Page 14 of The Fallen Fae King

It’s followed by roars from the demonic lions, Shadow and Devil.

Heka cruelly twists my hair.

I hiss in pain.

I listen fiercely, unnerved by the sudden silence.

My heart races.

What’s going on?

What’s happening to my Spark?

Then there is a blur of woven fur, shadow, and blood.

Freya’s Shadow Wolf is glorious as she lunges at Heka.

She sinks her fangs into the vampire mage’s wrist.

Heka screams, dropping the dagger.

Shadows trail from Freya, caressing across my cheeks in comfort, even as she bowls Heka back from me.

I grin viciously around my gag.

My wild wolf.

“Mercy!” Heka howls.

I hope that she eats his beating heart from his chest.

“Enough, dearheart.” Lanlin’s shadows suddenly engulf the room until I am blinded by his darkness.

Panicked, I thrash in my chains, when I can no longer see or hear Freya or even Heka’s begging and weeping, as if I am lost in the Void.

Is Freya hurt?

What has Lanlin done to her?

“Peace.” With uncanny speed, Lanlin appears out of the fog, pressing down on my chest to still me. White moths flutter around him like a ghostly moon. “I have simply pinned our Omega in my shadows and surrounded us in the abyss. We need privacy, and I feel like the howling of my soul is already a dark abyss. You and I should have a talk, king to king.”

As he leans over me, his wine-red eyes glow with both fury and hurt behind his glittering gold and black bat half-mask.

Shadows wind around him like towering bat wings.

His long fangs have extended, as they did when I sparred with him.

I lost to him that night too, in so many bloody ways.

Why did I think of him as vulnerable?

The hair on the back of my neck rises.

He is the predator in this ballroom. And I’m tied down and helpless with my magic restrained by both the chains and the dragon bracelets around my wrists.

Since the Winter Court was burned to ash, and I trained and led my army of child soldiers, I dreamed that I would fall on the battlefield.

I expected that.