Page 28 of Given to the Fae (The Dark Realms #3)

She looks at the others warily, as if she believes this to be a trick, but then rises from her place on the floor and chooses the seat next to mine. She sits upright, straight and prim with her feet on the floor and glances around the room as if taking it in from this new angle.

‘Bryn,’ Locke begins. ‘There are some things we need to discuss.’

She folds her hands in her lap and I see her twisting them together anxiously.

‘You won’t be in trouble,’ I say to her. ‘No matter what you say. Just speak the truth.’

She nods, still looking uncertain. ‘What do you want to know, my lord?’

Locke’s gaze is unwavering. ‘I want to know what happened this morning, why Warrior took you to that place. It’s very important that you tell us everything you remember.’

She doesn’t speak for a moment, her brow furrowing, and part of me wants to tell Locke to leave her alone. But information is crucial for our mission, and none of us have ever been into a breeding house. They’re exclusive and notoriously difficult to gain admittance into.

‘Warrior woke me early,’ she finally says. ‘He told me to get up, and that he was taking me somewhere. He wouldn’t say where.’

‘Go on,’ Locke murmurs when she goes quiet again.

I glare at him. There’s no need to force it out of her.

‘He put the collar on me and led me to that...place. Inside, the demon took us to the room you found me in. He...asked Warrior what he wanted.’ She looks away from us, her expression uncomfortable

‘What he wanted?’ I ask, not sure what she means.

‘How he wanted me to be...bred,’ she clarifies with a wince, making me wish I hadn’t asked. ‘Whether he wanted me to be free to try to run away...or put in the block. He chose the biggest bulls. They took off my collar and my dress and subdued me. I struggled and they told me...’

She wraps her arms around herself, looking so alone that I find myself wanting to hold her, to comfort her.

‘They said that I was making it worse for myself,’ she continues in a smaller voice. ‘That when the masters left, they’d do what they liked with me.’ Her throat works and she wrings her hands absently.

‘They told me the masters wouldn’t care what they did so long as I was seeded well. Then the demon said I should be disciplined because I wasn’t calming down, so they took a cane from the wall.’

My hands curl into themselves so tightly that several of my knuckles crack, the sound reverberating around the room.

She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m getting angrier with every passing moment. Breaking his neck was too quick for that cunt. I should have broken his fingers first, then his arms and legs, then his ribs followed by his spine and then his neck. If I’d known all this...

She closes her eyes, and I frown, glancing at Locke and Jak who see it as well. Her next words won’t be the whole truth. We all know it.

‘Then, something fell off the wall and...hit one of the bulls in the head. He fell into the other one who landed on part of a broken pot. He was killed, and the first one was knocked out. Warrior said something about leaving because the demon’s bulls were clumsy.

The demon convinced him that wasn’t necessary.

He took a phallus off the wall and...then you came. ’

She glances up to find us watching her and looking grim.

I wonder what the lie was, because there was something in the last bit of her story that isn’t exactly what happened.

Fucked if I know what it is, though, because everything I saw in that room was the way she told it down to where the bodies lay and the injuries that had killed them.

‘That’s all,’ she murmurs, shifting in the seat where her rump likely still hurts from the lashes she was given with that fucking cane. The potion will have sealed the flesh, but the pain will persist for a bit longer.

We say nothing for several moments.

‘But why?’ Jak murmurs almost to himself.

‘Why did he even take you there? Why spend the coin? It doesn’t make sense.

And, if he truly wanted to...do that...why not just take you downstairs?

We were offered the service,’ he spits, ‘in this very establishment. There was no need to go elsewhere with you.’

She frowns and then looks up with wide eyes. ‘Perhaps he wanted to steal from the demon.’

All eyes snap to her.

‘Maybe Warrior was using me to get inside, and as a distraction so that he could find the demon’s coin chest, or other things of value. He’d sent the demon a message earlier. That place was well-known for... breeding humans and he was pretending to be someone else, a wealthy lord.’

I grit my teeth. Prestigious houses for breeding humans. We knew they existed but, Gods, these fucking realms.

‘All right.’ Locke stands up, pacing the room.

‘This is the story. He took you there to steal, but we thought it was to breed you. The demon found him pilfering, and there was a fight. A fire started during it. You were able to escape, and we found you outside with a couple of the other humans. It was too late to save Warrior.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she says, looking from one of us to the next with a confused expression.

Locke goes to stand in front of her, and she has to tip her head up all the way to look into his face.

‘That is what you tell Bere when he asks you,’ he informs her.

‘You wish me to lie ?’ she asks too guilelessly.

I snort. What does she think she knows? What leverage does she believe she has over us?

Locke says nothing, just stares down at her and stays in his imposing position above her, but she doesn’t look very cowed at the moment.

‘We came for you. You owe us, human,’ he grates out, taking her chin in a firm grip.

Her eyes narrow. ‘I will tell Bere the story as you told it,’ she says.

He looks as relieved as I feel.

‘But,’ she continues, gripping her hands together, the only telltale sign that she’s just about keeping her nerve. ‘You do something else for me in return.’

‘This isn’t a negotiation,’ he snarls harshly. ‘You know what I am. I could simply conjure you to believe whatever I say.’

I see her swallow hard. ‘Perhaps you can, but if you were going to, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You would already have done it without me being the wiser.’

He looks surprised, and her relief shows. She knows she’s right.

Smart girl.

But if she thinks Locke is less dangerous than the masters she’s known in her life, she’s dead wrong...and then maybe just dead.

‘Fucking humans,’ he growls, and I almost chuckle. He clearly has a soft spot for the girl, whether he knows it or not, or else he’d already have done something to her. ‘What do you want?’

She leans back in her chair, unsuccessfully hiding another pained wince. ‘The three of you...you’re not masters.’

My eyes widen at the unexpected remark, and I glance at Jak, who also looks surprised.

Locke sneers at her and she puts up a hand. ‘I know you aren’t. You’re too...kind.’

He leans in menacingly. ‘You think so?’

Her squeal is loud as Locke grabs the front of the shirt she’s wearing, my shirt, twisting it and pulling her up to his face.

‘I swear to the gods, if you don’t do as we tell you, I’ll whip you to within an inch of your life, girl, and then I’ll put you in a block in the stables to be mounted by any bull who wants you!’

She shakes in his grip, but her eyes don’t leave his and I find myself proud of her. She was such a meek little thing only days ago, I couldn’t imagine her standing up to Locke like this.

‘No, you won’t,’ she says, though her voice wavers. ‘You’re here for something, and it’s not to make coin as flesh peddlers. You’re not even Dark Realm, are you? Not really. You came here from the Light Realm. Somehow.’

She looks suddenly desperate as she grasps his shirt as hard as he’s gripping hers. ‘Take me with you,’ she pleads. ‘That’s my price.’

He drops her back in the chair as if she’s burned him and she hisses in pain at the hard contact on her backside.

Jak rises and so do I, and we advance on her. How the fuck does she know where we come from?

‘You’re a foolish slave,’ Locke chuckles, holding his nerve, and not looking anywhere as shocked as Jak and I do.

‘Yes,’ she says, a shadow passing over her eyes that I don’t understand, ‘but I’m right. I know I am.’

She stares at Locke, daring him to act.

‘Use some conjure to take my memory if you must,’ she challenges, ‘but I’ll just figure it out again. You’re not masters. It took me but three days to realize. You don’t act like them. Perhaps the masters themselves can’t see it, but any slave can. Despite your words, you aren’t like them.’

She looks away. ‘Even when you...were forced to release me, you made me calm for it. You didn’t strip me and put me in the block for all to see. You made it so that I couldn’t hear or see anyone or anything but you.’

She stares up at him, something akin to thankfulness in her eyes that looks genuine. ‘It was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.’

His brow furrows as he stares at her, and I see something in his countenance that I don’t understand. It’s more than pity, more than anger.

‘Gods,’ he whispers, the raw emotion in his voice surprising me. ‘To say what I did was nice . It wasn’t, Bryn. I did it because I had to.’

His hand drops and he moves away from her, giving her some space, and she lets out a small sigh of relief.

‘What say you, then?’ she asks.

Locke hesitates, and she presses the advantage she thinks she has.

‘I can tell Bere your version of how Warrior died, or I can tell him that you ordered Morgan to snap his neck. That, and what I know of you, will be enough for Bere to kill you. Even if he doesn’t, you’ll no longer have his trust. I may not know why you’re in the Dark Realms, but it seems to me that the slaver’s faith that you’re loyal is important to you. ’

I feel my brows rising and I wonder how Locke is going to react, if I’m going to need to intervene.