“Valko. Stop,” Liita, Queen of the fae, commanded in her perfectly sickly sweet voice.
The magic, layered with his true name and the glow of her eyes, took hold like a hand anchoring him through his brain. His hands curled in the fresh earth. His legs dug themselves in. He slowed, almost careening into a tree. Go, he begged himself, but it was quiet. Barely a whisper in the corner of his mind.
His Queen had commanded him. And he needed to stay put.
“You’ve been a very bad doggy.” She landed before him in her stupid, perfect glory. Her faintly green hands cling to her hips. “And a very bad butler.”
Valko’s tail drooped. He whined, just like the doggy she called him. He hated being called a doggy. He shouldn’t be trying to please her, so well, not like this.
Wait. That was wrong. He shouldn’t be trying to please her, full stop.
“And you’re going to come back, and apologize to us and our entire kingdom, aren’t you, doggy?”
She sneered at him, perfect pink lips parting. Unlike her husband, he knew those pretty lips held fangs as long as his. Unlike her husband, he knew she used them to rip apart those who went against her.
Valko fought against the grip on his mind. He didn’t want to go with her. He wanted to run back into the forest, far and deep until he found the gateway to Hell and escaped her grasp. The fae royals couldn’t follow him there, not without petitioning the devil for access to the infernal realms. There the fae could no longer toy with him. There, the fae would have to do a series of paperwork to allow a contingency from their realms access to even look at all, and Valko knew that wasn’t something the fae would do. They would never submit to a demon’s deal.
He wanted to keep going. To run back to Hell, even though he knew he would not be safe there. Yes, he had wronged her. He knew that the path back was as bad as the path forward. Either way, he faced an evisceration of himself. Her eyes caught his.
Something in his mind snapped. He had wronged her. He had been a very bad doggy. A very bad butler.
A crash through the trees. Mifispectuus, the fae king, strode through them. His gleaming, long blonde hair floating around him like sunlight and his gossamer dragonfly wings languidly beating. As always, Valko was unarmed by his perfectly sculpted face.
“You’ll be coming with us, won’t you, Valko? Forgiveness is only there for those who come,” Mifispectuus said, lightly floating down to stand before them with the moons in his eyes glowing like the night sky.
Valko wanted to throw himself at his feet and beg for forgiveness. To kiss at the proffered royal hand, to let the fae King and Queen do whatever they wanted with him. He had been so, so bad, and only they could allow him to make it right. He salivated at the thought of it.
“I will come,” he heard his own voice say, as if from afar.
“Stand,” Queen Liita said.
He stood.
King Mifispectuus held out a perfectly formed hand, pale fingers blushed with the color of moss. “Take my hand. We are going home.”
Valko took it. He savored the fact his king was letting him touch him at all.
Queen Liita led them, picking her way across the wildly growing bushes and the scorched earth. She waved a magnanimous hand and put out burning blue fires. Her presence guided them. He was glad to follow in her shoes.
The mushrooms of the fae ring had grown in a perfect circle now, back where he had run from them. So silly to have run. Home. With his majesties. Right through the pillow buttons of red and polka dot, right back to the fae court.
Home.
He stepped in to the fairy ring, King Mifispectuus’ hand in his. Cool. Wings still. The Queen turned, her green eyes sparkling.
