Clipped

Chapter 2.

​The mirror was a liar. It reflected a creature of porcelain and midnight, a vision of fragile ethereal beauty that felt entirely foreign to the soul trapped behind those dark, forest-green eyes. Rhiannon Deeproot sat motionless on a velvet stool, her spine as rigid as the iron bars on the windows upstairs. Seven years of hunger, of cold, and of the crushing weight of non-consensual existence had turned the eight-year-old exile into an fifteen-year-old phantom.

​Her hair, once matted with forest floor debris, was now a waterfall of groomed deep-blue silk, reaching down to her hips. Her skin remained translucently pale, the blue veins beneath her wrists tracing the map of her malnutrition. No matter how much the "Master" fed her to prepare her for this night, her body refused to soften; she remained tiny, a willow branch that looked as though it might snap under the weight of the heavy jewelry being draped upon her.

​"Wear the pearls, Rhia," whispered Malory, a vampire whose skin was the color of polished mahogany. She draped a shimmering strand around Rhiannon’s throat. The cool touch of the sea-stones made Rhiannon shiver. "They make you look more... mature. They hide the pulse in your neck. Men like it when you look steady."

​"I don't feel steady," Rhiannon’s voice was a whisper of a sound, barely audible over the distant, muffled roar of the bidding war downstairs. "I feel like I am disappearing."

​"Then disappear inside yourself," came a gruff voice from the corner. It was Lyra, a werewolf with silver scars tracing her muscular arms. She was tightening the laces of Rhiannon’s bodice, her touch surprisingly gentle for someone who could bend steel. "Build a wall, little fairy. Don't let them see the forest in your eyes. If they see you're afraid, they feast on it."

​The room was filled with women of every lineage- the discarded, the stolen, and the broken. A silk-skinned human girl was painting Rhiannon’s lips a deep, bruised crimson, while a dryad whose leaves were wilting from lack of sunlight brushed out the blue tresses. There was a somber, funereal air to the preparations. In this house, there was no joy in "first times." There was only the calculation of debt and the grim reality of survival.

​"The bids are at five thousand gold," Malory murmured, glancing toward the door. Her sensitive ears could track the auction's progress through the floorboards. "The Master is preening. A noble fairy, even a clipped one... and a virgin. They’re treating you like a relic, not a person."

​"I haven't been a person since the day the shears touched my back," Rhiannon said. She looked at her reflection, hating the way the corset pushed up her small breasts and the way the pearls highlighted the hollows of her collarbones. "Why tonight, Malory? He waited seven years. Why must it be tonight?"

​"Because you're at your peak value," Lyra growled, her golden eyes flashing with a protective fury she couldn't act upon. "The Master knows the market. He waited until the desperation for something 'pure' reached a fever pitch. He’s a businessman, Rhia. And to him, we are nothing but inventory that loses value the longer it sits on the shelf."

​A heavy knock thudded against the door, muffled by the thick tapestries. A man’s voice, oily and self-important, drifted through the wood. "Is the prize ready? The final hammer has fallen. Lord Vex has won the night, and he is not a patient man."

​The women in the room shared a look of pure, concentrated dread. Even the dryad stopped her brushing. Lord Vex was known among the girls- a man whose coin was as plentiful as his cruelty.

​"Just a moment more!" Malory called out, her voice steady despite the way her fangs pricked her lower lip in agitation. She turned back to Rhiannon, taking the girl’s small, cold hands in her own. "Listen to me. Lord Vex likes to talk. He likes to brag. Let him. Don't fight him- not with your body. You're too small, Rhia. You'll only get hurt. Fight him with your mind. Go back to that perimeter you told us about. Go back to the trees."

​"The perimeter is gone," Rhiannon whispered, her dark green eyes welling with unshed tears. "The men in the woods... they took me away from it."

​"Then build a new one," Lyra insisted, leaning in close. "Right here, behind your ribs. A place where Lord Vex can’t reach. You are Rhiannon Deeproot. You are of the Grove. These chains... this dress... they are just things."

​The door swung open, and the Master stepped in. He was a man who smelled of expensive tobacco and rot, his eyes scanning Rhiannon with the clinical hunger of a vulture. He reached out, his thick fingers catching a strand of her blue hair, testing its texture.

​"Exquisite," he breathed, a sickening smile stretching his face. "The pearls were a good touch, girls. She looks like a sacrificial lamb. Perfect."

​He grabbed Rhiannon by the upper arm, his grip bruisingly tight. She winced, her tiny frame looking even smaller beside his bulk. The other women stood in a line, their heads bowed, their hands clenched into fists at their sides. They were bound by the same invisible chains- contracts of blood, threats against families, or the simple, brutal lack of anywhere else to go.

​"Come along, little bird," the Master tugged her toward the hallway. "A kingdom’s ransom has been paid for your company. Don't disappoint me, or the girls will find their rations cut for a month. Do you understand?"

​Rhiannon looked back over her shoulder. Malory's eyes were shining with tears. Lyra’s jaw was set so hard it looked like stone.

​"I understand," Rhiannon said, her voice turning cold and flat.

​As she was led down the plush, candlelit hallway toward the room where Lord Vex waited, Rhiannon closed her eyes. She focused on the phantom itch where her wings used to be. She focused on the memory of the rowan-wood wand hidden in a vault she couldn't see.

​I am the forest, she told herself, matching her steps to the Master’s heavy gait. And the forest knows how to survive the winter.

​The Master stopped before a set of double doors carved with leering satyrs. He adjusted her pearls one last time, his touch a violation she had long ago learned to endure with a frozen face.

​"Smile, Rhia," he hissed. "Give him the illusion of a choice."

​He pushed the doors open. The room beyond was swathed in crimson velvet and smelled of heavy musk and old wine. In the center of the room, sitting in a high-backed chair with a glass of dark liquid in his hand, was a man with eyes like flint.

​"The Deeproot girl," Lord Vex said, his voice a low, predatory rumble. "Finally. Step into the light, child. Let me see what five thousand coins buys a man these days."

​Rhiannon stepped forward, her bare feet silent on the thick carpet, the pearls clicking softly against her chest like the ticking of a clock she couldn't stop.