Cursed Rebel, page 5
Maybe it was just that she was pretty. His kind were, after all, known for their weakness when it came to beautiful things, whether it be shiny jewellery, fine artwork or a bonny girl’s face. Though he had been collecting humans for the King for many years and had undoubtedly seen girls much more beautiful than Lucy, he could not deny that she was very pretty. She had a soft, heart-shaped face and pink heart-shaped lips, and though her eyes were not a striking colour, there was something about that dark blue-grey shade. It reminded him of his favourite part of the Tangle, the Wild Loch. Her eyes were the exact colour of the Wild Loch’s water at twilight.
He looked at the glasses only the table, hers half-full of that odd fizzy drink, and his empty. Three slices of Drowsy Fruit still lay untouched on her plate, and he felt a pang of something like guilt at having deceived her. Undoubtedly, she’d figure it out when she woke up, and then she’d be angry.
Oddly, the thought both amused him and disconcerted him. He didn’t exactly want her to be angry with him—that would make their journey to the Palace much more difficult and unpleasant—but there was something about her anger that he liked. He was too used to humans who cowered from him, or fawned on him for his attentions because of his unearthly beauty. There were human girls who would be only too pleased if he came into their bathroom while they showered.
He thought of Lucy’s clenched teeth and flushed cheeks, her hair dripping around her face as she glowered at him from the shower and her embarrassment when he picked up her bra. He thought of the vague shape of her body, just a silhouette behind the foggy crystal of the shower door. Against his will, his eyes trailed back to the bed where she lay, and he saw she’d moved in her sleep, twisting the blanket and exposing a glimpse of her thigh.
His stomach tightened, and he realised, with no small amount of surprise, that he was attracted to her. He was attracted to the feisty, pretty, human girl. Oh, it wasn’t unusual for him to find human girls attractive, or even to take them to bed. But, in all his years of collecting beautiful mortals for the King, he had never once found himself attracted to any of his charges.
Yes, they were all gorgeous in one way or another, but none of them had ever had that thing, that spark, that made them attractive to him. The King liked them pretty but dumb, kind or weak-willed—ones who would be compliant and easy to make into servants.
Which begged the question, why had he been sent for Lucy? Lucy was not dumb, nor was she particularly kind, as he had seen in his time observing her. He had watched her for a week to make sure she was the right girl, the one the King had sent him to get, before he had approached her in the park. Even in the time since he had brought her to the Otherworld, he had seen that she was clever—clever enough to know not to trust him, to know not to eat food from a faery.
Thinking about it again, he felt even worse about feeding her the Drowsy Fruit, especially after she had apologised for mistrusting him when he’d suggested she eat. In truth, he had been both stung and unnerved by her reluctance to trust him, but he supposed she had been right to.
She was also stubborn. That was another thing. Lucy was the most stubborn human he’d met in a long time, clinging on to her instincts and fighting his attempts to lure her into trusting him. Normally, it took roughly three hours before his human charges began to feel at ease with him—less if he Charmed them, like he’d tried to do to Lucy that day in the park. Once they were comfortable with him, it was easier to make them forget about escaping and trying to get home, made it easier to get them safely to the Palace, where he could finally get them off his hands. However, he’d been with Lucy for nearly twenty-four hours, and she’d only just begun to relax around him.
He didn’t understand her, and he didn’t understand why the King wanted her. She would not make a good servant, especially seeing as she seemed immune to being Charmed. So, whatever he wanted her for, it must have been something else.
That worried him. There were only a handful of other reasons he could think of why the King would want a human girl, and all of them were much more unpleasant than being a servant.
In her sleep, Lucy made a soft noise, her eyes darting back and forth under her lids. She was having a nightmare, he guessed, and he was tempted to peek inside her head to see what it was about. But what if her nightmare was about him? If he was who she feared? The idea made his cheeks hot with shame. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. He didn’t want to see if her nightmare was about him.
So, he stayed in his seat and out of her head, watching the firelight play on her face, and silently hoped that the feelings he had so quickly developed for her would not deepen. He could not afford to become attached to her, not when he would have to betray her in the end.
Chapter Eight
** Lucy **
“Lucy. Time to wake up, Snowdrop.”
I awoke to someone whispering my name, the threads of a nightmare slipping away as I blinked my eyes open. Groggy and squinting, it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the clear morning light and to wonder where the hell the light was coming from, since there wasn’t a window in any of the four blank walls. For half a heartbeat, I couldn’t remember where I was or how I’d gotten there. Then I looked up, and found striking green eyes staring into mine, and everything came back in a rush of words, images and emotions.
I scrambled backward on the bed, my shoulders hitting the wall. Fin stood by the bed, smiling down at me. He was just as beautiful in the morning light as he had been the night before in the firelight. But somehow, he seemed colder, as if he’d let his guard down before, but it was back up.
“Did you drug me again?” I blurted. The last thing I remembered was eating that strange, sweet fruit, laughing as Fin grinned over a glass of Irn-Bru…and then nothing. I glanced behind him, at the table, but he’d cleared away all the evidence. Even the hearth was empty of both fire and ashes. I had the sudden worrying thought that he might have burned my clothes after all—the ones I’d left soaking in the sink in the bathroom and then had forgotten about.
Fin tilted his head. “No,” he said calmly, “I just gave you some Drowsy Fruit so you’d actually sleep instead of sitting glaring at me all night and plotting your escape.”
I stared at him for a moment, confused. Glaring at him? I’d thought we’d been having fun before I fell asleep—we’d been laughing. Or was that just an act on his part, to get me to eat the weird fruit so I would pass out? My hands clenched around the blanket in anger. I knew it, I thought, I should have known better than to trust a faery. Should’ve known better than to take food from him.
Glaring at him, I spat, “Bastard. You tricked me.”
He turned away, shrugging. I noticed that. though he wasn’t hiding his natural faery beauty, he was still wearing human clothes—jeans and a black t-shirt. The black contrasted with his bright hair, making it look even redder, almost the colour of wine.
“Go get dressed,” he commanded, his voice hard. He waved a hand at the wall, and the doorway to the bathroom reappeared.
Disliking his demanding tone, I stayed exactly where I was, glowering at his shoulder blades until he turned around and fixed me with a glare of his own that sent a chill down my spine.
“Go,” he snapped, pointing to the bathroom door. “Now.”
Gritting my teeth against both fury and fear, I slid off the bed and padded to the glowing door. I put my hand on the handle, pushed the door open a few inches, and then paused. Without turning back around to look at him, I said, “I wasn’t planning my escape last night. I was thinking that maybe you weren’t so bad after all…for a faery.”
There was a stretch of silence so long that I was sure he wasn’t going to answer. I started to push open the bathroom door wider, ready to go and get dressed as he’d commanded, but then his voice stopped me.
Tone sceptical, he said, “Really?”
Looking at the green bathroom tiles, I nodded. “Yes, really.” Turning to face him, I smiled grimly. He wasn’t looking at me, but staring into the cold hearth. “Guess I should’ve trusted my first instincts. And by the way…” I paused, waiting until he finally looked at me. I raised one hand and showed him one specific finger. Curling my lip, I said, “Don’t tell me what to do, faery boy.”
Without waiting for his reaction, I slipped into the bathroom and shut the door on his scowling face.
In the bathroom, I found a pile of clothes folded on the stool that held the towels, as I had the day before, when I’d come out of the shower. I ignored them and went to the sink, only to find it was empty, my clothes gone. So, he had burned them after all. Tosser.
I muttered curses under my breath, left with no choice but to wear whatever clothes he’d left for me. With some trepidation, I picked up the garment on the top of the pile. It unfurled itself into a long, blue linen tunic with a deep V-necked collar and ruching around the waist. It was pretty, if rather plain. Under that, there were trousers made of soft brown leather, stitched up the outer legs with thick lacing. I frowned at the odd clothing, but as I didn’t wish to go tromping around the woods in the shorts, I quickly undressed and changed into the tunic and leather trousers.
Dressed in the new clothes, I felt an uncomfortable blush spread up my face. The deep V of the collar revealed a little of my cleavage, the tight ruching showing off the dip of my waist. The leather trousers were almost skin-tight, hugging my thighs and backside in a way I didn’t like. I was used to baggy hoodies and loose jeans. The unfamiliar texture of the leather was strange against my skin, and I wished fervently for my jeans.
Annoyed and uncomfortable, I went to the sink and ran my fingers under the tap, combing through my hair as best I could without a hairbrush. Cupping the cold water into my hands, I swilled it around my mouth and spat, running my tongue over my teeth and longing for a toothbrush. I wondered if faeries even had need for such things, or if they were just perpetually perfect, no matter what.
At last, I gathered the t-shirt and shorts I’d slept in, tucking them under my arm as I stepped out of the bathroom. Fin was bent over the table with his back to me and didn’t look up immediately when I came into the room. I walked over, curious to see what he was doing, and saw he was placing things into a cute leather rucksack; a bottle of water, a few rolls of bread wrapped in rough cloth, a small knife with a blade made of some bright pale green metal I didn’t recognise.
Finally, as if irritated by my hovering, Fin turned to look at me, scowling, but his gaze became stuck before reaching my face. He blinked, his eyebrows rising, as he observed me in my new outfit. I pressed my lips together, resisting the urge to grab the blanket from the bed to hide myself from his probing gaze. His lips parted, and I thought he was about to make some snide remark, but instead he closed his mouth again and shook his head, muttering something so low under his breath that I couldn’t hear it.
Uncertain what to make of his reaction, I opened my mouth to ask him something, anything, but he held out a hand without looking at me.
“Give me those. I’ll put them in the bag for you.”
It took me a moment to realise he was talking about the clothes I had bundled under my arm. Silently, I handed them to him, and he folded them into the small rucksack. Then he twisted his wrist in a flippant gesture, and two a hairbrush and a toothbrush appeared in his hand. In his other hand appeared a tube of toothpaste. Apparently, the faery boy wasn’t ignorant of human needs after all.
My eyebrows went up hopefully, and Fin glanced at me. “Be quick,” he said, holding out both brushes and the toothpaste to me.
Eagerly, I snatched them and ran back into the bathroom—the doorway hadn’t slammed itself shut behind me this time. In the bathroom, I hastily scrubbed my teeth and rinsed my mouth out, then tugged the hairbrush through my hair. There was no mirror, so I couldn’t say how much good it did, but I felt better, cleaner, with minty breath and soft hair.
I returned to the other room, and the bathroom door disappeared behind me. I didn’t jump that time, though. Fin was standing by the wall we’d come through to get into the magical little cabin, looking impatient. The leather rucksack sat on the table, and he nodded to it, indicating I take it. I stuffed my hairbrush and toothbrush inside, on top of the shorts and t-shirt, and swung the pack onto my back, sliding my arms through the straps—the bag was surprisingly light.
Fin ran his eyes over me once more, but he seemed to be judging my appearance rather than gawking. After a moment, he nodded and said, “You’ll do. At least in that outfit, you won’t stand out like a goblin amongst the sprites.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, so I kept my mouth shut as Fin turned to the wall and placed a hand against it, spreading his fingers against the rough wood. He murmured a few words that sounded like they were in another language—Gaelic maybe—and suddenly the wood around his hand began to ripple like the surface of a pond after a drip has been dropping into it.
Turning, he reached out a hand to me, and I took it hesitantly. With a sigh, Fin stepped through the wavering part of the wall, tugging me behind him. Together, we landed back in the Tangle where we had stopped the day before. With wide eyes, I turned around, but there was nothing to see, no evidence of the cabin at all—only the bush with the red berries and narrow leaves. Whoa, I thought, my lips forming the word silently.
“Come on,” Fin said, snapping me out of my awe. “We’d better get going. We’ve got a long way to go yet, and it’ll get dangerous pretty fast, so stick close to me and, for Pixie’s sake, do watch your feet this time.”
Chapter Nine
** Lucy **
The sun was just as hot and bright as it had been the day before, and Fin kept up a frantic pace. We meandered through the Tangle, weaving between faintly glowing trees, blooming with peach blossoms, and patches of flat, yellow flowers that seemed to crawl across the ground in our wake and scuttle after my shadow like tiny, petal-dressed crabs. I dragged my heels as Fin skipped merrily ahead, bouncing in the trees, swinging from branches like an excited kid. Occasionally, he stopped flying about long enough to check that I was still tailing him and hadn’t been eaten by any of the strange-looking flora.
After what felt like a couple of hours, I was sweating and out of breath. I stumbled over a rock and came to a halt, resting my hands on my thighs. Ahead of me, Fin took notice that I’d stopped and came sauntering back to me, a small, amused smile on his lips. I glared at him, feeling a drop of sweat run down my neck. I felt sticky inside the tight leather trousers, and I considered changing back into the shorts I’d slept in.
“Do you ever stay still?” I asked, grimacing.
Fin went over to a nearby tree and reached up, grabbing hold of a low branch and tucking up his legs, so he hung from it like some oversized, demented monkey. He grinned at me, apparently perfectly comfortable in the stifling heat—but he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, not skin-tight leather. I was starting to think he was just wearing human clothes to piss me off.
Dick.
“Do you ever start moving?” he asked, cocking his head as he swung lightly from the branch.
I scowled at him, standing up straight and pushing my sweaty hair off my forehead. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He twisted his body up deftly, hooking his legs over the branch and letting go with his hands so that he hung upside down—looking more like a demented bat than a monkey. His t-shirt rode up, showing a portion of his torso, and I took only a half-second to register that he had a flat, toned stomach before looking away, annoyed.
“You move like a snail,” he said.
I was glad he didn’t seem to have noticed my ogling him.
“Or a sheep,” he added thoughtfully, tapping his chin with a finger.“A sheep, I think, is more appropriate, seeing as all you do is follow me around.”
My hands clenched into fists, and I wanted to grab a branch and beat him like a piñata. Instead, I threw up my hands in annoyance. “I don’t have much choice, do I?” I snapped. “Either I follow you to the Summer Palace like a good little lamb, or I wander off, try to find a way home and get eaten by a…a troll or a goblin or a freakin’ tree!” A sense of despair came over me as I said the words. I realised that those really were my only options. I was trapped there, and he was my only way home, but it was clear he wouldn’t be taking me back any time soon. At least, not until he’d taken me to his King, for whatever god-forsaken reason. It was all starting to sink in.
Tears stung my eyes, and I pushed them back, my despair quickly boiling over into fury. With a loud curse, I spun around and slammed my fist into the tree, hard enough that I scraped the skin off my knuckles and sent a jolt of pain through my entire hand. I cursed again, cradling my damaged fist to my chest and blinking back tears. I hated that place. I hated him for bringing me there. I wanted to go home.
Looking a little stunned by my violent outburst, Fin stared at me with wide, too-green eyes, his face starting to turn pink from the blood flowing to his head. Wordlessly, he flipped off the branch he was hanging from and landed on his feet. He took a step toward me, reaching for my hurt hand, and I whirled on him.
“Don’t touch me!” I snarled.
He ignored me, his hand darting out to catch my wrist. I tried to yank away from him, but his grip was firm. I spat expletives at him, but he didn’t seem to be listening as he probed my bleeding knuckles with a gentleness that further unnerved me. I yanked against his hold on me again, and he snapped his gaze to mine, his eyes narrow.
“Stay still. I’m trying to help you.”
I barked out a laugh. “Help me? You kidnapped me! I want to go home! Take me home!” I was aware I was throwing a tantrum like a little kid, but I didn’t care. I knew that as soon as I stopped being angry, the despair and fear would creep back in. I preferred the rage.
