CHAPTER 1 #2
I step into the freezing air. My toes have gone numb from the mud and snow sinking into my shoes. Bowing my head against prying eyes, I take off for home, running. When I reach the corner, I run into someone.
I mutter “Sorry” at them. I go to take off, only for them to grab my arm, ripping me in front of them. I can see the man’s black boots as my eyes remain fixed on the ground. His grip on my arm is tight and warm as I feel his heat seep into my skin through the jacket.
“Take the hood off,” a man’s deep voice commands.
I try to free myself of his grip, yet he is stronger, his fingers bruising, his grip unwavering.
He yanks my hood off, revealing my black hair.
I continue averting my eyes. Anyone could tell I wear contact lenses if they look closely.
My heart skips a beat when I hear his voice again.
“Look at me, girl,” the voice grumbles.
I shake my head, trying yet again to wriggle out of his grip.
He grabs my face, forcing my eyes to look into his.
I can see people watching the scene play out, fear clear on their faces.
I soon figure out why when I dart my eyes to his gold reptilian ones, bearing into mine.
This man is Dragon, I hear him growl lowly; it rumbles through his chest, his eyes flicker dangerously, eyes that aren’t human.
His tan skin is warm even through my parka.
I barely reach the middle of his chest. His hair is dark, almost black in color, longer on top and shorter at the sides.
He looks like he hasn’t shaved for a couple of days, stubble lining his face, his features sharp.
He has high cheekbones and nice full lips—a woman’s wet dream.
Yet his aura is intimidating, his grip on me unrelenting.
“What are you?” he demands.
One thing I hate about being Fae is our inability to lie. We can beat around the bush but can’t answer a direct question dishonestly. I press my lips into a tight line, fighting the urge to answer as I stare wide eyed at the man.
A fight between two homeless people breaks out up the street, distracting him for a second.
I don’t waste any time ripping my parka off and sliding my arms out, escaping his clutches.
I run up an alleyway using the dumpster to jump the fence and sprinting behind the next building.
My muscles seize in the cold and my breath leaves clouds in the air with each breath.
I hear a mighty roar and know he is chasing after me. I keep running, refusing to look back.
When I see houses lined up along the street, I dart through their yards, jumping fence after fence and finally losing him.
Though that’s not all I lost. In the jacket was my grandmother’s medicine.
And I don’t have time to turn back. Desperate, I continue to run until I find our house, bursting through the door and slamming it shut behind me.
My heart is pounding in my chest so hard I can hear its erratic rhythm. That was close, too close.
“Elora, dear, is that you?” my grandma calls out before a violent coughing fit takes over.
I hurry to her, finding her still at the kitchen table. She smiles softly, then her expression shifts when she notices my jacket is missing.
“What happened?” she asks breathlessly. Worry making her thin brows furrow.
“I ran into a Dragon,” I say, my voice shaking. “He chased me. I think I lost him.”
My grandmother frowns in mild panic and starts coughing again. I race to her side, looking on helplessly as the coughing fit racks her slight frame.
“I lost the medicine grandma; it was in the jacket. I will have to try again tomorrow,” I tell her, tears welling in my eyes.
“It is okay, dear, what matters is you are safe, now,” she murmurs, though I can sense the fear of me nearly being caught worrying her. Her hands tremble slightly on the table as her nails tap with worry.
The night goes quickly. We were asleep when we heard the voices of people out in the street screaming.
I jolt upright, paralyzed with fear. Striding to the window, I pull the curtain back slightly making sure to not stand where I can be seen.
I peer out, seeing men with torches, some in human form, others not.
They are ripping people into the street, going from door to door.
I see a man in armor go to the house next door to us then hear the shrill sound of a woman screaming as she is dragged into the street, her family looking on helplessly as he drags her by her hair.
My blood runs cold hearing her begging and pleading with them as they drag her from her house. The entire street is in chaos. I run over to the couch where my grandmother is sleeping, only she, too, is now wide awake and alert, having heard the cries of everyone on the street.
“Grandma get up we need to leave. They are going door to door,” I whisper, slipping my holey boots on my feet and quickly doing the laces. I pull my hair into a ponytail, so it doesn’t get in my face. Slipping my contacts in, I hear more screams coming from outside and people fighting.
“Come on, grandma, get up,” I tell her, pulling on her arm. She shakes her head, pulling a small knife from the coffee table drawer into her lap. She peers up at me with a sad look on her face.
“Run, Elora. I won’t allow them to know. I will only slow you down. You need to leave without me,” she whispers. I stare at her, panicked. What is she talking about?
“No, grandma. Come on. We need to leave now,” I tell her, trying to get her to her feet. She shakes me off and shakes her head.
“I promised to keep you safe. I can’t if you don’t go, now.”
“What are you talking about, Grandma? Promised who?”
“Remember the stories, Elora. You need to remember the stories. Now run.”
“No, I am not leaving without you,” I tell her, tears running down my face. Someone bangs on the door so hard, I think it is going to smash off its hinges.
“Please, Grandma, we have to go.”
“I love you, Elora,” my grandma whispers, raising the knife and slashing her own throat. I scream and clutch at her neck, trying to stem the bleeding.
“Run,” she gurgles out. Just as they kicked the door in, my hands coated in her blood.
Adrenaline kicks in, and I take off out the back door through the crisscrossed streets of the city.
I jump fences and run up alleyways. My body screams at me as I throw myself over another fence to land in another alleyway.
I can hear the panicked screeches of people in the neighboring streets.
Running behind a dumpster, I quickly squat low, listening intently.
I can hear a soft sobbing, only to realize it is coming from me as hot tears run down my cheeks at what my grandmother just did.
The images forever burnt into my memory.
I clamp my hand over my mouth, trying to stop the noises I’m making, my breathing erratic. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it. Peeking over the dumpster, I duck back down behind it when I hear a man call out, pointing in my direction.
“You there! Stop!” I don’t listen; instead, I take off running.
I run to the end of the alleyway to find it is blocked off by a building and a brick wall, making it a dead-end.
I see a dumpster and climb up on it, trying to reach the fire escape ladder, my fingertips gripping the bottom run, and I pull it toward me.
Hearing someone crying behind the dumpster, I peer down only to notice a little girl dressed in rags.
I pull the ladder down and reach my hand down to her.
“Where is your mother?” I ask, staring down at her tear-stained face.
“They took her,” she sobs.
Without hesitating, I hoist her up so she can climb, and together we race upward toward the roof.
I’m not fast enough for the Vampire chasing us.
A strong hand grips my ankle, ripping me back down to the ground.
I fall painfully on top of a man, my head smacking the ground with a loud thud as I bite into my tongue.
Another man retrieves the girl, and I hear her scream.
A loud SMACK comes from him slapping her on the face.
Her dirty matted blonde hair is all I see as her head whips to the side, blood trickling from her lip and the sound of flesh-on-flesh echoing down the alleyway.
“Leave her, she is just a child!” I scream.
The little human girl, who appears to be maybe nine years old, escapes the man and runs behind me, hiding against my back.
I hold her there, shielding her from their hostile eyes as more men come down the alleyway.
A tall man with black armor struts over, his hair down to his shoulders and a huge scar across his face, his crimson eyes reflecting oddly as he stares at us. A Vampire.
Vampires are the easiest to spot with their blood-red eyes and pale skin.
Lycan eyes are black like onyx; they are tall and extremely muscular.
They are temperamental creatures like the Dragons.
I try to avoid them at all costs; they are merciless, like the Dragons.
Not that many passed through the city; it is no secret they weren’t liked by the Dragons.
The Dragons sometimes gave them permission to come into the city to look for potential mates.
Dragons had mates; most supernatural creatures had mates.
Not Fae, though. We got to choose our fate.
We didn’t have mates like Dragons and other shifters.
No, Fae gets to choose who we wanted to be with.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean we couldn’t be fated mates to each other, though.
Before the world was taken over there were plenty of mixed species, and it wasn’t unheard of back then for another species to claim a Fae was their mate.
So I am free to choose who I would love.
“Hurry up, bring them to the castle with the rest of them,” he yells to the other men. The man who caught me grabs my hair, the roots painfully tearing from my skull as my head is yanked back.
“Move,” he screams in my face. I obey, following the Vampire man dressed in black armor. The little girl hangs onto the back of my shirt. I can feel her hands trembling when I notice she has no shoes on.
Bending down, I grab her under the arms and pick her up.
Her feet like ice as her legs wrap around my waist. I try to use my body warmth to warm her freezing body.
When we get to the main street, I find a huge line of women being herded to the castle.
They shove us in the line behind more women, all sobbing as they had been ripped out of their beds in the middle of the night and torn away from their families.
I think of my grandmother and how she killed herself in front of me.
I desperately try to make sense of why she did it.
I gulp. It seems pointless now that I have been caught, soon to be dead along with her. What would she say if she knew?
I can’t imagine my life without her—she has always been by my side. Tears stream down my cheeks as I echo the sorrow of the women around me.
We stand in the cold for what feels like hours, my body growing numb.
When we finally pass through the high castle gates, the group is divided into rows.
At the front stands a man I recognize as a Dragon, his gaze sharp as he watches everyone get dragged into place. I end up in one of the middle rows.
When I see his eyes dart over the crowd, I quickly duck my head down, hoping he didn’t notice me staring.
Another man marches along the first line staring at each person and gripping their faces to look at their eyes.
He then dismisses them, and another man marches them back out the iron gates once they have been cleared and declared not to be whomever they were looking for.
My feet are numb from the snow sinking into my shoes.
The process is long as he eventually dismisses all the rows in front of ours.
I place the little girl on the ground, shoving her behind me, trying to shield her from their watchful eyes.
I make sure to keep my head down to avoid making eye contact.
The entire castle ground is dark and eerie.
The only light that can be seen is from the moon and the glow of the malevolent predator eyes that surround us.
I resist the urge to shiver when I notice how many dark creatures are watching us, their eyes searching the crowd, looking for their next victim.
The little girl sobs. The man who brought us in screams at her to shut up, making her sob harder.
I try to calm her, but nothing I do reassures her.
Becoming fed up with her sobs, the Vampire stalks over, his red eyes burn brightly with his anger, his pale skin almost gray under the moon’s light.
He grabs her by her dirty dress and pulls her out the front in front of everyone.
I see him raise a whip, intending to strike her with it.
I hear the whip swish through the air and I throw myself over her, screaming as I feel the whip bite into the flesh of my back.
My shirt splits open, my skin being torn away, the snow underneath my feet sprayed with my blood.
I drop over the top of her, trying to protect her, when I hear the man scream angrily for me to move.