**DAPHNE**
When I was a little girl, my eldest sister used to tell me stories of magical creatures living deep within the forest. She spoke of enchanted trees with hidden doorways and gates disguised as precariously placed rocks. Whimsical butterflies that changed into humans and mermaids that swam in the river behind our house.
She’d claimed there was magic in the woods. That there, beyond the river, there were portals to another realm.
The Faerie Realm.
When I was young, I wholeheartedly believed her. As a child, I wanted so much for it to be true. Sometimes her stories ended in sadness and woe. In murder and in wickedness. Very seldom did she spin a happy tale about the Fae. Even so, I’d loved hearing about them. Still, I secretly wished to meet them. Now as an adult, I found myself hoping for that very same chance, again.
Perhaps I will meet them. When I escape.
At the moment, I was seated next to the king himself for the afternoon meal. I had been bathed, yet again, by Petra in the tower room. Garbed in another heavy velvet gown. This time in the darkest shade of emerald green. She hadn’t so much as posed a question about the bruises along my body. Just tsked and helped me to wash.
It must be normal for her to see such things. A sad thought that plagues me now, as I notice how many of the palace guards cannot keep their hands to themselves. They disgust me and I am slowly filling with rage.
“Eat girl! You’re terribly skinny,” the king commands. “Did that waste father of yours, never feed you?”
I shook my head, no, as I spooned a mouthful of deliciously sweetened pork onto my tongue.
“Speak your answer, sweet, for I cannot read your mind.”
“I am accustomed to one meal a day, Majesty,” I answer him, omitting the berry picking and bread stealing that I normally do to cover my breakfast.
“One meal a day,” he laughs as if it is the joke of the year. He and the other nobles nearly choke on their food as they chuckle in mock of me. “And I suppose half of that might have been dirt.”
*Pigs.*
*Do they eat like this all of the time?*
*No wonder the king is fat.*
I glance at the empty chair beside me and frown. Ash is not present. Neither is the prince. Where might the two of them be? I must find a way to be alone with Ash again. I need to see if he wants to help me. I am counting on it. A little too much probably. But then again, what do I really have to lose? It will be asking him to put himself in danger for me. Someone he hardly knows and probably doesn’t truly care about. It may just be that he has a protective nature and I have read him the wrong way entirely.
Just as I begin to doubt myself, there is a gust of wind that blasts through the room. The main hall doors are open and the two men in question walk in. They are smiling and laughing as if nothing ever happened. Then Ash finds my eyes with his own and I am instantly breathless. His gaze flits from me to the king and back again before his mouth goes tight and he glares at me.
“Boys,” the king reprimands. “You are unfathomably late. What kept you?”
“We were sparring next to the river and Ash decided to go for a swim with a couple of peasant girls,” Hayden says, winking at me.
*What?*
I tense as Ash is sliding into the chair next to me and his movements go still with Hayden’s words. My eyes fill with moisture briefly, before I shake myself and relax my grip on the silverware.
“Peasant girls,” the king laughs, slapping a hand on my leg. “I’ve only got eyes for one at the moment.”
“How was your morning, dove?” Ash whispers in my direction, his attention on the king’s hand as it slides up and down the top of my leg.
I ignore him, jealousy I have no right to, climbing hot and angry from my stomach to my neck. Suddenly, I am not so sure about him after all.
He notices this and comments, loudly, “I did not swim with them, liar. You did. Two at the same time, you should be proud Majesty.”
With this, I relax and allow myself to smile, just a bit.
“I suppose I would be, were it not broad damned daylight and you both had made it back on time,” the king says. His hand is a hot coal upon the fabric of my gown as I sit there, and I am beginning to sweat.
A glance sideways tells me that Ash is still glaring at my lap. He makes no move to touch his food and in a moment I know why. The king’s hand is diving more deeply between my legs as he leers at me, and I yelp when he squeezes my sex. I am bruised down there as well.
Silence seems to fall heavy on me as the king’s hand becomes a bit more adventurous. It is as if I go deaf. A spark of energy so great, that I can feel its heat surround me, pours like tar over my head. I glance around to see who else can feel it. No one seems to sense the energy other than myself. Almost in a panic, I gasp at the same time the king begins to choke on his food.
Finally removing his hand from my womanhood to pound on his chest, a large chunk or pork flies out of his throat and onto the stone floor beyond the dais.
Just like that, the energy disappears, as if it were never there at all. My neck snaps to my left to spy Ash, who is now eating with a bold smile on his handsome face.
How very odd.
I lean close to him and whisper, “Clever trick, that.”
He loses his smile and gazes at me in wonder. “Whatever do you mean?”
I don’t rise to the bait. There is something completely unhuman about this man, and I intend to find out what.
“I should like to speak with you privately,” I whisper between bites.
“Is that an invitation?” He smirks, and I feel my cheeks heat to absolute fire.
Taking a sip of water, I smile. “Absolutely.”
His eyes wander over me, from the top of my head to the shadowed valley between my breasts. Unfortunately, the king takes notice.
“Ash is an orphan my dear,” the king states, cruelty in his eyes. “He can do nothing for you. Found him outside the castle in the meadow when he was five years old. On the same ground that we caught and murdered that faerie bitch.”