Page 33 of Blackwarden

“You’ll see. So many of the Fae are strange looking, not like us at all.

But he’s...beautiful. Like too beautiful.

He and Bevgyah make the most gorgeous pair.

” She beamed at me with a generous smile.

“Bevgyah doesn’t allow him to visit us without her,” she said as she blushed, turning her cheeks a brilliant shade of pink.

“He’s only allowed to choose a maiden to share with her, but never to have for himself. ”

There was something unsettling about how Nessa spoke of having and sharing which made me shiver, but I tucked it away, along with all the other unease I was collecting to deal with later.

“What’s his name?”

“She only ever calls him her Blackwarden, her Gatekeeper.”

The words simmered in my throat. Something familiar about them.

Perhaps I’d just heard them in passing. I wanted to repeat them but instead tried to keep my face as innocuous as possible as she led me back out to loiter with the other maidens until the revel.

I would try my best to distract myself with all the new details of the queen’s palace, which Nessa shared while the others in the harem flocked around me.

––––––––

Nessa hadn’t been entirely forthcoming. The queen’s consort wasn’t just beautiful, he was startlingly gorgeous and terrifying all at once.

He towered over Bevgyah with onyx horns that swept back from his face.

His skin the same black with a silver sheen that seemed to accentuate every line of defined muscle.

A pair of massive wings lay tucked tight against his back.

He wore a sleeveless shirt with a daring neckline that showed much of his chest. His clothes matched the queen’s sheer gown perfectly—cream and gold with shimmering trim that caught the light every time he moved.

But it was his eyes that held me. They were truly inhuman, entirely black like the rest of him with silver irises which seemed to glow.

His long dark blue hair was pulled back away from his face, allowing for a perfect view of his sharp jawline.

His face was flawless. The more I looked at him, the more I couldn’t help but feel that there was something almost familiar about him, like I’d seen him before, but not him.

Someone who looked like him perhaps? But who could look like him?

Who could be as beautiful? I was certain I’d remember.

The queen’s Blackwarden was unforgettable.

I felt hot all over from looking at him, and it didn’t help that his gaze fell immediately on me after he and Bevgyah entered the harem. Something was so tantalizingly frightening about the way he openly stared, his eyes seeing every inch of me.

“To my loveliest maidens and my beloved Blackwarden.” Bevgyah raised a glass of gold colored wine high. “The Mother has blessed me and may she continue to bless the Unseelie Court.”

Everyone around me responded with a resounding “Mother bless thee.” Before they collectively brought glasses of the same golden wine to their lips.

All except myself and the Blackwarden. He stood perfectly still, only his chest moving with each breath, as he stared at me with an intensity that gave me shivers.

Perhaps he always noticed the newest member of his queen’s harem.

He would have no reason to look at me otherwise.

I was perhaps the least lovely of the other maidens Bevgyah had collected.

After the toast of sorts, other guests poured in behind her majesty filling the room with chaotic movement and music.

I wasn’t sure what to do with myself and when I glanced around to ask Nessa, she’d been pulled aside by a Fae female with green skin, four arms, and massive lower teeth that jutted out from between her lips .

It was all so strange and overwhelming that I backed away until I was pressed against the wall where I could watch the pageant of human girls and Dark Fae.

They drank wine and plucked treats from trays that were carried around the room by smaller Fae creatures.

Some guests had wings like the queen’s Blackwarden along with antlers or horns, others had lower halves that looked like an animal’s, with knees bent in the opposite direction and fur covering them rather than clothing.

Some were so massive their heads or horns nearly scraped the ceiling.

Hands disappeared beneath clothing; teeth bit things other than food.

I tried not to stare, but there was nowhere to look that I didn’t feel as if I was interrupting some private moment.

My skin was crawling as one Fae male quite literally ripped the top of one of the maiden’s dresses down so he could kiss her breasts.

I squeezed my eyes closed begging to be somewhere else, anywhere but here.

“I know this feeling.” A familiar voice, like from a distant dream, bloomed goosebumps across my arms.

I peeled my eyes open and froze. The Blackwarden stood beside me, his wings pressed against the same wall, a glass of wine in each hand. He was watching the debauchery as he held one of the glasses in my direction.

“This makes things easier.”

Perhaps if my hand hadn’t been trembling when I reached for the glass, I might not have seemed like such a scared little girl in a strange place.

It was everything, the music, the swaying bodies as wine was consumed from navels and.

..other places. It was the Blackwarden’s proximity, the heat which seemed to radiate from him.

The sound of his voice. Everything all at once.

I pressed the glass to my lips but hesitated.

Something felt wrong. Something was so very wrong about everything around me.

I was hit with the strongest feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be here.

I lowered the glass and closed my eyes, trying to fade into the safety of my mind where it was just me and the murky feeling that I was forgetting something very important.

I don’t know how long I stood like that, a full glass of Fae wine in my hand, eyes closed, trying my best not to run in terror.

It was long enough that I assumed the Blackwarden would have gone.

But when I glanced up, I found his flawless face watching the crowd as if he’d seen this countless times. Seen it but chosen not to participate.

He looked down at me, the same feeling that he was familiar wriggled around in the back of my mind, causing the hair on my neck to stand on end.

“I feel like I should know you,” I said softly.

What exactly possessed me to say this out loud? He didn’t look away. In fact, his expression didn’t change at all, and I wondered if he’d even heard me.

“I hope your memories come back to you,” he said as he slipped from the wall and left me alone, my body buzzing from the sound of his voice.

I didn’t bother trying to pry my eyes from him as he walked with the grace of a god toward Bevgyah.

He didn’t touch her. He hovered beside her as she traced lines over one of the human maiden’s bodies with hungry fingers.

When the queen realized her consort had returned to her side, she slipped beneath his arm, a hand climbing up the center of his chest and wrapping around his neck possessively before she yanked him toward her.

The way she kissed him was forceful, perhaps for show, to claim him as her own.

I took in a sharp breath of jealousy I didn’t deserve to feel as Bevgyah’s hand crawled down his chest and tucked beneath the waistband of his pants.

He seemed unfazed by her groping and when Bevgyah went back to fondling the human girl, his eyes once again planted themselves firmly on me.

It was how he stood, perfectly still, his hands to himself, while everyone else in the room seemed content to touch and feel and caress.

I couldn’t stand to watch anymore. I fled through the door I’d been led through and down the hall, blind to my surroundings.

I just needed out of there, away from whatever this was.

A piece of me knew it was wrong, knew I didn’t belong here.

I was forgetting so many important things.

The halls of the queen’s palace were just as mysterious and terrifying as she was.

Night descended on my first day in this place, and I was no more comfortable than I’d been the moment I woke.

Every surface seemed painted or carved with twisted monsters in compromising positions with humans and Fae and.

..I couldn’t look anymore. I shielded my eyes with my hands on the sides of my face so I wouldn’t accidentally see them and kept moving.

I’d run without direction and now I had no idea where I was.

I only knew I was frantic to find a safe place I could hide for the foreseeable future.

Maybe the queen would forget about me entirely, and I could figure out a way to sneak out of this place.

I turned down another hall, this one wider, grander, with a vaulted ceiling that soared overhead, so high I wasn’t sure how the structure could have been built in the first place.

It made me feel tiny, insignificant, and lost. Braziers spaced between black wood panels seemed to burn in slow motion.

Another half memory forced itself to the surface of my consciousness.

I’d seen this magic before—flames taunting me with a sinister laugh.

I crept along the wall of the new hallway until I found a door left slightly ajar and slipped inside.

This room was completely dark, the cool air making it feel empty.

A brazier flared to life beside me as I entered and I flinched, covering my head with my arms. When nothing happened, I glanced around, finding a massive mirror on the far side.

I remembered this place, I’d been here before, though the last time this room had been full of smoke and shadows.

This was where I’d first woken up in this place.

It hit me then—the dark figure I’d seen being lifted from the ground had likely been the Blackwarden.

Those wings and horns were impossible to forget.

But now, the shadows were gone.

It was just me, the mirror, and my curiosity.