by Ella Fields
I let him feel every ounce of rage inside himself, hoping it burned his black soul, and then, with a calm that threatened to shatter the ice in his eyes, I said, “I’m well aware of what hides and festers in this kingdom, and that I have no place here.”
The room cooled within an instant as his fury morphed into confusion, his stumped expression nearly comical. “Then why?” His thick brows flattened over his eyes. “Why do any of this?”
“For now, I have no other choice.”
It still seemed to escape him that he was the reason. “You do, and you know it,” he snapped, leaning over the garments to grip my chin. His eyes sank into mine, refusing to release them, as he murmured, “We can leave right now.”
“You can, and I hope that you do, but I cannot.” Pulling his wrist, I bared my teeth when he wouldn’t relinquish his hold on my chin and ignored the tight flutter in my chest when he smirked. “You wouldn’t return me home, and even if you did, you’d kill us all soon after.”
The wolf king’s smile dropped, and he rose from the bed. “Someone comes.” Looking from the closed door to me, he held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
“No.”
“Now is not the time for you to be petulant about your father—”
The handle twisted, someone fumbling with the locks and cursing.
“Opal,” Dade said, voice shockingly soft, as were his eyes. Pleading, I realized, and then the door burst open, and he was gone, the prince stumbling inside.
“What in the witch do they need so many blasted locks for?” he grumbled, slamming the door behind him with a breathless laugh. “Shit, that was loud.” Straightening, he removed his coat, slurring, “Did I wake you?”
The scent of ale wafting from his unsteady form into the room was enough to make my head spin as I inhaled it. Drunk as he was, he evidently didn’t see the clothes on the bed and floor, most threaded with gold. “No, Prince.”
He waggled a finger at me. “Someday, I will be king.” He stopped at the side of the bed, his leg mere inches from my bare foot. “And I will need a queen to rule beside me.”
So focused on the reek, on the garbled words leaving his smiling lips, I didn’t see it coming.
In a breath, he’d fallen over me, smacking my head into the wall behind the bed. “But one must always sample before they commit.” His hands were suddenly everywhere, sliding down my sides to my thighs, pulling at my skirts hard enough that I heard numerous tears.
“Bron,” I said, my voice squashed in my throat as I struggled to push at his shoulders. “I cannot allow this, please.” I pushed harder. “Bron, you need to go.”
“It won’t take long,” he said, as though that were all the encouragement I’d need to submit.
I’d never submit, but his body, draped so heavily over mine, and my fear held me trapped as his wandering hands made their way to my breast and between my legs. My knees clamped over his hand, and I groaned, teeth snapping as I tore at the other hand tugging down the bodice of my gown. “Stop,” I hissed. “Stop it right now.”
He just laughed, mumbling low words. “I’ll make you feel so good. God, your skin is so soft.” Then his hand broke the confines of my knees, reaching my undergarments and brushing over them, and I screamed.
I screamed, and all the frustration, all the fear, all my pent-up power made its way into my hands, thrusting him off me with enough force to send him over the edge of the bed and flying to the floor with a violent thump.
In a rush, I sat up, my heart racing.
Cursing, Bron groaned, clutching at the bedding to help himself stand. “You little faerie bitch,” he spat, rubbing at the side of his head.
My teeth gnashed when his eyes met mine, and then I grinned, wide and daring, as he struggled to his feet. Before he could so much as touch the mattress, I allowed my power to spill and gather into a bubble of thorn clouded air around me, shocking him enough that he paused as I sent them all to him.
The air slammed him in the chest, stunning him while thorns pierced his exposed skin. Eyes wide, he gaped and then slumped to the floor.
I swallowed and scrambled off and away from the bed, unsure how such a petty gathering of air, typically used for cooling and gardening, had worked on the prince in this way. But it had, and my eyes squeezed shut. “It worked,” I heard myself say, over and over while frantically pulling down my tattered skirts, and then I tripped backward into a hard pillar. “It worked.”
Not a pillar but a male.
Strong hands gripped my upper arms. “Fury heightens things in such beautiful ways, my swan.”
“He…” I blinked and blinked at where the prince’s foot stuck out from behind the other side of the bed. “He tried to…”
“And he’ll never dare try again.”
“Fuck,” I said, bile coating the word, my throat. My palms dug into my eyes, my chest on fire. “That fucking human fuck.”
Dade released a low laugh that quickly died. “I’m done playing this game now.” Dropping my hands, I whirled to find him staring at the prince, at the asshole who’d tried to steal even more from me. “Let’s go.”
Stepping back, I looked at the window, then at his waiting hand. “When did you get here?”
“When you pushed him off you like the sack of horseshit he is.” His arms came around me, unyielding as the night sky bled and shifted behind him, and he warned, “Hold on.”
“No,” I screamed, but it was too late, the sound stolen by the ice we’d warped into, color blurring, objects remolding, time clutching then readjusting… and then it stopped with a ferocity that stole every ounce of oxygen from my lungs.
My head swam, and I coughed, my stomach threatening to evict the lamb shanks I’d had for dinner onto the gleaming white stone floor. “What have you done?” I all but screeched, my hands fisting my hair. The room we were in, its never-ending stone and wood ceiling, closed in on me.
“I rescued you. You’re welcome.”
“Rescued me?” I did shout then, a crazed bout of laughter following as I advanced on him and ordered, “Take me back right this second.”
“Why? So you can marry the prince toad and find a way to defeat me?” He laughed, low and insidious. “It won’t work, and not only because I cannot be defeated, but because he will never be permitted to marry you.”
“I was going to work for my freedom,” I said, not knowing why I even bothered.
His brows lifted. “By seducing the prince into helping you leave?” Taking a lock of my hair, he twirled it around his finger, thumb brushing the golden strand. “If tonight was any indication, you’d have failed.” His eyes flashed. “Creatures like him don’t wait. They take.”
He released my hair, and stupefied, I spun in a circle, taking in the grandeur around me. The intense contrast between the beauty that befell my eyes to the overgrown, gnarled, and worn exterior I’d seen from the sky some years ago while taking one of my rare and daring flights.
Before I could absorb the lifeless stone walls, the domed ceiling, and the giant black doors of what appeared to be a grand foyer, my hand was snatched, and I was dragged deeper into what I knew had to be Shadow Keep.
“Dade,” I warned, tugging to no avail to free myself from his hold. “Stars help me, if you don’t—”
He whirled on me, and I tripped backward, grateful for his grip as my other arm spun to keep me upright. “You’ll what?” he seethed, eyes shards of black-specked ice. “There’s no escape, not from here, not from me, and should you try…” He let those unsaid words fill the small space between us, then continued toward a giant marble staircase.
It flared at the bottom, thinned in the center landing, then flared again at the top to join with matching marble railings that appeared to be supported by row after row of carved trees. It dawned on me then with enough force to thicken my tongue and swell my throat.
I was indeed standing in the middle of Shadow Keep.
We climbed, me with my heart pounding painfully inside my
chest and he with brutal determination in each graceful step, until we reached the central landing. The floor there was made entirely of that gleaming stone with no carpets or clustering furnishings in sight.
The only décor was the arched window above the landing, large and filled with crimson glass, the others along either side oval and their glass a gray so light, it was nearly clear.
We veered left down the hall, passing door after closed door, their brass handles shaped in the face of a snarling wolf, and then we reached another flight of stairs, but this one was stone and far less grand.
I noticed another set that matched on the opposite side of the palace, keep, whatever this place was, but little else as I was led high up into a shadowed hall that housed two rooms. The one straight ahead was blocked by arched doors big enough for a beast to clamber through. The one we walked toward had a single, smaller door, and it was open.
Without pause, I was gently released and thrust into the dark by a hand at the small of my back. I froze mere feet inside, my eyes catching on a white poster bed with gray furred bedding and tasseled silk pillows, a long deep red chaise at its end. Bookshelves in a matching white wood spanned two walls, nightstands with twisting birch legs poised either side of the bed, and then I glimpsed three other doors.
I didn’t see where they led to—bathing and dressing chambers, maybe—I turned back to the king as he said, gruff and clipped, “You seem rather fond of gilded cages…” He curled a finger at the door, coaxing the heavy wood toward him and effectively trapping his cruel words inside. “So here’s another, my lovely swan.”
Dade
The path to glory was paved with blood and gore.
And bone-melting lust, it would seem. Though in nearly a lifetime of training with my uncle, he never went into detail about much else. Sex was a release, he’d said, and desire a curse. We fuck to be rid of it, but only if doing so did not detract from our goals.
Love would be our end.
An unexpected surprise—the intense attraction a nuisance I’d thought might need to be eradicated until the stars intervened, and well, here we were.
A swan princess, a prized jewel that had not been seen in centuries, was now cornered within my keep. She could run, she could shift, escape and fly herself home, but we both knew it would be futile.
We both knew I’d enjoy the chase and perhaps leave a trail of bloodied violence in my wake.
My swan was easily drowned in useless feelings such as guilt, so she’d stay right where she was, feathers splayed beneath my paw.
“My king,” drawled Fang from the drawing room. “Why do I scent a bird in our midst?”
The scent of her should’ve been a dead giveaway during our handful of visits to that cave, but my hunger was such that I cared little about her sweet, airy fragrance and more about her lithe body. Every perfect curve, her laughter, and the way her eyes would change from bronze to molten gold with her turbulent emotions.
I should have never confided in Fang, but being that he was the closest thing I had to what most called a friend, I sometimes did. “Because you’re sticking your snout where it does not belong.”
I made to continue down the hall when he chuckled and said, “Scythe is positively overjoyed, you know.” Sighing, I turned to lean against one of the dark oak doors while Fang finished chewing his leg of chicken. “Already sharpening his claws. Swan is a delicacy.”
The circular marble-topped table shook with my rising rage, rattling the cutlery he didn’t bother using. “Then it is within your best interest to make sure those claws stay sheathed.”
His low laughter trailed me as I swept down the hall to the stairs that spiraled down into the kitchens.
Staff bowed and went about their business. I made haste to Merelda, the head cook, who was reprimanding a young pixie, and cleared my throat.
Though everyone else in the kitchen stilled, their fear and unease circling the too-warm rooms, Merelda did no such thing. The cook had been running these kitchens since before I was born, and therefore I’d surmised it was impossible to evoke utter obedience in someone who’d spanked you with a wooden spoon for stealing fresh sugar daisies.
The pixie’s pale green eyes flicked to me, then to Merelda, and sensing she was no longer hearing a word, Merelda dismissed her with a wave of her favored threadbare dish towel before finally deeming me worthy of her attention. “King.”
I watched the pixie dart around me, my lips wriggling, then tilted my head down at the rotund cook. “You terrify her.”
“No more than you do,” she muttered, heading to an awaiting tray on the wooden island behind me and dumping a spoonful of batter onto it. “What can I do for you, Daden?”
As always, my teeth clenched, but she was the only one permitted to call me by my true name. “We have a guest.”
“Just one?” She didn’t remove her attention from her task, slopping heaping globs of what smelled like oats, raisins, and brown sugar onto the tray. “You’re losing your touch if you return with only one prisoner.”
“Sarcasm,” I said, dragging my finger over one of the perfect globs, groaning a little as the sweet ingredients caught fire over my tongue. “Delicious.”
She swatted me away with the towel and a scowl. “Get to the point.” The tray was moved out of my reach. Wise. “What’s this guest got to do with me? You don’t feed prisoners.”
“We’ll need to feed this one three times a day and give her whatever she so desires.”
“Three times a day?” Her golden brows shot up with her head, brown eyes blinking as she surveyed my face. “You’ve…”
“That will be all,” I said before the entire room became aware of information I’d rather they not be privy to. It wasn’t that I was ashamed. This feeling, nagging and incessant, forbade such a thing. I just didn’t care to give them all something else to gossip about as they prepared our meals.
Merelda’s gaze tracked me until I disappeared up the stairs. The palace, often referred to as Shadow Keep, was abuzz with activity, murmurs in halls and behind closed doors as the staff all tended to their duties.
I sensed him before I saw him and withheld a curse in the hall atop the stairs as he exited a small sitting room where he’d been waiting and fell in step beside me. “We need to talk.”
“Oh?” I ached to tell him to fuck right off, but instead, I asked, “What of?”
He gestured to the now empty drawing room, Fang long gone, the remnants of his dinner still upon the table. Nothing but bones. “You know exactly what of,” Serrin said as soon as he’d pulled the doors shut behind us. Such a thing would not keep passersby from overhearing, not when many of those were faerie shifters, so I masked them with a thought, trapping our words inside. “The black swan was thought to be nothing but a fable, but now we know it is not.”
“She is not,” I corrected and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Her name is Opal.”
Serrin’s blue eyes narrowed. “It matters not. You’ve brought our foretold doom straight to our door, inside our stronghold. Worse than that…” His thick brows scrunched with his face. “You seem fucking happy about it.”
I ran my tongue over a canine, smiling to myself. “Do not worry yourself. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.” I straightened and sank a hand through my hair. “I will need legion one ready to journey at sundown.”
“You have their princess, and we’ve killed their king,” Serrin needlessly said, his expression rolling into slack shock. “Is the queen next? They will fall, and what will your swan do then?”
“What the swan does or does not do is of no concern of yours,” I gritted. “We head to the cove. While I was visiting Castle Errin, I heard talk of ships arriving at dawn the day after tomorrow.”
“Dade.”
I’d turned for the doors when his next words stopped me.
“I fear what the stars have in mind for you, for all of us, if we proceed now that we know of her existence.”
When feather meets fire, ven
geance will expire.
Anger burned brighter than any prophecy mapped out by the stars as I rounded on him, and growled low, “Are you suggesting we stop? When we are this fucking close to total annihilation?”
“Total annihilation was never what I had in mind, my king, only revenge on those who stole our hearts from us. You’ve nearly enacted all we’d set out to do, so perhaps it is time to put another plan in place.” He squared his shoulders and braced his feet apart. A battle stance fitting for his demand. “Now, we must make them submit.”
I stared at him for untold seconds, and then, as though it was rising from the deepest depths inside me, a graveled laugh trickled out, growing louder as I grabbed the rough fabric of his red tunic within my fist and bared my teeth. “You dare tell me what I do and do not need to do?”
All my fucking life, this cretin had bathed me in stories of murder and heartbreak and retribution. At the age of five years, I was handed a blade and told to wipe my tears and cut down that which had caused them.
He’d never given me reprieve, yet here he stood, asking it from me.
To his credit, he did not tremble, and he did not waver as he pushed through his teeth, “I merely wish for you to succeed and not fall, Dade.”
Glaring at him, nearly nose to nose, I seethed, “You made me, honed me into all that I am, so don’t you dare stand here and act as though you do not know any better—act as though you do not know me.” His tunic slid through my clawed fingers, tearing as I unclenched them and shoved him away. “If we falter, even for a breath, we lose the advantage. We lose this war. That is what you told me. That is what I know to be true. So keep your prophesied worries to your fucking self.”
The doors opened and slammed on his face as I stormed through.
I waited, claws long since retracted inside the beds of my nails, until the raw fury Serrin had stoked to life, the ember that never extinguished inside me, was reduced to a controllable smolder.
Outside the door to her rooms, I stood, listening. Her heart wasn’t racing as fast as it had been when we’d arrived, but oh how it still danced, pumping blood into those gorgeous extremities, fueling each stride as she paced on the other side of the door.