In my dream, I saw him. That fucker stood before me holding a belt or a book or whatever happened to be within my father’s reach when he descended into one of his frenzies. His eyes bloodshot, his breath saturated with the cheapest whiskey he could buy on a jailor’s salary.

My father wasn’t a tall man, standing maybe a few inches above me. His black hair had been shedding for years, but he refused to shave it, doubling down that vitamins were gonna “win it all back,” as though hair was something won and lost in a card game.

I always remembered how cold his green eyes were. There just didn’t seem to be much there, aside from thirst for liquor and putting in his hours at the county jail, always working overtime without complaint. Sometimes he’d watch tv after work and fall asleep in his chair. Once in a while he’d mow the lawn or try to repair our mailbox, which seemed to be trapped in a purgatorial state between entirely busted and somewhat fixed, at least until the next storm came through.

The man’s wardrobe was simple enough. Gray sweats around the house and on rare trips to the grocery store. A black uniform at work that was constantly losing ground to his gut. A few of his knuckles were broken before he met mom, and they never quite looked right after they healed, scarred, and darkened on his right hand. Father was missing a couple of teeth on his upper right side. Never showed any interest in getting them replaced after the car crash where his jaw got intimate with a steering wheel.

Crashed his squad car after drinking a little on his lunch break, and the biggest punishment they could give him was taking away his badge and gun, and putting him on jail duty. A local reporter wrote about it in the paper, and since dad couldn’t make his life miserable, I won his wrath the morning it was published.

He stood over me, and it never seemed to matter how old I got. The beatings continued. And it didn’t matter who found out. The beatings continued. Through tears, through pleas, through one or two attempts to stand up for myself, the beatings continued.

I’d never regret killing the bastard. Hell, I’d kill him again 1,000 times. The utter look of bewilderment in his eyes as I dissolved into a cloud of thick gray smoke and reemerged as a vicious beast craving his heart. Felt good. The best I’d ever felt.

Nobody on the planet knew his final words but me. Nobody knew his final expression, either. I’d carry them with me until the day I inevitably saw him on the other side.

Mom told me once, when I was a little girl, that everyone walks the same path into the world after this one. We were at a cousin’s funeral deep in the Ozarks, a little north of Jasper.

I’d asked what happened after people died. At seven, the concept was new to me. She said our burdens dissolved, and a single path appeared before us in a world of twilight. And we walked it to an eventual destination based on our deeds in life.

Surely, by now, my father had arrived at his destination, and I had no shortage of hope that it was filled with pain and misery as he’d inflicted on me in life. As for my destination, I’d find out soon enough what I’d won in place of a jail cell.

I don’t know how long I slept, only that a haziness remained in my mind for quite some time after I opened my eyes. My nose started processing things before any other sense. But that was typical. My inner wolf lived by scent first, then sound, and finally vision and taste. And the damn queen wasted no time figuring out how I felt about touch.

A few scents stood out as my eyes tried to function again. There wasn’t anything wrong with them. They just seemed to be taking a little longer than usual to wake up.

But my nose told me incense was burning nearby, the scent of pine and sage. A window sat not far from whatever I was lying on, birds cawing here and there as they moved from trees to the grass then back to the trees. More ravens, it seemed.

The door opened. Soft footsteps on the hardwood floor. Then a familiar face entered my vision, my queen.

Chill spread through the right side of my neck as she hovered over me.

That’s where she marked me, I thought. Wonder if it’ll do that every time she’s near like Sting did for the orcs.

I guess the Raven Queen to whom I’d sold myself was about to inform me what duties being her “pet” entailed. I was not eager to find out.

“My, my. Such a storm of thought that must be going through your head,” she said.

And, to my chagrin, I found myself hanging on her every word. I didn’t care about the birds outside or whoever was walking down the hallway beyond this bedroom’s door. The queen had my full and undivided attention as if a supernatural grasp had grabbed my chin and pulled it gently in her direction.

Sitting up, I groaned and touched the side of my neck, which was still quite cold. My fingers found a chill of their own upon touching it.

“How long have I been out?” I asked, finally founding my voice, groggy as it sounded.

“Through some combination of your emotional and physical exhaustion, you’ve been out for a full day. I’m sure my magic entering your system played a part as well,” the queen said, sitting down next to me on a purple quilt spread across the bed.

Four wooden poles, one each corner of the frame, surrounded me and revealed this to be a canopy bed, with matching purple curtains tied back to my left and right.

The walls of the room were painted a dark blue with tiny feathers carved into the crown molding. In addition to the bed, a writing desk, a makeup table with a large mirror, and an armoire, all heavy wooden furniture filled each wall around me.

One door led outside to a hallway where the queen entered from, and on the opposite wall, another door led to what I assumed was a washroom. In all, the bedroom was bigger than the living room in my father’s house, where I’d been forced to live from middle school to my 21st birthday a few weeks ago.

“On a scale of one to 10, how fucked am I?” I asked, turning back to the queen. She cocked her head to the side.

“We’re not fucking right now if that’s what you’re asking. And you’ve not been fucked during your stay here in my palace. As for future fucking. . ,” the queen’s voice trailed off into a wide grin.

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I pulled away from her, jerking the blanket up to my chin. It seemed like a childish move, but it was the only card I could play.

The queen’s grin vanished into a soft smile. And in a much more gentle tone, one I’d not heard from her before, she said, “You will not be defiled, my pet. I am queen here, and you’re under my protection.”

I took a deep breath and almost whispered, “But you said future fucking.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt we will in the future. I saw the way you looked at me in the forest of your world, my pet. It did not escape my gaze how you would zone out for a moment here and there while looking at my body, no doubt sinking into daydreams left and right. The way you shivered when I marked you and drank every drop of my touch as though you’d found water after wandering through the driest desert for days,” she said.

My cheeks were starting to burn, and I pulled the blanket up to cover them in a futile effort while trying to look anywhere other than her mesmerizing violet eyes, a gaze I could wander in for days, like the desert she described. But not a harsh, dry environment, an oasis of lush grass and long rows of fruit trees waiting to be — fuck, I was doing it again, what she’d just described.

“Rest assured, I won’t take you to bed until you’ve begged me, my pet. And you will. I smell the pheromones in your breath. I hear the steadily increasing beat of your heart. I feel the heat rising in your cheeks. And I see the ever-deeping gaze of your lovely reddish eyes, my pet. But, as I said, your consent will remain intact,” she said.

I looked down at the quilt, lowering it to my mouth.

“And what if I fight it? The things you’ve described, which I will neither confirm nor deny,” I asked.

The queen shrugged, making a few wrinkles in her sleeveless black gown. Gone were the armor and cloak I’d met her in.

“Fight all you like, my pet. But I’ve ruled the Raven Court for more than a thousand years. I’ve run in more Wild Hunts than you can count. I know what my prey will do before it acts. So whether I’ll have you begging me tomorrow or a decade from now, it’ll happen,” she said, not with arrogance but as a simple matter of fact. I didn’t doubt she knew what she spoke.

But I was determined to fight it anyway. Was I a bottom? Absolutely. But I was also a fucking brat, and she’d learn the full extent of that so long as I remained her pet.

“What happens now?” I asked. “Are you going to tell me what being your pet entails?”

That grin again.

“We’ll get to that soon enough. A lot awaits you outside that bedroom door. For now, I simply wished for a simple demonstration,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow.

“I want you to know just how deeply I own you as a result of our bargain,” she said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Close your eyes for a moment.”

Sighing and giving her one last glance, I did as she asked. Darkness. My eyes refused the light.

“Do you feel it? There’s a chilly hum inside you that runs through your entire body. You’ve never felt anything like it before, and there’s no getting rid of it. It’s in your joints, your muscles, and your thoughts. Not a pain, but a conscious presence,” she said.

With my eyes closed, I reached into a deep level of my subconscious where previously only my inner wolf occupied. She was still there, but so was that chilly current. Or maybe it was more like a wave, pulsing here and there.

Goddammit, I thought.

“My magic reaches so deep into your body and core, you can’t even imagine it. You are bound to me, my pet. And you’re double fucked because you were fawning over me even without my magic binding us together. I have you at my beck and call, and I think a part of you is thrilled with this, to belong to me. It excites you in a way you’ve never felt before,” she said.

I dropped the blanket and crossed my arms.

“That’s not true at all. You found me in a desperate moment, and in a lapse of judgment, I agreed to your nonsensical bargain. I’d have happily kept running. Hell, I bet I’d have made it to the Canadian border if you hadn’t blocked my path,” I said.

Finally, the brat had emerged, and she’d regret all this boasting about how I was hers. The queen would realize was a mistake she made trying to tame this wolf. I’m powerful, dammit. I’m a killer. I’m a huntress.

I puffed out my chest with each of those thoughts, unsure of who I was trying to convince, her or myself.

Bemused, the queen scooched closer. I kept my arms crossed, daring her to try some shit. I refused to worship the ground she walked on. I fought my heart, which wanted to quiver. I commanded it to remain calm, though I think in hindsight that was fruitless.

Moving her face closer to mine, I felt the queen put a hand on my left cheek. Her touch was cool, crisp, and refreshing. And, oh god, I truly had no self-control. Fucking hell. I leaned into her touch as she grabbed my attention without using a shred of magic. This was all a chemical reaction to her otherworldly beauty. The wildness in her grin and gaze, foreign to my world because she was everything faerie power represented, raw and unchecked passion.

She inched her fingers closer to my hair, and then she found my untamed brown mane. The Raven Queen tamed them, slowly twisting her index and middle finger around each wavy lock.

“Do you want me to stop, my pet?”

A small voice yelled, “Show her how powerful you are! You’re a werewolf for god’s sake. You’ve run through the woods at great speed, you’ve taken down giant-ass moose, and spilled mortal blood without remorse. Use that power!”

But, oh god, what was the point?

“Tell me to stop,” she whispered, her face even closer to mine yet. Her forehead touched my own, her sleek black hair bumping into my brown bangs.

All I could do was shake my head, a pitiful display. No words. Just a tiny movement and even that took all my power.

“So, just to clarify, you don’t want me to stop? Because I can. Immediately,” she whispered, scratching the side of my head. Tingling pleasure raced down the side of my face and into my shoulders. I let a soft sigh escape my lips.

“Don’t. . . stop,” I might have hissed.

She slowly pulled my head down into her lap as she scratched my head for several minutes. Hours? I couldn’t think. Time had no meaning. And then she got mean. She slowly ran her white painted nails over my neck, and I shivered. A new level of pleasure.

“Whose pet are you, Sierra Chesli?”

“Yours, my grace,” I said.

Now Queen Varella leaned over and blew lightly on my neck. More please, was all my brain could think.

“Are you unhappy with this predicament?”

Slowly, I shook my head.

“How does it make you feel, my pet?”

Thoughts were so hard to form right now. She was merciless. And the queen knew exactly what she was doing to me. I had no defense against her touch.

“Content. . .,” I finally answered.

The Raven Queen grinned. Then she leaned down and muttered.

“You are mine, Sierra Chelsi. There is no escape from my grasp. And I want you to know now more than ever that even if you could flee my palace, you wouldn’t. Because deep down, you don’t want to. You like being mine. And you’ll remain at my side without hesitation. That’s how deeply I own you, my pet.”

That was a lot of words, but all it amounted to was more shivering with pleasure. Every inch of my body felt it, and gooseflesh claimed new territory on my arms.

I slipped into a state of half-sleep, and she eventually got up from the bed.

“When you’re able to rouse yourself from all that pleasure, my pet, come downstairs. We’ll discuss what fun you’ll have as my pet,” she said.

Then the door closed, and my brain could only summon one word, Fuck.