The Fae Queen's Captive (Peculiar Tastes, #6)

by Sierra Simone

“Look, it’s probably some youths making Halloween mischief at the tomb, like their grandparents before them, and their grandparents before them,” Alfie says, taking my hand and saying youths like we aren’t twenty-three ourselves. “Don’t be a bore. Who else is going to convince François that I’m his soul mate and he needs to whisk me away to Provence for a sun-soaked movie montage? This is my time of need!”

My pounding heart slows a little. It’s just a person. Just a non–serial killer person. Probably.

I like being called perfect by a pretty woman as much as the next person, and I don’t even mind being called adorable, since I’ve made something of a sexual career out of being short and curvy and dimple-cheeked.

I don’t like all this mortal talk. Because—well, look: after spending the past six years dissecting medieval narratives about demons and witches, I’m hardly one to jump into Satanic Panic mode, but there are a lot of the right ingredients here. I’m being carried off from a pagan tomb on Halloween night by attractive but possibly sociopathic strangers, and they’re talking about queens and mortals, and oh god—I’m going to die, I’m really going to die, and it’s not even going to be while I’m having an irresponsible but murder-podcast-worthy good time…

Even the sheep have trouble getting over those hills, and sheep are dicks who like nothing more than to find places where they’re certain to die horribly.

“I mean it, Janneth. Some lovers might enjoy gifts of jewels and gold, others might want ballads or praise, but I have no need of those things. Instead, I want to see inside you. I want every ugly secret and thwarted hope; I want whatever makes you flush and squirm and hate yourself at night. I suppose it might be because, in the most literal sense, people have always been able to see inside me, but it could just as easily be that I’m more than a little sadistic. Whatever the reason, you need not treat your humiliations as things that will diminish what I feel for you. Your trust in showing them to me will feed me, delight me, because you delight me. It is like seeing your heart naked, or your mind naked, and I think as I’ve established earlier today, I like seeing you naked very much.”

She tastes amazing, perfect, like a ripe eternity to be taken one bite at a time but swallowed whole. Heaven for insatiable girls; heaven when being hungry is half the fun.