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Modesty aside, Puck stands in fatal proximity to exposing this truth. No matter what this lecherous heathen wants from me, I can’t let him discover the marking.

I shuffle, putting an inch between us. “I know myself well enough to predict what I can handle.”

Puck closes that inch, sealing it off. His chin hovers over my shoulder, his earrings tapping my shirt. “Always? At all times? In all ways?”

I want to say yes, but I can’t speak. With him this near, I’ve forgotten how my mouth functions.

I hadn’t expected him to be this shrewd, given satyrs’ legendary appetites for shallower pursuits. To say the least, my loathing for him breaks unrecorded barriers. Dismantling people and breaking them down to their finer points is my territory, and I abhor him for infringing on that.

He will pay for this. He will pay dearly.

My captor pulls away. “Not to worry,” he taunts, swaggering back into my line of sight. “I was hypothesizing for now. I only fuck with one subject at a time.”

My gaze clicks toward the blood staining the trunk’s entrance. “I’m not the first mortal who’s been here. What did you do to them?”

Vindictive crevices dig into Puck’s countenance. He plants himself in front of me, his abdomen almost,almostflush against my bust. Oxygen siphons from us both, the fabric of our garments in danger of colliding. “For the last time, mind that tongue,” he cautions. “Unless you’d like it removed from your mouth. Maybe that will give you an inkling of what happened to your mortal kin, among other dissections.”

Bile washes up my esophagus. “You dismembered them?”

“Nature did that, not I. The wild grows hungry, the fauna roam, and if they wander here, it’s not for us Faeries to deny animals their feast. However, the humans who did as they were told and played our game? They spent little to no time in here. I’d suggest you follow their examp—”

My spit hits its target, fluid splashing his face. Puck doesn’t flinch, though his eyes squeeze closed at the impact. I’ve shocked myself, yet I can’t bear to repent. As he’d spoken, I’d pictured those captives, villagers I might have known, humans who could have been my sisters, if their fates had been switched.

My body quivers but not with dread. I’m shaking from the satisfaction of watching my spittle dribble down Puck’s comely nose. He chuckles without humor, then wipes the saliva with a brush of his thumb.

He considers my actions for a heartbeat, then opens his eyes. Those sable irises fasten on to me, a certain kind of madness intensifying the color. “Now that’s more like it,” he compliments.

I’m tired. I’m thirsty, tense, confused, and appalled. I’m pulling more muscles by the second, my joints howling in agony. And yes, I’m terrified.

“See luv, you’re supposed to accomplish three things while you’re our guest,” he announces. “Pity for you, jumping straight to the nitty-gritty of Act Two isn’t how I work. I desire a preliminary first, an appetizing build-up to the main event. So do me a favor and cooperate, or I’ll get sulky. You don’t want to see me sulky.”

“What I want,” I vent, “is to see you in a trap of your own.”

“That,” he seethes, “is a mistake I only make once.”

My attention stumbles across the scars branding his calf, a line of puncture wounds made by iron teeth. A memory surfaces, vivid as though it happened yesterday.

Yes. Puck’s rant about being confined is warranted. He’s been caught in such a trap before. I was there when it happened.

But he doesn’t recognize me. He does not.

Because if he did, he would be treating me worse.

I resume a safer train of thought. He had referred to the revels’ setting as The Wicked Pines, whereas he’d called this woodland prison The Redwoods of Exile. Evidently, these locations have hosted their share of human victims. Glamoured or not, captives had either danced to the Faeries’ tunes, played their games, or languished in this cell. So if debasement and degradation is what these monsters do to mortal prisoners, what are the rulers of the sky and river doing to Lark and Cove?

“By any chance, do you have a nickname?” Puck inquires.

“You don’t need a nickname in order to badger me,” I say.

“No, but I’ll need it for the ransom letter.”

Very funny. “What do you want from me?”

I’m not fooled by his quips. I’m here at the mercy of whatever game he wants me to play, should I survive a night in this tree.

Intrigue simmers in his visage. He chews on his lower lip, considering something impertinent. I cement my features, then falter when his hand dives into my pocket, burrowing in and hunting through the fabric.

Even now, his elusive fingers manage to avoid physical contact, fishing through the garment with dexterity. Nevertheless, at this angle, our lips threaten to brush. And the nexus of my thighs lurches in a disturbing way.