Lhea is an innocent fae, dancing to twisted music in the deep of the forest.

When the trap is sprung and she wakes up, prisoner to a dark elf, she realizes true fear. But he opens something up in her, something new, and with just a bit more patience…

Mature Content Warning. 18+.

This dark fairy tale novella contains a twisted romance, domination, submission, and horror. Over 23k words.

Amazon

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Chapter 1

Forests were a mystical place. Dark or bright the people of the land knew to avoid them. For even the beautiful faerie folk of the woods were said to get up to mischief at times that cost daring explorers their life or limb. Yet within the bounds of the forests themselves lay depths that even the wood nymphs and fairies knew to avoid. Dark places, tainted by wrongdoing and ill-will that polluted the land.

In one of the faerie villages, nestled deep in the woods, with great white boughs bent and shaped into fabulously stunning gazebos and homes, the winged folk fluttered about on diaphanous wings. They were beautiful beings by any standards, and they revelled in jollity and amusement even as the shadows of the growing darkness grew ever closer to their village.

Their laughter carried up into the leafy green canopy above, beautiful and sometimes mischievous. Two beautiful young fae strayed away from the village into the woods in their game, giggling and chasing one another back and forth. They didn’t heed the hour or the shift in the trees, nor the cool breeze that wafted by them, so absorbed in their game as they were.

They looked like they could be sisters, and for all anyone knew of the fae, it could be true. With ethereally white wings that carried intricate designs and angelic white hair, they were beautiful in ways that humans couldn’t come close to. It was perfection, an aura around them that made them seem flawless as they giggled, rolled and chased one another through forest floor and air.

From out of the woods they heard some flute playing, a melodious but curiously exotic sound that managed to break their concentration on their revelry. It was unlike anything they’d ever heard, the notes seeming to defy not only fae musical styles but music convention itself. How could a flute produce such bizarre sounds? It was intoxicating.

Lhea was always the braver one, and her pale hand wrapped around Fillia’s wrist. “Let’s go see,” she insisted, her pristine blue eyes lighting up her face. They were both youthful and happy, their cheeks flushed from the excitement, and Fillia was only too pleased to come along. Their platinum hair blew behind them, filled with small flowers and beads interlaced with the long waves.

“Do you think it’s a fae?” Fillia asked as they bounded, half flying, half walking through the air.

“It might be a spirit!” theorized Lhea, for she was fascinated with such things. She’d gotten them into trouble more than once in her seeking out the strange and mystical.

“Oh Lhea, I don’t know about this,” she hesitated, but the other girl continued to tug her friend along.

“It’ll be fine,” she promised with a wide smile, her pink lips so sweet, her words even sweeter. “I’ll protect you.”

They followed after the strange sound for some time, yet it always seemed just out of reach, as if the mysterious flute player were around one tree, then rounding that it was as if it must be the next. They continued like that for some time, and it wasn’t until even Lhea’s daring had nearly worn out that they turned and saw him there.

He sat cross legged upon a fallen tree. He was not like any faerie they recollected. He wore clothes like a human, but was distinctly not. Continuing to play he was emotive, swaying so that his chin-length black hair swished in the air.

The mysterious flute player, despite being no fae, was beautiful. His features smooth and elegant, but masculine in a way that no faerie was. They saw he was an elf, for in the motioning of his head through that intoxicating playing they saw his pointed ears poke through.

Lhea and Fillia couldn’t help but find themselves swaying to his tune, and then as he stood in his tall black boots and tight dark pants, he began to dance. Yet again, it was nothing like they’d known. It was jarring, hypnotic, almost maddening how he did it, and they lacked the words to describe such a thing. His billowy black sleeves fluttered in the air as he moved about them, the silver trimming on his clothes glittering.

Lhea was smiling brightly, as if she’d discovered a great secret, and her body began to sway. First her hips, then her wrists, the movements not entirely matching the strange, hypnotic rhythm, for how could they? She was unfamiliar with it, and couldn’t get her limbs to pay proper tribute to the music.

Fillia, though, was more cautious and stood behind Lhea, always keeping the woman between her and the unfamiliar man. “I think we should go,” she whispered desperately in her sister-friend’s ear.

The flute playing grew into a harsh flutter as if refuting Fillia’s reluctant words. The two women could not describe the playing as unpleasant or bad as such, for it was beautiful in some strange, ethereal way. But to their ears it was often jarring and strange.

More than that, it grew to a higher pitch, a more frenetic pace. The flute playing rising as the elf danced around them as like a thunder storm brewing from his very lips through the wooden instrument. Before long even Lhea could not ignore the discordant, eerie pitch it was taking, for it grew manic, and the player moved like some satyr.

Lhea’s fingers intertwined with Fillia’s, for she felt that fear as well. She had been slower, more naive and trusting, yet there was no way she could refute that this was troubling. Both of their blue eyes were saucer wide, and Lhea nodded finally. “I think so,” she agreed, and her wings began to flutter.

It was too late by the time the trap was sprung, cruel black tendrils of pure darkness writhing between the trees as all the light seemed sucked from the air about the two faeries. It was as if their two fair skinned bodies were the only source of illumination, the very earth bleeding those obsidian tendrils all around them.

“Fillia!” Lhea called out. It was terror and anguish all at once, and it was the only word that Lhea could get out. It felt like her lungs were about to collapse.

The dancer continued, and they saw his skin was ashen grey. For the first time now his eyes were open, and the red points of light at their center bored through them both. His features were angular and alien, and it seemed as the black tendrils writhed in a ring about the clearing that his hair too moved in some terrifying pattern, as if all the world around them now danced to his rhythm.

“Lhea!” came the returned cry, yet it sounded so weak and distant, even though their hands were clasped. They tried to move together, their intricate fae wings fluttering madly to try to free them from this hellish forest, yet it was useless.

The maddening music continued as black tendrils shot up from the ground and coiled about Fillia’s slender leg. It pulled her downwards, dragging her towards the inescapable blackness that seemed to ooze from the forest itself.

All the while the mad dancer seemed as if he were laughing cruelly, though never did he stop his wild dance and playing. It was like he was boring into their minds with his ruby gaze, drilling that cruel psychic laughter into the two faeries heads.

Lhea never let her friend’s hand go, white fingers clutching the pale wrist, trying to tug her to freedom. Tears were reflected in both of their eyes, and Fillia cried out, “Save yourself!”

Her friend was stubborn, though, and there was no chance of that. Lhea tugged harder, her gaze going to the maniacal dancer, “Let her go!”

She saw those almond-shaped eyes of his, so exotic and elven, yet different still. They narrowed at her as if her very nerve at demanding something of the crazed flute player were an affront.

With a discordant final note that pierced the two faeries skulls and made them clutch at their ears he was done. Though the end of the playing did nothing to help them. Fillia vanished into the ooze that now formed a tar-like pool over the grassy forest floor, and two more long, black tentacles lashed out for Lhea, coiling up to her thighs and yanking her down.

The strength of it was too much for her, and she could only resist enough to slow them down as she sank into the cold, the black leaching all warmth from her as she stared up at the menacing player. No longer did he dance, he just watched with that malevolent gaze, standing with his feet apart as she slid into his trap.

Darkness.

It consumed her.

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