Page 7 of Trapped to Tame
She shouldn't have.
* * *
Fie
He’d been watchingher for quite a while and the foolish female hadn’t even noticed him. She didn't even sniff the air. She seemed so human in every way that he could see. Perhaps it really was as Priest suspected, that she had no idea that she was half fae. But someone had to have known, surely, or else why chain her with iron, even bad quality iron?
Though he supposed it didn’t really matter. He just hoped to the gods that they would be able to use her power. They needed to get to the Underhill.Heneeded to get there.
He stared at the little female washing her face. So oblivious. Cocking his head, he surveyed her for a moment more. Gods she was ridiculously tiny, even for a human woman. Had she really thought it would be so easy to escape them? He sniffed the air again. She’d been so easy to track. She had no idea how to hide her presence from the forest trails. Broken sticks, footprints; everything had been left in her wake including her sweet smell. It was pathetic for a fae, even a halfling. He almost felt sorry for the wench.
He jumped down from the bough that he had been standing on, having waited for the moment when she was relaxed completely just so that he could scare her the most. Splashing her, he landed directly in front of her in the ankle-high water. She jumped back with a scream, falling into the stream.
He laughed loudly at her – and not without malice. Fie hated this girl’s father as much as Priest did, though perhaps not as much as Drax, and taunting her did make him feel better, petty as it was.
‘Get up and come on,’ he said. ‘You’ve cost us time.’
‘H–how did you find me?’ she stuttered.
He rolled his eyes and grabbed her by the back of the neck, urging her forward in front of him so he didn’t keep staring at her hard nipples poking through her thin shirt over that ridiculous jerkin she wore. At least they didn't have far to go to reach the others. The silly female had walked in circles all night and morning.
‘How does even a human like you get to adulthood and be so incompetent?’ he muttered. ‘Your own kin should have killed you out of mercy before your first bloods.’
She gave him a look of confusion that turned sharp. ‘I’m not incompetent.’
He snorted in response, his hand moving to her neck again to direct her.
She shook him off with a sound of anger. ‘I don’t need to be herded like a goat.’
‘Walk then,’ he ordered.
She was silent for a time as they made their way through the forest before she glanced back at him.
‘What did you mean when you said ‘a human like me’?’
He shrugged but inwardly he grimaced. Had he really said ‘human’? He pretended ignorance, as if it was normal for one human to call another such a thing. ‘Foolish. Living in squalor. Fighting in the rings for money.’ He took in her red jerkin. ‘Doingother thingsfor it.’
Her face was blank as she looked away, his intimation clear.
‘We’ll reach the camp soon,’ he said, glad she didn’t question his earlier choice of words any further and wanting to see her annoyance when she realized she’d walked around all night for no reason whatsoever.
She looked up at him. ‘But I walked for so long.’
He chuckled. ‘See? Foolish. No idea where you are. No sense of direction. It’s as if you’ve never been in the forest before.’
She looked down again and said, ‘I haven’t’ so quietly that if he wasn’t fae, he’d not have heard her.
He stopped in his tracks, incredulous. ‘You’ve never been in the forest? But you live in the middle of it …’
She turned away from him, continuing to walk and not saying anything more. Humans were such an odd breed, but Fie found he wanted to know more if only to satisfy his own curiosity.
‘How long did you live in the town for?’
She was silent and he thought perhaps she was finished talking, but then she answered him.
‘All my life.’
He scoffed. He couldn’t help it. ‘And you never ventured into the forest? Ever?’
