Chapter Four
“ M eli!”
I bolted upright and tipped over—my head bumping against the curtained window. Hurriedly I ripped it over, and gazed out over the vast, rolling fields.
I wasn’t in Lyrica anymore. By the gnawing in my stomach and the bright, morning sun creeping over the horizon, it seemed I left Lyrica some time ago.
“No,” I whispered, throwing myself against the door. “No, no, no!”
I scratched, screamed, pounded, and kicked at the door panel. The frame didn’t bend. The handle didn’t bother to move. I was locked in, and not going anywhere.
How could this happen? Without me to stop him, Kirwan would force Meli under his thumb all to have sick, bedridden Mama under his thumb. Without them to take care of the little ones, Kirwan would ship Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia to an orphanage without sympathy or hesitation.
Just like that. One selfish princess and a beastly bastard of a king—ruined our lives forever. And to think, that morning, my biggest worry was finding a shop owner who’d let me do some sweeping for extra coin.
Sinking to the floor, I cried.
Chest-heaving, lung-shredding, hiccupping, bawling wails ripped from my throat and spread throughout the countryside.
“There, there, little bird.” I jerked when a warm hand brushed the back of my head. “Don’t cry.” His slow, steady crooning was as gentle as the fingers tangled in my hair—soothing me more than I wanted them to.
Slowly, achingly, my tears stopped falling.
“See? Much better,” he said. “No sense crying now when things are about to get much, much... worse.”
I flung back, slapping his hand away. Alisdair’s laughter filled the small, darkened space.
Pressing my back to the cushioned corner, two strange, shining eyes beheld me through the gloom. Sometime between my abduction and waking up in the carriage, he had time to change out of his wedding robes into a casual, almost peasant-like outfit of a tunic, trousers, and simple leather boots. His hair had been released from its confines, and fell in soft, curling waves around his ears, and horns.
I glanced at his hands, then doubled back. There was no doubt. His claws were shorter than they were the day before. Had he trimmed them? Did he do that... for me?
So it wouldn’t hurt when he mounted me—
I cut the thought off at the knees, put it in a box, set it on fire, then buried the ashes. In no reality—alternate or otherwise—would this man enter me.
“Take me back.”
Alisdair didn’t move. He didn’t speak.
“Take me back now,” I repeated, raising my voice.
Nothing.
I swallowed hard, absentmindedly tugging on the symbol of my oppression—the charm bracelet. Once, a hungry, ragged wolf wandered into the Gutter Galley and cornered me in an alley—growling and salivating for the coming meal that was me.
I’d have given anything right then to be back in that alley.
I was being assessed by another predator, and this one was more terrifying than a starving wolf would ever be.
Stop it, I snapped at myself. Stories and legends are just that. Whatever he’s done, Alisdair Shadowsoul is not invincible. He’s flesh, blood, and fae like the rest of us. A very powerful faeman, but still, just a man.
You’ve been around enough men to know what they want, and what they don’t.
Straightening, I wiped my tears on my sleeve and set my jaw. I was done crying. Crying never solved anything. The only way to get home was to go through him, and I was more than up to the task.
I cleared my throat. “You should, you know. Take me back, that is.” My tone was even. Almost cordial. “It’s in your best interest to end this sham of a marriage now.”
His only reaction was a slightly raised brow.
“Come now. Didn’t you wonder why King Salman offered his daughter and only child to his worst enemy? Did you really think it was to get you to sign that silly little peace treaty? Aww, you did, didn’t you?” I clicked my tongue, mock-pouting. “So cute.”
His brow rose higher. One thing men like Shadowsoul didn’t like—being made to seem na?ve and clueless.
“It wasn’t about you,” I went on. “It was about me. My father”—my throat burned to call him that—“knew he’d never be able to arrange a real match for me, so pawning me off to you was his last hope of getting something out of the deal.”
I took a deep, exaggerated breath and released it slow. “You see, I was born with a tragic condition. Very rare. Very real. You can learn about it yourself.”
“I am on the edge of my seat,” he drawled, startling me. Would I ever get used to his unnaturally deep, honeyed tone. “What is this condition?”
“My pussy,” I dropped, raising that brow as high as it could go. “It has teeth. Rows of them all up my walls. Very sharp.”
A strange noise came from his side of the carriage. Was he...? Was he laughing ?
“It’s true.” Laughter pealed from his lips. “It is! This is no laughing matter. Any attempt to consummate the marriage will result in your cock being horribly mangled. See for yourself.” I held up my hands. “I got these cuts from my unwise attempts to play with myself.”
I revealed the many slash marks on Emiana’s fingers. They were from my escape attempt. The lone day Fiona went too long between administering the tea, and I cut myself trying to hop through a broken window.
“And of course, since nothing can go in, nothing can come out.” I had to raise my voice to be heard over him. “That means no children. None. So, do you see? Do you see how King Salman tricked you? He saddled his enemy with a wife that will never fuck him or bear his children. You might as well take me back now because— Stop laughing!”
If anything, Shadowsoul laughed harder.
“Oh, my queen. When that odd, foolish little man”—he described the king of the most powerful fae nation in the land—“told me he had a little bird he wanted to give me, I was skeptical. Especially when all reports declared you a meek, decorative, pointless creature.”
I bristled, and he wasn’t even talking about me.
“But alas, I shall have to slaughter every one of my Lyrican spies. You are far from meek or decorative, my crude, court jester of a bride. You are what no one has been to me for a very long time.” He smiled, revealing true rows of sharpened, lethal teeth. “Entertaining.
“So, bite me, little bird. Mangle me.” His eyes flashed. “I dare you.”
The conversation had taken a strange and terrible turn. I did not understand this man. It seemed everything I did to repel him, only increased his fascination of me. What would it take to make him open the cage and let the little bird fly free?
“You needn’t be afraid of me, little queen.”
“No?” I straightened, pushing down my fear. “So all the stories weren’t true? About your cruelty? About your palace being a den of nightmares? About the things your people do to their mates on their wedding night?”
He smirked. “No. All of that is true and more, but you still needn’t be afraid because now my cruelty will defend your honor. My den of nightmares will be made into your home. And the things I do to you tonight will create their own legend. The only thing you’ll fear is that I’ll stop.”
His grin widened. “Don’t worry. I respond well to begging.”
I leaned forward, getting as close as I could stand. “Teeth or not, I will never ever lie with you. For the rest of our short marriage, your bed will be as cold as the splinter of ice where your desiccated heart used to be.”
“You will lie with me every night and twice in the mornings,” he replied, tone flat. “Our bed will slide across the floor, riding the river of your sweet, flowing juices, while I plunder your hole to the music of your ear-shattering screams for more.”
I choked, eyes bugging. What did he say? He could not have said what my cursed, ailing mind thought he said.
“Not only are these facts written in your future, but I will have you every night with your complete and willing consent. You will beg, little bird,” he hissed. “And I will be only too happy to oblige.”
I stared at him for a long time, eyes huge—heart racing to get free. Shadowsoul didn’t break. He didn’t even blink.
I whipped around. “Help!” I threw myself against the window, screaming my throat raw. “I know you hear me up there! Let me out of here! Let me out!” My magic surged up inside of me, heeding my distress, and smashed against the internal barrier forced on my soul on the day I turned ten years of age. It wasn’t going to help me—nothing and no one was.
“I don’t accept that,” I bit through clenched teeth. “I’m going home.”
Tearing off the curtain, I wrapped it around my fist and prepared to strike under another amused smirk.
Shadowsoul could smirk his ass right to hell. When they locked Emiana in her chambers, they didn’t think that pointless, decorative princess would throw a chair through her window and climb out of that either. I was getting back to my family. Nothing would stop me.
I descended on the glass, preparing to—
Something flew across the horizon, soaring straight at my face. I shrieked as a flash of scales and teeth roared past my vision—snatching whatever it was out of the air.
“What was that!”
“An assassination attempt, most likely.” Alisdair couldn’t have sounded more bored if he tried. “There were many who opposed the treaty and are taking this opportunity to ambush me while I’m away from my kingdom. It is no matter,” he said. “My guards will protect you, little bird. Most fervently from the ones who did want this peace treaty. They will not be pleased to know you’ve broken it not ten minutes after it was signed.”
“ I broke the treaty?” I gaped at him. “Oh, how terrible it is when age addles your mind and rots your memory. If you think real hard—really strain until you hurt yourself—you will find, old bird , that you broke the treaty when you threw the king of Lyrica through a wall.”
He grinned. Once again, I was amusing him, not irritating him. Certainly not enough to force him to turn the carriage around. “The terms of the treaty were that all acts of aggression between my kingdom and yours cease—”
“Exactly. You—”
“—therefore, plunging a sword in my chest, unprovoked and before a hundred witnesses, counts as an act of aggression, wouldn’t you say?” His grin was terrible to behold. “Do tell me, my queen. You know how age rots the mind.”
My lips pressed into a thin, numb line. “What does this mean? What will you do?”
“Now you ask?” He cocked his head. “Now you inquire about the treaty? Only now you mention your father, and not even to ask if he’s still alive? Why is that?”
“Because I’m not—!” I choked on Emiana’s name, strangled by curse and frustration. I sighed. “I don’t care what happens to that man. In the end, he was no better than a broker—selling his own daughter to warm his enemy’s bed. That’s all I was to him in the end. A pawn to sacrifice.”
He gave me a long, leveling look. “I see. So that was not the first time he’s struck you.”
“I—” I started to say I don’t know, then memories that weren’t mine rose to the surface. “No, it was not the first,” I replied, knowing it to be true. “Nor was it a common occurrence. He’d have had to spend more time in my presence for that—barring the one night a month I was allowed to sit beside him during the Meya’s Moon feast.”
Impossibly thick lashes cast long shadows over his unnatural eyes. They were beacons that kept drawing me back to them, no matter how much I wanted to look away.
“Take heart, my queen, for your plan worked.”
“My plan?”
“To break the treaty and therefore remove all barriers and excuses... for me to kill him.”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to work. Although I will say, your seduction techniques are quite unique and advanced. Pretending that you care so much for my honor, you’d kill the man who hurt me, is a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t erase the fact that if you truly wanted my happiness and freedom from a man who’d rule and control me... you’d turn this carriage around right now and take me home.”
“No.”
Anger welled in my throat. It was everything in me not to leap across the divide and claw the boredom off his face. “Why?” I cried. “Why do you want me? I know of you. I know kings, queens, and emissaries from the four kingdoms have offered you money, land, brides, and grooms all in hopes of you lifting the beast curse off the land.
“You turned them all down by way of severed heads and mangled limbs sent back to where they came from. Why now? Why say yes to this marriage? Why force me to go back with you when you want this marriage even less than I do?”
“I have answered this question, but if you wish to hear it again, I will oblige,” he replied. “I have mastered the magical arts, created a superior race, conquered my kingdom, and amassed wealth that rivals the coffers of this and the human lands. But...
“It’s not enough.” He snapped his fingers and the torn curtains vanished from my grip and reappeared whole and intact over the window. “There was one more horizon to conquer. One that’s always been out of my reach... until a little bird plunged a sword through my chest.”
He smiled, and for the first time, I felt I’d done something very wrong.
“There is something we must do, and at first, I did not believe you were the one to stand at my side. But I see now I was wrong. When you’re in my presence, there’s no fear in your eyes, tremble in your chin, or deference in your speech. You do not fear me, though you do revile me, and yet, arousal wafts thick and heavy from your lethal pussy—telling of your desire for me.”
My face heated. “That is not—!”
“That wasn’t a question,” he growled, slicing in. “Merely a fact that ever more intrigues me. I demanded the All Mother aid me, and she gifted me you.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, lulling my lids heavy once more. “A beautiful little enigma wrapped in venom and violence.”
He laughed—full and free. “Of course I’m not going to give you back, little bird. I’m going to trap you within my cage and watch you squirm. Listen to you scream. Delight as you buck and fight and defy until I have conquered the most interesting challenge yet—claim of your life, your soul, and your heart.”
I wanted to rage. To give him exactly what he asked for—screaming, fighting, and bucking—but I could do no such thing. Darkness claimed me again, dragging me under to where I would not wake.
THE CARRIAGE BUCKED , jolting me out of sleep and off my seat. I fell flat across a hard, sweet-smelling body and was immediately captured in his arms.
“Good evening, my bride.” Fearsome claws trailed a shiver-inducing path up my spine. “I trust you slept well.”
I shoved off his lap, escaping those tickling claws. He took no notice as he leaned over, sweeping back the curtain.
“Welcome home.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out. I’d seen many maps of the faelands, and all of them had a huge, looming shadow where the kingdom of Wind and Wild should be. There was nothing else there could be for every cartologists who crossed the border never made it back alive. I understood why in that moment.
“It’s dead,” I breathed. “Everything... dead.”
There were a million words to describe the frozen wasteland surrounding me—smothering me. But none would capture the sight so completely as dead.
Snow blanketed the hills and mountains, wiping away any trace of greens, browns, reds, oranges, or any sign life once existed beneath the ice. Twisted, snarled, bare stumps reached for the skies, their skinny frozen branches beseeching the sun for warmth.
That was it. The world had washed away. Summer, light, laughter, and warmth disappeared, and all that was left were dead trees, mountains, and ice.
“Is this the curse?” I pressed my fingertips to the glass. The cold seeped into my bones, chilling me to the core. “This is what it does? It sucks the life out of... everything.”
Alisdair didn’t answer. I couldn’t be certain he heard me. That was fine. He didn’t need to explain himself. My supposed new home said all that needed to be said.
This is what we’ve fought a thousand years to prevent. This land of winter and death, where we’d roam forever as mindless beasts. And somewhere, buried under the unmarked ice, was Shadowsoul’s wretched, still-beating heart.
No wonder our fae forces couldn’t find it. No wonder we could never stop trying.
“Enough,” I announced, facing him. “No more games. No more stories. This is not my home. It can’t be. I need to get back to Lyrica. I have—” people who need me.
The rest of the sentence wouldn’t come out. Seemed Princess Emiana did not have anyone in Lyrica who needed her. Well, I did, and I wouldn’t be a bird in Shadowsoul’s cage any more than I’d be a pawn in Emiana’s escape.
“—important things to do,” I finished. “Take me back, or Meya bless it, open the door and throw me out here. I don’t care. I just need you to let me go. What will it take for you to dub this the shortest sham marriage in fae history? Name your price.”
“To make such a statement one must have something to bargain.” He leveled that hated smirk on me—the one that said I was being a funny little bird again. “What will you give me if I let you go?”
“You can tell everyone—all the nations—that I, Princess Emiana, am responsible for breaking the treaty. I have let down my people—nay, the entire fae race, and I should be named and condemned for the selfish, manipulative witch I am.” Of course the curse let me say that. Every word of it was true.
“Hmm,” he vocalized, tipping his chin. The act drew my attention to how full and chiseled it was. A sharp fist clench and nails piercing my palm made me stop. “This is awkward for you, little bird, because I already ordered my people to spread that very truth throughout the kingdoms. Nearly word for word.” He cocked his head, studying me in that unsettling way. “What else?”
“This can be your chance to prove the whole world is wrong about you. Deep down, there is goodness and kindness in your soul. What price can be put on your redemption—?”
“No.”
I bit hard on my lip, penning in a stream of foul words. Something about his nos put me in a chokehold. My survival instincts sensed pushing him would have dire consequences.
“I—I will...” I cast my mind for something— anything . “Lie,” I blurted. “I will lie to King Salman, assuming he still lives, and tell him the heart no longer resides in the kingdom of Wind and Wild.”
His grin melted away, but mine widened. I had his attention now.
“I’ll say I witnessed you unearth it, put it in a chest, and tossed it in the sea. It now lurks at the bottom of the ocean, never to be recovered.” I leaned forward in my eagerness, bumping my knees against his. “One lie from these lips will end the war and grant peace—true peace—that your kingdom hasn’t known in over a thousand years. What say you?” I held out my hand. “Do we have a bargain?”
He eyed my hand, expression unreadable. “What you speak of is treason, my queen. Deliberately misleading your former king, acting as spy, and spreading false information to the detriment of their war effort. If discovered to be untrue, you will be tried and executed in a cauldron of molten iron.”
My throat seized. I was not aware of the punishment.
“Knowing this, you’d make such a bargain all for the sake of returning to Lyrica to attend to important things ?”
The most important.
“Yes,” I said clearly. “I will.”
I thrust my hand out farther. “Do we have a bargain?”
“Well, well, it appeared you did have something to trade. You are not to be underestimated.” He firmly clasped my hand. “I will remember that.”
“No need.” I looked him in the eyes. “We will never see each other again after today.”
He laughed. “So it is.”
I broke free, ignoring the odd tingling going through my fingers and up my arm. “You can stop the carriage here.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. You have no food, water, or proper clothing. You’d never make it.” Alisdair pounded the roof of the carriage. “I will bring you back to Lyrica, and you will tell your lies. As agreed.”
The carriage jolted, nearly throwing me off the seat again, because we were turning. We were going home.
A happy noise burst from my throat—warped from a stolen voice, but still real and true. I couldn’t contain my happiness. Beaming, I said, “As agreed.”
Relaxing for the first time in over a week, I sank back into the cushion, settling in for a long silent ride.
After a spell, I closed the curtain myself. It made it easier to stare at him without him noticing.
He wasn’t what I was expecting in so many ways. His anger at discovering Emiana’s father hit her seemed genuine, but with the same breath he’d sworn to slaughter his Lyrican spies for relaying incorrect information. How did one who disregards life as casually as he did turn around and threaten someone else for their treatment of women?
Was he more than what I’d been raised to believe? Was there a side to him that wanted his war to end, peace to reign, and the violence to stop?
He shifted and his tunic fell open, flicking my gaze to his hard, shadow-dusted chest. All those men who came back from the battlefield speaking of yellowed eyes, a foaming maw, fur and scales where none should be, and a face so hideous it made you weep—I cursed them all as kakkas for telling such terrible lies.
Alisdair was dawn breaking over the horizon. A rare flower blooming under a midnight moon. Rainbow eels dancing in a clear, placid lake. No matter who you were or what you were doing, you simply had to stop, stare, and bask in the sight of him. Although, sunrises and rainbow eels were bright, joyous sights. Alisdair was different.
There was something dark and feral about his beauty. More like the inherent fear clinging to your shivering spine when you ventured deep into a dark cave glistening with silk worms. To be in that wondrous, quiet space was beautiful, but you’d never shake the sense that something was lurking in the dark—waiting.
Even so, it did not make him any less gorgeous. I said I wanted to stop thinking of Kirwan as handsome. My wish was granted for all faemen were the hideous, bloated hindquarters of a skletmacca compared to Shadowsoul.
“So soon?” he said, startling me. He breathed deep. “Already you’re on the edge of begging.”
It took my last blissful, ignorant second to realize what he was talking about, and what he was scenting.
My face lit on fire. “I can assure you, Shadowsoul. One way or another, if that thing comes near me, it will be bitten off.”
“Oh? Shall we make another bargain? You do so enjoy those.”
“What kind of—?”
He ripped his tunic clean off his body.
“What are you doing!” My scream was two octaves louder than it needed to be. I couldn’t help it. Of all the things I anticipated he’d do—and slaughtering me and drinking the blood from my corpse was high on the list—I never expected him to do that.
“Nothing that should concern you.” Those claws moved down and found his waistband. “You do not want me. You do not ache for me. Your arousal does not hang heavy in the air, betraying your flushed skin and quivering lips.” He sliced through his pants, his claws a knife through butter— No, a blade through fabric, revealing him from top to tail.
My jaw clenched tight, clamping down on a high-pitched squeak before it left my lips. The remains of his trousers hit the carriage floor, leaving nothing behind but every bare, breath-stealing inch of him.
Roaring sounded in my ears. Bright lights blinded me—impossible for we were in a darkened carriage, but I was blinded all the same. I had no experience of being alone with a naked man, and this was the worst of all men to be alone with.
Losing one’s maidenhood was a risky prospect for girls from the Galley. All a devious suitor had to do was lie and say they paid me for our evening together, and just like that, I was branded a war wife for the rest of my life. Of course, I could say they were lying, but the word of a poor woman from the gutter didn’t amount to much.
Two of my childhood friends had been caught in that very trap. After months and years fighting it, and starving, they both now lived in the homes of the noblemen who tricked them—circumstances left them little choice.
I swore that would never be me. No sweet words, muscled arms, charming grin, or promise of forever would tempt me to bed a man I didn’t trust absolutely. No man was that handsome. No man was that alluring. No man... was Alisdair Shadowsoul.
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on sculpted thighs, or indeed anywhere else. All of him was lean, hard muscle. Inky-black runes covered him from neck to shin, finding a home on every part of his body—including the part I was doing everything in my power not to look at.
“Resist me, little bird.” His words washed over me—spell-binding. Head-scrambling. “Deny what your body screams for even now, and I will not give it to you.”
That was hardly a bargain. I would’ve laughed at the absurdity, if I could’ve done anything at all.
My gaze glued to the hand traveling back up his leg. Before my eyes, his claws shrunk, reducing to the size of an average faeman. The sight so baffled me, I hung on too long and didn’t look away before he gripped his length. Looking me straight in the eyes, he started pumping.
A low, deep hiss leaked through my gritted teeth. I was choking too hard on my groan to let that through—though my body betrayed me all the same.
I had no one to compare him to and still my mind supplied, Huge. Big. Powerful. All that and more described the massive, smooth cock rolling over his palm. Alisdair widened his legs and mine snapped shut—knees knocking together hard.
It wasn’t just the sight of his muscles clenching, toes curling, or lips parting. It was the unabashed shame of him. The pure truth that he didn’t care. Trapped in a carriage with a forced wife who hated and bargained to leave him at the earliest opportunity, he stretched bare and bold before me with no hesitation. No nervousness. No fear of rejection.
I’d never been so free and confident in all nineteen of my years.
My inner voice shouted for me to look away, but I couldn’t. Shadowsoul wouldn’t let me.
A mad statement, but true all the same. His heated gaze trapped me. His body held me in thrall. I could look nowhere but where he wanted me to.
Slow, firm, steady strokes milked his length, teasing the tiniest bead of seed to the tip. A strange noise filled the carriage. It took me a minute to realize it was my fingernails ripping through the seat cushion.
“Who are you putting on a show for?” he barked, making me jump. “No one can see you but me.”
My lips parted to ask what he meant, but I knew.
My hand pried off the cushion, taking a handful of goose feathers with me. I was still dressed in that obscene wedding gown with voluminous skirts. They were as cumbersome to put on and cut up as they were to lift.
They bunched up around my face—tickling my chin and nose. I couldn’t see my own hand traveling down, but he could. Alisdair furiously picked up the pace when my fingers slipped inside—an impossible speed that I couldn’t hope to match, but tried.
My fingers worked my toothless pussy, spreading lightning-charged heat zinging through my body. I felt hot and cold at the same time. Chilled but feverish. Disgusted but dirtily lustful like I’d never been before. So this was why sex was worth the risk—huh.
“Legs open,” Shadowsoul ordered. “Feet on the seat.”
My lips peeled back from my teeth—only partially because I was moaning. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
He stalked over, a coiled serpent narrowing in on his prey. My head fell back as he leaned over me, like a lover waiting to receive a kiss, or a caged animal readying to bite.
“No, I don’t tell you,” he whispered. “You tell me. You beg me down on those soft, supple knees—spilling the name you once cursed from your lips. Harder, faster, deeper, more .” Fingers trailed a slow goose pimple-popping trail down my forearm, giving me a chance to stop him—daring me to. “You teach me all the ways to make your nipples hard, your pussy wet, and heart race.”
Alisdair was so close, I could count every one of his lashes. He brought his hand down beside my head, overwhelming me with his heady scent of cedar, pine, and something exclusively him . I didn’t fight it when his palm cupped the back of my hand. Nor did I stop him slipping two fingers past my folds to join mine.
“Tell me your secrets, little bird.” He pushed in deeper than I’d ever gone and spread his fingers—spread me—wide.
“Ah,” I moaned, eyes rolling back in my head.
“Sing.”
Sing. That’s what Mama used to do when I was young and she was well. She’d sing sweet, happy, beautiful songs to me, and a man whose laugh I only remembered in my dreams—Papa.
Mama didn’t become a war wife out of desperation, starvation, or boredom. She did it to be with my father. Son of a wealthy nobleman, his father forced a respectable, wealthy bride on him the minute Papa was of age. No one cared that he wanted to be with his true love. The girl he loved since she first set foot in his home, clinging to the skirts of their new housekeeper.
When Father was called up to fight, Mama seized her chance to be with him. Possibly her last chance if the All Mother called him home off the battlefield. She went to war with him. They were together, they were happy, and they had me.
Then, the law changed. It was decided that men were free to abandon the children fathered with war wives, and after Papa died—struck down near the Rajadom border—that’s exactly what his father did. My natural grandfather claimed my mother and I were no responsibility of Papa’s and refused to give us the home, money, and land he willed to my mother.
Left with nothing and now unable to take any other work, we moved to a tiny, broken-down pit in the Galley, and Kirwan entered our lives.
“Ah, Alisdair,” I breathed. “Yes, more, please.”
A deep, primal growl rumbled from the depths of his throat. The erection digging into my thigh got impossibly harder—begging for entrance.
“Oh, that’s so good,” I panted, chest heaving. “Alisdair, yes.”
“Louder,” he ordered, picking up the pace to my rising cries. “Tell me what you desire. Beg for it.”
“I want— Oh, Alisdair, I want—"
The choices my mother had to make. The pain she went through. The father I never got to know. Our lives were ruined before our very births—
I moved down, fixing on a faint, half-moon scar on his chest.
—all because a thousand years ago, a selfish, power-hungry bastard ripped his heart out, and now... my mother didn’t sing anymore.
“—to drive the next strike through your real heart.” My smirk mirrored his own— Or it did. His triumphant grin melted away. “I want to know why men such as yourself are so easy. So simple.” My laugh was loud and harsh. “You truly believe all it takes to control a woman is a flaccid cock and a few fake orgasms.”
My foot came up and kicked his shoulder. Alisdair smoothly ducked the strike, pulling out of me in the process. “Let that be a lesson to you, King of Blood and Pain. You cannot use sex to get what you want from me.” I threw my skirts down, straightening in my seat. “This bird won’t sing for you.”
“Hmm.” Alisdair reclaimed his space. In a blink he was dressed. Truly, within the space of a blink, his clothes vanished from the floor and reappeared whole and new on his body. “You are a mystery, Princess. One I intend to unwrap.”
I heated under the obvious double meaning. “You have the length of this carriage ride to do so. Good luck.”
He didn’t rise to the challenge, or if he did, he didn’t see fit to tell me. We lapsed into a heavy silence; the air charged with the memory of what happened between us. Yes, Alisdair Shadowsoul was the handsomest of men, and he knew exactly what to do with the face and body the All Mother gave him—but I wasn’t a fucking little bird.
No man would ever put me in a cage.
We lapsed into an uneasy silence. More so uneasy for me since Shadowsoul fell asleep half an hour in.
He is no concern of mine. What I need to do is figure out how I can get back to Meli, Mama, and my faywens, and explain to them that we need to track down the crown princess of Lyrica and force her to give my body back.
That was the only path available to me, because getting Alisdair Shadowsoul to give his heart to me—the real me—and speak my name was the impossible nonsense of a curse that didn’t want to be broken.
How was he to speak a name I couldn’t tell him while living in a kingdom of people who didn’t know it? Your first name is given by your parents, but your second is given by your fame, acclaim, or reputation. The name Shadowsoul was given to him by the world. It was obviously not a second name he would’ve chosen.
As for me, I have done and achieved nothing in my true life. I did not yet have a second name for him to speak, and as for my first, the name given on my day of my birth—my parents saw fit to choose an old, ancient fae name that fell out of favor centuries ago.
It was not a name that was guessed, stumbled upon, brought up in casual conversation, or heard on the wind while walking through the market square. He was never going to speak my true name, and that was just the practical reason why the curse couldn’t be broken the way it was intended.
The harsh and brutal reason was I couldn’t win the heart of a man who didn’t have one.
No, my only choice is to go home, protect my family from Kirwan, and then together Mama, Meli, and I can find a way to track Emiana down and get my body back.
I nodded to myself—satisfied. Don’t worry, faywens. I’m coming home.
My forehead pressed to the window, watching the endless, unchanging landscape. Something appeared in the distance, tightening my brow.
Dark, ominous clouds rolled over the horizon, blotting out the sun, and we rode directly toward them.
Shadows and gloom bled inside, making the solitary corner of the carriage, and the man reclined in it, all but disappear except for his too-bright eyes.
The endless sea of white began to break up, giving way to an overgrown barrier of wood and death that stretched as far as I could see.
A forest.
Tangled, knotted, weeping trees pushed and grew over the other, allowing no entrance to fae or animal. The carriage jarred—throwing me roughly to the side when we forged through anyway, slipping through the trees on a path I couldn’t see.
“What is this?” I squinted through the branches but there was nothing to see. The scant view of the sky granted through the bare branches revealed nothing but black clouds. “Is this a shortcut to Lyrica?”
No reply came from his side of the carriage. My throat tightened—anxiety rising.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. “You said you were taking me back. Is this the way to Lyrica or not?”
Noise came from him then—a deep and clear laugh.
“You liar!” I pounded the glass. “Take me back. Take me back n—!”
The carriage put on a burst of speed, throwing me back and burying me under a mountain of tulle and silk. Wildly, we raced through the forest—hitting every stone and tree root. I screamed under the wild jostling—trying and failing to hang on to something. Anything.
Another bump and my face smashed against the window... that’s when I saw them.
Rapidly shifting, racing figures moved through the trees, heading straight for us.
For as long as I lived, I’d never find the right words to describe the sight before me. Fangs. That was what I saw first. Horribly overgrown, lethal yellowed fangs forced from a jaw that couldn’t hold them—dripping with drool. Tufts of fur grew in tangled patches on their skin. Claws the lengths of their forearms erupted from their fingers, and their eyes...
In their eyes lived pure madness.
“What are they!”
“The Taken.”
I was shocked to hear him answer, then even more surprised when he pounded the top of the carriage.
We began to slow.
“What’s going on? Why are we slowing down? We can’t stop here, those things are coming.” My cries fell on uncaring ears above and below. “We have to get out of here!” I turned and made eye contact, locking on to the beast’s rage-filled orbs. Doubling over, I threw up.
The carriage rolled to a dead stop—a lone beacon amidst the oncoming storm. Shadowsoul grasped the handle.
“Don’t,” I rasped. I couldn’t say how I knew. Call it instinct. Name it a being’s deep-seated will to survive, but those creatures weren’t meant to be faced. In their presence all had to run. Run and run and run, and never stop.
Alisdair stepped out, uncaring of my pleas. I crawled through vomit. Snatching the handle, I slammed the door closed after him—scream leaking through my teeth. I was afraid. Whatever those things were. Whatever unholy demon had created them, I’d never been more afraid in my life.
I yanked the door shut just in time. The world set on fire.
Bright white heat exploded in my eyes, burning through my retinas and imprinting its power in my brain forever.
I swayed—blinded—and tipped over, falling against the door which did not bother to hold me. I dumped out on the frozen ground, eyes huge as the sight looming over me.
The creatures—the Taken—thrashed on the ground, slowly consumed by the flames. Their screams pierced the dead forest and my gut, nearly causing me to be sick again, and above it all stood Alisdair Shadowsoul—laughing loud and free as fire rained from his palms, consuming all, and everyone, in its path.
Something flickered out of the corner of my eye, drawing my head up.
A flower?
I questioned but that was all it could be. Beautiful, delicate, and out of place, a small purple flower pushed through the frozen earth—unfurling satin-kissed petals before my eyes.
Alisdair’s laughter cut off with the heat. He ceased his magic, dropping his hands, and the cold raced in—shredding through my dress.
Huddling on the ground, I held myself—fighting not to look at the dying creatures, but unable to look anywhere else. Shadowsoul killed them so quickly and easily, and with such enjoyment. That was a good thing. There was no question they were racing to kill us all but...
“Such power,” I rasped, lips trembling as I met his eyes. “What are you?”
He smiled. “The flowers,” Alisdair said. It took me a second to realize he wasn’t speaking to me. “Take care of them. Now.”
“Yes, my lord.” The carriage driver jumped down.
I didn’t have a chance to ask what was happening before he raised his hand, and the beautiful purple flower wilted into dust.
“Let us away.” Alisdair reached for me. “It doesn’t do to dwell in the Taken’s territory.”
I smacked his outstretched hand. “Get it through your fucking head! I’m not going anywhere with you!”
Pushing up on my feet, I ran. Past the carriage driver, the lead carriage, and a host of guards.
“But, my sweet little bird,” Alisdair called.
I darted around the watching, still guards—jumping over the rising roots and frozen dirt that made the beginnings of a forest path.
Up ahead, the trees grew closer together, their branches reaching to embrace each other for warmth. They cut any chance for the carriages to get through, or pursue me.
“Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia,” I shouted. I shot through the trees, opening cuts on my face, neck, and hands forcing my way through. “I’m com— Ahhh!”
I pitched forward, teetering on the edge of a sudden cliff. Bugged, wide eyes beheld the long, long... long drop.
My foot slipped, and I fell. “Ahhh!”
Claws snagged my collar and bits of my skin. My dress stopped dead while the rest of me kept falling, pulling my bodice sharply against my throat. I choked—cutting off my scream.
Alisdair pulled me up and to him, crushing me against his chest. Instinctively I threw my arms around him—holding on to the only sure, steady thing as my sudden brush with death crashed over me.
“We’re here.” I shook with his laugh. “Welcome to Lumenfell. Your new home.”
“No,” I whispered, taking in the sight before me. It can’t be. This simply can’t be real.
Falling to my knees, I slid out of his grasp. Vomit rose up my throat again, ejected from my heaving stomach. “Oh, Meya... What have I gotten in to?”