Page 1 of Convincing His Little Bee (K!nktober #2)

ONE

“Fuck a duck!” Cin yelled, stomping his foot. He tried again to loosen the rough metal chains around his wrists. He had been locked up for hours making no progress with the bindings. Sighing heavily, Cin flopped down onto the meager pile of straw in the corner of the small, dank cell.

“Did you know that ducks have really weird penises?” A voice outside his cell spoke. It was too dark for Cin to see into the other cells. He hadn’t even realized any other spaces were occupied.

“I don’t actually spend time thinking about animal dicks so…

no I didn’t know that.” Cin tried scraping the manacles against the stone walls.

The runes etched into the sides dampened his magic.

If he could distort enough of them, the spell might become inert.

Although, he couldn’t exactly control his size shifting so he’d still be in chains but it would be an improvement. Right ?

“They do, it’s shaped like a corkscrew.”

“What the fuckstick for? That sounds painful!” That was…TMI. Cin hadn’t needed to know any facts about ducks to be honest. At least the trivia was entertaining, helping him to think of anything but the fact that he had been kidnapped. Faenapped . Whatever .

“The echidna has a four headed penis.” The stranger continued. Cin wondered if there were other prisoners listening to this conversation as well. Guards, maybe?

“Maybe that would be okay if you could squish them together.” Cin squinted into the darkness, trying to picture what that would possibly look like on a person.

“Dolphin’s dicks are prehensile, like a hand.” The voice rattled off facts like a disembodied computer. A slight hint of fascination, but for the most part, they spoke with no emotion. Cin couldn’t help but wonder how long they had been down here.

“Sounds…handy.” Cin sighed heavily, his arms so fucking tired. The runes themselves had to be part of the spell because there wasn’t a nick anywhere to be found after his attempts to scrape up the symbols.

“Barnacles have dicks that are almost 40 times the size of their bodies.”

“Okaaaay….Even certified size queens would think that’s a bit excessive, surely.”

“Some octopuses have a penis that they rip off and just throw at the female.”

“Sometimes the dick is good but the body it’s attached to is just a walking twatwaffle, so I get that.

” Cin leaned against the wall close to the iron bars so he could keep talking to his neighbor.

Maybe once they got off the topic of animal peens, the stranger would know something useful that could help them escape together.

“Yeah…” They sighed, seemingly running out of interesting animal facts.

“Why do you know so much about animal dicks?”

“I’m in school for animal science and my brother dared me to write a paper about animal sexuality in third year. It was interesting so I pitched the topic to my mentor for my thesis. Now I’m a font of knowledge about strange animal dicks and sexual practices.”

“Wait. Are you human?” Cin scrambled to his knees, pressing his face into the bars attempting to see the man, frowning.

Humans weren’t often seen in different realms. Especially in The Crimson Reaches.

Life wasn’t always kind here. One of the reasons Cin was technically not allowed to be there at all.

If only that was the reason for his faenapping.

“Yup. Human as can be.”

“How did you end up here?” With no light beyond the flicker of a candle radiating from the stairs to the far left, Cin couldn’t see his fellow captive to his right. Dark, black, nothing. Cin couldn’t see anything in the dark without access to his powers.

“Here as in kidnapped or here as in another realm?”

“Both if you feel comfortable sharing. We don’t have much else to do.” Giving up on getting a glimpse of the human, Cin sat back down, doing his best to keep his wings from scraping against the rough stone.

“Fair.” Cin heard them shifting, their chain clanking as they probably got more comfortable for a longer chat.

“My name is Cin by the way, he/him. I’m a pollinator fae.” It would be nice for someone else to know who he was in case the worst happened. He’d seen plenty of Earth movies to know when you were locked in a dark cell nothing good could come of it.

“I’m Parker, also he/him. Are you…the size of a bug? Or are plants in your realm huge?” Parker sounded like he was trying to picture both scenarios and it made Cin chuckle.

“Kind of both but also neither?”

“That’s the most helpful response you could have given, thanks.” Parker chuckled.

“Plants in my realm can be huge but also Earth sized. Pollinator fae change size. We travel to different realms to pollinate flora so our magic has adapted with us. Changing to whatever we need to help plants thrive.”

“That’s really cool. How are you trapped then? Can’t you just…make yourself smaller?”

“I wish.” Cin tried to ignore the smell of mold, rot, and feces that permeated the cells. “The chains I’m in are spelled, my magic doesn’t work. But even if it did…I’m a terrible pollinator fae. I can’t control my size like everyone else.”

“Oh.” Parker replied. “That must be difficult.”

“It is.” The pair went silent, lost in their own thoughts.

Cin was pretty sure they were several floors underground, no noise traveled down the stairs or moved the ground above his head.

Water dripped, mice scurried and squeaked, but other than that it was a hollow, quiet space. “Is it just the two of us here?”

“Yeah.” Parker replied. “There was a group of…I don’t know what. I couldn’t see them and they spoke in a weird guttural language. They got taken away a few days ago.”

“How long have you been in this cell?” For Cin, it had been a few hours. Would the other pollinator fae tell an elder he’d been faenapped? More than likely, the group Cin had been with would never speak of him again and play innocent if anyone asked.

They weren't his friends, just other fae at a similar level of training. Young, naive. Idiots. Assholes .

“I’m…not sure anymore.” Parker’s chains clanked softly. “I was in the woods near Seattle. Doing field research. Observing mating habits of endangered animals native to the area.”

Cin didn’t know exactly where Seattle was, he had never been to Earth. It required much higher training to access. Humans could be nasty if they learned about anything…different. It wasn’t safe there. It’s not fucking safe here either.

“It was—” Before Parker could continue the story of how he’d ended up in The Crimson Reaches as a human, a large clanking thud interrupted them.

“Someone’s coming.” Cin scrambled to stand, not wanting to be in a lowered position to whoever or whatever came down. Heavy footsteps stomped on the stone, slow and methodical. The flicker of a flame descended alongside the noise, Cin blinked rapidly to adjust his sight to the brightness.

By the time the large, hulking demon entered the hallway, Cin only had to squint a little in the light of the flame.

The fae had never seen the demon before, this creature wasn’t in the group that had grabbed him from the woods.

Brownish green skin, hair long and matted.

He wore torn and dirty clothes, several daggers had been strapped to a belt around his extra large waist.

The demon pulled a blade, crusty with blood but Cin wouldn’t take the chance of it still being sharp enough to cut. He gestured back and forth between Cin and Parker with the weapon.

“Behave.” His voice sounded like he gargled rocks regularly. He stepped to Parker’s cell and unlocked the door, waving him out to stand against the far wall.

In the candle light, Cin finally got a glimpse of the human for the first time.

He appeared taller than Cin’s base form.

Not like that’s hard. Parker kept his shoulders hunched but Cin could see how thin and malnourished he appeared.

His hair looked like it was supposed to be blond but had become covered in dirt and grime.

The human wore jeans and a shirt, dirty and torn.

He sported a short beard and glasses, cracked on one lens and sitting crooked on a nose that appeared to have been broken and set incorrectly.

Tearing his eyes from the human, Cin watched carefully as the demon unlocked his own cell and gestured for him to join Parker. “Where are we going?” Cin asked, shuffling past the putrid smelling demon.

“Where I tell ya’ to.” He waved them both ahead of him. Thankfully their legs were free of chains so they didn’t trip as they moved. Cin flashed a soft smile to Parker who returned it to the best of his ability. Parker…he…he had been in that cell for a while. Too long.

When Cin had been dragged down these stairs before, he had been blindfolded and frightened.

His eyes were free this time, so he focused on looking for anything that could help them escape.

His enhanced fae senses were blocked by the stupid chains, but he did his best. Nothing hung from the walls of the stairwell, not even a railing to grasp, no debris left on the stairs.

One hundred or so steps to the top, Parker’s breathing was labored by the time they made it to the slightly ajar door. The metal door creaked open when they reached the last few stairs.

“Take them to Vin.” Another demon at the top spoke to the one at their back as he held the door open. Two other demons sat in the small room. Four demons. All taller, stronger, with more magic than Cin could control even if he could access his own.

Crap buckets.