Page 2 of A Kingdom of Pleasure and Torment

The backs of his fingers brush my cheekbone as he tucks the hair behind my ear.

I step back, shivering with rage and disgust. “I’m not interested in those other ways. This is my home. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s my house and I want you out!”

Where did that boldness come from? Not my mother, who never raised her voice above the playful stirring of rowdy leaves on the wind. Maybe this is my magic; this rage, this loss of control.

He shakes his head. “Oh, Cenere. Why must you be so obstinate?”

I bolt for the door, but I am exhausted and trapped far too easily by Thrace. He grips me by the wrist and drags me through the parlor.

“We’ll perform the binding oath tonight,” he says, while I dig my heels futilely against the floor. Well, not so futilely; my shoes catch the lip of the foyer rug and I trip, momentarily twisting enough in his grasp to rip my arm away. He swipes out for me, but I dodge him. He catches a ruffle at my waist and it tears away. I hold up my skirts and throw myself out the door, into freezing rain that slashes against my face. Thrace will not pursue me. It’s too much effort, and he is patient in his deviousness.

He will enjoy it all the more when I return, defeated. When I have no choice for survival but to submit to him.

I run, with no notion of where I’m going, through the mist-shrouded forest, through the rain that pricks like needles against my cheeks and turns my hair into a sopping pile atop my head. I don’t even think of my destination until the hem of my torn dress is weighted with mud and my soaked slippers touch the cobblestone path through the graveyard. My aching lungs beg me to slow, and the sacred ground seems to pull the last of the strength from my legs, as if to assure me that I’m safe now. That I can rest.

It isn’t true, but I let myself believe it enough to catch my breath and press my hand to my cramping side. Stumbling, I make my way to the ancient cenere tree in the middle of the graveyard.

My mother named me after this tree, this specific one. The one she now rots beneath. So often, she combed through my curls and told me the story of how she sat beside the cenere sapling and how her tears watered it and made it strong.

“It was the first time I felt the full strength of the fae magic in my blood,” she said. “And that blood runs in you.”

It’s a nice thought, but ultimately untrue. I have no magic. I won’t find it now, lying exhausted in the cradle of the tree’s roots. The tree where my mother made a wish that brought her a thoroughly un-magical, human child.

“I wish,” I whisper, sinking my hands into the soil. But there is too much to wish, and my tears will not make them come true, anyway.

“What do you wish?”

I push up on my arms, glancing around frantically. I was alone in the graveyard when I put down my head. Now, someone is with me. Not Thrace. The voice is too lilting and musical, but also deep and sonorous. Something moves at the edge of my vision, as if detaching from the shadows of the tree roots. A sleek black boot rests its toe delicately near my face, and I follow a lean leg painted in dragon-scale leather up to a muscular abdomen and broad chest revealed by a deep part in the fabric of his black shirt. The skin covering that expanse is as gray-blue as twilight and rises in a thick column of neck to a face with a wide jaw, strong chin, and cruelly slanted lips of deep silver. They match the gleam off the stranger’s eyes, which flash like mirrors one moment, a fathomless, starry sky the next. The glaucus face doesn’t seem to know where it should end, pulled back in points as if held by invisible pins. Long, gleaming hair of blue-black hangs unbound down the stranger’s back, almost touching the ground.

“Who are you?” I whisper in wonder.

“Luthian of Mithrax,” he says. He bows so deeply, our noses nearly touch. “Think of me as your faery guardian.”

Chapter Two

I open my mouth to ask a million questions, but I can’t settle on one.

Luthian offers me his hand. “Come on. You’re soaked to the bone. Let’s get you someplace dry.”

Not knowing what else to do, I reach up for him. The moment my muddy fingertips touch his gloved hand, my vision goes white. I blink it away and find myself in a place I don’t recognize.

The room is small, with deep cerulean walls and black furnishings. Even the fireplace is black, and the scorching blue flame from the hearth casts long, eerie shadows. I suspect that wherever I am, Thrace will not be able to find me, and I am warm and dry.

Warm and dry? I glance down at my hands in alarm. Just seconds before, I was lying in the crook of some tree roots, weighed down by my sopping funeral raiment. Now, silver satin brushes my comfortable skin, and over that, a luxurious robe of dark-blue velvet with a high collar and outrageously puffed sleeves.

There has been no time to change, and I don’t own anything so fine. My usual nightdress is a simple linen shift.

“There.”

I turn in my chair, peeking past the tall wing. Luthian stands framed by an enormous, round window, through which only a brilliant night sky shows. I’m not an expert in constellations, but intuition tells me that, should I study those stars, I will find they aren’t the same ones that shine in the sky above Fablemere.

“Isn’t that so much better?” he asks, striding to the chair opposite mine.

“Y-yes.” I swallow thickly. “Thank you?”

“Refreshment?” He rolls his hand on the end of his wrist, and a goblet appears. Its contents glow like a sapphire lit from within, and glittering metal embellishments cup the glass.

I reach for it, mesmerized, then pull my hand back. “We’re in Faeryland, are we not?”

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