16. Sage

CHAPTER 16

Sage

The towel room had two sizes of white towels: big and small, and a small crate with various-sized bars of soap that — of course, because nothing at the Black Tower was what I'd expected — had a smell that reminded me of the forest instead of the ash and animal fat and cloying perfume I was used to.

I grabbed a couple bars of soap, a few small towels and a big one then hurried back up to my room, thankfully not running into anyone and having to explain why I'd come from the bathhouse still covered in shadow blood and holding a bundle of towels.

My door didn't have a bolt on the inside so I couldn't stop anyone from entering if I wanted to, but I still had to strip to clean myself and my clothes.

I prayed no one would just walk in as I shrugged out of my jerkin and shirt and unbound my chest. It was a relief to finally take a full deep breath after being bound for half a day, but unnerving to see the bruise Edred had given me. I was free from him now, hopefully forever, but I wasn't foolish enough to think my days of being bruised were at an end.

I scrubbed away the blood from my face, neck, hands, and forearms, then washed my shirt and jerkin as best I could since I didn't have anything else to wear and I wasn't going to put on blood-encrusted clothes in the morning, even if I was just going to muck out the stables.

With my clothes clean and draped over the basin and pump so they could dry, and the fae light as dim as I could make it — which was nearly out save for a pinprick of light in its center — I collapsed onto the cot, pulled the blanket over me, and closed my eyes.

Except despite my exhaustion, I couldn't get my mind to stop spinning.

Edred had manipulated the lottery and Sawyer wasn't safe until he was out of the Five Great Kingdoms. The rings closest to any of the boarders, even in Helialonde and Thermalea were still at least a month of travel away by horseback, and there was a chance Sawyer would have to sell the horse to survive. Although hopefully he'd have enough common sense to sell my pendant first.

Then my thoughts flitted to the monsters in the Gray and the Lord Commander calling me a moron.

I was going to have to keep my head down and not draw anymore attention to myself, and that meant not complaining about mucking the stable or whatever else the Lord Commander saw fit to punish me with.

But the thought of punishment made my mind leap to that strange moment with Talon and that made me think of his breathtaking body.

I didn't think I'd ever be able to look at him and not remember all that muscle… not to mention his cock. Would sex with him be as quick and unsatisfying as it had been with Royston?

That would be a serious disappointment.

Except that wasn't something I was going to find out… not that he'd be interested in me?—

Which was also a disappointing thought and — jeez! — not something I should be thinking about.

I tried to shove the thoughts aside and prayed I'd just fall asleep, but my mind kept whirling around and around, always coming back to the image of Talon's naked body, water trailing over the hardened ridges of his abs, drawing my gaze back to?—

This was ridiculous!

I jerked up and?—

I wasn't in bed.

My pulse stuttered as my mind lurched, trying to figure out what had happened.

I sat on a patch of short, soft grass at the edge of a pool. Beyond lay a garden filled with flowers, their colors muted in the dim torchlight and pale moonlight, and a stone path leading from the pool to a courtyard outside of a towering building… or was that a tree?

It sort of looked like both, but I couldn't exactly tell with the night's shadows partially obscuring it.

Tall pillars shaped like beautiful women held up a gauzy, green canopy over the courtyard, and more of the cloth draped between them. A gentle breeze made the cloth billow and caress around the statues' legs like dresses, giving me glimpses of the people inside— No, from their tall, graceful figures they were fae.

I had to be dreaming. I'd been thinking about how beautiful Talon was and drifted into the most beautiful dream. That, and it was the only explanation how I'd ended up in a garden when I'd gone to bed in my room in the Black Tower, and how I now wore a red dress when I'd been naked. Not to mention how my head felt heavy, like my hair was long again and my chest didn't hurt nearly as badly as it had when I'd gone to sleep.

I stood — my feet still bare — and took in the dress. It looked like it was made half from the same strange, gauzy material curtaining the courtyard, and half with exquisite lace depicting a flowering vine that curled from the hem at my toes, up one side, and wrapped around my hips and bodice, hiding just enough of me to not be indecent. The bodice was cut low, in a style from the Southern Isles, and accentuated the inside curve of my small breasts and clung around my ribcage before flaring out around my hips into a full floor-length skirt.

The breeze fluttered my skirt around my legs, and I stepped closer to the pool to use it as a mirror and get a better look at myself.

But a part of me couldn't believe what I was seeing, and I stared at my reflection, stunned for a long moment.

I was beautiful.

I'd never been so beautiful before, only proving this was a dream.

My eyes were a vibrant green, like the emerald in the pendant I'd given to Sawyer and not their usual brown, and my hair was a darker, more vibrant red than my usual color. It hung half loose, reaching my waist, and half piled on my head in an intricate plaited style that turned my sharp features into stunning sculpted lines and drew my gaze to my delicately pointed ears.

Strange red spots on my skin encircled my neck like a necklace, trailed between my breasts, and disappeared beneath the bodice of my dress. The spots were of varying shapes and sizes, although none were bigger than my thumbnail, and were oddly clustered, some close together, some farther apart in no discernable pattern.

I brushed a finger over them. They pulsed with a soft, red glow and warmed against my skin. A heat fluttered in my chest for a moment, then the heat and light vanished and I was back to myself… or as myself as I was going to get in this strange dream.

"My lady, are you strolling alone?" a sensual masculine voice purred and the reflection of a fae stepped into sight beside mine.

I raised my gaze to look at him properly. He was beautiful like all the fae I'd already seen but didn't have the same magnetic pull Lord Quill or Talon had. He was taller than me and as broad-shouldered as the Lord Commander had been, and his waist-length black hair had been braided back at his temple and hung loose down his back like Lord Talon's, showing off the gold earrings on each ear tip. His eyes were so dark they appeared black in the pale moonlight, and he studied me with an intensity that sent a shiver of uncertainty sliding through me.

His lips curled back in a smile that only made me more nervous. He looked… hungry and not in the sense of needing food, but of wanting me. Some of Edred's men had also looked at me that way and while this fae was better at hiding it than Edred's men, I could still see it and it still made my stomach churn with worry.

"Have you gotten anything to eat yet?" he asked as he gestured to a bench on the other side of the pool. "Why don't you take a seat and I'll bring you something."

"Planning on keeping the new arrival to yourself?" another masculine voice asked behind me.

I spun around to face another fae, just as stunning as the first but with white hair, pale yellow eyes, and warm brown skin. Beside him was another man, a mix between the two with gold hair — cut short unlike the other two — and dark eyes.

"She looked hungry," the first man replied.

"And more than capable of walking," White Hair shot back. "Come." He held out his arm for me to take. "Everyone will want to meet the new arrival."

"I… ah…" I glanced into White Hair's eyes and caught a glimpse of the same hunger Black Hair had.

Maybe this was my inner most desire: to be craved by beautiful men, especially since acting like a boy and chopping off my hair made me even less desirable than before. Maybe seeing Talon naked had awakened something in me that I'd been suppressing because no matter what I'd wanted, I'd never be able to have it.

Up until I'd made the reckless decision to take Sawyer's binding spell, my body hadn't been my own. I might have been able to have more sexual encounters if I'd wanted to, at least until I was sent to my husband, but I would have always ended up with a man of Edred's choosing.

White Hair didn't wait for a response. He captured my hand, hooked it into the crook of his arm, and led me up the path to the courtyard. The third fae who'd yet to speak, Short Hair, pulled aside one of the gauzy curtains and White Hair ushered me inside.

A hush fell over the courtyard. I hadn't even realized people had been talking.

Of course, it was a dream, there might not have been anyone talking for it to suddenly feel as if a silence had descended around me.

The courtyard, illuminated by hundreds of tiny lanterns all with the steady glow of the fae lights was large and stretched into the tree-building. And it was indeed half building and half tree with a strange mix of stone walls and tree trunks and branches. Conversation areas of benches and couches and chairs, some stone, some with plump, plush cushions, were scattered throughout the area along with tables with food and drink.

There were at least a hundred fae men in the courtyard, all beautiful and bigger than most humans. They sat, stood, gathered in groups for conversation, or at the food and drink tables about to pour wine or fill a plate of food, and all of them had stopped whatever they were doing and stared at me.

"A new arrival," someone murmured.

"Look at her marks."

"—not yet mated."

"—talk to her. You might be one?—"

"Something to eat, my lady?" White Hair asked.

"She's probably thirsty," Black Hair replied, not giving me a chance to speak.

"Come stroll with me," another man said, drawing close, towering over me.

"No me," said a third — or was that a fourth?

"We can go together," another man offered.

At least two dozen of them crowded close, all eager, all bigger than me, forcing me to look up at them and making me feel small and helpless. Some of them looked hungry like Black Hair and White Hair, others looked eager, while a few looked… hopeful? The three men who wanted to stroll with me glanced at each other and something passed between them.

"We'll show you the garden," the first guy said, as he drew closer, his hand outstretched in a offer for me to take it.

"No," Black Hair snapped, possessively grabbing my arm. "She's just arrived."

"Then she should be shown around so she doesn't get lost," the first guy shot back, taking another step toward me.

I shifted back, trying to put space between me and the men, but they moved with me, keeping close. Offers to sit, to eat, to stroll, to listen to music, to bathe were thrown out, each suggestion louder than the next as every man tried to be heard over the others.

Their voices roared around me and my pulse raced. They were too close. They kept bumping into me. They were going to grab me and rip me apart.

Great Father, this wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare, a reminder that I was now surrounded by men in the Black Tower and didn't want them to know who I really was. And while the men in my dream were all vying for my attention, I doubted the men at the Tower would be so welcoming.

They crowded so close I could barely see the gauzy canopy above me, and my breathing turned sharp. I couldn't breathe. The world jostled and my thoughts spun. I needed space. I had to get out of there.

Leave me alone. Please. Stop touching me.

But I couldn't get the words out. I'd be punished if I made such demands. I'd be punished too if I fled, but I had to do something, and fleeing was safer than speaking up.

There was a space behind me. If I was fast enough, I could run through and find a way back to the garden. There was a chance if I ran away, my dream would make them chase me, but I couldn't keep standing there.

I jerked around and twisted sideways to bolt through the space between two of the men. Black Hair said something, but I ignored him and wrenched out of the way of another man. I bumped into someone, jerked away before he could grab me, caught a glimpse of gauzy green fabric, and raced toward it.

The window billowed the fabric across my path, but I shoved it aside, ran between two of the statues, and slammed face-first into something hard and black.

My world lurched, the impact stunning me, and with a yelp, I stumbled back and lost my balance. But before I could fall, a hand snapped out, grabbed my upper arm, and jerked me upright. He — and from his size and build he had to be a he — tugged me to his side and wrapped his arm around my waist, steadying me against him.

"What—" he snarled, the voice shockingly familiar.

That sounded like?—

I jerked my gaze up and looked into the silver eyes of the Lord Commander of the Black Guard.

Oh, shit.