I knew better than to speak or ask questions, choosing instead to keep quiet as they made work of undressing what their predecessors had so meticulously dressed. When they were done, I was modestly covered beneath a layer of thin linen, my skin underneath it reacting to the cold of the room with fields of gooseflesh and a puckering of the tips of my breasts. Some forgotten instinct inside of me thought to cross my arms over my chest to cover my modesty, but I knew better than act on those thoughts, leaving my body exposed to the chill, and the females attending to me.
And then one of them spoke.
“You’re rather pretty for a punishment.”
One Dark Kiss
I heard rumors of magic linking tunnels together to allow for traveling between realms in minutes or hours compared to the days or weeks it would otherwise take. There was no other explanation for it, I realized as we emerged into afternoon light from a wide opening in the mouth of the cave to a dense forest lush with evergreen trees, their earthly scents assaulting my nose and mouth. A welcome but overpowering change from the daily smells of the compound.
One Dark Kiss
I’ve been preparing for this moment all my life. Willing my mind to forget all that I have seen and heard and done before. Training my heart to loosen, to not hold my human emotions, such as they were. As if they were precious and could easily break. Where I was going there would be no need for feelings or ideas or fascinations. Nothing tinged with light belonged in a place where it was shunned by darkness, and certainly not in the black void of hope that was The Beyond – the fae realm.
One Dark Kiss
Lauren Bolt
Lauren Bolt is the pen name of American author Crystal Cierlak, who resides in California, USA.
