been very alpha of me.
If I were a bad bitch, when he’d pinned me against the closet wall, I would have slammed my knees into his crotch, flashed my vagina, and slinked away in my high heels.
Instead, my resistance had crumbled.
My second reaction—pure terror.
Cobra hated all women and refused to talk to them. Yet he was some type of celebrity in the fae realm, someone the queen referred to by name?
The whole situation had trauma and abuse written all over it.
My flesh tingled, and I trembled as awful scenarios flashed through my brain. I tried to follow the buzzing and shift into my alpha form of a saber-toothed tiger.
No matter how hard I pushed and strained, nothing happened.
“Alphas can’t shift in this realm. I’ve ensured it,” the queen said casually.
Any hope that was left in my body disintegrated into smithereens.
My mouth dropped open, and I gaped at her.
If I were standing, my legs would have collapsed beneath me. Good thing I was lying buck naked on a bed surrounded by strangers.
The little glass vials with blue smoke had restricted our ability to change in the shifter realm.
The smoke in the vials was blue, just like her power. Somehow, the queen’s fire could stop alphas from shifting in the entire realm.
I might as well just find a shovel and start digging my grave.
The full extent of how fucked everything was crashed down around me. I didn’t stand a chance against her.
The queen continued speaking, “As you all know, Cobra is the prettiest man to ever exist and our most popular entertainer. He is still an eligible bachelor, and I have set up a treat for the realm.”
My chest hurt. She said Cobra’s name like he was a fucking object, not a person. I hated the gleam of ownership in her eyes.
I leaned up on my arms and growled, “He’s not fucking eligible. He’s with Jax, and they love each other.”
“No!” the servants shouted and gasped like I’d told them the sun god was dead.
For a split second, the queen’s lips pinched together as she glared back at me.
Her eyes clouded with worry as she said, “Settle down, girls. Am I not your queen? I assure you he is very much eligible and will be providing his usual entertainment.”
I laughed loudly. “No, I assure you all he is very much not elig—”
Flames lit my body, and the stabbing sensation was ten times worse than before.
Instantly, I was paralyzed with pain.
I gasp-screamed as every neuron in my body writhed and sputtered. Blue fire consumed my existence.
After endless moments of suffering, the agony stopped.
I heaved.
The queen sneered down at my convulsing form like she’d beaten me.
If I had any sense of self-preservation, I would have kept my mouth shut.
Too bad the bitch had triggered me.
I choked on saliva and said loudly, “Cobra’s with Jax and never touches women. In fact, because of whatever shit is going on here, he hates all women and thinks they are disgust—”
My words were cut off because, again, she set me on fucking fire.
The world thrashed in blue flames, and it felt like my bones disintegrated into wisps of dust as my veins exploded like grenades.
Vomit spewed up my throat, but it had nowhere to go because my body was paralyzed with agony.
I choked and gasped.
For the longest moments, I desperately gurgled. Tears streamed down my face, and my lungs screamed for relief.
This was how I was going to die, naked and choking.
Not the most relaxing end.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the flames extinguished.
I leaned over the bed and spewed chunks across the gleaming white marble floor.
With a gasp, I tried to catch my breath and struggled to push my sweaty limbs up into a sitting position.
“Are you done?” the queen asked in a bored tone, like she was late for her afternoon tea, not torturing me with flames.
She was so rude.
Like a mature, independent woman who was good at comebacks, I asked, “Are you done?”
The queen’s dark eyes clouded with annoyance, and she stepped closer to me. “No, I’ve only just begun. I’m going to welcome Cobra back to our realm with a bang of a performance. I wasn’t going to use you—I couldn’t give him something he might actually want—but that was before I saw your naked, hideous flesh.”
She paused for dramatic effect and as the servants held their breath in anticipation.
I looked down at my fingernails like I was bored, while every cell in my body shook with terror.
It took everything I had to school my expression and act like I didn’t care.
The queen clearly loved drama, and I was not giving it to her.
She continued gloating, “Now that I have seen the extent of your ugliness, I know Cobra would never dare touch your awful flesh. He covets strength above all else, and darling, you are the opposite of strong.”
Her words burned because she was right. Cobra did covet strength, which was why he was obsessed with Jax.
Jax was literally three times my body weight and one hundred times stronger than me. He could also run for five minutes without wanting to die, which was impressive and not relatable.
Sure, Cobra had eaten me out in a closet, low-key the best moment of my life, but my dress had covered my entire torso, and the closet had been dark.
The jeweled bastard had sneered at my small stature and inability to run, and he didn’t even know the true extent of my weakness.
I never wanted him to see my scars.
The queen snapped her fingers, and a painting on the wall transformed.
The painting rippled, and a naked Cobra was displayed on what seemed to be the fae’s enchanted equivalent of a television.
On the screen, Cobra was displayed naked on an ornate bed. Same.
However, he also had a diamond-studded collar wrapped around his neck and cuffs around his wrists, and he leaned against the headboard like he didn’t have a care in the world.
But his emerald eyes were frozen chips of darkness.
In my room, the servants tittered and ran around to get closer to the screen. They shoved at each other, jockeying for a better view.
The queen turned to me and said, “I’ve decided that because of your insolence, you’re going to be Cobra’s first guest.”
My soul left my body, and my stomach twisted into a million knots.
Before I could sink fully into panic, the queen grabbed my arm and wrenched me out of the bed.
I slipped in my vomit and barely kept myself upright.
When I straightened, everyone in the room looked down at me.
Now that I stood up, the fae were taller than I’d realized. Also, they were all unnaturally gorgeous. Everyone’s features were perfect, hair glossy and skin glistening.
In both realms, I was small and not perfect.
The queen tilted her head down to smirk at me. “Cobra is a professional, but there’s no way he’ll be able to keep his cool when he sees your horrid flesh. Afterward, he’ll beg me to let a gorgeous fae fuck him.”
My brain struggled to understand what she was saying.
Fuck him?
Before I could process what was happening, the queen called for guards, and large fae men burst into the room.
With every inch of strength left in my exhausted body, I straightened my head, pushed my tits forward, and clenched my butt.
I fought and kicked as they dragged me down a crowded, ornate hallway. My struggling did nothing.
People pointed at my naked, scarred body as the guards manhandled me.
I refused to be embarrassed about my less-than-ideal nude state, so I focused on the paintings on the wall and not on the fae staring and taunting me.
Just like the bedroom ceiling, symbols of the fae elements were carved and painted with exquisite details.
A guard shoved me forward down the hall with so much force that my legs collapsed beneath me.
I fell to my knees.
Fae laughed. Instead of looking at their cruel expressions, I focused on the painting at the bottom of the wall.
Now that I was on the floor, I could see that the image differed from the rest.
It depicted a male fae lying prone, with bright-red blood flowing from cuts on his wrists. His body was limp like he was dead, but his eyes were wide open.
The image was graphic and horrible.
My brain shivered with foreboding.
A guard hauled me to my feet and shoved me through a gold door, and I pushed the horrifying image out of my thoughts.
As I stumbled to catch myself, I turned toward the bed.
An unnaturally gorgeous shifter leaned against the wall.
Cobra looked like a pale Adonis.
His snake eyes stared at me.
