Heart pounding in her ears, her vision went fuzzy, and she fell to her hands and knees, struggling to breathe around the panic.
You’re not being chased. Breathe. Just breathe. Owen can’t be far behind you, and he’ll totally make fun of you if running makes you pass out.
Owen wouldn’t dare, she didn’t think, but the thought kept her breathing, and after what felt like an hour of gasping for breath and fearfully watching for a vampire to suddenly appear behind her, she managed to calm down. Her whole body still shook, but she managed to get back to her feet.
How far had she come? The area didn’t look super familiar, and judging by the direction she’d come, and what she knew of that was close by, she’d had to have run more than two miles.
Sheesh. Who knew a vampire was all it took to get her to run? Should have found one a few years ago. The pounds would have melted off.
The sun peeked over the horizon. Did sunlight kill vampires, or was that just a myth? If only she’d had more time to talk about all this with Owen, she might have actually had a chance to ask some useful questions about this hidden world she would have never guessed existed.
Of course, if she hadn’t been so busy jumping him the whole time…
“Dammit, Owen,” she muttered. “Did you have to wait until the last second to tell me what I am?” If he’d started this conversation with her a year ago, she’d know if it was safe to go back or not. She might have had some skills to fight. At least, she would have known what to do when faced with freaking vampires.
Yeah, berate the guy who could have just been killed protecting you. That’s nice.
The world spun at the thought. No. No way. Owen was fine. If he’d needed help, he wouldn’t have told her to run.
Except, of course, he would have.
Dread filled her, and she watched the way she’d come anxiously, willing Owen to appear. But he didn’t.
He’d be pissed if she showed back up and he was still fighting those vampires, but if something happened to him and she could have helped, even a little…
She had to go back.
Daylight was making its way free, but Denver wasn’t New York City, and cabs didn’t just wander the streets—not in this part of town, especially. No pay phones, either. She’d just have to truck it back.
Her body objected, but she pushed on, making it to a half-jog, half-speedwalking pace. Ten minutes later, things started looking familiar. And less than ten minutes after that, she saw her apartment in the distance. Maybe she hadn’t run as far as she’d thought.
Finding a sudden flood of energy at the sight of her building, she broke into a run, heading for the parking lot where she’d seen Owen. At the last second, she changed her mind and altered course, heading into her building instead. A five-second 9-1-1 call to say men were fighting in the parking lot, and she headed outside, clutching a butcher knife.
Police couldn’t hurt, right? They’d do a damn sight better than she would against vampires, she was sure of that much. And the advantage of help was worth the potential risk of getting to the parking lot a few seconds too late, a mantra she repeated in her head as she ran.
She forced in a deep breath, then crept out the back door and made her way out to the parking lot.
Empty.
Sure, there were cars there, but no people. Definitely no vampires that she could see. But also, no Owen.
Dammit. She looked anxiously at his truck, but it was still where he always parked it. A sour feeling in her stomach and panic making her breath come fast, she walked through the whole area, not seeing anything out of place, save for some dark streaking on the asphalt—blood—that no doubt had come from the fight.
Tears burned behind her eyelids and she furiously blinked them back. No time to cry now. Had to find Owen.
Maybe he’d gotten away, was looking for her even as she searched for him?
But somehow, she knew that wasn’t true. Her gut, tight with worry and fear, said Owen wasn’t okay.
Making another sweep of the area where they’d fought, she kept her butcher knife tightly in her grip at her side. Hopelessness trying to strangle her in its grip, she got down onto her hands and knees, looking under nearby cars, swallowing the sobs that threatened to break free.
She couldn’t cry right now. Then she’d be even more useless to Owen.
Morning sunlight reflected off of something under a nearby Ford compact, and after a glance behind her to ensure she was still alone, she wiggled under the car to grab it. A cell phone.
Owen’s cell phone—or the same model, at least.
Bile crawled up her throat. The phone’s screen was crushed, and the body of it was in only slightly better shape. It hadn’t been dropped, it had been smashed. Under someone’s boot, she would guess.
Gripping the phone so hard that it bit into her hand, she stared at the broken screen.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?
END
***
Read more in the Royals world today with Claiming Their Royal Mate: Part Two.
About the Author:
Andie writes sexy erotic romance and erotica stories that push boundaries. When she’s not writing (or reading!), she can usually be found daydreaming or attempting a new recipe. She thinks that life should require happily ever afters. And since she doesn’t make the rules of life, she instead applies this philosophy to the worlds she can control–the ones in her books.
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***
Her Master’s Corruption
By J.E. & M. Keep
Forests were a mystical place. Only the most foolhardy of mortals dared trespass upon the grounds of the fae, and determining which forested lands were theirs and which were not was a job few dared undertake. Only the elvish folks of the rivers and trees had the skill to determine such things with certainty, and so their skills were highly treasured by mortal folk.
The elvish people tended to live in small towns, made from trees that grew magically at their whim, along river ways and near the edge of the forests so that they might bridge the gap between the realms of mortal and fae. There the lovely Lhea found herself amid a realm of strange wonders that nearly rivalled the home of her Master.
Elves consorted with fairies, fairies with sirens and all even stopped to stare upon the few crude and coarse humans that did travel to the lands of the elves for help and trade.
Yet even among the eclectic mix of dragonfly-sprites and ethereal-wisps, Lhea felt odd and out of place. For she was no longer of their world. Her skin was pallid, no longer iridescent, her hair no longer a glittering white but a glossy ebon. Even her wings had changed from that diaphanous glow to something darker and more ominous.
While the forests of the elves was filter with frivolity and laughter, there was no gayness in Lhea’s heart. For she was as much prisoner as she was alone. Held in an ivory tree that forced her to soak up the sun during the day, above the tree tops. An act that had for her become like soaking in poisoned well.
For her the light of day had become like an irritant. A toxic thing that sapped her of energy and made her irritable — more irritable at least — and sour. Only at night could she be some glimmer of her old self. For she was fairie no more.
The tall, golden elf that had taken her from her Master’s house paid her visits now and then. His long, dour face so serious unlike most of his kind. Perhaps because he saw what she was, or had become.
In his elven garb he looked relaxed yet regal, with a shimmering sash across his chest and waist. He appeared at her bars with her food every so often. Nuts and berries. Delicious morsels of them in fact, that she would have devoured with relish in times past, yet now turned her stomach.
Whatever her Master had done to her, it had left her deeply changed.
; “You do not eat much,” said the elf, stating the obvious as he crouched down at the pale branches of her prison cell, overlooking the forest, lit by both the glimmer of stars above and the glow of fireflies below. Even the air was tainted by familiar sound, music and revelry. But it no longer spoke to her heart.
Only her Master’s music struck a chord upon her heartstrings any longer.
“I’m not hungry,” Lhea bit back. Even her voice had hardened, no longer filled with that light, naive cheerfulness. She narrowed her eyes at her captor. Ostensibly they’d saved her, that’s what they’d told her. They called her sister, and yet there she was, punished for not wanting to leave her Master that they’d called ‘It’.
But none knew the wonders of the world that he’d opened up for her, the terrors he’d subjected her to and protected her from.
The tree branches that formed the bars to her prison parted for the elf with creaks and groans, and he slid the plate on through to her before they shut again afterwards. The elf then folded his legs beneath him, sitting down across from her with hands upon his knees.
“We do not like holding you here, sister fae, but until the corruption in you is ended, we must keep you safe from dark influences. Once you are, we will set you free to the forest, to return to your folk in the faerie village beyond if you wish,” he explained to her, the wood elf and his angular features so calm and pleasant, even if he was a bore.
She frowned and pushed away the plate, instead playing with the edge of her gossamer dress, twisting it between her forefinger and thumb.
“I’m not corrupted,” she bit back, and she believed it. She wasn’t corrupted. Her mind had been opened and expanded to new things. New amazing, wonderful, depraved and carnal things.
And she wanted, more than anything, to be returned to her Master.
Her smile turned sickly sweet, and on that pallid face it looked almost haunted as she stared at the elf.
“You can let me go, then. Now. I’m safe.”
The stoic elf stared at her, clearly not believing her tale as he pondered his response.
“The lives of we fae beings have no real end,” he said, speaking in such soft, even tones. “We would keep you here as long as is necessary to save you sister, yet I do not like to see you locked up. If you are not corrupted as you say, will you renounce the wickedness of your former captor? Will you tell us of Its secrets and help us to end Its terror in the Dark Woods?”
Its reign.
As instinctual to her as breathing, her mind retorted, The Court of Thorns shall never end, and His reign shall only grow!
But she bit it back.
Her Master had taught her many things, above all of which was deception and patience, and her smile didn’t falter as she held the elf’s eyes.
“Absolutely.” She’d do anything to escape those chains. To flee to him once more.
The elf reached into his golden-brown vest and pulled out a small vial, a tincture of some sort that glowed in the dark of night like a star caught in glass. He held it out to the bars.
“Then you will take this? It will wipe the influence of the Dark One from you, but only if you drink it willingly.” He watched her, those almond-shaped eyes of his focussed upon her so intensely. She could sense he was not one vulnerable to trickery.
She accepted it between her fingertips, her gaze narrowing as she looked between it and him.
“Has this been given to Fillia?” she asked. She didn’t even know if her sister fairie still lived. Her Master had held her captive, draining her of life in a slow and controlled manner. For so long Lhea had attempted to rescue her until she simply got lost in the haze.
“It still has your sister fae,” the elf explained to her calmly. Though Lhea sensed something off about the way he said it. He was bothered by it.
“We were unable to free her as well before the Abomination came upon us and prevented our rescue. But if you give us information about how to defeat It we could go back to rescue her… You might even be able to join us on the crusade if you purify yourself with that,” he said, pointing to the vial which was already beginning to burn Lhea’s fingers through the glass.
She rolled it between her fingers, back and forth as she looked at the vial, ignoring the painful burning sensation.
He couldn’t be beaten. He wouldn’t. He was eternal and powerful, and he would be just as able to build her up from the ground once more. It would take time, of course. And she would resist his allure.
But she would not live in this world any longer without hope to see him once more.
“You were unprepared last time?” she purred, that lilt to her voice so dangerous and seductive, not at all like a proper fae.
“We went in as prepared as we could be. But we did not have the knowledge of someone who had spent so much time inside his lair,” explained the elf. “Think of what we might do if you guided our next assault? We could rescue your sister, and put an end to the dark reign in the woods.”
Her fingers began to do more than merely prickle, and it almost felt like the light within it was making her flesh sizzle. Though she noticed a strange thing then…
From out of the pale trees wood, two long, sinuous antenna probed out through a tiny hole. There, in a nook she saw a long, many-legged bug burrow its way through the wood, a black night crawling insect that gnawed at the holy tree. It was like even as she contemplated desperate measures, a sign came to her of her Master’s influence.
It could penetrate even to the sun-soaked wood of that sacred prison.
How long before he would come to her rescue? Before an army of insects might burrow their way through to save her, or a monstrous mockery of a tree might uproot itself and beat down the trunk below? What mad and wondrous ways he might devise to save her!
Excitement flooded her, both mental and carnal, and she squirmed as she lightly placed the vial aside, further into her natural cell and away from the elf.
“I’ll let you know,” she cooed, her darkened eyes seeking his out. But in truth, she no longer cared for Fillia. He had opened her mind and body to possibilities beyond her reckoning, and she only lamented how her time with him had been cut short.
There was still that lingering knowledge, though, that her sister fae deserved something better, but even those thoughts were corrupted and tormented.
The elf’s emerald eyes locked back upon hers, and the two of them were stuck in a momentary staring match. It was the elf that finally gave in, rising himself back up to his feet before brushing at his pants.
“Do not think too long on the matter. The more you tarry, the longer your sister fae suffers. The less likely we are to save her too.” He began to turn away, but then stopped, peering back at her. “Undoubtedly he is already working to break her, and make her into your replacement.”
Lhea didn’t show any response to his words.
She’d been broken down and made anew, and one of the first things he’d taught her was how to stay in one position long after it became uncomfortable. Long after her muscles screamed in pain, after his bugs crawled along her flesh, after she felt the most heinous things touch upon her.
So her face didn’t register any of that momentary anger, that disgust at what the elf had said.
He wouldn’t replace her.
Once he left, her fingers reached out towards those little antennaed insect, trying to give it her scent, that little reassurement that she’d been found.
The centipede let its antenna move along her digits, those tendrils tickling along her like a faint echo of memories long past. Her Master. It was so long ago it seemed, yet she felt the teasing play of His lessons long ago, as if transmitted through that monstrous little creature. All the more so when it crawled out of its hole and along her flesh, its long black form making its way across her pale skin, its many legs moving.
It was big, fat even. And even as she felt the familiar pang of longing memories for her Master… hunger gnawed at her more immediately.
&nbs
p; Lhea did a thing then she would never have imagined herself doing in the time before, when she was but a sweet, frolicking faerie.
She devoured a living thing, and did so even as it still wriggled and writhed. She could feel the nourishment, the dark presence of her Master in it, and couldn’t help but grin to herself.
~~
A bellowing shriek filled the night air, the dark tower seemed to shake with its Master’s rage. His fury had not died down in the long absence of his pet, and showed no abatement even as poor Fillia grew stronger.
The sweet, innocent faerie cowered before him in his mighty rage, his throne room all but still, except for the resonating glow of the fungi about the place.
“You are not her! Not like her at all!” He screamed, pulling at his long dark hair, as the shadows he cast seemed like writhing masses of ominous tendrils. Though before her, he looked like any normal elf, albeit dark of colour. The pants and boots he wore were of fine make, like the elves Fillia had spied from afar, his shirt was of similar make yet he had torn it, letting it dangle from his lean, muscled physique.
“You are but a pale imitation!” He screeched at her again, snapping his flute in two and casting the shards at her upon the floor. His ruby eyes glimmered with a watery tinge, “Why did they take her and not you?!” he spat, as if every reference to her was an insult in and of itself.
For so long as she’d been held in stasis, unmoving and locked within her own mind, holding onto those little fragments of who she’d been before. She’d slumbered for countless days... weeks... longer? His captive, unconscious and used as nothing but nourishment, kept alive by means she didn’t and couldn’t understand.
He was horrific, and she only vaguely knew that he was speaking of Lhea, her fairie sister. She didn’t know where the woman had gone, only that they had taken her. That she’d been rescued from his madness, leaving Fillia to rot.
Howl & Growl: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 34