Page 5 of Given to the Fae (The Dark Realms #3)

‘I’m no fool,’ Bere murmurs, gesturing to the girl I was ordered to handle. ‘You want that one gone. There’s something wrong with her, but she looks like she’ll last well enough until I can sell her on. I’m willing to take her off your hands for free. Consider it a gesture of goodwill.’

‘You want us to give her to you?’

Bere raises a brow, and I laugh before he can reply.

‘We’re not paying for her,’ I tell them, ‘but we’ll take her if you agree to the deal.’

Sio side-eyes Ogdan. ‘Perhaps you could give us a moment to confer.’

‘Of course,’ Bere allows, ‘but the Breach reopens in only a few minutes. If the deal isn’t closed by then we’ll simply go elsewhere.’

The two skin traders move away, talking too quietly even for my sharp fae ears to hear them. Sio is gesturing almost violently during their whispered conversation though, and soon I see Ogdan nod.

I glance back at the girl. She’s pretending she’s not straining her human hearing to listen, but I know she is.

They return and the commander holds out his arm. ‘Two females, two bulls, and we give you her .’

Bere purses his lips and makes a show of thinking, but he shakes the proffered hand, his eyes gleaming. ‘Deal.’

Ogdan gives him a single nod.

‘Load them up,’ Bere shouts, turning away and climbing back up to his horse’s back. I do the same, watching as Tori and Soreno are taken into one of the buildings and hoping we’ll see them again, that all this will be worth it.

I see the girl being urged to the cage with the other two females and she gets in tentatively.

The other females move away from her. She doesn’t seem to notice, but I frown.

Usually, despite the catty natures of the female slaves, they tend to cuddle up and take what comfort they can from each other.

I see that two of them stay close, but the last one sits on the other side away from them.

The bull that’s chained nearest to the caged wagon could easily touch her if he wanted to.

I turn, getting ready to shout at the fool, one of Bere’s lower members, that he’s been put too close to the female’s wagon, but when the bull notices how close he is to her, he does the opposite of what I expect. He steps back, almost in fear.

I look at Bere and say what’s expected of a second in command.

‘There’s something wrong with that female,’ I say very quietly.

He makes a sound of derision as he turns his head toward me.

‘Then we’d better travel as quickly as we can, so that we can offload her at the fighting pits before she snuffs it, though I doubt it’s anything we really need to worry about.

You know how they are here in the outer Circles.

They attribute a gust of wind to the Gods,’ he rolls his eyes, ‘or to some other superstitious nonsense.’

I grin in spite of myself. His words are true enough. They believe in all sorts out here.

‘I didn’t realize that taking her to the pits was the truth,’ I murmur as we turn and leave The Barrack, our eyes scanning the dying trees and large stumps for threats again just as we did on the way in.

The deal we just shook on doesn’t matter. No one can be trusted in an outpost like this, so far from any real authority other than that which they themselves wield.

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Bere answers. ‘She’s covered in scars that aren’t from sanctioned punishments. She must brawl with her own kind.’ He glances at me. ‘You said it first, my friend. Have you changed your mind?’

‘It doesn’t matter so long as we get paid,’ I counter.

Bere grunts his approval. ‘Well, we’ll see what she’s made of tonight when we have them spar for our pleasure.’

Fuck, I don’t want to watch them take pieces out of each other while Bere throws them scraps of food to fight over and we all take bets. But the truth is, while that’s bad enough, worse will come afterward.

I use looking back at the outpost and scanning for threats as an excuse to glance at Morgan and Jak. Both look grim.

We reach the Ring and wait expectantly for it to open.

‘How long?’ Bere asks Kings, the blond fae male behind him.

‘A few moments at most,’ he says, ‘but long enough for them to kill us if they decide they’d rather.’

Bere guffaws. ‘They can try. I think we got the better end. That older female we just traded definitely doesn’t have another babe in her before her heart gives out.’

‘Fools,’ I murmur with a dark chuckle. ‘Are we really going to bother to take the cargo to a healer?’

Bere looks back at the new acquisitions and shakes his head.

‘Hard to tell anything with all that dirt. I’d heard The Barrack’s conditions were rough, but that’s one of the worst trading posts that I’ve seen in a while.

Fucking outer Circles... if it were left up to them, all the breeding females left in the Dark Realms would die of neglect and bad treatment!

’ he snarls in disgust. ‘We’ll camp by the river we saw last night and have them wash.

Then, in the morning, we’ll see where we are. ’

Despite his words about The Barrack’s mistreatment of the females, Bere’s eyes are alight with the prospect of what tonight will bring and my gut twists.

I’m definitely leaving the camp to hunt this evening.

I’m sure Bere will insist I stay for at least part of his festivities , but hopefully I can be absent for the worst of the things that befall the humans.

I’m not worried about the bulls. They’ll barely be noticed.

They’ll be bound to a tree close to each other and threatened with some creative punishment if they try to run, but the females will be in for a bad night.

At least Morgan, Jak, and I visited a brothel together the other day, so if we don’t participate in that part, it won’t be remarked upon. One or two of Bere’s other men don’t partake either, citing disease, so in that, at least, we’ll probably be lucky.

The Breach opens in a whoosh, and we enter, making sure no one’s following to give us any trouble. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last, not out here.

The tunnel is bright at first but quickly descends into darkness. I hear a scream from one of the females and glance back to find two of them clutching each other, and the other one gripping the bars with her eyes clenched shut.

The trip takes only a few moments before the Breach spits us out. The sun is a little higher in the sky than where we just came from, and Bere sends Jak and one of the others ahead to make sure no one is waiting for us…and our valuable cargo.

The female the other humans seem to avoid is curled in on herself, her dirty hair covering her face.

I realize I’m staring at her again and give myself a mental shake, not sure why I can’t seem to take my eyes off her.

I glance at her again. Nothing stands out about her.

She doesn’t look different from the others.

I resolve to not look at her again. There’s nothing I can do for her.

There’s nothing I can do for any of them.

The humans don’t matter. My team doesn’t matter.

I don’t matter. The success of the mission is paramount and it comes before everything.

I don’t look back again.