Page 1 of King of Storms and Feathers

Chapter 1

The Girl

Rough voices woke me. I wrapped my fingers around rusty bars, blinking and focusing my gaze through swollen eyelids.

An awful taste soured my mouth, and my head pounded as if I’d been unconscious for a week.

Where the hell was I?

The sun burned my skin as I stared down at three hooded figures who stood in a cloud of red dust below me, their boots planted wide and arms folded across their chests.

I moaned, dropping my forehead against the bars and rearranging my sweaty limbs. The space was tiny, sticky with blood, and I hated to think what else. Nausea swept over me as cold horror dawned—I was trapped inside a cage.

“Get her out,” said the tall, hooded male in the middle of the group, his deep voice sounding rough with disuse.

A shock of dark gold hair trailed down the front of his shoulder, and his partly opened cloak revealed a black shirt and muddy leathers. When my gaze landed on the water pouch hanging from his lean hips, a shudder of longing rolled over me.

If I could, I’d stab my own eye out in exchange for a drink.

“Her?” asked the slavemaster, reaching into the cage and tugging on the chain that linked my wrists together. “She’s too scrawny for hard labor.”

Anger boiled my blood. I wished I had the energy to spit on him.

Gold-hair lifted his chin. “If that’s the case, your price must reflect her condition. Do you wish to lecture me or make a sale?”

The man was fae, I was sure of it. No other species spoke with such casual arrogance.

Where was this place? The light was too bright, too harsh to be the Earth Realm, which meant I was far from home and probably fucked. I swallowed bile and took deep breaths, trying to slow my hammering heart.

Steel shuddered, locks clicked, then the slaver’s calloused fingers dragged me from the cage.

The movement amplified the hunger gnawing at my innards, and the filthy shift I wore fell farther down my shoulders. It gave no protection from the bite of the midday sun or the harsh glares of the fae.

I blinked at my bare feet—a mess of bruised flesh and badly healing sores—and rolled my wrists. Rubbing my head, my fingers ran over a painful bump, and I hissed out a curse.

The ground tilted, and I listed sideways. The bearded slavemaster shook me, a warning not to ruin his sale. As the three fae stepped closer to inspect me, I reeled away from the glow of their supernatural eyes.

Gold-hair’s silver gaze burned bright, more merciless than the desert sun. The fae on his right, a female with blue hair and eyes to match, glared at me as if she’d never seen anything so repulsive.

Long dark hair fell into the other male’s syrup-brown eyes, tiny lines crinkling around them. The laugh lines suggested that he was the kindest of the three. But more likely his laughter came at the price of another’s pain.

I had no idea where or even who I was, but I remembered something important about the fae as a species. They were bastards. Every damn one of them.

With a greasy thumb, the slavemaster peeled apart my cracked lips, displaying my teeth for their inspection. I raised my head and glared at the tall golden-haired fae—the one who appeared to be in charge. He stared back with an unflinching silver gaze.

“How much?” he asked.

“Twelve feathers,” the slaver replied.

Dark-hair snorted. “Twelve! Arrow, that’s high robbery. We should slit his throat for the offense.”

“He’s new. Doesn’t know who we are,” the gruff Arrow replied. “What’s her name?”

“None listed,” said the slaver. “You can call her whatever you want.”

“A gold eater?” the fae asked.

The slaver shrugged. “Who knows. But since she’s human, more than likely.”

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