Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 2
He had the body of a giant man and a head that resembled a serpent. Where most men would have facial hair, scales flanked his cheeks. An off-green hue darkened his forehead and brightened his reptilian eyes. A sheet of parchment hung between his fingers. Each scaled hand had only four, half the length of a typical faerie digit. Darkened nails sprouted and curled, resembling sharpened claws.
“... she is clearly not mine.”
Busy studying the male’s unique features, I almost missed the exchange between him and Rolina.
“Why wait this long to bring her to our attention?” the male said, seeming more interested in an old watch he lifted to inspect closely. “There is nothing to be done—”
“Why wait?” My eyes widened as Rolina hissed, “Because the hunt do not trade with anyone under the age of twenty years.”
Those strange eyes flashed back to the flustered woman beside me, and I was certain the scaled faerie hadn’t once even glanced at me. “If she is indeed a changeling and you’ve kept her for all these years, then I’m afraid there is nothing that I nor anyone else can do for you. Your lost offspring is likely dead.” He looked at a male with similar scaled features who’d stepped forward. He gestured for us to be escorted out, then looked at the tent entrance. “Bring in the next.”
That was it.
My ears filled with a screeching buzz. Something cracked within my chest.
It widened as Rolina refused to heed the dismissal.
“Wait, wait,” she pleaded, her sharp tone now gentling with panic. “Please, I just know that if we tried—”
“Hush.” I placed my hand upon her upper arm and clasped it firmly in warning. “Come, we need to go.” It was far from wise to anger one of the Fae. Especially the hunt, who belonged to no royal house and therefore did not need to abide by their rules.
It happened too fast for my tense limbs to respond.
I was shoved with enough force to send me stumbling face-first into the trade table.
My hands grasped it, nearly tipping the heavy metal over as I righted myself. Fear hitched my instant apology, but no one was paying me any mind.
Everyone in the tent had risen to their feet. Every eye was pinned to my incensed guardian.
“I don’t want her!” Rolina screamed. “Twenty fucking years I’ve waited for this night. Twenty years I’ve waited and hoped for the return of my real daughter, you filthy, cheating, vermin scum—” Before she could utter another word, her eyes went wide.
Her thin frame went eerily still.
Then crumpled to the grass.
Fright and shock became a storm that emptied my mind and lungs as I beheld the corpse of the woman who’d given me both refuge and peril. The guardian who’d kept me alive but had smothered something fundamental inside me.
The monster who’d held me captive while never wanting me at all.
All of it—gone.
So many years of hoping and planning just...
Done.
My throat constricted. My eyes burned. “No,” I rasped and fell to my knees. I crawled to her, pulled her close, but I needn’t have bothered. I knew. I could already hear it.
Nothing.
Her heart was as good as stone. Unseeing eyes bulged, wide open beneath the orbs of firelight bobbing across the tent ceiling. Closing them with trembling fingers, I bowed my head, unsure how I was supposed to get her home. I could carry her, but then what?
My skin hummed in warning. I glanced up to find a silver mist descending.
“Get back,” a sharp voice commanded. “Unless you wish to join her in the pits of Nowhere.”
I dropped Rolina to the grass and shuffled back on my rear a second before the mist met her lifeless body. It seemed I wouldn’t need to fret about burying her—as right before my very eyes, she began to decompose.
Living in this prison of eternal in-between with both creature and human, I’d heard and seen a great deal of odd things. Magic used for entertainment, miraculous healing, and plenty of stealing. I’d even seen someone shapeshift for coin on the street. But this...
I couldn’t look away. The grass, soil, and even some weeds glowed brighter as if hit by a flare of sunlight.
As if they were absorbing Rolina’s flesh and bones like one would a hearty meal.
Someone cursed and groaned. “Every fucking time you’re here, I swear.”
A female snorted. “Never can help yourself, Vin.”
Laughter sounded. A roaring and unfitting orchestra that reminded me where I was and what could befall me.
“Your tyrant, I presume?” That voice again. The one that had told me to move. It was different. Not the same as the snake-skinned male who’d refused to trade with us.
I didn’t ask if he’d ended Rolina’s life. I supposed I didn’t need to know. She was gone, and trying to swallow that was more than enough for right now. I couldn’t have asked a thing if I’d tried, being that I couldn’t seem to make words form to answer his simple question.
Hands snuck under my arms, lifting me from the ground.
Instinct returned. I whirled as we exited the tent, smacking the male’s hard chest to be set down. The breeze gathered force, reviving me enough to realize I was making a grave error. But it was too late.
He dropped me to my feet and snatched my wrist, though not as violently as Rolina was prone to—had been prone to.
Sharp like the edge of a blade and as rough as a stone used to sharpen it, his low voice lured my eyes to his. “You might be lovely to look at, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you.”
My eyes widened upon his, and my cheeks bloomed with both anger and terror.
Eyes of molten gold gazed down at me, then narrowed. His large hand was cool, the pads of his fingers roughened, as he lowered my own.
I blinked and pulled my hand to my chest, cradling it although he hadn’t hurt me. Peering behind me to the tent, I stepped back from him before he did.
But looking was pointless when I’d seen it happen. There would be no trace of the woman I’d spent my entire life with. There was only a portable house of horrors veiled behind impenetrable canvas blending perfectly with the night.
“You...” I swallowed. “You killed her.”
The faerie’s thick brows crinkled. “That you care when the woman clearly cared nothing for you makes you awfully stupid.” There was a pause as he eyed my hands, then carefully, my face. “Your name.”
Most had left the field for town, leaving only a few stragglers awaiting entry into the tent. I turned in a circle, wondering what to do, where to go, what came next...
Home. I had to return to the apartment that had never been mine. Tomorrow, I would try to figure out what might happen next. Tomorrow, I would try to accept that nothing might ever change. That I’d still be stuck—
A throat cleared. I’d forgotten I had company.
The cloak-wearing murderer snapped, “Name.”
I startled, flinching as I spun back and had my first proper look at the male awaiting an answer from me. “Flea,” I croaked.
The giant with golden eyes tilted his head, watching me shift on my feet as my cheeks flamed. Of course, there was no need to repeat myself and say it clearer. He’d heard me just fine.
Those catlike eyes crept down my body. Not in a lewd way, yet I still grew hotter—more uncomfortable—by the moment. “Flea?”
“Yes,” I rasped.
“You’re lying.” He set loose an impatient breath and cursed quietly. “I’ll give you one more chance to tell me your true name.”
“I don’t have one.” My shaking hands grasped my brown skirts, clutching them tight. Perhaps I’d hit him again otherwise. Perhaps I’d seize the throat of his high collar and howl at him for changing and ruining everything within one measly second.
Perhaps I’d even thank him.
A death sentence, any and all of it, I was sure.
But as he lifted his hair-dusted chin, his gaze meeting mine down the bridge of his slightly crooked and slightly too long nose, I found myself asking this cruel stranger, “What am I to do now?”
He blinked, as if he were just as taken aback by the question as I was.
Then he scowled.
After a moment of unbending silence, he turned so swiftly for the tent, the breeze kicked up with the swish of his night-absorbing cloak.
And I was left more alone than ever before.
Freedom.
For so long, I’d imagined what that might look like.
Not once had I imagined merely a larger cage. Not once had I guessed that the freedom to live a life of my own would actually leave me with little choice at all.
I’d never worked. Not for coin. I’d cooked, cleaned, washed, shopped, and dreamed of a world beyond the warded borders of Crustle and the recesses of my imagination.
The rare escape I’d found hid amongst the pages of books. Whenever Rolina was out, I would study pictures and read or sneak downstairs to the library to exchange books for more.
In the stairwell of our apartment building was a wooden door barely big enough for a grown creature to squeeze through. I’d discovered it one night when I’d been too young and afraid to leave the building.
After sitting upon the landing for countless minutes, I’d failed to find the courage to venture down the last curl of steps and outside.
Hesitant to climb back upstairs to the woman with a temper I’d been desperate to escape, I’d wandered over to look closer at the door. The wood was worn, hinges rusted and flaking. Yet the padlock gleamed like that of true gold with intricate engravings of birds and leaves.
With one touch of my curious fingers, the metal hadn’t just moved—it had unlatched.
The goblin who’d greeted me inside with such fright he’d nearly dropped his teacup had mercifully never had the padlock replaced. And though I shouldn’t have been permitted to borrow anything at such a young age, Gane had never sent me away.
My only companions, a lifeline and a bridge to adulthood, I’d handed myself over entirely to fiction and the tales and lore of other realms.
It was possibly the one and only thing I would eternally remain grateful to Rolina for—that she’d taught me my letters, the basics of reading, and numbers.
Of course, she had merely wished to make it seem as though she’d done whomever my faerie parents were a great service in caring for me so well. Not a year passed before she eventually grew tired of bothering with me at all. By the age of eight years, I could clean myself and parts of the apartment. I’d discovered the library during that year, and I’d learned enough to continue learning without her.
Books couldn’t save me now.
And after days spent cleaning the already pristine apartment and staring at Rolina’s extravagant belongings, I didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere else to go, and only one creature who might have cared.
Gane grew paler by the second as I finished informing him of all that had happened.
“That vile and foolish woman.” The goblin’s furry and crinkled arched ears twitched with discomfort as he glanced to the street-facing doors I’d never once used. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I know,” I said, sighing as I perched atop his tall desk, which sat giant and imposing in the middle of the narrow library. Due to his short stature, he had a set of wooden steps behind it, as well as a stool. I’d once asked him why he’d never sought a smaller desk for himself. He’d said that he’d rather people not look down upon him when requesting his assistance. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“You count yourself blessed by Mythayla to still draw breath, and that you can now do so without living under Rolina’s tyrannical rule.”
I snorted, though he was right. I was fortunate, I knew, but I was so many other conflicting things that I couldn’t seem to feel any one feeling for too long. “Is it bad?” I asked, hesitant. “That I do not grieve her.”
Gane scoffed. “You are too human for your own good. She was a monster of a woman.”
“But she gave me shelter.” I traced a fractal of light spearing through the aisles and over the worn desk from tall rectangular windows too grimy to see beyond. “Food, and some semblance of safety.”
“And you were required to slave after her in return until she could send you away. If you ask me, that woman was far more faerie than you and those she despised. Hypocrites always meet their matches in the end.”
Indeed, Rolina had.
Gane laid his quill down on his afternoon checklist and placed his gnarled hand over my fidgeting fingers. “You’re feeling bereft because you did not get what you want after hoping for all these years, and now you’re afraid you never will. But Flea...”
I studied his hairy fingers, and how my own far exceeded their stubby length, but I looked up at him when he said, “You have a chance to live a life of your own choosing now. You don’t need to cower nor answer to anyone. Nothing is stopping you from doing exactly as you wish. You do not need Folkyn.”
Nothing stopping me.
Those words rang through me, bittersweet. “I still need answers,” I said, and I’d told him as much hundreds of times before.
The goblin did as expected. Taking his hand from mine to remove his spectacles from his almond eyes, he shook his head as he cleaned them with his plaid shirt. “You only think you do, but that you were dumped in Rolina’s care says otherwise.”
Rolina had always loathed to be reminded that her daughter was likely dead. All these years, she’d refused to believe it. Her few friends in town and at her place of work—the Lair of Lust—had supposedly ceased trying to convince her to grieve and move on long ago.
“But I can’t just ignore it,” I admitted. “I’ve spent too many years believing it will happen.”
I could understand why Gane thought it was a waste of time to worry over creatures who did not worry over me, but... what if they did? What if they’d spent twenty years hoping I was okay, and that they might one day see me again?
What if I’d been stolen from them and left here in Crustle? As vengeance, or for my own safety? What if my parents were dead, and there had simply been no one to care for me? There were so many what-ifs, I could make a list as tall as the rafters in the library.
And I would never learn anything if I stayed here.
Gane set his spectacles back upon his wide face, then scratched at the white hair climbing his cheeks in tiny curling clouds. “You have to ignore it. There’s no other option, so cease breaking your own heart. Crustle is your home, Flea.”
But he knew that wasn’t entirely true; otherwise, he wouldn’t have left his podium with another exasperated shake of his head as soon as he’d finished speaking.
“Wouldn’t you wish to at least know where you came from?” I called after him as he traversed the awaiting piles of books in the aisle closest to the desk. “I have to find a way, Gane.”
“You don’t have to do anything. Go home and enjoy Rolina’s lavish life.”
His unwillingness to talk of a land he had chosen to leave when his wife had perished some decades ago did not surprise me.
But his desire for me to leave him alone did.
I jumped down from the desk, hope rekindling and warming my blood. “Gane, if you know of a way, then you must tell me.”
He’d never claimed to, but then, I’d never thought to ask. I’d believed, almost as strongly as Rolina had, that the Wild Hunt would swap me. At the very least, that they would find enough reason to take me home.
My fingers swept over the spines of books as I trailed the hobbling goblin from one aisle to the next. “Gane, please.”
He stopped and feigned rehoming a thick volume on the history of merfolk. One I’d read cover to cover five times. “There isn’t a way. None that I would dare suggest.”
“Then how did you come to Crustle?”
All he’d ever said was that he’d left Folkyn. Which I now suspected wasn’t true.
His silence was telling.
He sighed and turned to squint up at me. “I went to the royal house of Hellebore with the intention of stealing a statue as old as the land itself.”
I blinked, then I smiled broadly. “Really?”
His lips quirked before he made a sound of irritation and shuffled away. “Be gone, Flea. You are no criminal, and I won’t see you endanger yourself.”
I followed him to the back of the library. “But you did it.”
“The king took pity on me because one of his warriors told him of my wife, and he could see I merely wished to have no part in the land that stole her from me.”
“The frosty king of Hellebore took pity on you?” I almost laughed. “But he is a known tyrant.”
“Tyrants have souls too, Flea. Besides...” He waved a hand, entering the swinging waist-length door to the small kitchenette and heading straight to the tea kettle. “Leaving Folkyn and leaving Crustle are two very different feats.”
“Perhaps the governor will take pity on me now that I’ve lost my guardian.”
“You are of age to no longer need a guardian, and the governor couldn’t give two shooting stars about anyone but herself.”
He was right. Ruthless in a way that was almost admirable, the half-fae female who’d fought dirty to earn her role as keeper of the middle lands cared nothing for exceptions unless it suited her own greedy desires.
And despite foolishly feeling like one, I was no exception.
I was far from the first faerie to be thrown out of Folkyn as a babe, and I certainly would not be the last.
Gane set the kettle on the stovetop, and I snatched a piece of cheese from the chopping board.
He glared at me.
“Rolina spent the last of her pay on wine, celebrating the arrival of the hunt for days prior to their visit.” I shrugged and took another piece. “I’m almost out of food.”
“Then I suggest you find yourself employment and quit worrying over finding a way into Folkyn.”
“So there is a way.” I grinned around the cheese, and he snatched the board from beneath my hand when I reached for more. Goblins did not like to share food with anyone but their families, no matter how much they tolerated someone else’s company. “I know there is, and I know that you know what it is.”
