by Ella Fields
It was still daylight, for one, and this place, the damp soil under my hands as I arrived at the cave, was no longer a safe place to allow myself such an indulgence.
Resolved to wait it out, to think over the sorceress’s carefully crafted words until they could no longer scare me, I stayed until nightfall. Inside, against the wall, the earth warm at my back, I watched my hands and arms shake, my feet fade and reappear, and willed my blood to cool.
The moon took a shape I couldn’t see in the sky. He wasn’t here, wasn’t coming, and after hours of shivering while boiling inside, I knew I had to let go. That it was probably safe to.
About to, I opened my eyes at the sound of a soft crunch at the other end of the cave. “What is wrong with you.” Not a question but an order for answers.
“Nothing,” I said too quickly and jumped to my feet, hoping they’d hold me.
They did, mercifully, and staring at him as he approached, I felt every boiling blood vessel begin to cool as I drew in Fang’s features. The moonlight behind his head wouldn’t touch him, but it shone splashes of silver upon those angular cheekbones, their high rise toward those ice-sharp eyes stealing my breath.
“There’s nothing I hate worse than people wasting my time.” I would’ve scoffed if I’d had enough energy. “Tell me why you’re shaking like a leaf in a storm.”
Meeting those eyes, I immediately looked away, knowing I’d have to tell him something or leave. I had a feeling he wouldn’t let me do that this time. “The prince visited.”
Silence reigned, with the exception of the trickling water outside of our secret passageway.
“You could say it didn’t go well,” I murmured, hoping that would be enough to placate his need for an explanation.
A low hum left him before he said, “You are betrothed?”
I half laughed at that, sinking back against the wall as my limbs slowly returned to me. “I highly doubt it.”
More silence. “You’re disappointed then,” he surmised, his head tilting in that predatory way as he studied me with bright eyes.
“Something like that.” I ripped my lace gown with the small dagger I’d started wearing strapped to my thigh, his gaze a blistering brand upon my bare legs. “Did you bring your swords?”
In answer, he unsheathed both from his back. “You’ve taken to carrying a weapon.”
“Dire times,” I muttered, too thankful for the return of myself to remember I was yet again in a place I shouldn’t be with a crimson asshole from across the ravine.
His voice lilted as he said, “So I’ve heard.”
Annoyance arrived, thick and oily. I pushed the dagger back into its holster at my thigh, then snatched his short sword, the emerald in the hilt dark and shadowed. “Did you have something to do with that? The Spring Forest. The river town and villages.”
“You know better than to ask questions you won’t like the answers to,” he murmured low, his other sword twirling in his hand. His eyes stayed fastened on me, ice-bright yet oh-so void.
“Very well,” I said with an airiness I most certainly did not feel and did as he’d said, honing that fury into every limb, the clenching of my fingers around the worn hilt as I braced myself.
A wicked smirk deepened the blue of his eyes. “Shall we dance, sunshine?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
We moved at the same time, blades clashing and our smiles mirrored. My arm shook with the effort to keep his strikes at bay, my teeth gritting.
“You’re sloppy this eve,” he said, sounding bored when I feigned right, then lunged forward, his sword catching mine before his chest, the steel halving his grin when our stomachs touched.
Bouncing back, my breaths coming too fast, I panted, “I’m fine,” and gripped the sword in both hands, ready for his downward arc.
I was on my back before I’d even realized he’d easily outmaneuvered me, the back of my head in his large hand, the blade poised at my throat. “Dead,” he whispered from above me, every hard part of him aligned with the softest parts of me.
As though he had just realized this, he blinked, brows lowering over cobalt eyes. “You’re huge.” It was all I could think to say, the words leaving me before I’d thought about how he might receive them.
Those eyes widened, then narrowed with his rising lips. His teeth, stars, they were perfect, blinding in the dark, even his longer, sharper canines. “I suppose that is a compliment.” His smile loosened. “Though what would you know about such matters?”
My fingers sifted through the dirt at my sides, readying to throw it into his eyes if need be and then shove him off me, when the sword fell beside me, and he rose. Only slightly, though. His hair sprinkled down over his forehead. His large arms caged me to the ground.
I’d never felt small. I’d never worried over such things.
Until now.
Until I felt an energy, primal and bloodthirsty, leaking from his enormous frame in a way that both shortened my breath and sent embarrassment spiraling toward my face.
When I failed to say anything at all, knowing he could likely feel the heat rising from my flaming cheeks, he then asked in a softer voice, “Did he kiss you?”
It took a moment for me to remember the prince, and even though I didn’t deign to give Fang an answer—it was none of his business—he got one, his eyes probing mine, then every inch of my face. “Where?”
Swallowing, I rasped, “Get off.”
Another infuriating smirk. “You don’t want me to. You’re just saying that to save face.”
My teeth gritted, anger forcing me to admit, “He kissed my cheek.”
His head lowered without warning, the tip of his nose trailing each cheek until he’d scented what he was looking for even though I’d bathed numerous times since, and he inhaled deep. Then with my hands darting to the back of his head, fingers curling into his shockingly soft hair to pull him away, he licked me.
“Did you just—?”
“Quiet,” he said, a curt, gruff bark, and the arms beside my head lowering as he did so once more.
My toes curled. Something feathered its way from my chest to my stomach, tickling profusely. And then, as soft as rose petals warmed by the sun, his lips dragged in a caressing brush over the skin, over every inch of my cheek, a rumbling noise climbing his throat that made my fingers curl gently into his thick hair.
More. I needed more.
As though he could sense that, his mouth ghosted down toward my lips with torturous slowness.
Our eyes met and held for moments that stole the beat of my heart. His had grown dark. The pupil expanded, black spreading into a now deeper, oceanic blue. A shiver assaulted me, and then his lashes lowered, and so did his mouth.
That feathered sensation melted into liquid fire.
Tentative at first, his lips pressed gently into mine, finding where they’d fit—finding that they fit perfectly. Another low rumble left him with my shaken breath, my mouth parting slightly, enough for his lips to slide over mine, my fingers clenched in his hair. “I’ve never done this,” he rasped, then scowled down at me as though his admission was somehow my fault—that him laying over me and kissing me was also somehow my fault.
That scowl, the annoyance that narrowed his eyes, told me that what he’d said was true. His kiss, though nothing short of breathtaking, the hesitation and slow evolvement, did too.
Everything in me stilled. That this young, ruthless god hadn’t been kissed by a thousand females, or stars, even males, robbed me of speech.
His lips rolled between his teeth as he watched me. Then he shifted, and my hands decided to keep his head held within their desperate grip. “Me either,” I finally whispered.
His nostrils flared with his eyes, delight birthing a smile I hadn’t yet seen on him before. A smile that spoke of unbridled joy or perhaps even relief. “Thank the fucking stars,” he said, his voice so rough, and then he stole my breath once again.
Any trace of uncertainty was gone. He
kissed me as though he’d been tasked with the most important job in the universe, his lips holding mine in a firm promise for heart-thrashing moments before parting them for his velvet tongue to skim inside my mouth.
I moaned, uncaring of the strange sound as his hardness met my soft. One of his hands slid slowly down my side, tracing and marking every curve, to hook my leg behind his back.
A low growl coated my tongue, and I swallowed it greedily as well as his following curse. He ground his length into my body through our clothing as our tongues stroked, teeth nipping at one another’s lips.
Copper filled my mouth, but I didn’t care. I was lost inside this dark, magnetic space where nothing but this rainbow of sensation existed. The heat of him, his breath—always even and now breaking across my lips with every digging thrust of his hips.
My eyes opened to find his were too, and I felt myself falling upon rapid winds while lying upon the hard earthen floor as he sucked my lip into his mouth, teeth scraping. The slight tang of blood returned, and he shot up to his knees as though I’d taken the sword that laid beside me and struck him with it.
My heart raced, too fast for me to control my thoughts, let alone words, as Fang stared at me. Lips parted and tinged red, his chest heaved while he glared as if I’d grown another head.
Then without a word, he stumbled to his forgotten swords and dragged them with him to the opening of the cave. To the tree that would take him back across the gully.
“Wait,” I managed to breathe out, pushing up to my elbows. “Fang.”
His steps faltered, but he said nothing, did nothing save for disappearing into the night.
The silence in his absence screamed and eradicated the precious air remaining in my lungs.
On unsteady feet, I rose from the ground, shaking dirt from my hair and willing the wet away from my eyes.
I’d kissed him. He’d kissed me.
It wasn’t just forbidden. Unless it could be proven that relations already existed before the second war, it was now treason to consort with the crimson.
That wasn’t what terrified me, though. No, what terrified me the most was this residual feeling of emptiness, as though he’d taken something from me that I couldn’t describe, couldn’t make sense of, and I wasn’t sure it was smart to attempt to.
Something I feared I could not get back.
At the entrance to the cave, I knelt and crawled out of the low-lying hole and stilled when I spied something in the grass to the right. Walking over, I kicked at it with my slipper.
Peppered nuts spilled from the pouch, and I didn’t need to bring them closer to my nose to recognize the foreign scent lingering on the canvas. Such a snack wasn’t permitted here.
Because it was eaten there.
The world shrank and tilted, the haze Fang had left me in clearing rapidly.
Stars. He’d…
Gazing back at the cave, I inhaled deep, then followed the trail, the strange scents, the signs I’d missed earlier while solely focused on trying to gather and control myself—and then all over again in a brand new way courtesy of Fang.
A howl came from deep in the woods, and then I was running, running and knowing I wouldn’t make it, knowing they were miles and miles away, and that if I had any chance, I’d need to change.
And so with a flash, my heart twisting, then pausing inside my chest, I did.
My blood roared and vibrated, my vision darkening and my senses illuminating in a rush that used to make me vomit for hours when I’d change back. Clumsy from panic and the disuse of this form, I almost flew headfirst into a tree before my wings spread and tilted, and I swerved around and through its branches.
Higher, higher, and higher, I climbed, cresting the treetops of the woods, leaving them behind within precious minutes. The moon rose behind the castle in the distance to my left, but I continued south and followed the dense line of trees and foliage that skirted the ravine.
The soft orange light cast from the city beyond the castle gates lit the corner of my eye; the villages between the city walls and the woods beneath me dark and slumbering. That wasn’t the case for others as I flew closer toward the mainland, Errin, the human’s kingdom, tucked beneath the stars in the ever-stretching distance. Some villages, farms, tiny towns, and the old mine were nothing but husks, a darkness that might never see the light again.
Faster, I had to move faster.
I’d flown countless times as a youngling before I’d learned to control it, to conceal what my parents deemed a curse rather than a gift, but never this fast. The wind barreled into me, attempting to steer me north—back home—when I needed to keep going south, so cold as it ruffled every one of my downy feathers.
Unable to help it, I looked to the right, toward the ravine over the edge of the forest, the cliff’s jagged edges and the trees on the other side visible even at night. Vordane spread beyond those trees. A lush, tree-populated entity of hidden gloom. Sprinkles of light glittered like faraway stars from its heart—the city across the river from the palace that watched over all at Vordane’s northernmost corner.
Shadow Keep.
It had been years since I’d glimpsed it from the skies. I’d never visited. We’d never dare. To do so was as good as welcoming an untimely death.
The thought withered when the wind delivered screaming that tugged my gaze southeast. Banking, I surged, and it wasn’t long before I saw it.
Flames, carnage, murder…
All the blood.
No sign of the prince and his soldiers. They had crossed the border, then, and were possibly already home. Which left only my father and his small troop, who’d been making the journey home.
Steel clashed against steel. Beasts dived on limbs. Blood sprayed like bursts of rain falling from the sky and puddled just the same.
My heart burned in my chest, ash flooding my mouth.
I was too late.
It was too late, yet I circled back to keep out of view and dropped beneath the trees, swooping through a vacant barn beyond them and out through to the broken fencing. The grass might as well have been concrete beneath my feet, I landed so hard, but I didn’t shift.
A large shadow against a rotted-out stump, barbed wire curling in the wind behind me, I could do nothing but stand there and stare.
So many. Stars, there were so fucking many. Wolves of differing shape and color, some with wings, most double the size of any human man, snarled and lunged and ripped—
Too many of them to have crossed a makeshift bridge thrown across the ravine or river in the dead of night.
I stumbled back on my webbed feet.
Fang.
Me.
My fault.
A wolf, larger than any I’d ever seen before, crashed through the air and into the middle of the clearing, his maw stretching open with a roar so ferocious it shook my feathers and every blood-soaked blade of grass.
Cream furred wings, blackened with blood and gore, fanned and then tucked into either side of the horned beast’s torso as it prowled through the throng.
The blood king.
The fighting didn’t cease—but it wasn’t fighting. My father’s soldiers, Fae who’d been trained since their bodies had matured, fell like insects swatted beneath giant paws.
It was a massacre.
Move. I had to move, but to join the battle would guarantee my death, and the repercussions of that would spread far and wide.
I was the last living heir. An heir to provide my family with another.
But my father, bellowing with fury as he fended off three attackers, took a hit to his side. His white-gold hair was coated in blood, his face nearly unrecognizable… I couldn’t just leave him.
I couldn’t leave any of them.
If I shifted back, I’d hopefully still find that dagger strapped to my thigh, though I knew it’d do little good with beasts that quadrupled the size of my shifted form.
The largest beast—the king—advanced through the fallen, crushing them ben
eath his giant paws as though they were already soil that belonged to the land and nothing else.
My father, fending off attacker after attacker, weakening more by the moment, didn’t see it coming.
I screamed, the sound little more than a honking call to the wild birds who’d long scattered—useless and pointless.
But he heard.
My father looked my way with wide eyes, no longer soaked with rage but with bright fear. Fear for me. His eyes darted to the trees, indicating, pleading for me to go.
I should’ve listened, but he couldn’t expect I’d be able to move an inch as the wolf rose onto his hind legs and wrenched my father off the ground by his neck.
Then shifted as his paw struck, claws and fur punching deep within my father’s chest.
The beast, now a male in a familiar black cloak, lowered to the dirt with my father’s neck still in his fist, his other inside his chest, twisting, pulling, as my father released a silent scream and turned his eyes skyward.
Fang.
My stomach dropped, and my vision blackened as my father’s lifeless form fell to the dirt, his glimmering heart in the crimson guard’s—in the blood king’s—hand.
Cheers and howls sliced through the clearing, through my airless chest, as the king, Fang, lifted my father’s heart to his mouth and tore into it with his teeth.
Teeth that, just hours ago, had scraped over my lips.
My father’s lifeblood cascaded over his and down his chin as he raised the dead organ toward the night sky, his kin’s approval thunderous, vile, and deafening.
The few remaining soldiers couldn’t be helped. I knew that.
So when my father’s heart fell to the grass beside his dead body, I retreated, shrank back into the night in search of the forgiving light of day to end this twisted nightmare.
He’d lied.
All along, I hadn’t been meeting with some rogue guard from the enemy’s kingdom. I hadn’t spilled precious words into Fang’s ears. Stars, his name wasn’t even Fang.
The monster of Vordane had multiple names.
The blood king. The king of wolves. King Dade.