Page 23 of Fae Tithe (The Cursed Courts #1)

F or the better part of a fortnight, Eleanor had been isolated and tutored by the Governess. She was the only person Eleanor saw besides the faerie maids and Manor Guards, who watched constantly and quickly locked doors behind her.

The Wraith had been giving the future Queen all the knowledge she could on how to be a monarch in an opulently oversized classroom.

To Eleanor, it seemed obscene in its dimensions, seeing as she and the Governess sat side by side and poured over books and papers on Seelie Queen etiquette and expectations.

His Queen. Eleanor shivered, terror pulsing through her body with every heartbeat.

Halfway through the fortnight, Eleanor’s bleed had arrived.

The morning she woke with it, the faerie with clipped wings helped change the bedsheets and gave her cotton to wear.

Eleanor surmised that the faerie must have reported her bleed’s arrival to the Governess, as the Wraith had made note of the teenager’s cycle.

Eleanor spotted it pencilled into the red leather diary the Governess carried.

This sent a cold chill of revulsion up her spine.

She remembered that the Seelie King had mentioned heirs, and her heart hammered at the thought of how soon he planned to act on that, especially with the Governess taking such notes.

Eleanor knew how children were made, and the thought of it terrified her.

On top of the laboriously long classes and gross invasions of privacy, she had been forced to drink a disgusting tea every day for the past fourteen days.

She had to consume it early morning, noon, and late afternoon.

The faerie maid who brought it always presented it in a beautifully crafted teacup.

The white porcelain, inlaid with golden whorls of roses and briars, came with a matching saucer.

The tea it contained was bitter and gritty.

Worst of all, it made her violently ill.

Hours later, the nausea and vomiting would pass, and she was given another dose to drink.

Her nights were also disturbed, and the reason why Eleanor struggled to resist the whirl of lessons and tea.

Every night, Rian made his presence known.

As she lay in her four-poster bed in the decadent bedroom she had been moved to, the Seelie King stalked her mind.

He would reach a mental talon to her in the darkness.

Rian would then caress the obsidian claw up across her chest and forehead, those invisible fish hooks slicing her skin and tugging her to the Fae, just like at the Interview.

He would be in her mind for hours, wearing down her mental shields and preventing her sleep.

Eleanor, wearied over the days and nights, was too exhausted to fight back.

On the fifteenth night and after the long-promised last dose of tea, Eleanor felt worse than ever. She returned from the bathroom, lips tugged down and limbs weak in exhaustion and misery.

Eleanor threw herself down onto the luxurious quilt.

Every door is locked and there are eyes on me all the time.

I can’t get away. I can’t… She squeezed her itching eyes shut, despair dragging tears from them.

What can I do? They won’t leave me alone…

then, even if I do get away, there is the ward.

Her forehead panged at the memory of the magical shield.

I want mum. She let out a gasping sob, the heave quickly turning into the familiar churn of needing to vomit.

Eleanor swung her legs from the bed, toes landing onto the red plush carpet, and made a mad dash for the ensuite.

She shoved herself through the bathroom door and sprinted towards the toilet.

Eleanor dropped in front of it, bruising her knees on the spotless tiles, and vomited into the bowl, bringing up nothing but bile from her empty stomach.

Eleanor leant back on her heels, clutching her middle. Her face paled as she dropped her chin to her chest and whimpered. My bleed has finished. Why are the cramps worse? Why do I feel more ill?

She leant forward to retch into the bowl again, sweat from the effort soaking her body.

A gentle, psychic talon scraped along her mind.

Eleanor recoiled and fell painfully onto her rear.

The claw was stronger than all the times before.

She felt he was closer. Just then, she realised that King Rian was in the dimly lit bathroom with her.

“Oh, my poor dear…” he tutted as he prowled over to Eleanor. “What a mess. The Governess had reported that you were struggling with the tea.”

He was a picture of simple refinement. The King wore black leather boots halfway up his calves, with slim-fitting black trousers tucked into the tops of them.

He wore a loose, white cotton shirt that dipped low onto his chest, a fine dusting of blond hair peeking in between the gap.

His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing off his well-muscled alabaster forearms. The King wore no crown upon his head.

Eleanor could do nothing but peer up at him blearily. There was no answer. She felt far too ill, too exhausted. Another wave of nausea hit her. She shifted forward and vomited bile into the toilet again.

She felt the Seelie King swoop down and gather her long hair in his ringed fingers, individual strands catching and tugging sharply against the jewellery.

He held it back for her as she retched again and again, until she slipped back into a cross-legged position in front of the toilet.

Rian released her waves then and tucked an escaping section behind her ear.

He stood back to his full height, towering above her.

The Seelie King offered her a huge hand, which Eleanor took weakly.

He pulled her to her bare feet. Her white lace nightgown stuck to her with sticky perspiration.

She noticed Rian run his greedy, red-brown eyes over her slim form, and she felt her stomach twist in revulsion.

The Fae placed his hands on Eleanor’s shoulders and steered her towards the bath.

It was huge and porcelain, standing on four bronzed paws tipped with talons, bolted to the tiles.

He clicked his fingers at it. The huge bath filled with sweet-smelling, opaque water, and translucent bubbles formed around the edges.

“Lovely. Hop into the bath,” he encouraged. “It will refresh you.”

“Your Grace, can you leave so I can get undressed… please?” Eleanor asked.

Rian gave her a slow, feline blink. “No.”

He turned his back to her instead. Eleanor was sure the King was feigning giving her privacy, but she desperately wanted to bathe.

She felt so filthy after all the vomiting and sweating.

She also ached from the inside out. Eleanor reasoned that the warm water would help.

The teenager turned her back to him and quickly peeled the nightgown from her clammy skin.

She pulled it over her head and tossed it away into a corner of the dimly lit room, the Fae Lights appropriately adjusted for the nighttime.

Eleanor sighed as she slipped into the huge bath. It gave her plenty of modesty, as the water was completely clouded. The warm water eased the dull ache within her and washed away the sweat, making her feel significantly better.

She had resisted, dug in her heels, wrenched at locked door handles, and tried to pick the window locks with hair pins. Nothing had worked. Fear and exhaustion dogged her constantly. She had tried to run and resist, so Eleanor decided to ask.

“Your Grace?” she said gently, painfully aware that most powerful being in Seelieland was a mere step away from her. “Can I please go home?” Tears fell from her hollow cheeks. Her appetite had diminished, and she had lost weight due to the nausea.

The Seelie King turned to her. He cast his red-brown eyes down to Eleanor’s tear-stricken face and studied her. “My dearest, you must know by now, I am your home.”

“Please?” Eleanor sobbed. Her voice cracked, tears cascading into the water pooled around her chest, leaving faint ripples in the cloudy bathwater.

She saw a line appear between King Rian’s perfectly arched eyebrows. He folded his long legs beneath him and kneeled by the side of the bath. He balanced an elbow on the porcelain edge, his chin resting in the palm of his hand.

“My lovely, you would be best to forget your old home. It is already done.” He removed his chin from his hand and reached towards her. Eleanor recoiled as his fingers tucked her wet waves behind her ears and brushed the tops of each.

“What is?” Eleanor asked, her face crumpling and tears falling freely.

“You see, today, as you know, was the last day for the tea.” Rian explained softly, withdrawing his hand from her and resting it lightly on the edge of the bath.

Eleanor’s mind felt so muddled that she could not follow where he was leading. “What does that mean?” she asked, tucking her knees to her chest in the bath water and hugging them.

“Come now, my darling,” Rian tutted. He removed his arm from the bath’s edge and stretched it to the side table next to him, reaching for the large hand mirror there.

He grabbed the ornately patterned object with a spiralling dragon carved into the mahogany handle.

The Seelie King held the glass in front of Eleanor’s sickly face.

With his other hand, he cupped the teenager’s chin and turned her face one way, then another.

“Look,” he ordered.

Eleanor could barely recognise herself in the highly polished mirror.

Earlier that night, the teenager had caught a glimpse of her reflection in the full-length mirror in the bedroom, while a faerie maid fussed to get the teenager ready for bed.

She had looked gaunt and exhausted, but nothing like she did now.

The bones in her face were sharpened and more angular.

Eleanor’s eyes were bigger, brighter. The sky blue had been marred with a starburst of bright, shifting silver, not unlike the sun fire Rian had swirling in his irises.

Her skin was smoother and clearer. There was no sign of the natural flaws found in humans.

Gone were the freckles from a happy childhood in the sun and the normal pimples of a teenager.

Most importantly, she noticed her ears, the now pointed tips marking her as Fae.

Her blood ran cold as she saw that change.

“My ears!” she squeaked. “What did you do?”

The King merely smiled at Eleanor, as though he were waiting for her to figure it out herself, hand still on her chin.

“Is this why I have been so sick?” the teenager asked. She touched the tip of her ears. They twitched in response.

“Things tend to… get messy, when you die. The vomiting was your body’s way of purging the human part of you.” King Rian finally explained, running his thumb down her cheek.

“My human body… died?” Eleanor recoiled from his caressing thumb. She slipped away from him in the water. Her back touched the opposite edge of the bath. The teenager was as far away from the lurking Fae as she could possibly get.

Eleanor saw the Seelie King’s brown eyes flash completely scarlet for a blink at her retreat, before returning to their red brown. Her stomach clenched at the sight, sensing the distinct aura of fury lurking just below his smooth face.

“Yes. You have been Changed,” he replied, retracting his huge arm.

“Changed,” she parroted.

“Yes, dearest.” Rian rose from his kneeled position by the bath, his full height towering above her. “The correct term is Changeling. It happens to all the brides chosen from the Tithe.” He looked down, smoothing his elegant white shirt before returning his eyes to her face.

“Why?” Eleanor shivered, frozen now despite the warmth of the bathwater, numbness overtaking her. “Why do this to us? To me?”

“The Changeling Potion is so you become as close to Fae as possible. I will not have half-blood children in my line. Certainly, the other Seelie Lords will not either. Not officially, at least.” He smirked.

Eleanor’s mind flashed to her Aunty Rose and her twin boys. Yes, I know all about that. She sharpened her gaze at him. “Half-blood… half human, half Fae, you mean?”

“That’s correct Eleanor.” It was the first time Rian had used her first name, saying it with a snap. “Children of Fae and Changelings are also likely to be very strong and often extraordinarily gifted in magic.”

“You Changed me so we can marry, and I have your children.” Eleanor’s mind turned like wheels on a carriage.

“You wanted me to be a Changeling, so I produce powerful heirs?” Something snapped within her.

“I am not even an adult! You stole me!” she shouted from the edge of the bath.

“You took me from my friend, my mother, my family, my home! You broke the Circle!”

“The circle…?” The King scrunched his nose. It was the first time Eleanor saw so many lines on his perfect face. “Never mind. They will be fairly compensated when you tell me where they are.”

“Compensated?!” Outrage fired her weakened muscles.

She surged upwards, the water sloshing at her mid-thighs.

Her arm flew out to grab the fluffy towel hanging from the freestanding golden bar next to the bath.

She wrapped it around herself, the bottom hem dunking into the water.

“You think my family wants money ?” she snarled, feeling a flush of power as she stood her ground against him.

King Rian’s eyes glowed red as he raised his hand. He swiftly slammed the back of it into Eleanor’s cheek. She stumbled, clutching her towel to her chest with one hand, her other whipping out to steady herself on the golden stand next to the bath.

The King sneered, amusement dancing on his face like the flames in his eyes. “I claimed you for that fire, that loyalty, that mind.” Rian reached down again, and she flinched away. This time, he gently stroked the red welt on her cheek. “You are mine . Do not forget that.”

Eleanor’s mouth opened and closed in shock, frozen under the King’s touch.

“Imagine what will happen when the fire you have burns for me,” the Seelie King rumbled, his voice thick and husky. “More than just Seelieland will bow to us.”

Rian stepped back. An ember glow surrounded his tall figure, and then he dissipated into the low light of the lavish bathroom. The Fae Lights flickered as he did so. The Seelie King left Eleanor standing in the bath, alone and shivering with rage.