Trapped (Imprisoned by the Fae 1)

I’ve got to make it count.

“Why are you willing to help me?”

I… definitely caught his attention with that one.

Rys rolls, propping himself up on his elbow so that he can glare right at me. “Excuse me?”

“It’s just…” Okay, Helen. You opened your trap. Might as well run with it. “I’ve heard some of the guards call you a human lover more than once. Is… is that why you’re okay with looking out for me?”

He’s quiet for so long that I regret opening my mouth. Why should it matter what his reasons are for watching my back? Unlike most of the fae males I’ve met so far, he doesn’t seem interested in playing grabby hands or anything.

“I thought I had a mate once. She was human.”

Jealousy slams into me so hard that I actually let out a soft, “Oof.” And that’s crazy. I have Jim waiting for me back home—no matter how we left things—and there’s no reason why Rys having a mate should bother me.

But it does.

“What happened to her?” I ask. It slips out. I don’t really want to know, and I’m probably pushing my luck by asking him another question, but there’s something in the flat way he says that that tells me there’s way more to the story.

“I killed her sister.”

What?

Rys waits for me to say something. When I don’t, he lets out a dark chuckle that has me wishing we were in separate cells again.

“Are you done with your questions, Leannán?”

“Um. Yeah.”

He lowers his body back to the floor. This time, he doesn’t go to his back. He rolls on his side, hiding his face from me.

“Goodnight, Rys.”

His voice is so icy cold when he answers me, I shiver beneath my blanket.

“Sweet dreams.”

Someone’s talking.

At first, I think I’ve got to be dreaming. Since I’ve been in Faerie, I haven’t had a single dream, but to hear two voices having a casual conversation somewhere to my right is so out of the ordinary here, I feel like it has to be a dream.

I’m lying on my back. I’m usually a side-sleeper and that’s another thing that throws me. I start to shift, then roll away so that I can fall asleep when someone starts talking again.

“This isn’t what I had in mind when I insisted she be returned to me.”

I know that first voice. It belongs to Rys.

I immediately freeze. Through slits in my eyes while I stay on my back, I can see the silhouettes of two people. A quick glance toward the floor reveals that Rys is gone. He’s got to be the long, lean shape on this side of the bars.

There’s a twin on the other side. Another male.

“Would you rather the human be lef

t across prison, so far from your reach?” It’s a lower voice, still soft, still clear, but it’s notably deeper than Rys’s. I wish I could recognize it, but I don’t. “Posey entertains the guards. How long before one of them decides to visit your human?”

“They can’t,” argues Rys.

“The captain is gone. If the human agrees, there’s nothing to stop them.”