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His words hit harder than my fall down the well, and before I lifted my ax, he was behind me, his hand on my throat. I could feel his long nails pressing into my skin. He drew my head back to the point that I thought my neck would break.

Several sharp pricks stung my palm, and I hissed at the pain, dropping my ax. The handle had grown thorns. With my hands free, I reached for the beast’s at my throat, but even as I sunk my own nails into his skin, he did not move.

“Vicious thing,” he said, and I could feel his lips against my cheek. “Vicious fae.”

“Don’tcall me that,” I said between my teeth.

He chuckled, fingers pressing deeper.

“Which word? Vicious or fae?”

Being fae, no matter how little, had never served me. The villagers whispered that my blood had killed my mother and it had not saved my sister from the forest.

It had, though, ensured I would always be alone. I had no family, no friends, no lovers.

The prince’s voice rumbled against my skin, and I felt it in my chest. He spoke slowly, his lips trailing along my jaw, and I hated the way it made me feel, too conscious of the emptiness between my thighs, of the heat roiling in my gut, fueled by the press of his cock against my ass.

I hated it, and yet I pressed into him harder. I almost wished he would hurt me so I could stop these awful feelings firing through my veins.

“Youknowwhich word,” I seethed, my voice fierce but quiet. I could not speak any louder. I could barely breathe.

“But you are fae,” he said.

“Not enough to tell,” I said.

I was not even sure when my blood had come to mix with the fae I only knew it had been many great-grandfathers ago. No matter how many years passed, the people of Elk remembered, and the fae, they alwaysknew.

“Enough for me to taste.”

His free hand splayed across my hip, and my nails bit into him to keep from guiding him lower, to the heat between my legs.

“Tell me, she who does not wish to be fae, why have you come?”

“I didn’t…not of my own accord,” I said.

“Do you want to know what I think?”

I swallowed hard, and the pressure of his hand was heavy against my throat.

“I’d rather you let me go.”

“You shouldn’t lie to an elven prince,” he said, and his hand began to gather the hem of my shift. My muscles tightened even more, screaming as I remained against him.

“What makes you think I’m lying?”

“Shall I give you three reasons?” he asked.

“One will suffice,” I said again, though I could barely recall what he had said or what I had wanted to say, my mind so clouded with a lustful wish to feel him inside me.

Wish.

Great consequences came from careless wishes, even unspoken. One never knew who was listening, even to thoughts.

“Not once have you tried to run,” he said.

For the first time, I jerked in his arms.

“Ah, ah, ah, vicious creature,” he said, and suddenly he was in front of me, his hand never leaving my neck as he guided me back, pinning me against a wall. Every part of his body rested against mine, hard and aroused, and I was a willing prisoner to it, melting into something soft and supple.