Eternal Flame

~19~

Pain was the first thing Tara felt as she slowly regained consciousness. She opened her eyes to find herself in pitch black darkness. Every inch of her body throbbed with pain as she gingerly sat up. She gasped as a sharp pang shot through her rib cage. She hissed as the burning sensation spread to the rest of her body. There were no doubt she had some broken bones, which would heal quickly, but it still hurt like hell.

She ran her hand over her face. Her left cheek felt swollen, no doubt from the vicious kicks and punches the fairies had given her. She swore under her breath and let her hand drop back to her side.

She was in so much pain she could hardly think straight, but she was also confused. Confused at how Amelia and the fairies went from gentle and friendly one second and then beating her to a pulp the next.

"They did a real number on you, didn't they, lass?"

She jumped at the gravelly voice with a hint of an Irish accent that came from somewhere to her left. She tried to peer into the darkness and see who it was, but one of her eyes was almost swollen shut, and one of the kicks she received to the head was messing with her vision.

The voice gave a low whistle. "Oh my. No offense, lass, but they really did take a number out of you and it shows."

She bet it did. She licked her chapped lips and asked in a hoarse voice, "Who are you?"

"Just a lowly prisoner such as yourself. Let me guess, you were tricked by that bitch too?"

"Trick?"

"Come on now, lass, do you really think that woman is the real fairy queen? And that she saved you from that cave out of the goodness of her heart?"

Her pulse began to speed up as fear began to course through her. "Who is she?"

"The real queen's estranged sister. She was exiled after trying to dethrone the queen and was brought into this realm, and the subjects that were dumb enough to support her came with her. She goes around, kidnapping other supernaturals to keep this realm alive. This realm feeds off the energy of strong supernaturals, such as yourself."

She broke out into a cold sweat. "That's why she and the other fairies beat me up when I kept telling them to bring me back to my siblings."

"The one thing every single fairy has in common: they want complete and total obedience. They expect you to grovel at their feet. So when you didn't do that, they got royally pissed off and decided to beat you into the ground."

She thought back to what he said before. "You know she got me from a cave. How did you know that?"

"I can hear everyone outside pretty good. You were the talk of this realm when you arrived. Caused quite a ruckus."

"Where are we right now?"

"In a cell, where do you think? Where we'll be trapped here for the rest of our lives."

A frisson of fear began to slither it's way in, but she forced it down as anger began to slowly rise in her. "No. That's not going to happen. I won't spend the rest of my life here. I'm getting out of here."

The owner of the voice chuckled. "I like the determination in your voice. But I've seen others try to escape before. None succeeded. I tried myself, and you can obviously tell how that worked."