by Kristie Cook
Not for long, if I can help it. I had to figure out a way out of this. I needed to know what he wanted and what his endgame was. Then maybe I could make a new deal. Or kill him. If that was possible.
“Why?” I asked, turning toward him and nearly gasping out loud.
The smoke had cleared away completely, revealing the Shadow king’s appearance for the first time. His skin was the color of dusk on a cloudy day, of dark storm clouds gathering on the horizon, glimmering in the dim light as if sprinkled with stardust. In stark contrast, white hair donned his head, pulled back into a fat man-bun that told of its great length and exposed his sharply pointed ears. His slanted eyebrows and closely cropped beard and mustache were just as white, nearly glowing against his dark skin. His face was a study of angles, from the sharp cheekbones to the straight nose and pointy chin, the only curves that of the fae markings faintly shining in silver. If he were human, I’d guess him to be in his forties, but his dark energy was truly timeless.
He wore armor made of a material I was unfamiliar with and must have been native to Faery. A cape attached to his shoulder pieces and waved in the breeze behind him like a black flag. His overall appearance seemed to answer my earlier question—everyone in Faery had an affinity for times long gone on Earth.
His eyes narrowed as his upper lip curled.
“Why, your majesty?” I quickly corrected.
“Why what?” he demanded.
“Why do you want me here?”
His silver gaze pierced into me, a tangible probe into my mind, my soul. “After what happened on that ridge, I ask myself the same question.”
“Because I killed your people? They attacked me.” I refused to let guilt worm its way in.
“No. The fact that you took so long to do it.” He grabbed my arm, and we must have sifted again, because we were suddenly indoors, in a dark, gloomy parlor, for lack of a better word. The space was small but the ceiling high, and the king seemed to take up every inch of it. A round table with a single, black-upholstered chair were the only furnishings, thick, heavy drapes hanging on one wall, presumably over a window hidden behind them. A chandelier of actual candles provided the only light, flickering shadows over the walls and the king’s face.
“So you don’t care that I killed your men?” I asked, picking up the conversation from where we left off.
“I have plenty of men. What I do not have—until now—is a weapon like you.” He stepped closer, towering over me, and when I looked up, the lines and whorls of the fae markings on his forehead and cheeks glowed as bright as his silver eyes. His dark energy intensified, tendrils of black smoke rising off his body and licking at mine. My beast, who still hadn’t quite settled after the fight, rose again, mewling in response. The king bared sharp, pointed teeth, much like Maeve’s had been that one time, but so much worse. When he spoke, his voice reverberated into my bones. “You have power like no other. Power I need. You will use it, little shade. You will make it mine. Or your family will die.”
With that, he left, and I was alone in another strange castle, another strange room, another threat hanging over my head. But I knew this one was very real and much more frightening.
I wasn’t alone for long. A throng of waifs who reminded me of Ena flittered into the room, chattering quietly with each other in a foreign language unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Well, sort of like the Faelic language I’d heard in the Winter Court, but I’d learned a few words and had begun to understand the basics of their grammar, and this was different. The Shadow fae seemed to have their own dialect or maybe even complete language. I wondered if that were true for the Seelie fae, too, or if it even differed among courts and kingdoms.
Before I could stop the servants, my leathers were gone, and I was shoved into a tub the size of a pool, then scrubbed from head to toe with some kind of concoction that smelled divine. There must have been something in it that made me more docile, because all the fight left me, and I relaxed.
I did, but not my beast. She was up and moving about, sniffing the air and soaking in the dark energy that seemed to hang over the City of Shadows along with the fog. Like a cat, she stretched and slid against my restraints on her, gently pressing into them, as though testing their hold. Which, admittedly, was weakening. The king had called this my new home, which it never could be, but my beast certainly felt at home here.
The Shadow fae hurried me out of the bath and into a dress. With deft fingers, two combed my hair, drying it with faint magic as they did, then molding it to their liking. Another coiled elaborate bands over my forearms and placed a headpiece over my forehead. One touched my chin with a trace of weak power, but what she did, I didn’t know. When I saw myself in the mirror, though, I couldn’t help but be pleased. And here I thought leaving the shiny world meant forever looking drab.
I looked like me—not glamoured—but the best version of me. Though they applied no makeup, my brown eyes popped, bright yet alluring. My cheeks held a faint trace of color, and my lips were slightly redder than usual. My hair was arranged in an elaborate display of braids and curls tumbling down my back. The simple metallic headpiece scrolled across my forehead with a large oval amethyst at its center. And the dress . . . All black, straps crisscrossing my chest with the two widest barely covering my nipples ending just below my breasts, a center one connecting to the waistband of the skirt, which fell below my navel, flowing to mid-calf with a slit all the way up the front. I wore no undergarments, so the wrong move would have everything on display. It was sexy as hell, but this wasn’t the place nor the time.
There was a knock on the door, and the girls ushered me into the main room, where a tall male fae entered. He was dressed in armor, a sword swinging at his hip. The girls who had been dressing me fell back, their faces averted. Were they like Ena—slaves? In their own land? A knot formed in my gut as I felt the truth in this theory. The guard wrapped his hand around my forearm, then we were no longer in the same room.
We appeared in a much larger room, on a stage at the front of it. The throne room, I assumed, since the Shadow king was sitting on a large throne that looked to be carved from onyx. We’d sifted to the far right of the dais, where the guard shoved me into a golden gilded cage. A fucking cage, like I was a bird. Or a beast. The king glanced over at us with a smirk.
“My children,” he said, lifting his hand and wiggling his fingers in a come-here gesture. Five fae stepped forward, all of them male. I had a feeling he spoke English for my benefit. “Let the auction begin.”
Chapter 13
Wait. What?
Another cage floated forward from the far side of the dais, hanging in the air before the king and his sons. Crammed inside were a half dozen waifs much like Ena and the others, except they were smaller, more child-like, most of them trembling and some crying, waves of fear wafting from them, which seemed to please the king, based on the glint in his eyes as he appraised them. Ew. He was feeding off their torment, just as Maeve had said.
I eyed the five male fae who had stepped forward when the king beckoned his princes and wondered which one was the Tormentor. I expected him to give off the same energy as his father and be gloating right now, as well, but none were like that. In fact, their energy felt extraordinarily weak in comparison. How disappointing.
A woman—a fae—sauntered forward from the shadows, standing off to the side on the dais. When she spoke, I understood nothing, but apparently the auction had begun because as she chanted in their faerie language, brief shouts came from the crowd, bids I assumed. The bidding didn’t last long, though, and the auctioneer tried to prod for more. A dark energy lashed out from her, slamming into the cage, and the fae inside screamed, one yelling something I couldn’t understand, but her desperation was loud and clear. A few more bids piped up.
I wished I could bid myself. I’d buy them all and figure out how to free them from this cruelty. My own darkness ached for violence and blood and death, and I had no problem hurting or killing those who de
served it, at least in my mind. But I stopped there, the other side of me—the Amadis, the angelic—needing to protect the weak and innocent. It was my way of maintaining control, I supposed. Or, at least, a sense of control, though it may have been a false sense at times.
The bidding quieted, and the auctioneer wrapped that one up. Then another cage floated forward, this one containing two naked fae, a male and a female, totally getting it on as though oblivious to their situation. The energy in the crowd blossomed, and I wondered how many of these Shadows fed from lust. By the way the bids flew in rapid succession, I’d say a lot of them. Three of the princes were the most adamant bidders, and eventually one of them won. I supposed there were worst things to feed off of, but wasn’t there enough lust naturally in the world without the need of sex slaves? As anger waved from the crowd when the prince won—the king feeding from it, no doubt—I supposed there wasn’t enough lust for them all, at least not here in the City of Shadows.
That cage floated away, and the auctioneer and the king exchanged a glance. The king lifted his chin in a sort of nod, and the auctioneer dipped hers in acknowledgment. Then her arm swept out, gesturing toward my side of the dais, and my cage lifted and floated as she switched from Faerie to English, again for my benefit.
“Now we present the most coveted possession anyone could desire, including our enemies—the demons, the Seelie and Unseelie, the Daemoni, even the angels.” As she named each faction, the crowd booed and hissed, their disgust and hatred growing, again feeding the king. “She may not be full fae, but her beauty is still lovely, in an exotic sort of way. More importantly, within her is the power to defeat them all. While she will remain the property of King Caellach, the winning bidder will be the one to break her and train her, using her in whatever way you wish until the time comes that our kingdom needs her. And even then, you will be her handler, ensuring victory for our king. Nobody except his majesty himself will experience such glory.”
I would expect the crowd to cheer with some kind of patriotism, but that wasn’t exactly the type of energy exuding from them. Lust, yes, on all sorts of levels. Lust for me physically shone in many eyes, but also lust for admiration, for power and control. When she’d referred to breaking me, the dark energy had spiked even higher and thicker, especially from the king himself. Fuck them. If any of them thought they could break me, they had another think coming. Well, except maybe the king. He might have had a chance.
“Shall we begin?” the auctioneer purred seductively, feeding the crowd.
She rang a bell, her version of a gavel, and an energy blasted at me. My wings sprang out on their own volition, as though my magic couldn’t contain them any longer, and spread as wide as they could within the confinements of the cage. The crowd gasped, and the bids came in a flurry. They were in their native tongue, so I had no clue what my going price was, but as excitement and lust escalated, it must have been high.
Then the king himself spoke up. The auctioneer lifted her brows in surprise, then acknowledged his entrance into the bidding war. The crowd fell silent, not responding when the auctioneer pushed to raise the king’s bid.
“Bid, you cowards,” he ordered, his energy slamming down in a sharp command. “What is my appreciation worth to you?”
They started up again, but it didn’t seem to be enough, as the king kept chiming in. He was obviously just trying to raise the bids, milking every little bit he could steal from his people. Otherwise, what was the point of auctioning me in the first place when he already had me?
The bids began to slow, and when they stopped, the king slammed his hand on the armrest of his throne. “You fir darrigs do not seem to understand.”
He looked over at the guard who’d brought me in, lifting a single finger. The guard nodded, and he and four of his peers surrounded my cage, their hands lifting and fingers undulating, their dark power building. Their eyes became fully black—no whites or irises, like those of demons—and as they continued, their fingers began to blacken, too. The more the discoloration spread, the stronger their power became, reaching black tentacles into me, straight to my soul, to my beast.
She immediately reared, pushing against my cage of control harder than I could ever remember. I dropped to my hands and knees, curling my fingers into fists, my breaths coming in pants as I tried to maintain control. My eyes rolled up, and the Shadow faes’ flesh had darkened completely, the points of their ears curling, looking more like horns. Then all I saw were demons before me as their black fae magic found the darkness within me and pounced.
The power rippled through me, awakening parts of my heart and soul I’d forgotten had existed. The deepest, darkest corners that should have remained dormant. My upper lip curled, baring my teeth as a growl rumbled in my chest. I pushed myself to my feet as the Darkness with a capital D grew, and all I saw before me was death—death I would bring to all of them. A black haze enshrouded my vision as I flexed my fingers at my side, pushed my shoulders back as my wings spread and hardened, and threw back my head, mouth wide open as I finally let go of the reigns of control.
My beast burst free, and my Darkness exploded. I screamed with both despair and elation. Power—my power—swirled around me, crackling and thundering like the darkest of storms, and I’d never felt so strong. So free.
Yes, you have. You only need to remember.
I shoved the thought aside as the guards attacked me. They tried to feed on my power, but it was all mine. Mine, you fuckers! Nobody could have it. Not these acolytes and definitely not the king. He would not imprison me. He would not control me. Nobody would ever control me again! I was the fucking king here now, and I’d annihilate whoever got in my way. Their souls meant nothing to me. Nothing!
I gathered my power, feeding my beast with it as it surrounded me in a wall of Darkness. But this time it was all mine, and I would be the one unleashing it. With another scream, I blasted the force outward.
The walls shook. Shrieks pierced the air. Dust and debris filtered through the dim light as the air slowly began to clear.
A deep-throated laugh bellowed. The king’s laugh.
“That is only an inkling of what this little shade can do,” he said.
He let out a small wave of his own power—that one little push more powerful than my blast because I’d only fed him more—completely clearing the air, as well as the energy around me. As though he’d doused the fire within me with a bucket of cold water, my power sizzled out, leaving me completely drained. Falling back to my knees, I gasped at the sight before me.
Bodies littered the ground. Not just the guards that had been surrounding my cage, but most of the crowd, too.
I had killed them all. All but the king and his princes, the auctioneer, and a dozen or so fae at the back of the room.
What have I done? A sob lodged in my throat as the Amadis part of me, the angel blood running through my veins, mourned the loss of souls that might have had hope for redemption. But I pushed it down and forced the burn in my eyes away, knowing I could show no regrets. Doing so would reveal my weakness. The dark side of me knew just how fatal of a mistake that would be.
So I lifted my chin and glared at the king who only smirked in response.
“Shall we continue?” he said to what remained of the crowd, completely ignoring the bodies as though they didn’t even exist. The bodies of his people. His own courtiers!
The remaining fae pushed their way forward, also ignoring the corpses, stepping over them as they tried to get closer to me. Their bids started firing off again. Fine. I would kill them, too. I wasn’t done here. I’d lost control—this time. And it probably wouldn’t be the last time, either, but I would learn. And all the heavens and hells help them when I did.
The auction continued, growing more heated and louder by the heartbeat. If I only knew what they offered now. My beast, reigned back into her cage so different than my physical one, prickled at the thought of being owned by any of these assholes. I soothed her, promising her revenge, bu
t only after we used them. They obviously thought they could break me and then train me. They’d never do the former, but I’d embrace the latter. If they really had the means to do so, it would only make me stronger. Would only make it easier to end them all. Fucking fae.
The room suddenly fell silent. I’d already grown so accustomed to the dark power, I hadn’t noticed the new strain of it. Not until its intensity slammed into me at the same time the crowd parted, dropping to a knee. Even the princes cowered from the new presence. As did my beast. She’d felt this kind of force before, directly from the king. But this was even stronger. Even darker. Possibly darker than our own.
Sitting back on my feet, I tilted my head, trying to steal a glance of the newcomer. Like the king had been when I first met him near the Circle of Knowing—no, when I first met him at the Vault—the man’s form was barely distinguishable through the black smoke enshrouding him. As he approached the dais, coming closer than anyone else had dared to come, even the princes, the smoke cleared, drifting away. Remnants of the dark energy caressed my skin, and my beast no longer cowered but purred. Interesting.
When he turned my way, I understood.
At first, his hair was as white as the king’s, pulled back in a ponytail behind his pointed ears, the tip of it falling below his shoulders. His skin was that same dusky color, but more shimmery, not as though stardust had been sprinkled on it, but as though an entire galaxy graced his body. And that body—tall, broad, all muscles and strength and sex under metal armor over a silk tunic. His silver eyes glowed brightly as he took me in, licking out tendrils of his power over my skin. I felt the cold burn of it and wanted more. Wanted him to lick every inch of me and not only with his power, but with his tongue, too.