Page 79 of Fae Games

Pain etched his features, and hatred burned in his black eyes, but he pulled himself up and threw the garment on the floor. “You won’t get away with this. My shift will be over soon, and another guard will come in and teach you a hard lesson. He’s probably waiting outside.”

Ignoring what was probably a bluff, I picked the jacket up and slipped it over my shoulders. “Lie back down, or I’ll roll you back into the bars.”

The guard flopped down to the stone floor. I stepped out of the door and locked him in the cell.

“What about my sword?” he whispered.

The urge to say something scathing about his tiny penis burned in the back of my throat, but the need to get the fuck out of that dungeon burned hotter. I patted the iron keys on my belt, rushed to the dungeon’s wooden door, and twisted the handle.

It was locked.

I knelt and peered through the keyhole. Two guards clad in white stood outside the door. My pulse quickened, and my throat went dry. What the fuck was I going to do now? There was no way I could fight my way through a palace full of guards.

After pulling myself to my feet, I hurried back to my old cell, where the guard lay on the floor, panting through clenched teeth.

“Come back to grovel, have you?” he whispered through his pain.

I slammed my palms on the iron bars. “Is there another way out?”

“Why in the Otherworld would I help you?” he groaned.

“Do you want me to pull the cock-ring off or not?”

The guard rolled on the floor toward me. “Take it off, and I’ll fly you out of the window myself.”

I shook my head. He was more likely to strangle me if I set him free. Turning around, I swept my gaze over the stone wall, finding nothing but candles flickering in the wind. “There is no window.”

Painful spasms wracked his body as he tried not to laugh. “Stupid human. The wall is glamoured to look solid. Free my sword, and I’ll—”

“Thanks.” I rushed to one end of the dungeon and placed my hands on the stone walls. There wasn’t much I knew about glamours except that they only worked if you believed your eyes.

Ignoring the guard’s pleas for me to return, I closed my eyes and felt around. There had to be an opening somewhere that was letting in all the cold air and making the candles flicker. My hands swiped up and down the cool stone, sometimes going over a point twice if it didn’t feel right. After several moments, my fingers curled around a dip.

My heart somersaulted with hope. This had to be the window.

Still keeping my eyes closed, I felt around its ledge, which was about five feet high but not impossible to climb if I got a foothold on the stone.

“Stupid human,” snarled the guard. “I hope you drown in the moat.”

“Thanks.” That was all the encouragement I needed to place my foot on a low piece of stone jutting out from the wall and hoist myself up. With an almighty heave, I placed myself up on the ledge and rested my back against the opening in the wall.

Cold wind blew through my hair and stung my face, indicating that we were high up. One leg dangled outside the palace, and the other dangled on the inside. I didn’t dare open my eyes in case they tricked me into believing I was sitting within a stone wall, so I swung my other leg over.

“How far is the drop?” I asked the guard.

He didn’t answer. I supposed in his situation, I wouldn’t help me escape, either.

“Calm down,” I whispered to myself. “Even if he was lying about the water, this will be a quick death. Ten times better than being dragged around the Mound and cut into quarters.”

The pep talk did nothing to soothe my frayed nerves, but I pushed myself off the ledge and jumped.

Terror wrapped its cold fingers around my stomach as I plummeted, and the wind battered my face with tiny fists. I tried opening my eyes, but could only squint. Beneath me was an unimaginable drop into a moat that looked only a foot wide. I might have screamed, but the roar and whistle of the wind in my ears muffled the sound.

This was worse than plummeting off the headmistress’s tower in Prince Rory’s arms. Worse than staring into the manic eyes of the Jack of Smiles. I was going to die, and my stupid wings, those wretched appendages that were only good for glowing at the sight of hot princes, were too terrified to flap.

My free-fall accelerated, and the sun emerged from behind the cloud, lighting up the vast palace gardens and the mountaintops beyond. Perhaps it came out to say goodbye. I didn’t know, because there was no way that moat was deep enough for a person to survive a fall from this height.

I squeezed my eyes shut and fell feet-first into frigid water. The fall continued as I plummeted the depths of the moat, sinking until the water got so cold, I could barely feel my own frantic heart or the burning of my lungs.