find myself in a…bedroom. A simple, modestly furnished bedroom. It looks as if it hasn’t been occupied in half a century, but that’s its only horror. Well, that and the three figures standing before me.
Still in the form of humanlike beings, the leader—the one who had been that insufferable white wolf and is clearly this pack’s alpha—stands front and center, his staff propped under his arm, golden-brown hair in disarray around his shoulders. Slowly, I crane my neck to meet his eyes, surprised to find he appears far younger than I’d originally assumed. Despite his unkempt appearance, his stained linen shirt rolled up to his elbows, and his hideously wild hair and beard, his face is unweathered, devoid of the creases I imagined from afar. He can’t be older than twenty-five.
He’s fae, I remind myself. Fae don’t age the way humans do. For all I know he’s ancient. And even if he isn’t, his age has no bearing on my circumstance.
I burn the alpha wolf with a scowl, but I’m sure the effect is lessened by how violently I tremble. One of the two fae—a male with black hair and a dark bushy beard—behind him snickers, then moves to the other side of the room where he sits at a dusty bureau. He wipes his hand across the surface before retrieving a few sheets of paper and a fountain pen from one of the drawers. The other fae, the elderly, gray-haired female I saw before, crosses her arms over her chest, shooting daggers with her gaze. Just like the fae Imogen and I glimpsed outside the Verity Hotel, the only thing that gives these creatures away as being anything but human is their pointed ears.
The alpha leans forward, and I flinch back, but he only reaches for my cloth gag. With a grimace, he tugs it down, then takes a hasty step back, wiping the hand that touched my gag on his shirt.
“What do you want with me?” I aim for toughness, but my voice comes out weak and hoarse.
The alpha’s eyes flick from me to the wolf-man at the bureau. The latter, pen and paper in hand, nods. Returning his gaze to me, the alpha asks, “Are you married?”
The blood leaves my face. What kind of question is that? Oh, for the love of the saints, what have I gotten myself into?
The fae lets out an irritated grumble, his tone taking on a sharper quality. “Answer the question, human.”
I swallow hard. As much as I want to resist my captors, I imagine my best bet is to cooperate. For now. “No,” I finally say, “I’m not married.”
“Who keeps you then?” he asks with a flourish of his hand. “I know your kind like to keep their females like property, am I wrong?”
I bristle, wanting to argue, but as much as it incenses me to admit, he isn’t wrong. “I live with my father,” I say through my teeth.
He looks encouraged by my answer, eyes brightening. “Father, yes. What’s his name?”
I open my mouth to speak but can’t bring myself to answer. Even though Father and I don’t get along, I hate to think sharing his name could condemn him to harm. “Why? What in the name of the saints is this all about?”
He leans down, clasping a hand around one of the arms of my chair, bringing us eye to eye. I lean back as far as I can, holding my breath. “I’m asking the questions here,” he says. “Now tell me his name. And don’t you dare lie. If we find out you’re lying about any of these answers, we’ll bite off a finger for each false word said.”
“Fine,” I say, the word coming out at a higher pitch than I intend. “It’s…it’s Richard Bellefleur.”
He straightens and snaps his fingers, then points to the fae at the bureau. His next words ring out strong and firm. “Richard Bellefleur.”
The fae puts pen to paper and scrawls something down, then looks back at the alpha.
The alpha speaks again in that same resonant tone. “I have your daughter—” He turns back to me and lowers his voice. “Name, human. What is your name?”
My lips move before I manage to find my voice. “Gemma Bellefleur.”
He adopts that tone again, one I can only describe as his villain voice. It’s a nearly perfect imitation of the one I imagine the antagonists using in my favorite novels. “I have your daughter, Gemma Bellefleur. She is safe and unharmed. For now.” He lowers his tone,