throat burned. What had happened?
“I am honored to become your Queen and serve our Court together.”
The words returned with a jolt, along with the face of…of the Summer fae who’d delivered them. His chosen. His soon-to-be Queen. He’d made love to me and yet was promised to another who was worthy, a beautiful fae creature—
I cut those thoughts off as my cheeks became wet. Reaching up, I wiped the tears away. The stinging of my fingers, salt in open wounds, cleared more of the fog. What had happened with the King wasn’t important now, because I was here….
It took me what felt like forever to remember how I had ended up here, and even once I did, some of the details were still missing. Like where I’d been when Aric had taken me, and how long I’d been here. It felt like…weeks, but I wasn’t sure if that was the case or not. I slowly realized that more was gone though as my history stitched itself back together, forming a puzzle that was missing pieces. I could remember Tink and his cat, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall the cat’s name. I knew who Ivy was, but her last name was just out of reach, as was her boyfriend’s first name. Or was it her husband? I could only remember his last name, but not his first. And saying Owens over and over didn’t magically make his first name appear. I knew there was something important I needed to remember, something that Aric had said, but I couldn’t recall it. I knew who had killed my mother but couldn’t remember when or how it had all gone down. I knew something had happened to me that night too, but that was just outside my grasp. There was more I knew was gone, because….
Because parts of me were being stripped away, peeled back and discarded with each feeding.
Was that what had happened to my mom before she was killed, back when she’d been held captive by the fae? She’d been fed on so much that she’d lost a part of herself…and lost touch with reality from time to time.
Was that what was happening to me each time I had to backtrack through what had happened to remember, each time recalling less and less? Would I eventually stop remembering altogether?
I shuddered.
Panic forced me upright, and I ignored how every square inch of my body protested the movement. I let my legs dangle as dizziness swept through me, and the right side of my face throbbed. Gingerly, I prodded at the swollen skin along my jaw. The flesh around my left eye felt the same, and as I stared down at my legs, there were fresh bruises and cuts there, a map of slices and ugly shades of red and purple. I remembered how the cuts had gotten there, but I had no idea why I had the injuries.
I couldn’t think about any of this. I couldn’t dwell on it. Not when I still had parts of myself, which meant that there was still an opportunity to escape.
Steely resolve finally settled in my stomach like a lead bullet. Purpose returned, driving home the need to keep going, to keep living.
I would not die in this place.
I would not die by Aric’s hands.
I would not give him that.
A hollowness opened up in my chest even as I repeated those three sentences over and over. My gaze tracked to the side of the slab of stone, and I saw tiny scratches there, likely marked by the rock lying on the floor next to it, a shard no bigger than my thumb.
I counted the marks. Twenty-nine. A sense of knowing led me to my feet and over to pick up the sliver. I worked at the stone, scratching a slash over the last four ragged lines. Thirty.
Thirty days that I was aware of. That was at least how long I’d been here, and I knew in my bones that I had to escape because this wasn’t like when Ivy had been taken back when Caden had been the evil Prince, hellbent on opening all the doorways to the Otherworld. She’d had help from the inside, and people were looking for her. People who cared enough to risk their lives. They’d found her the night she had been aided in her escape. How long had she been held? Three weeks? An incredibly long time, but she had been found.
A sudden memory surfaced—the hallucination