Trapped Read online

  Wonderful.

  Catcalls follow me as Dusk forces me to continue my march through the prison. As we go, I hear a few of the prisoners try to convince the guard to leave me with them, and I try not to pay attention to the things they tell me they want to do to me.

  Dusk eventually orders them all to be quiet. They listen, too, which surprises me since we pass a whole row of cells filled with trolls. They’re three times as big as Dusk, but they seem to quail when the Unseelie guard turns his silver stare on them. When one of the prisoners—I don’t know what this guy is except he’s furry and hunched over a bit—tries to test him, Dusk’s pale skin takes on an eerie glow that has the next few wings’ worth of prisoners shutting up at his approach.

  I try not to stare. I thought I saw it all, between the pixie and the nix, the redcap and the trolls… Nope. There are creatures locked up in this prison that I can’t even try to figure out what they are. Some of them kind of look human—like the fae—but when I pass this childlike creature with triangle ears and a fox tail, I actually stop to get a better look.

  It’s so cute—until it snaps its teeth at me and I jump so high, I nearly impale myself on Dusk’s sword when I land again.

  He doesn’t reach to steady me. Since it would burn the crap out of his hand if he did, Dusk steps back, lowering his sword while I try to calm myself down.

  “Be grateful that I’m assigning you to another wing,” he says. “I could’ve left you with the other lower races. Remember my generosity, human. You won’t be getting much of it from anyone else.”

  A chill runs up and down my spine. He means it, too. No one from Faerie can lie, which is the single advantage that I have as a human.

  “Where am I going?” I ask. “Is it much further?”

  The prison is huge. I only saw a glimpse of it as Bram let me out of the caravan, but it looks like a stadium from the outside surrounded by a looming gate. There must be room for hundreds of cells in here and I feel like I’ve passed most of them already.

  “The queen keeps traitors and betrayers in their own wing when she doesn’t prefer them for her statues. She loves her gardens so the cells are usually empty. There’s only one other prisoner along that row. It’s perfect to tuck away an errant human. Saxon was right. This is brilliant.”

  He thinks so. I think I’m pretty much screwed.

  “Keep moving. Three more wings until we reach yours.”

  Each section of the prison is separated by some kind of glass partition that only disappears when Dusk murmurs a foreign world. It kind of sounds like he’s saying pad-something, but even in my head, I can’t mimic his accent right. The clear door dissipates in a shower of silver sparkles, reforming the instant we step through.

  More magic.

  I count the doors from that point on. Not because I have any hope of escaping, but because I just want this part of the nightmare to be over with. I’m going to jail. No way around it right now. I thought I could maybe get away from Bram while we traveled here, but I didn’t. Now I’m stuck.

  Once we pass through four more sections, we arrive in an empty wing. And I mean empty. None of the cells are full.

  Wasn’t there supposed to be another prisoner here? At least one more?

  I didn’t want to be stuck with the catcalling inmates, but I don’t want to be all on my own, either. Not with the guard’s threat—You’ll change your mind. I’ll enjoy ensuring that you do...—bouncing around my brain.

  “This one will be yours.” Dusk moves in front of the first cell on the left. He waves his hand in front of the closed door with its narrow bars. It springs open. “Get in.”

  I don’t have a choice. Before he can tell me again, I step inside the cell—and gasp when the heavy cuffs just fall away from my wrists, landing on the floor with a clank an instant before my cell door slams shut behind me.

  2

  Once I’m locked inside my cell, Dusk leaves me with a promise that he’ll see me again. I purposely kept my back to him, hoping he would go away. As soon as he’s gone, I rub my wrists and marvel at what just happened.

  My hands are finally free again.

  Okay. So that was weird. The iron cuffs had been locked in place for three days, ever since the fae captain ordered me to put them on. I was beginning to think that I’d be stuck wearing them forever. One step inside of my cell, though, and they’re off.

  Not only that, but they’re gone.

  I tap the cement-colored floor of my cell. My boot echoes against it. Tap, tap, tap. I think it’s stone. It’s definitely not quicksand or anything like that, but as soon as the handcuffs hit the floor, they seemed to just melt into it.

  Super weird.

  I turn around. Just because I’d be an idiot not to, I reach for my cell bars and give them a jingle. The door is locked—of course it is—and I pull back, observing them closely. When the pair of dwarves sold me to the redcap at the Faerie market, I was tossed into a cage before I was put up on the auction block. It was small and cramped and made completely of iron.

  My cell… is different.

  It’s bigger, for one thing. All of them are. And while it’s obvious that the bars are made of iron, it’s only a narrow sliver of the metal encased in… glass? Crystal? I’m not sure. It’s hard and it’s cool and it has to be some kind of protection for the fae guards from the iron that traps the prisoners behind the bars.

  Inside, the cell has a small cot with a blanket and a pillow on it. The only other thing in the room is a rectangle that’s about three feet wide and seven feet high. It looks like it’s made of the same kind of glass or crystals as the bars except they’re frosted instead of clear.

  Veron had something like that in the room he gave me in his palace. It’s part toilet, part sink, part shower. You step inside and it… it knows what you want. I don’t know how. Magic? That seems to be the answer for everything in this place. I’m so relieved my cell has one. I can get clean, at least, and if I never have to drop my pants and squat outside in the grass again, it might not be so bad.

  Don’t get me wrong. It’s still awful, but I have some privacy.

  Hey. I’ll take it.

  It stinks that there aren’t any windows except for a few narrow ones up high long the aisle. The walkway outside of my cell is made of the same stone floor, with twinkling lights strung along the high ceiling providing the only real light. They can’t be electrical lights—there’s no electricity in Faerie—but they remind me of fairy lights.

  Huh. Fairy lights.

  Ah, Jesus. I’ve been in Faerie for a week and a half and I think I’ve finally lost it.

  Hey. It was bound to happen eventually.

  It isn’t long before I learn what it’s like to be an animal on display at the zoo.

  The guards seem to find excuses to pass by my cell. Not just Dusk or Saxon, either. There’s always someone walking through my empty wing. At first, it wasn’t so bad. They brought me a prison uniform I refuse to put on, slipped a plate of food—including faerie fruit—through the gap at the bottom of my cell door, even offered me a jar full of crisp, clear water.

  Once they make it obvious that they’re coming by just to gawk at the human? That’s rough. I mean, I expected it, but the interest coming off of the guards makes my skin crawl.

  I’m so, so glad I learned to keep my real name to myself. Who knows what they would compel me to do if they had it?

  I’m powerless here, and not just because I’m a prisoner. No… actually, that’s not true. I have a tiny bit of power since I’m a human. For the promise of a touch, I could probably ask for anything of the guards—except for freedom.

  I can’t do it, though. All it would take is one touch and I’d lose any bargaining power I have.

  The guards are all fae. All male. A majority of them are Seelie, with the same bronzed coloring and fair hair as Veron, Bram, and the fae captain. Dusk is a Dark Fae, one of the Unseelie. There are a few others like him who run the prison. He’s my most frequent visit
or, though, and I’m so grateful that iron bars keep me separated from him.

  I know he can open my cell door with a whim. But, for some reason, he doesn’t. I keep hoping it stays that way. I barely slept at all my first night, terrified that I’d have an unwelcome visitor once the fairy lights winked out. There are a few torches along the wall; as soon as the sun goes down, magic has them springing to life. I can see a little, but not much.

  Thank God no one shows up that first night after light’s out. Or the second.

  And then, on my third day in Siúcra, I finally meet the guy who shares the wing with me.

  I’ve been waiting all along for this. Two of the guards, Dusk and Saxon, purposely placed me in a cell opposite of someone they called the traitor. The human lover. There was enough of a sneer in the Unseelie’s voice for me to lose any hope that my fellow prisoner might be on my side.

  I don’t know what to expect. The fairy jail holds all kinds of inmates, and while I’m the only human—and female—that I’ve come across in here, I walked past so many different creatures when they brought me to this empty wing.

  I saw trolls that reminded me of Iggy and Binky. A male dwarf even older than Parlo, a trio of winged fairies that share a cell, and small monsters that might be goblins. I don’t know what the cute little thing with the fox tail and pointed ears was, and I still flinch when I think about it snapping its fangs at me.

  The wing that led right into mine was nicer than the rest of the prison. Gilded cells, mirrors built into the walls, and honest-to-God beds inside the rooms. That was where they kept fae prisoners. Not too many, only a couple that I noticed. I can’t imagine what they did—since Dusk said the traitors and betrayers are in my wing—but except for the same crystal-coated iron bars, they look like suites instead of cells.

  And then there’s my section. From what I can see from my corner, about six cells fill the space between each doorway, and each cell is set up exactly like mine: narrow cot, stone floor, and the magical toilet/sink/tub combo that reminds me that this is jail, but it’s fairy jail.

  It’s late when they bring him back, not quite light’s out but close enough. I’m not so surprised when he turns out to be another fae. Unlike when I was brought to my cell, this prisoner is flanked by two guards: one Seelie, one Unseelie, neither familiar. Both of them have their swords at his back, but he’s not wearing handcuffs.

  Interesting.

  I wonder what that’s about?

  He’s another Seelie. Like some of the other prisoners I’ve seen, he’s wearing a plain white jumpsuit that makes his skin seem more washed out than the vividly bronze shade that belongs to the other Light Fae. It’s more of a caramel color, dimmed to match the thick, tawny hair that spills down his back.

  Long hair is the fashion for the fae. Some, like Veron and Saxon, wore it to their shoulders. Dusk’s pitch-black hair hits his chin. But the prisoner’s? His falls to the middle of his back and, Jesus, it’s a thing of freaking beauty.

  I think of my hair. It’s originally a boring blonde color, but I’ve spent years dying it every crazy color you could think of. A couple of weeks before I walked through the fairy circle in the park, I put teal streaks throughout my hair. It was the cause of the fight that had me storming out on my boyfriend, and it’s one of the things that makes the faerie creatures wonder if I’m really human.

  I’ve never dyed my hair such a rich tawny color, brown streaked with yellow with a hint of orange in it. Shame. It’s gorgeous.

  And so is he.

  Damn it. For the first time since I’ve been stranded in Faerie, I wish I had my easel with me. My paints. Even a pencil or paper would do. WhenI look at him, I want to paint him. Draw him. Anything.

  When I look at him, I’m inspired.

  And I know in a heartbeat that I’m in even more trouble than before.

  His name is Rys.

  He doesn’t tell me. In fact, apart from glaring across the way at me for a few minutes after they force him at swordpoint to go back into his cell, he doesn’t seem to act as if I’m here at all. One of the guards used that name when he was talking to the prisoner so I figure it’s his.

  He goes right to his cot. His feet come to the edge of it, his toes hanging over it. Since there’s at least half a foot left on mine when I stretch out, I put him at more than six feet tall. Long and limber and lean, just like the other fae.

  Except for his faded coloring and his clothes, there’s only one noticeable difference between the prisoner and one of the Seelie guards. I don’t notice until the next morning, when it’s bright out and I can see his whole face in sharp relief.

  Last night, he kept part of his face shadowed. Considering the glimpse I got revealed that he—like every other fae I’ve met—was inhumanly beautiful, I didn’t understand why he was hiding his left side from me. I didn’t even really pick up on it, either, since he went straight to his cot without a word.

  In the morning? I see it.

  He has a scar.

  Not a tiny one, either. It’s, uh, pretty big.

  It starts near the corner of his eye, crossing the height of his cheek down to the top of his lip. It’s maybe… three inches long? Bumpy. A faded pink slash in his tanned face.

  Every fae I’ve met in Faerie has an otherworldly quality to them. Makes sense. They’re from Faerie which is a whole other world, isn’t it? But that’s the thing. They’re perfection come to life, and whether it’s some kind of magic glamour or not, I’ve never seen a fae with a mark like that. I didn’t think it was possible. Nothing hurts them except for iron, and they’re basically immortal.

  What can cause a scar like that on one of the fae?

  I instantly want to know the answer to that at the same time that I accept that I will never ask.

  He catches me gawking at him. I know he does. A dark look flashes across his handsome face as he moves away from the bars. Without a word, he heads to the magic toilet /shadow box in his own cell. A few seconds later, his uniform appears hanging over the side.

  He must be showering. I don’t hear any water, but that’s part of the magic, I guess. Once the door on the side closes, no one knows what you’re doing in there.

  I broke down and took my first full shower last night before they brought him to his cell. I’d been freshening up, too afraid to get fully naked just in case. It’s been so long since I’ve been all the way clean and I couldn’t stand it any longer. I don’t need another shower just yet, but I have to pee. I jump inside my own box, do my business, and wash my hands while he’s still in his.

  I’m the only one out when the guard comes by with a morning meal. It’s an Unseelie guard, one who barely looks at me as he shoves my plate under my door. He kicks the other plate into Rys’s cell, snickering when half the food lands on the floor.

  I grab my plate and bring it over to my cot. I dig in, waiting for Rys to reappear from his magic box. I noticed when I sat down that his jumpsuit was gone. He must be getting dressed again.

  A few minutes later, he steps back into his cell. His long hair is damp, finger-combed to settle down his back. His feet are bare; unlike me, he didn’t put his boots back on after he showered. He moves gracefully across the space, a spark in his strangely golden eyes as he sees the spilled plate.

  I swallow the last bite of my peach, then clear my throat. “Um, it was an Unseelie guard. He wasn’t too gentle with your food.”

  “They never are. I’m used to it.”

  I blink.

  I don’t know what I expected his voice to sound like, but it’s not that. Maybe it’s the glare, maybe it’s the scar, but I thought he’d sound… I don’t know, rough? It’s not. There’s a lilt to it that’s almost alluring, a soft, cultured tone that seems to put my nerves at ease.

  No one who sounds like that can be bad.

  I feel super guilty all of a sudden, not like it’s my fault or anything. Still. I know the Unseelie guard did that on purpose and so does Rys. He’s bigger than I am, too, and I d
on’t know if they fed him wherever he was last night. He might need to eat more than me.

  “Hey, I can save you some of mine if you want. There was a lot and it didn’t touch the floor.” I eye the distance between our cells. “I should be able to slide it to you without making a mess.”

  “Don’t bother. This is enough.” He picks up his plate, then frowns when he sees that, while I offered him some of my food, it’s already half gone. “I wouldn’t have eaten that if I was you. You won’t like what happens.”

  It’s nice of him to warn me, but he’s a little too late on that front. Staying away from faerie food? That ship has long since sailed.

  It was a mistake. I didn’t know any better, and the pink apple I found hanging off an enchanted tree was impossible to resist. I was hungry. Confused. I ate it. And now? If I don’t have some food grown in Faerie every day, I get sick.

  I don’t tell him that. No reason to. Even if I hadn’t already eaten the apple, I’ve been inside the prison for three days now.

  I peek across the aisle, watching him eat. He makes quick work of his meal, though it’s almost… dainty? Graceful? I don’t know, except it makes me feel like an uncoordinated idiot as I finish polishing off the grapes on my plate.

  Now that we’ve broken the silence of the wing, I guess Rys has decided that he might as well be a little more neighborly or something.

  After he nudges the food on the floor out of his cell before toeing the plate out into the hall, he stands in front of his cell, peering over at me.

  “I’ve heard them address you as Elle.”

  I shrug. When it comes to that subject, it’s better to stay quiet.

  “But it’s not your name. It can’t be.”

  “Is your name Rys?” I ask.

  He looks surprised that I retorted. His eyes widen, pulling on his scar, before he closes off his expression. He mimics my shrug. “It’s what I answer to.”

  “Same.”

  “Very well.” And then he tells me, “I think I’ll call you Leannán.”