Captive of the Shadows (The Fairy Code Book #1) by Kaitlyn Weiss

CHAPTER TWO

The whine of car tires, a thump and a jerk. Screaming... lots of screaming.. And the crackling of flames. Pain all over my body, and the feeling that I was hanging upside down. Another jerk... yet one more, the screaming around me was interlaced with moans and the smell of blood and iron.

I jumped up clawing at .... at the air. The last thing I remembered was a man who seemed to materialize from the night, and those strange, pulsating shadows clinging to him. My brain, already exhausted, hadn't been able to process the sight, and so it did what it had to: it dispatched me into a deep unconsciousness.

Or had it been something else that made me faint?

I looked around, at the same time patting myself. Then I looked downward, remembering that I'd tried to flee wearing only my underwear.

Which was gone. But now I was wearing a long white dress made of a very thin fabric. It was so thin that I could see my nipples through the fine material. And my bosom was barely covered by two flimsy panels and a prayer. Meanwhile, the sleeves of the dress were wide, but fit closely around my wrists.

Sexual slavery! The thought flashed through my mind. It would explain everything: my being sold and that stuff about a master. The practice happened more than it should, in my corner of the world. But what brazen audacity! Selling women in broad daylight, at work!

I flitted around the room, trying to figure out where I was. Alas, a smooth, opaque cloth shuttered the window, and try as I might, I could not open the heavy door. The rest of the room was pretty ordinary, although there were some oddities, such as a bed of frosted lilac glass and strange vine-like plants that almost totally covered the walls. Rarely, I could glimpse golden walls beneath the vines.

I really wanted to scream and shout, call for help, vent and rage. But I didn't, because I knew that this would probably make things worse. My best bet was to wait for someone to walk in and then make a run for it. My eyes fell on a black and lilac statuette depicting a woman holding a child. I picked it up and nodded to myself. It was nice, heavy, probably carved from stone.

And before long, someone did show up. I'd been sitting on the bed, silently freaking out, so by the time the door swung open, I was ready to spring. The thought that I might be forced into slavery made me break out in a cold sweat, but it also made me mad as hell.

You know, I probably should have tried diplomacy first. Instead, I rushed at the door brandishing the statuette.

Which wasn't smart at all. I fully understood how stupid it was when I was thrown back against the wall. The impact drove the breath from my lungs, even though the vines covering the wall softened the blow, if only a little. The next thing I knew, my hands were forced against the wall, palms out, and the statuette fell to the floor and rolled away. And I screamed, realizing that I was about to go stark raving mad.

Because staring intently at me in a fury was a pair of eyes, inside of which a kind of darkness swirled.

Then I felt a sharp pain in my right wrist, as if it had been burned to the bone. I screamed again and collapsed, having committed to memory the face of my tormentor. It was as if carved out of granite, the features were so sharp.

***

Fainting twice in such a short time is a dubious pleasure. Especially since the first time I had nothing to compare it to.

The second time I fainted, I wasn't out for long. The pain is what woke me up. My right wrist was burning with fire, as if melted polyethylene was dripping onto it. It was like when I was a girl and my friends and I foolishly decided to make a fire in the backyard of the orphanage and melt cartons. At least I hadn't ended up with any scars, back then.