I’m almost proud of how quickly I’ve become accustomed to cursing. In my first step into the portal, the phosphorescent light eliminates all heat within my body. Its icy tendrils seem to probe me in an experimental search for my worthiness while I pepper it with four letter words.

I stand otherwise statue still, too cold to even shiver, praying the place between realms, that I’ll undoubtedly be relegated, has even a semblance of warmth.

I’d even accept a lone sock or some hideous earmuffs. I’m not picky.

My prayers are answered in the way they usually are – by violently depositing me in a heap on a hard and unfamiliar ground. Warmth leeches back into my body like antivenom, even more slowly and painfully than it had exited.

As I writhe with eyes squeezed shut against even more cursed light, my mouth opens to emit an eerily accurate impression of a dying goose.

“Oh, hey. You made it,” the fae male’s disembodied voice above me intones without inflection.

“I’m not so sure that I did,” I grit out.

Enough feeling returns to my body that I’m able to sense a stone floor under my back. I imagine I’m either in a dungeon or a room of importance and gathering.

I don’t know which would be worse.

I’m really not a people person and I’ve previously received scathing reviews of my capacity as a captive.

He tsks.

“You’ll be fine,” his voice soothes, “it only hurts the first time.”

“Really?” I squeak hopefully.

“No,” he says and strides away.

“Friggin fae,” I grumble and wince as I attempt to sit up, only allowing a squint as I stare down at the white marble floors under me. Fancy.

My eyes open entirely against my will as they follow the direction the male’s steps had gone, widening more than I thought possible when they trail past thirty yards of matching marble, up two slight stairs, and land on an ornate golden chair perched atop the heightened dais.

The chair that contains the sole occupant of the goddess forsaken _throne room_, a strikingly gorgeous and familiar shaped fae.

And there’s no mistaking that’s what he is. The delicately pointed ears give it away. I’ve seen theoretical sketches of the perfect man, but I didn’t know someone had posed for them.

Sharp jawline, cheekbones, and an icy blue stare pin me in place like a preserved butterfly. Dark brows that seem permanently imperiously raised as if he lives in a consistent state of expectancy.

Matching long dark hair frames his face, braided on both sides of his scalp to bare his ears in accentuation of his otherness.

His large frame, adorned in a black, silky, long sleeved tunic and leathery breeches that probably took a whole extended family of cows to make, fills a throne that my feet would dangle from if I tried to sit.

He’s royalty. Because of course he is.

I’m really glad I didn’t get a look at him in the clearing. I definitely would’ve died.

I find myself in a state of speechlessness that everyone I’ve ever encountered had previously begged of me. I scan the room in search of my words and deflate in disappointment at the matching solid white marble walls.

“You should really get some windows in here,” I suggest to the… prince? King?

He does that strange grunt again.

No judgement from the dying goose here.

“Do you know where you are?” His question booms with condemnation in the solid space. I stretch my neck up to the endless ceiling.

“Wow,” I breathe into the void above.

He makes a noise in his throat.

Maybe there’s a tickle?

Do kings get tickles?

He seems like a king, I decide.

You learn a lot about reading people while living on the streets – always watching and bracing for their façade to shift and show what you’ve known was malicious intention hiding underneath.

The rules are to rob the ones with an air of importance and think themselves impenetrable, then aid the underestimated to infiltrate their ranks.

The person I met in the clearing didn’t have the weight of leadership on their shoulders, but now they’re bunched under the pressure of it.

I belatedly recall his question and finally answer casually, “No clue where I am.”

Grimacing at his unblinking reaction, I amend, “Am I supposed to be using honorifics here? Your Majesty? Sire? No, that one is creepy to me, but I don’t often meet strange men in the woods who usher me to other realms and end up being some kind of royalty. You’re gonna have to walk me through this one.”

He still doesn’t blink. I wonder if he even has to?

But then he deigns to respond, “I am no man.”

That’s all he got from that?

I cross my arms and grumble under my breath, “You sure are acting like one.”

“What was that?” He booms.

Oh _now_ he’s feeling chatty.

I bet he knows exactly what I said, too.

“What am I doing here?” I ask instead.

The fae king seems to seethe a bit at that.

I’m starting to share the sentiment.

I thought this might be some great adventure, but this increasingly angry man seems intent on ruining my exploration.

I can’t even peek out a window at the world I’ve thrust myself into! What if it’s a fiery hellscape? Worse, what if it’s one vast plain filled with endless scrolls.

I shiver.

“What were you doing with Quillian?” the king spits out.

I throw my hands up. “Who is that?”

His tightening grip on the throne armrests makes a high pitched creak. “The man pursuing you.”

My mind flips through all the possible men who had expressed interest in me rather quickly.

It’s a short list.

But then his meaning clicks. “Oh! That’s the angry librarian’s name?”

The king does a great impression of Quillian’s furious face just then.

I address the expectancy of his brows. “I don’t know who that is, and he didn’t even know I was there.”

“Where?”

“In his tower.”

I become concerned for the structural integrity of the throne as the king audibly increases the pressure of his grip.

“For what purpose,” he speaks as if pained, “were you in the forsaken tower.”

_Forsaken tower?_ Huh.

That sounds ominous.

I’m not exactly eager to tell him about my mission to find this elusive yet special scroll and how tremendously I’ve failed in doing so, but I don’t want to lie for some reason.

Can fae tell if you’re lying?

Or can they just not do it themselves?

Wish there would’ve been a scroll on that tidbit.

I decide to answer with, “Reading,” which is apparently the wrong thing to say.

He stands abruptly.

The walls on either side of the room disappear.

I don’t have a moment to appreciate the magic behind adding blinders whilst the king is seated, nor do I get a chance to finally see my surroundings.

There is thankfully a lot of green in my periphery, but my focus is on a very big boy charging in my direction. His large hand easily encircles my neck, but not in a threatening way that I know well. It’s more of an avaricious claiming.

He’s unfairly more beautiful up close, even with his face pinched in a way that I didn’t previously think possible. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I confused a king.

His eyes, the color of the restored sky after it rains, scan me as greedily as I did those scrolls.

“You could read those?” he almost whispers.

I scoff and jerk in his grasp.

“Yes, I can _read_,” I retort incredulously.

I can’t believe I thought he was pretty.

He retracts his grip while shaking his head, still staring down at me with an inscrutable expression. I’m just about to turn away, so I can finally see this place, when he says the words that change my life even more irrevocably.

“Those scrolls are cursed to be blank, little one.”

Then what the hell was I reading for over a week? I learned so much about the magical world that I’d assumed theoretical, and he’s saying my findings were as unreal as I’d previously considered his people to be.

His statement and all its implications hang in the air like cursed mistletoe until the most obvious of solutions arises.

“So, you’re saying I’m crazy,” I decide.

Man, do I hate that all those people in my past have been right.

But then the fae king shakes his head, and with a sad smile and imploring eyes, he answers, “No. You’re chosen.”

Rendered speechless once more, he steps to my side and encourages me forward with a large hand pressed between my shoulder blades, aiming us towards a tall door to the right of the dais.

It’s as if I’m back sprinting through the abyss, only able to see mere feet in front of me. Too thunderstruck by his proclamation to process anything more than forward movement, I once again charge ahead into the unknown.