A Faery Story
Bound
Megan Starke has never been special to anyone. With an
unrewarding job and a failed marriage, no one would confuse her
life with a fairy tale. So when she is kidnapped and taken to a
magical world to be the grand prize in a fierce and bloody
tournament, she isn’t sure if she is in a dream or a nightmare.
Beckett Finn was supposed to be Prince Charming. He and his
brother, Cian, were to inherit the throne of the Seelie Fae and rule
over a fantasy kingdom. But the thrust of a traitor’s blade stole
that future. Now the brothers are fading, cursed by their royal
blood unless they find a mate who can restore them. When Beck
sees Meg, her body calls to him and he knows she is the key to
their salvation.
Bound by passion and fate, it’s time for Meg to find her happily
ever after.
Genre: Contemporary, Fantasy, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 99,544 words
BOUND
A Faery Story
Sophie Oak
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
BOUND
Copyright © 2011 by Sophie Oak
E-book ISBN: 1-61034-465-0
First E-book Publication: April 2011
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without
express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance
to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of Bound by Sophie Oak from
BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank
you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or
group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing
rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this
book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying
readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Sophie Oak’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect
Ms. Oak’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
For my girls. Every time I write a heroine, I think of you, my
daughters. You girls are everything I could want in a heroine – smart
and honest, loyal and brave. May you both find your happy ever
afters, my loves.
Now put the book down. Until you’re at least thirty. Forty. Just
put the book down…
BOUND
A Faery Story
SOPHIE OAK
Copyright © 2011
Chapter One
Once upon a time, in a land closer than you would think…
The light made her eyes burn, so she was happy for the enormous
shadow that suddenly blocked the sun. As her vision adjusted, she
realized that the shadow had the most piercing eyes she’d ever seen.
Meg Starke shrank back in fear. Well, she shrank back as far as the
chains binding her would allow.
A deep voice said something in a lilting language she didn’t
understand, and suddenly, the curtain to the tent dropped. She could
see again. The shadow was a man, a beautiful, terrifying man.
“She does not speak Gaelic, Your Highness,” the small man who
served as her jailer said softly.
The dark man grimaced and immediately switched to English. “I
have no title here, Rhys. Speak to me as you would any other
customer.” He looked at her straight in the eyes for the first time. She
felt a thrill of excitement. Not excitement. Fear. The racing of her
heart had to be fear, right? Meg couldn’t figure it out, but she knew
the huge man in front of her made her do the one thing she was
worried she might never do again—feel.
Bound
9
“What’s your name then, love?” His voice rolled over her skin,
even from across the tent.
“My name is Twenty to Life because that’s the time you’ll do for
kidnapping me, you son of a bitch.” Meg was sick of being terrified.
The last couple of days washed over her. Her kidnapping couldn’t be
erased because the man in front of her had a lovely voice. She had
been hauled straight off the streets of Fort Worth and taken god knew
where. She’d been stripped naked, bathed, and chained into some
form of medieval torture device. She pulled again at the chains that
bound her hands over her head, but they would not move.
Meg waited for the broad man to strike her, wanting to get it over
with. She had been unconscious for quite a while, but she didn’t think
it could have been more than a full day since her kidnapping. She still
remembered that moment when the tall, thin man had laid his cold
hands on her. She’d looked up into his bloodred eyes and then
recalled nothing until she woke up in this place.
After the initial assault, she had been shocked to find herself
treated with something akin to reverence. The small men and women
who acted as h
er jailers had been nothing but tender when it came to
her person. Her small cell, one of several in the large tent, had been
lined with pillows and sumptuous blankets. The chains she was bound
in now had a lining to protect her skin, and though she stood naked,
the little jailers had been discrete.
Even the food had been tempting, but Meg had seen enough crazy
serial killer movies to know that eventually someone was going to
smack her, rape her, and then potentially gut her. It looked like that
was the big, hot guy’s job. She waited to feel the terrible blow that
would likely signal the end of her life, but the man with the pitch
black hair simply smiled. His sensual lips spread to show even, white
teeth. Meg had to catch her breath. When he smiled, he was
devastating.
“All right then, Twenty,” the man allowed in his lilting accent.
“My name is Beckett, but you can call me Beck. And my mother was
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Sophie Oak
actually quite nice. I would prefer you didn’t curse her. Yell at me all
you like, but let’s leave my mother out of it. Tell me, love, why
should I purchase you instead of these other lovely women?”
Meg let her eyes grow round as saucers. “I’m being sold?
Someone is selling me like a piece of fucking meat?”
Beck shook his head. “Language there, darlin’. You’re in a
market, trussed up like a pretty, plump pigeon. Did you think you
were just hanging on the chains for show?”
“Your…I apologize, sir. The girl is rather ignorant,” said the small
man named Rhys. He barely came to Beck’s waist. Compared to
Beck, he looked like a boy. A boy with a bushy beard and a pointy red
cap. All the jailers wore them.
“I am not ignorant, asshole.” Meg wasn’t sure why the other
women weren’t screaming at the violation of their persons, but there
was no way she was going out without a fight. “I have two, count
them, two degrees. I have a bachelor’s in both History and English
Literature.” Combined, they had only been enough to get her a job
managing a software store, but, by god, she had them. Of course, now
she wished she’d chucked her college education in favor of some self-
defense training. She was pretty sure her knowledge of Chaucer and
the War of 1812 wouldn’t help her out of her current dilemma.
“I did not mean it that way.” Rhys’s fists clenched in obvious
frustration. Meg noticed that he always tried to maintain a soft tone
when speaking to her. He was polite, even when she cursed him. “The
girl is obviously intelligent, though lacking in any kind of manners.
She is from the Earth plane.”
Beck turned from the smaller man and back to her, his mouth
hanging slightly open. He stared at her, as though he couldn’t quite
process the words. It gave Meg a chance to study him.
He was tall. He had to be at least six foot four. He would tower
over her. Meg herself was only five foot five, and a rather rounded
one at that. The god in front of her didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.
He was broad-shouldered. His arms were thick with muscle, though
Bound
11
he didn’t look like some steroid-crazy gym guy. He’d earned his
muscles. Meg would bet he hadn’t earned them pumping iron. He
worked, and at hard, most likely physical, labor. His skin was bronzed
from the sun.
If his body was heavenly, then Meg didn’t know how to describe
his face. It was all sharp planes and harsh angles that came together to
form something truly beautiful. His jaw looked like it was carved out
of granite. But his eyes were like soft, gray stones in his face. He was,
without a doubt, the loveliest man she had ever seen.
It was too bad he was obviously insane. Beck looked like an
escapee from a Renaissance fair, with his open-necked, linen shirt
under a leather vest. His trousers were made from some sort of animal
skin, as were the boots that came to his knees. Meg could see a sword
peeking from behind his shoulder, held by a scabbard across his back.
“Is she really from the Earth plane?” Beck asked.
“Yes, sir. You can see why I called you.” They both stared at her
like she was some rare exotic creature at a zoo.
Suspicion tickled at Meg’s consciousness. Why exactly was she
here? She’d read articles about human trafficking. She bit her lower
lip and looked at the five other girls in the tent with her. They were
trussed up in the same fashion, though these women kept their heads
lowered and complied with their jailers’ requests. Earlier this
morning, they had been taken out of their cages and chained up for
what seemed like some sort of presentation. Beck had been the first
man to come through the tent. “You shouldn’t buy me. I’m not very
pretty. The other girls are prettier. They’re thinner, too.”
They were, Meg acknowledged. The other women were all
blondes. They looked like something out of a Swedish high fashion
magazine. Meg knew she was a little overweight. She carried around
an extra five or ten pounds that never seemed to go away. She was an
overblown hourglass in a world where svelte was worshipped.
Beck frowned. It did nothing to mar the perfection of his face.
“Are you cruel, then, love? Funny, I wouldn’t have thought that of
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Sophie Oak
you. It’s mean to point out their flaws. They can’t help that they don’t
get enough to eat. Why do you think they’re here selling themselves?”
“You don’t want her, Your Highness,” a soft voice said. Meg
looked over to see the blonde nearest her staring at Beck. “She is
vicious. She yells at the little ones and is cruel to them. You cannot
mean to make her yours. I would be thrilled to belong to you.”
Meg rolled her eyes, the gesture obviously not lost on Beck. He
shook his head and looked slightly disappointed in her. Meg was
surprised to discover she didn’t like him looking at her that way.
He walked over to the young, waifish blonde. “She is not from
this plane. She is frightened. Allowances must be made. I hope you all
find kind mates today. I hope your masters value you all for the
precious gift you give them, but I must find a bondmate.”
Beck gave Rhys a hand gesture that sent the smaller man into
action. Within seconds, drapes were drawn, and Meg found herself in
a private room with only Beck inside. The sunlight poured in through
a hole in the top of the elaborate tent that seemed to function as some
sort of skylight. Now that they were alone, it felt like a spotlight. She
was painfully aware of her unclothed state. She could feel her nipples
puckering under his steely gaze.
“It is not kind to flaunt your beauty to less fortunate women. I will
not allow you to be cruel.” Beck’s voice was deep and allowed no
room for disrespect. Meg found herself rushing to explain.
“I don’t understand.” She was frustrated and could hear it in her
tone. “I wasn’t trying to be mean. I wanted you to buy one of the
o
thers. I’ve decided you might be very difficult to get away from. I
thought you would do it because they’re prettier than me.”
Beck’s handsome face bunched up as he seemed to mull her
words. “On what plane are they prettier than you?” He laughed.
“Sorry, love, I do remember hearing stories of where you come from.
Food there is plentiful, yet the women starve because the men won’t
take care of them.”
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13
“It’s not like that,” Meg argued. “That girl you talked to, she
would be considered a great beauty on my plane.”
“But I would have to feed her for a month before I’d even
consider bedding her,” Beck muttered. “I don’t understand humans.
Do human males not like breasts?”
He asked that last bit with a distinct huskiness to his voice. His
hand came out, and he palmed one breast, his thumb rasping over the
nipple.
Meg felt the caress shoot from her breast to her pussy like
lightning. “Oh, please, don’t.”
Beck moved in, his big body crowding her as his other hand
reached up. The sunlight hit his face. His gray eyes were heating up,
and he ran his tongue over his lips to wet them. He seemed to be a
man about to enjoy a good meal. He caressed both breasts with a
languid sigh.
He breathed deeply, his nose at the top of her head. “And why
not? How will I know if we’re compatible if I don’t touch you, love?
If I’m going to pay this much for a female, then I want to be very sure
I’m getting what we need.”
Meg didn’t even think about the “we” part of that sentence
because Beck’s warm hands were trailing a path across her skin as he
looked her over. His fingertips brushed her nipples just before closing
over them. He pinched the nubs. It was just the right side of pain. Her
nipples peaked, sensitized to his touch. Meg knew she should protest,