Why had the thought of safety never crossed her mind? She was a stupid, innocent, and naïve girl. He was a sly monster who was planning to take advantage of her. She must not let down her guard again, no matter how friendly he was. She would not get lost in those ocean eyes, because if she did, he’d drown her. He was a deceptive, manipulative thing.
She would accompany him to the market, but she would not eat or drink anything. She would stay by his side until midnight, as she had agreed, then she would get out of the woods as quickly as possible.
“What is bothering you?” he asked, and she realized they had been walking in silence for a few minutes.
“Nothing,” she said quickly and swallowed nervously.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said in a low growl that made her think he was good at punishing liars.
She mastered her fear. “Then don’t try to deceive me.”
“Deceive you?” He sounded so innocent, she almost believed him.
“Drinking faerie wine will curse me.” She met his gaze and was relieved when he was the first to look away.
“I was not going to force it down your throat.” As if that would fix the situation.
Maybe not, but he was also not going to warn her about the consequences of drinking the wine, which meant he was not a good male.
“I’m not drinking it.” She hoped he would keep his word and not force it down her throat.
How many Fata were at the market, and would they try to hurt her? She didn’t want to go, but it was too late to chicken out now. She didn’t have any iron, but even if she did, she was not a good fighter.
“Fata can be very persuasive,” Caynin warned her.
Zoey wasn’t weak minded, and she certainly didn’t cave under pressure. There was no way any of them would convince her to drink the wine.
“Then how come you suck at it?” she snapped back.
He looked her up and down before answering, “I don’t know.” He sounded sincere and mysterious. He was like a maze; she didn’t know how to approach him or which way to go. Around every turn was a surprise, something she didn’t expect. His moods were mercurial, which made him unpredictable.
He stepped around her, and she found herself following him as if she were his apprentice. The sun was setting, and she looked up at the sky’s beautiful colors. If most of the Everwhite Kingdom did not show up on her map, how was she going to find her way home?
“Don’t look so worried,” Caynin said. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already.”
Caynin was a temperamental creature. He had no intentions of hurting her now, but what would happen if she angered him? She wanted to stay on his good side, but she also didn’t want him to know just how scared she really was. That was the reason behind her quirky comebacks – she wanted to appear fearless.
“Why did you want my company?”
“I find you fascinating,” he said.
She couldn’t understand his answer. He was this incredibly fast, incredibly powerful Fata prince. Why would he find a weak, boring human fascinating? As far as Zoey knew, there was nothing special about her.
Caynin moved with the silent grace of a predator, while Zoey felt like a klutz when she stumbled over a branch. Caynin didn’t pay her stumbling much attention, he didn’t bother asking her if she was okay, either.
The sun had set, and the woods were dark, spooky, and even colder than before. The moon hung in the night like a giant orb. The branches rattled in the wind like a prisoner trying to break out of his cage. Zoey wrapped her arms around herself as mice crawled out of their holes, and owls hooted in the trees. The deadliest predator of them all was walking next to her.
“You’re cold,” Caynin pointed out.
“Are you not?” She glanced at his unshaking, solid figure.
“Fata doesn’t really feel the cold,” he said. “Or the heat.”
“What do you feel?” she asked him.
“Physically? We can feel pain.”
When that iron bear trap had closed around his leg, and his flesh had sizzled and burned, his expression had not betrayed that he felt any pain, which meant he was good at hiding weakness.
“And pleasure,” he added.
For a moment, Zoey wondered what it would be like to roll around in sheets with him and then pushed away the thoughts. She was scared of him, which made her heart beat faster, as if she were in love. But she could never love such a creature.
“And emotionally?” she wondered.
“I have…feelings,” he confessed.
“Like what? What makes you happy?” she pried.
“Winning fights against Fata that challenge me.”
He liked fighting and was a violent creature, despite his calm exterior. “What makes you angry?”
“Liars.” He clenched his fist.
From what she gathered, he experienced emotions the way humans did but didn’t show them as easily. She treaded carefully with her next question. “What do you love?”
“Love?” His hands were now slack at his sides.
“Love.” Did he see love as a weakness because he dodged her question and changed the subject?
“We are here.”
She looked away from him – toward the rows and rows of tents. They did not have electric lights to illuminate the market, but little fires burned here and there. Had they been made by humans Zoey would have feared that they’d burn down the forest. But these fires were clearly not from this world – they burnt pink, indigo, turquoise, maroon, and yellow.
The tents consisted of frozen vines and ice, and were unlike anything Zoey had ever seen before. The plants grew out of the ground, in the shape of tents, tables, and baskets. Wine was displayed on ice stands on different shelves with various-colored candles.
“When they pack up the market, the plants go back into the ground. They reverse grow until they are nothing more than seeds. The Fata then take the seeds with them and plant them at their next stop.”
“It is incredible.” Zoey gaped, momentarily forgetting that her face was freezing.
Her sixth sense told her that she did not belong here and that it was time to go home, but her curiosity got the best of her, and she ventured into the market.
All of the Fata were beautiful. Was this perhaps some kind of an illusion? Surely, there had to be someone ugly? The faeries were tall and slender, their skin so pale it suggested they might never have felt the sun. Some had blue hair while others wore dresses that were glowing as if they were made from stars. None of them apparently minded the cold, as not many of them wore jackets. The ones who wore long, jeweled jackets, most likely did it for the style. Several of them greeted the prince and offered him free wine, which he politely declined, and they ignored Zoey.
“Would your blood slave like some?” a brown-horned Fata asked Prince Caynin as he gestured at Zoey.
“No,” Caynin declined.
Before Zoey had time to ask Caynin what a blood slave was, a Fata female rushed toward them. Her hair was light pink, like the blossoms, and blowing in the wind like wildflowers. Her elegant, V-necked dress flowed around her slim figure, making Zoey envy her beauty.
“My prince.” She bowed low.
“Dear Inga.”
Caynin’s shoulder tensed slightly. The female Fata, Inga, did not pay Zoey any attention, and that left her feeling as if she was a tree. She did not speak up; instead, she listened.
“Did you find her? My sister, Nyla…”
“No, we searched for her.”
Inga’s face fell. She had clearly hoped for better news. What had happened to Nyla? Caynin had made it perfectly clear that they, the Fata, were on top of the food chain.
“I won’t stop searching,” Caynin assured her, but that didn’t seem to change Inga’s dire mood.
Zoey’s heart went out to her because she understood how horrible it was to worry about a sister. She worried about Violet every day, thus when she looked at Inga, she saw a reflection of herself.
“I’m really sorry,” Zoey said.
For the first time, Inga looked at her, and Zoey realized she had spoken out of turn. She could feel Caynin tense, even more, beside her.
“You really mean that.” Inga’s face softened, and then she gave her a weak smile before walking away.
“What?” Zoey asked Caynin, once Inga was out of sight. His silence pressed down on her like a mountain of snow.
He shrugged. “I don’t often see anyone being compassionate.”
She didn’t know how to respond, so instead she looked at the market. “I’m going to walk through.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you didn’t want to come.”
“I didn’t, but now that I am here, I am going to make the best of it.” Zoey was not going to show the Fata how much they intimidated her, so she moved through the rows and rows of wine. Many Fata smiled at her, and some gestured for her to approach, but she didn’t. Samples of wine in crystal glasses were displayed on icy tables which looked tempting, but she did not dare try anything. She was so consumed by the market’s beauty and strangeness that she did not realize Caynin had stopped to study a bottle of wine.
“Try the wine, my dear,” a Fata said.
It took a moment for Zoey to realize this slim-faced, wide-jawed faerie was talking to her. She glanced behind her, as if to make sure that he wasn’t speaking to someone else, before returning to his big, alluring eyes. He looked at her, almost as intently as Caynin had. He spoke as if he expected her to do every little thing he said – even if that meant drinking cursed wine.
“No thank you,” she responded politely.
The Fata looked baffled – as if no one had ever been able to resist. Zoey turned to go when, like a snake, he shot out his hand and closed it around her wrist. He yanked her back. “I’m afraid I must insist.”
“Let go!” she said as firmly as possible.
His grip was steel, and she quickly realized she would not be able to break free. With his free hand, he reached for a nearby bottle, no doubt with the intention of forcing the wine down her throat. Then she would be a slave for the rest of her mortal life, and she would not be able to take the Fluver-luzile to Violet.
“Stop it!” Her cry was high pitched and panicked.
Instantly, a stronger hand ripped his arm away. She heard bones breaking, and the Fata was thrown to the ground, where he whimpered. Caynin was standing before her like a bodyguard, glaring at the Fata without any forgiveness in his eyes.
“Please! Forgive me! I did not know she belonged to you!” he cried, from the ground, lowering his head in submission and gripping the wrist of his broken hand. “She doesn’t have bite marks, and she isn’t covered in your scent!”
Zoey didn’t understand what he meant by bite marks, but she did know that she didn’t belong to Caynin – or anyone. Yet, here he was defending her, as if he did not want any other Fata to touch her. His blue eyes flared with danger. Was angering a Fata prince punishable by death? Caynin’s mouth was open, and he stepped closer to the Fata, who now held his hands up in front of himself.
“Caynin.” Zoey closed her hands around his bicep. “I’m okay. It’s okay.”
There was a moment when she thought he would ignore her, but then he glanced at her hand and stepped away from the Fata. Zoey didn’t wish pain or death on anyone, even if they had wronged her. She tugged on Caynin’s arm, and his focus remained on the kneeling faerie a moment longer before he let her lead him past the tents and into the snow-covered trees. The Fata did not dare stare at them – they went back to minding their own business.
“It’s almost midnight,” Caynin said.
Which meant their deal would end, and Zoey would be free to go – if Caynin was a Fata of his word. “I don’t know how to get home.”
“And you trust me to point you in the right direction?”
She shrugged. “Well, you did just save me. I figured if you wanted me hurt, you’d just have left me back there in the clutches of that Fata.”
He did not say anything to that. Maybe he regretted bringing her to the market.
They walked in silence, and the snow turned to grass as they ventured further from the center of the kingdom. Zoey’s human ears could only hear the wind and her feet in the snow. But Caynin’s ears could hear so much more – according to the books she read.
“Your heart is not hammering like it did earlier.”
Zoey touched her coat, right above her heart, as she realized how good his hearing truly was. This must mean he had known she was scared all along. And she was still scared, but not terrified like she had been at first.
“I figured if you were going to kill me you would already have done it.”
He turned around in his tracks, towering over her, and met her gaze. She resisted the urge to break eye contact and stood strong.
“I still could.” His voice had become quieter.
“Why are you saying that?” Zoey took a step backward and almost cursed herself out loud. A smile played on Caynin’s lips. Were they back to playing games?
“Because you’ve ventured into a world where you don’t belong.”
That was the truth. Zoey’s fingers brushed against a tree behind her, and Caynin stepped forward. This time, she refused to back up, partly because of the tree and because she didn’t want to make the same mistake again. Caynin, with his piercing gaze, was close enough that she could feel the heat from his body, the warmth of his breath.
“You’re trying to scare me away.” She tilted her head upward and clenched her hands.
Caynin suddenly stepped back, looked down, and cocked his. Zoey wondered what he heard.
“Don’t come back here,” he mumbled.
A twig snapped, and she glanced in the direction from which the sound had come. When she looked back, Caynin was gone.
“Hello?” she said to the darkness.
“Zoey!”
Zoey almost bolted when she heard her name, but then she recognized the voice. “Eric?”
He appeared behind the tree, like a bandit, with a bow and arrows slung across his back and hunting knives in his boots. He was not wearing winter clothes, which made her think he did not know about the Everwhite Kingdom. He saw her and rushed to her before wrapping her into a big hug.
“I’ve been so worried,” he said as she melted into his arms. Then he pulled away and ruined the moment, “We have to get out of here. These woods are not safe.”
He took her hand and led her out of the woods without telling her what he was so afraid of.