Page 47 of Blackwarden
“To my loveliest maidens and my beloved Blackwarden.” Bevgyah raised a glass of gold colored wine high. “The Mother has blessed me and may she continue to bless the Unseelie Court.”
Everyone around me responded with a resounding “Mother bless thee.” Before they collectively brought glasses of the same golden wine to their lips. All except myself and the Blackwarden. He stood perfectly still, only his chest moving with each breath, as he stared at me with an intensity that gave me shivers. Perhaps he always noticed the newest member of his queen’s harem. He would have no reason to look at me otherwise. I was perhaps the least lovely of the other maidens Bevgyah had collected.
After the toast of sorts, other guests poured in behind her majesty filling the room with chaotic movement and music. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself and when I glanced around to ask Nessa, she’d been pulled aside by a Fae female with green skin, four arms, and massive lower teeth that jutted out from between her lips.
It was all so strange and overwhelming that I backed away until I was pressed against the wall where I could watch the pageant of human girls and Dark Fae. They drank wine and plucked treats from trays that were carried around the room by smaller Fae creatures. Some guests had wings like the queen’s Blackwarden along with antlers or horns, others had lower halves that looked like an animal’s, with knees bent in the opposite direction and fur covering them rather than clothing. Some were so massive their heads or horns nearly scraped the ceiling.
Hands disappeared beneath clothing; teeth bit things other than food. I tried not to stare, but there was nowhere to look that I didn’t feel as if I was interrupting some private moment. My skin was crawling as one Fae male quite literally ripped the top of one of the maiden’s dresses down so he could kiss her breasts. I squeezed my eyes closed begging to be somewhere else, anywhere but here.
“I know this feeling.” A familiar voice, like from a distant dream, bloomed goosebumps across my arms.
I peeled my eyes open and froze. The Blackwarden stood beside me, his wings pressed against the same wall, a glass of wine in each hand. He was watching the debauchery as he held one of the glasses in my direction.
“This makes things easier.”
Perhaps if my hand hadn’t been trembling when I reached for the glass, I might not have seemed like such a scared little girl in a strange place. It was everything, the music, the swaying bodies as wine was consumed from navels and...other places. It was the Blackwarden’s proximity, the heat which seemed to radiate from him. The sound of his voice. Everything all at once.
I pressed the glass to my lips but hesitated. Something felt wrong. Something was so very wrong about everything around me. I was hit with the strongest feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be here. I lowered the glass and closed my eyes, trying to fade intothe safety of my mind where it was just me and the murky feeling that I was forgetting something very important.
I don’t know how long I stood like that, a full glass of Fae wine in my hand, eyes closed, trying my best not to run in terror. It was long enough that I assumed the Blackwarden would have gone. But when I glanced up, I found his flawless face watching the crowd as if he’d seen this countless times. Seen it but chosen not to participate.
He looked down at me, the same feeling that he was familiar wriggled around in the back of my mind, causing the hair on my neck to stand on end.
“I feel like I should know you,” I said softly.
What exactly possessed me to say this out loud? He didn’t look away. In fact, his expression didn’t change at all, and I wondered if he’d even heard me.
“I hope your memories come back to you,” he said as he slipped from the wall and left me alone, my body buzzing from the sound of his voice.
I didn’t bother trying to pry my eyes from him as he walked with the grace of a god toward Bevgyah. He didn’t touch her. He hovered beside her as she traced lines over one of the human maiden’s bodies with hungry fingers. When the queen realized her consort had returned to her side, she slipped beneath his arm, a hand climbing up the center of his chest and wrapping around his neck possessively before she yanked him toward her.
The way she kissed him was forceful, perhaps for show, to claim him as her own. I took in a sharp breath of jealousy I didn’t deserve to feel as Bevgyah’s hand crawled down his chest and tucked beneath the waistband of his pants. He seemed unfazed by her groping and when Bevgyah went back to fondling the human girl, his eyes once again planted themselves firmly on me.
It was how he stood, perfectly still, his hands to himself, while everyone else in the room seemed content to touch and feel and caress. I couldn’t stand to watch anymore. I fled through the doorI’d been led through and down the hall, blind to my surroundings. I just needed out of there, away from whatever this was. A piece of me knew it was wrong, knew I didn’t belong here. I was forgetting so many important things.
The halls of the queen’s palace were just as mysterious and terrifying as she was. Night descended on my first day in this place, and I was no more comfortable than I’d been the moment I woke. Every surface seemed painted or carved with twisted monsters in compromising positions with humans and Fae and...I couldn’t look anymore. I shielded my eyes with my hands on the sides of my face so I wouldn’t accidentally see them and kept moving.
I’d run without direction and now I had no idea where I was. I only knew I was frantic to find a safe place I could hide for the foreseeable future. Maybe the queen would forget about me entirely, and I could figure out a way to sneak out of this place. I turned down another hall, this one wider, grander, with a vaulted ceiling that soared overhead, so high I wasn’t sure how the structure could have been built in the first place. It made me feel tiny, insignificant, and lost. Braziers spaced between black wood panels seemed to burn in slow motion. Another half memory forced itself to the surface of my consciousness. I’d seen this magic before—flames taunting me with a sinister laugh.
I crept along the wall of the new hallway until I found a door left slightly ajar and slipped inside. This room was completely dark, the cool air making it feel empty. A brazier flared to life beside me as I entered and I flinched, covering my head with my arms. When nothing happened, I glanced around, finding a massive mirror on the far side. I remembered this place, I’d been here before, though the last time this room had been full of smoke and shadows. This was where I’d first woken up in this place. It hit me then—the dark figure I’d seen being lifted from the ground had likely been the Blackwarden. Those wings and horns were impossible to forget.
But now, the shadows were gone.
It was just me, the mirror, and my curiosity.
Chapter 24 ~ Clutches of a Curse
Keres
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She disappeared from her place against the wall. I’d looked away for only a moment and she was gone. A ribbon of panic wrapped around my throat, blocking out all other emotions pressing at my mind for attention. I craned my neck to find her, but as far as I could see, she wasn’t in the harem anymore.
The dress she’d been put in was hard to miss. Two slits on either side of a full skirt allowed for slices of her legs to peek through. While the neckline was modest, it showed her perfect abdomen from just under the curve of her breasts to the apex of her hips. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how her skin tasted. My breath caught imagining her beneath my hands. But I wasn’t the only one who had watched her with unrestrained desire. There were others in the harem who watched her, their eyes seeing everything I could see. I worried one of her other admirers may have taken her somewhere when I’d been distracted by Bevgyah.
The Hag leaned toward my ear. “Just like you to choose the one you can’t have just yet.”
A strange flutter of excitement mixed with dread writhed through me at the mention ofhavingRosalin. I’d hoped myconcern for her hadn’t been too obvious, but that was impossible. I wasn’t exactly hiding the fact I’d been watching her. And I knew the rules. The magic Bevgyah used to strip away memory needed time to solidify, and she liked her maidens to get acclimated to her frozen castle before they were taken to anyone’s bed. I could choose any of the maidens for Bevgyah and I to enjoy together, but not the newest addition.
