Page 41 of Dare

I narrowed my eyes. “You knew.”

Nothing.

“You knew this rainforest was here. You knew where to go.”

Nothing.

“Tell me how,” I said with fatal calm. “Tell me where we are.”

I could be patient. I could.

Fucking hell. I thrust out my bound legs and kicked her drawing, my heels carving through the sketched cove and spraying granules over her limbs. The little beast blinked at what I’d done, dismay contorting her face.

With her fingers splayed, the rabid bitch slapped the rest of the drawing at me, flinging sand in my eyes. Curse her.

17

Flare

Curse him. I kept the Royal tied up, yet his presence felt like a stain on the rainforest, something to be ashamed of.

But why should I feel guilty? I couldn’t trust a prince, a hater of born souls, a brutal Winter heir who’d strapped his hand around my throat. He was made of that enigma called ice, the word like a slippery thing, a surface on which I could trip and break my neck.

He would try to harm me. But while he might have had the upper hand when I’d been caged, rulers were irrelevant here. The rainforest didn’t care about his lineage or authority. As for me, I had never cared.

Now we were on my turf.

I’d been dealt a blow when that varmint proved he could detect my voice in the same way I privately heard myself. For some awful reason, nature had decided to grant him the ability. But while I simply had to accept it, I wasn’t about to like it.

To compensate, I did enjoy having the prince bound, as I’d enjoyed leading him astray in the forest, watching him drift in circles with a bewildered frown.

But as for my stunt with the fig, I couldn’t explain that one. Although I had sought to shut him up, to rattle the monster’s nerves, I hadn’t expected that eruption of heat while straddling his lap. The solid weight of his body beneath mine had caused a riot of sensations deep in the slit between my walls. My bare cunt had rested on his pants, the friction a shock to my system. The sight of his mouth glazed in nectar and the thick length of flesh between his hips had drawn unbidden dampness from me, which had threatened to leak out like evidence of a felony.

Thank Seasons, my body had spared me at the last moment, and I’d climbed off his cock before he could notice. That mistake would never happen again. I’d rather snack on shit than spread my thighs around this man for a second time.

The fitful stars blazed over the tide. Restless, I moved the supplies beneath a tree, in a shrouded thicket of frond hedges, then I used the second sail as a blanket by spreading it on the ground and wrapping half of the fabric over my body. Meanwhile, I heard the prince fussing, trying to get the sand out of his eyes since I hadn’t volunteered to help. While curling up and imagining his discomfort, I smiled and drifted into slumber.

***

They marked me with paint. It was a molten paint, which they dabbed into my skin with a brush, its bristles made to endure the heat. The smell hit me before the burn did, but I’d been screaming for a while by then, so the first swipe of the liquid didn’t make a difference.

Between cries, I squirmed against the guards, fought them so much that the markings took a long time to finish. They blamed me for that, saying, “Hold still, you tiny fucking monster!”

But I wasn’t a monster. I was scared and scared and scared, because where were Mama and Papa? Would they storm the tower and come for me?

I tasted tears, a little girl crying. I remembered she was me, that I needed to protect her from the pain.

I’d gotten glimpses of the other captives, so I understood which symbolic images the guards painted around my neck. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew the markings, as I knew this Season.

My kingdom had taken me prisoner.

They tossed me into a black cell lined in bars. I raged and thrashed against the grille, my voice echoing down the tower’s throat.

The guards sneered, called me a feral cunt, and gloated that I belonged to them. I shouted that they were wrong, but the oafs laughed, and I planned to bite their fingers off if they came near me again. I almost succeeded when they did, and it got me into trouble, and trouble hurt.

I imagined a safer place—a secret forest that floated in the ocean. That’s where my soul and mind fled, hoping to stay there until Mama and Papa rescued me.

But they didn’t come. They didn’t come for me because they couldn’t, because the court wouldn’t let them, because they were dead, and because I was trapped.

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