Asylum (Touched by the Fae 1)

Hell no.

I shake my head again, so frantically that his lips kiss my ear. It burns and I try to pull away.

He holds me tighter.

“So be it,” he concedes. “But know this: I will always come for you.”

I don’t know if he means that as a promise or a threat. Some of the fog lifts. The words… I’ve heard them before. From him? I’m… I’m not sure.

The music grows louder, as if trying to drown out my thoughts. My heart is beating in time to it. I try to focus. The magic is fading, my senses returning. What the fuck am I doing? I push with my free hand, yanking with the other. His grip is so strong, I begin to suspect that he’ll never let me go.

We’re spinning now. When I finally find the strength to open my eyes, everything is a blur of gold and white. I don’t know how far I fell under his spell. Pretty damn far and I’m still trying to crawl out from under it as we go faster and faster. He slips his fingers between mine. Another touch.

“Don’t fight it—don’t fight me. You’re safe now. I’ll never hurt you.”

A shiver courses through me. Or maybe it’s him. I’m trembling as he saps all of my strength. Not only do I stop fighting, I actually lean into his embrace. I’m not sure I can support myself without holding onto him.

I wait for the twist in my belly that tells me that he’s lying to me. The fae can’t lie, but how can I believe him after he killed Madelaine?

I can’t—but my stomach stays settled.

He means every damn thing he says to me.

I don’t know how long I’m sleeping for but, when I finally come out of my sedation, I wake up to the sound of music in my head. It takes me a second before my dream rushes to the front of my mind.

When it does, I pop up in my bed like a panicked jack-in-the-box. I lift my hands high, putting them in front of my face, flipping them back and forth until I’m sure that they’re both covered all of the way with my leather gloves.

Because it was a dream. Just a dream brought on by the sedatives.

There was no golden fae. No dance. It was a terrible, strange nightmare that I forced my broken brain to live through after the way I hallucinated that the blonde tech had eyes just like the golden fae. I imagined her hazel eyes were gold, and paid for it by being sedated by the nursing staff.

At least I didn’t wake up strapped down. That’s a plus. And there’s weak light streaming in past the six bars on my window. It’s morning.

But which morning?

I get my answer shortly. It’s Amy who comes in and does my vitals. Just seeing her is a big clue that I lost more time than I thought. If she’s here, then it’s Thursday at the earliest. I lost all of Wednesday.

She confirms it as she rattles on, going a mile a minute as if she’s trying to make up for the time I was out. Not once does she mention my sedation, though she swiftly checks the bruising where they jabbed me with the needle before she covers the purple lump with a fresh bandage.

I wait until she takes a breath before I ask her the only thing I care about.

“Where’s the other tech? Where’s Diana?”

Especially on the heels on my strange dream, I know I never want to go near her again. The dream put things into perspective for me; with a clear head, it’s a relief to realize I had been seeing things. The flash of gold I saw in her eyes? It must have been a trick of the setting sun since it was early when Diana and Duncan came to bring me my medicine.

Still, just the thought of coming face to face with her again—just the chance that maybe I’ll see that flash again—has my breath picking up. It’s a little more labored than it was before.

Amy looks touched, almost like she mistook my worry for concern or something. I wonder if she got my motives wrong.

Yeah. She totally did.

“Oh, Riley.” She goes to pat my hand, remembers in an instant which patient I am, then pats the edge of my bed instead. “It’s so sweet of you to worry about Diana.”

Sweet? Nope. More like covering my own ass. I can’t have another attack like that. I’m so close to getting out of the asylum. I’m not about to let anything jeopardize that. I could just see it now. The nursing staff and the techs tell the doctors that I’m a threat and, look at that, my release gets put on hold. Instead of going to the transition house, I get referred to an adult facility.

I can’t let that happen.

“Where is she?” I ask again.