Freed (Imprisoned by the Fae 3)

Jim.

“We don’t need to ride. I can shade-walk us out of here,” offers Riley.

Not all of us.

“Rys is a Seelie,” I remind her. “He can’t travel through the shadows like you guys can.”

“Well, he can, but he’ll probably end up even worse than…” Riley nods right at Jim. “I could fix him, though.” A pause. “Probably.” Another pause, and then, “It worked for my dad and he’s a Light Fae, too.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

She doesn’t have an answer for that.

“I wouldn’t survive shadow travel,” Rys says. “Not after we’ve been in the Shadow Realm as long as we have. Maybe if I was fully recharged… but I’m not. No. If he comes, I’ll make my stand here.”

I don’t like the sound of that.

Okay. Okay. Rys can’t travel like Nine and Riley can. But what if I went with Riley, Nine grabbed Jim, and then Rys hopped back on the horse and...

Wait—

“Where’s Herla?”

The massive horse is strangely missing. And, yeah, I know I’m a little distracted, but how did I miss that?

“He’s gone to rejoin the Wild Hunt,” Rys says. “My geas has been met. I had a ride out to the prison and a ride back here. That’s all I bargained for.”

Welp. There goes that plan.

“Hel…”

The croak is barely a whisper, but I heard that. “Jim? Jim!”

I race over to Rys. He tilts Jim down, easing him into my arms as I help lay him out on the ground.

From beneath Rys’s cloak, where his sleeve bunched up near the crook of his elbow, I can see the shiny, pink flesh, the raging red blisters that ruin his bronzed skin. He’s been burned and pretty freaking bad, too. Look at his hands. It’s like he pressed them up against an iron—

—or the skin of a human who never gave him permission.

I never even second-guessed the way that Rys rode into the clearing, Jim slung in front of him as he held him in place on the back of the horse. I guess… I guess I just assumed that his cloak and Jim’s flannel protected him. His shadow cloak is gone, but the thick shirt should’ve helped, right?

“Rys, what—”

“Hel? Is that you?”

“Take care of your human, Leannán,” Rys murmurs. “I got to him before the guards did anything worse, but we both know the touch of the diamaint glove is never pleasant.”

The diamaint gloves. They look like leather gloves with uncut, sparkling diamonds sewn into them. They gave the guards in Siúcra the power to touch a human without the risk of being burned. But, because the gems were uncut, they were sharp and super dangerous.

Now that Jim’s on his back, I get a good look at his face. And I can immediately guess what happened to him while he was imprisoned.

“I didn’t let them touch me,” Jim whispers, his voice scratchy and rough. His dark brown eyes are dull, glazed over, as he tries to focus on me. “I promised.”

“I know, Jimmy. I know.”

Choking back an angry sob, I stroke a lock of dark hair away from his forehead. I’m careful not to touch any of the slices that cover his face. Some of them are deep gouges, others shallow lines, but they’ve got to hurt.

What did they do? Slap him in the fucking face with the diamaint gloves?