The Dark Fae series (first series) can be found here It can also be read in Boxed Set format.
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KEEP READING FOR A ‘DARK FAE, BOOK 1 SAMPLE’
Caspan is inside his tent. I spot him on the leather armchair by the iron fire pit as the tent flap falls into place behind me.
He holds a glass of purple wine loose in his grip, and leans his temple on his fist. He watches the flames in the fire pit, and doesn’t look up as I come in.
I linger by the entrance for only a moment before I move for his bed. He doesn’t glance my way as I walk past him. I rest the basket on the floor, then carefully set his pile of clothes and armour on the animal hides that cover the air mattress.
Beside the mattress, there is a discarded belt full of daggers and knives on the floor. I eye the small sharp throwing knives with a hunger I feel deep in my belly. My arm aches to feel the kiss of a blade dragging over it. It hasn’t been long since I last cut, but already I crave the pain again. I crave the nothingness it embraces me with.
I hesitate by the bed, weighing up my choices. I wonder what the punishment will be if he catches me stealing a knife. I don’t have one of my own to bring that bittersweet relief to myself. And the ones that are used for cooking are closely guarded by the humans on meal duty.
Adrianna is on meal duty. Maybe I can use her to get to the knives. Would the punishment be worth the risk?
With that thought lingering in my mind, I pick up the basket and walk by the fire pit. As I make to leave, Caspan stops me—
“Come here, kuri.”
His voice slices through me like a sword through flesh. I turn to face him, holding the basket to me like a shield.
Caspan still leans his head lazily on his fist. Slowly, he lifts the glass to his pink mouth and sips the pungent wine. It’s a long sip, and he watches me with those black eyes of his. They remind me of black holes, sucking in all that’s good and pure, devouring the light that dares to live around it.
Finally, he lifts his hand and beckons me over with a curve of his long fingers. “I said come here.”
I’m unsure for a moment. Do I leave the basket on the ground, or take it with me? I decide to hug it to my chest as I tread closer to him, my footsteps uneasy and unwilling.
He watches me silently. The quiet is crushing, and my heartbeat picks up. I stop a safe metre in front of him, by the fire pit. The heat of the slight flames burns my arm. I savour the pain—it might be the closest to cutting that I can get in this camp.
“What is your name, kuri?”
My voice is a whisper, “Vale.”
“Show me your arm, Vale,” he says softly. He sounds tired. His lashes are dropped low, casting dark shadows over his marble-white face, and he watches me with the lazy gaze of a tiger watching prey on a too-hot day.
I lower the basket to the floor before I stretch out my scarred arm. The cuts gleam white in the firelight.
Caspan takes my wrist in his grip. His fingers are cool against my skin, and he presses hard, dragging me closer to him. His grasp loosens only when my knees touch his, and he runs the pad of his thumb over my scarred tattoo.
“Tell me about this,” he demands tiredly. He sets the glass down on a round side-table, then brings his full attention to my arm. “This symbol,” he explains, studying my ink. “What does it mean to you?”
I trace his stare to my arm. The tattoo is thick and black, and its shape sort of resembles a fat, cursive ‘r’ with a comma above it.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “It means nothing, it’s just a shape.”
His ink-black eyes look up at me from beneath thick lashes. There’s a palpable danger in his lazy gaze that makes my heart thrum hard in my chest. I swallow and shift on the spot, the urge to yank my wrist out of his grip devouring me.
“And these?” His grip travels up from my wrist to the scars marking my skin. “Do these mean nothing to you, also?”
His hand on my arm is looser now. Delicately, I pull my arm back to myself and let his hand drop to his side. He looks at me, hard.
“Is there anything else you need?” I ask, and ice-cold dread plummets through me. But no matter the fear, I don’t want to share my secrets with him. My dark thoughts are mine, not his.
His dark brow arches into a perfect shape as he studies me. Then, a dark smirk twists his full lips and I can glimpse the sharpness of his rear teeth.
“You have courage, little kuri,” he says. “And some foolery to match.”
I look down at my scuffed boots. All I want is to grab a knife from this tent and run back to the dark edges of camp. I want to slice my skin, then curl up into a ball and let that numbness consume me. I don’t want to stand here and be looked at like some cut-up ham.
When I bring my gaze back up to him, my heart stops for a beat. His stare has dropped to my tank-top. It’s white, and doesn’t hide much of what’s beneath it. And what worries me is the lazy hunger burning his black eyes.
My brows knit together. Distantly, I hear Adrianna’s voice in the back of my mind.
‘They don’t see us that way.’
The dark fae are not supposed to look at us like this—with lust and want. They aren’t supposed to look at our bodies or pay us much mind at all.
Uncomfortably, I fold my arms over my chest, blocking his view. As if yanked out of a dream, his cutting stare lifts to mine and a tightness hardens his face.
“The symbol,” he says and glances at my arm. “Where did you see it?”
I roll my jaw. Irritation is gnawing at my heels. “It’s not important.”
His voice is a deep growl; “I will decide what is important and what is not.”
He is obsessed with my stupid tattoo. I don't know if it’s because I refuse to talk about it that makes him so interested. But then, I remember the healer as he treated my arm, and how he stared at my ink for a moment too long. I wonder if the symbol means something to the dark fae—but then, that’s a stupid thought. How could an image I dreamt up years ago have anything to do with the fae?
I don’t want to answer, despite his cruel and unwavering stare. I don’t want him to know me in any meaningful way, a way that betrays my darkness to him. I want to be a stranger. Invisible.
But I also don’t want to die a brutal, painful death at his hands.
“I dreamt it,” I confess. “A long time ago, the night my parents died. I had a dream, and—” My words fall away with a shrug, and I look down at the basket tucked at my boots. “I don’t know, I thought it would be nice to have it remind me of them.”
“Remind you of their death,” he corrects me, and his eyes glisten like tar caught under the moonlight. A scowl slowly starts to settle on his face. He stares at me for a long moment. The air starts to thicken with his anger, and I don’t know what I’ve said to turn his mood so drastically.