Deep in the Bavarian woods, where the faerie realm touches on the human world lies Schloss Mondschein. Owned by a corrupted human family, the castle is the playground of the Fae. The human staff are their toys.
Servant's daughter Andromeda Arendt h...
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"Now, first things first. Take off your boots!"
Andromeda Arendt stood salivating over the steaming jug of apple cider on the tiny, intimate table between her and North Winterborn, while registering his unusual request. Rich cinnamon tickled her nose and juicy apple slices floated before her very eyes and ... he wanted her to remove her boots? She swallowed back the water that had gathered in her mouth.
This was not the type of command she had expected. Nor had she anticipated the heat wave it sent up her neck. It was not as if he had asked her to remove her clothes.
Still, one had to wonder why he asked such a thing. Her feet were rather dear to her. She wasn't keen on subjecting them to faerie magic and especially not here, in this candle-lit alcove, in the back of a filthy tavern.
Seconds earlier, the pack of shifters had escorted her in here in tight formation. She had barely managed to get a glimpse of the forest settlement they were in. Wooden dwellings and market stalls covered up for the night, lined up on both sides of a snow-covered street that smelled of ashes and leather wax but was eerily silent until they arrived at the tavern at the end.
Unpolished conversation and honky tonk piano music seeped from the boarded-up windows. Upon entering, the suffocating atmosphere of the packed tavern had almost knocked her over, but the shifters trooped so tightly around her that falling was not an option. She couldn't see much, but enough to know the place was home to every shady character her pa had warned her about and then some.
The ambassador had led her to a table for two, shielded from the rest of the tavern by heavy velvet drapes. A perfect setting to glamour the fuck out of her, she thought wryly. He was probably glamouring her right now. Why else would she stand here, flushing like a silly teenage girl. And now he asked her to take off her boots?
"Not happening."
He shrugged off his cloak and hung it on a nail sticking from the grimy wall—she had always imagined the Fae to prefer more elegant establishments. "Akela needs them to get the size right." He beckoned his shifter to join them behind the drapes.
The shifter clicked her tongue. "Come on, hon. I wanna go shopping. I'll pick out something nice for you."
"She'll need a decent cloak too," the ambassador added.
Akela purred and pushed a fingertip under Andromeda's chin to tilt her head. Unfortunately, there was not an inch of space to back up into. Unrest coiled in her stomach as once again she was reminded she was entirely at their mercy.
"With a face like that .... girl, you can rock about every color. How about peacock green? You like peacock? Or gold, like the queen that you are."
"Plain black or brown will do. We don't want her to attract attention." The ambassador dropped to his chair. He seemed ... fatigued?
