Page 27 of A Court of Hearts and Hunger
“Yes, although we do not worship it as mindlessly as humans do. And to my kind, the Unseelie, beauty can also be found in the grotesque.”
“Then why conceal your scars, and the—” I point to my own cheeks, hinting at the slashes in his face.
“It is a personal preference,” he says stiffly. “Lie down on the table.”
I climb onto the smooth surface and lie before him, feeling utterly helpless. But with the helplessness comes a ticklish awareness between my legs, a fluttering sensation low in my belly, a tightening of my nipples.
As the Rabbit takes a marked strip of cloth and begins to measure me, I allow my thoughts to creep closer to the admission that some primal part of melikesthis—enjoys being vulnerable and bare to a monster who has complete power over me—likes the careless little touches, the brush of his gloved fingertips here and there along my skin as he takes measurements.
He writes the numbers down in a notebook. Then he makes me open my mouth, and he presses lightly on my tongue with a flat stick while he peers down my throat. His gloved finger swipes along my teeth, testing each one. He checks my ears, pries up my eyelids, tells me to track the motion of his finger from side to side.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Lift your chin for me.” He tucks his fingertips beneath my jaw and presses gently, working his way down my throat.
It’s undeniable now. Wetness is seeping from between the lips of my sex. I know it’s related to sexual readiness; I’ve experienced it before, and I’ve felt the urge to explore that area. But I haven’t done so, because in our farmhouse there is never any privacy, not even in the outhouse. There’s always someone outside the door waiting to use the toilet. And at night, one or more little siblings would usually end up in my bed, claiming they’d had a nightmare, so I never had any chance for exploration there either.
Lying here, on a polished table, with a Rabbit-eared faerie conducting a dispassionate examination of my body, I want to touch myself more strongly than ever. It’s all I can do not to move my fingers to that place, the part of me that is buzzing and tingling with such intense need.
“Raise your arm above your head,” directs the faerie. When I obey, he probes my underarm area before moving to my breast. His fingers knead the soft flesh while he speaks in a cool, detached tone. “In older female specimens of your kind, there can be lumps here. They signal a systemic disease. I believe you’re too young for such decay, however. Your flesh is flawless.”
He checks the other breast before palpating my stomach area. “Organs seem healthy.” He leans down to my belly and his rabbit ears twitch, as if he’s listening. “Normal function, as far as I can tell. Of course we won’t know for certain until we open you up.”
Horror throbs in my gut, and tears pool in my eyes.
The Rabbit straightens, noting my expression. “I usually give my subjects an herbal potion that calms them and soothes any pain. They are conscious, but docile. Screaming distracts me from my work, you see. I prefer not to endure it.”
He regards me thoughtfully, tapping his chin, his mouth quirked in a faint smile. “You know, I do believe you’d watch your own dissection and ask me questions the whole time.”
He’s probably right. But his gloved hand is resting on my thigh, and blended with my fear is the frenzied desire to pick up his fingers and move them right between my legs.
“Shouldn’t you take the gloves off?” I say shakily. “You could feel everything better that way.”
His brows pucker. “You wouldn’t like the sensation of my touch. The scars are anything but soft.”
“Try me.”
He surveys my body warily. “I suppose you look clean enough.”
He peels off one glove. His palm hovers over my stomach, so close I can feel its warmth.
A second later, he lowers his hand to my skin.
His hand is rough, lumpy, striated with scar tissue.
“Can you feel, in spite of all the scars?” I ask. “Do they interfere with sensation?”
His face is tense, and the teeth I glimpse through the gash-mouths in his cheeks are tightly clenched. But after a moment he says, “I can feel that you have very soft skin. Slicing through it will be a keen pleasure. Yours will be a beautiful unraveling.”
Tears slip from my eyes, trailing along my temples. “You asked about my goals for my life. I would have liked to learn to read.”
His brows lift. “You can’t read?”
“Not well.”
“Then the Tama Olc, the spellbook, is of no use to you. Yield ownership to me, and I promise to make your end as gentle and painless as possible. Resist, and I will take you apart piece by piece, keeping you alive so you may see and feel it when I remove your stomach, your womb, your lungs, and finally your beating heart.”
“I’m not ready to die,” I whisper. “I’m only twenty.”
“No one is ever ready to die.”
