Page 78 of Royal Captive
“Why did they single her out? What’s going on?” I demanded of him.
“I like your little female. And that’s saying something, coming from me. She reminds me of my queen.” Hayida pulled me along beside him, refusing to relinquish his hold on my hand. I couldn’t help but notice it was the one with the cuff.
“Come, little princeling. Sometimes mysteries get solved by simply waiting. We have much to do. Try to use the time without her distracting presence tofocus.”
My mouth opened to argue with Hayida, but I slammed it shut as he pulled me out into the yard and I saw how it had been transformed while we ate.
White paint lined out the perimeter of dozens of boxes, each separated into four smaller boxes.
Hayida hit me on the back, nearly knocking me over with the force. “Like I said, you must forget about her for the moment. We have our own problems to worry about.”
Unease crept into my veins. “What is this? I’d thought I was done with this.”
Hayida bared his fangs. “Princeling, welcome to your first practice trial.”
Twenty-Six
ELLIS
No. Absolutely not.
Fuck that.
I’d already served my time and took part in the fae’s sick idea of games. I’d be damned if I went through it again.
Hayida snorted, reading my posture and body language. “Suit yourself,” he grunted, pushing off from the wall’s ledge and casually walking into the shadow of the building’s corner, disappearing.
How the fuck did he do that?
I glanced down at the cuff on my wrist, not eager to burn my flesh down to the bone again.
It didn’t matter because I wouldn’t participate.
“Select a box!” The voice that shouted at us from overhead speakers wasn’t Cassus’s, but it put me back there, in the hellish prison box, dying from withdrawal and with no hope.
Stop it. You’re not there any longer.
No, instead I was here, in the fae realm, my situation no better except I’d broken through my addiction to drink.
I tamped down the inappropriate urge to giggle at the absurdity of it all. The other prisoners practically ran to the squares, sizing up who else had already gone into a square and using some sort of strategy I couldn’t comprehend to decide where to stand.
I stayed where I was.
“Move to a square.”
A fae guard appeared next to me, his staff already glowing purple with magick. My feet moved forward toward a square before I could even help it. Pain was a faster motivator than anything else. Reluctantly, I took the last square left.
Strumo grinned at me from across the box.
Oh, now I realized what the frantic shuffle had been about. The other two in my box were a rough looking, older human man and a much younger one who pissed himself when Strumo flashed his fangs at him.
Great.
“Once served, the ball must bounce once in your square before you hit it. You must hit it into any square other than yours with an open or closed fist. You cannot hold the ball once it is in play. Do not hit the lines or hit the ball again in your square or outside of the squares. We will reorganize squares as needed. Begin.”
That seemed … deceptively simple. A black ball appeared in the box of the younger human man, who approached it warily before screwing his eyes shut and grabbing it.
I tensed, but nothing happened.
