Bad Fae | romantasy | Bad Fae #1

Chapter Three

"You had a horse, did you not?" he suddenly said as he stepped away and I...

I was very confused.

"I thought you were going to play with me?" popped out of my mouth and I sounded so...desperate and needy. My cheeks heated and I was so angry with myself.

He turned back to me from whatever he was looking for and grinned, his pearl-white teeth glinting in the moonlight. "As excited as your eagerness makes me, Milesian, I have had enough of fucking in the forest like an animal for the week. But beg me again when we get home, and I may reconsider." Then went back to looking for something, like his gaze could pierce the silent darkness that surrounded us.

Home?

I did not like the sound of that.

"What do you mean, 'home'?" I asked.

He turned to me again briefly. "I knew humans were uncivilised, but I had expected you to know the concept of 'home'."

I huffed, struggling against my invisible bonds again for good measure. "Pedant."

His lips loosed an inhuman whistle, one that echoed through the forest and sang on a delicate breeze. It burst in my mind, bright and comforting. It called, come to me.

"I meant," I huffed when he didn't deign to answer my actual question. "What do you mean 'when we get home'?"

I should have expected the answer, and I shouldn't have been surprised by him giving it. "I mean when we return, from this place we are in now, to the place we call home."

"Oh, my gods," I muttered, then just straight out asked, "Are you kidnapping me, then?"

He chuckled and I heard the sound of hoofbeats coming toward us in the dark. "One cannot kidnap what one owns, Milesian."

My blood ran cold. "I thought you'd fuck me and kill me right here," actually came out of my mouth while my brain scrambled to catch up.

Come on. You are better than this, I tried to remind myself.

I steeled myself and blurted, before he had a chance to slide in some smooth comment, "I am to be, what, your servant?"

He shrugged as Legacy jumped out from between the closest trees and actually went right up to him, nuzzling the hand he offered and prancing about as though greeting an old, beloved friend. I frowned at the traitor. But then, sidhe were probably a hell of a lot nicer to animals than they were humans.

"Servant," the sidhe mused as he ran strong hands over Legacy's fetlocks, "implies payment." My stomach plummeted out of my arse. "You will live with me. You will...amuse me. You are mine to command." Then he added, as though he could read the defiance roaring in my head, "I look forward to snapping that insolence and making you beg for my favour."

Long fingers took up Legacy's reins. Almost as one, fae and horse stepped forward. And I went with them. Step for step, following the silent pair in front of me, until I didn't know how long ago he'd trusted me to follow of my own accord and dropped the geas command.

There was absolutely nothing human about the man ahead of me, as he led my horse unshakingly through the roots and leaves and debris littering the forest floor. His body was fluid, as one with the forest around us. Either his senses were preternaturally better than mine – which I didn't doubt – or the forest actually went to pains to clear his way.

My skin prickled and I needed to break the silence with whatever drivel came out of my mouth.

"My father..." I started and saw Legacy's ears prick at the sound of my voice in the forest that was silent but for the tread of my boots among the leaves.