So eager for death,Darkan says, a strange tonality to his voice. I will teach you the folly of courting it.
My stomach clenches as my breath catches; he'll be with me at the end.
Dark angel.
DarkFae.
The subtle scent of glaciers and crushed blackberries and frost on fir menaces the air, but when I inhale I once again scent a haunting note of lavender—then it's gone, and I think my nose is just imagining things.
The mage hesitates, turning his head to gaze through theforest as he stands.
“I would rather not draw this out,” I add. But he isn't paying me any attention.
“Kill her,” the female says, moving toward me with the ire of someone taking my murder a little too personally.
He lifts his hand. “Don't you feel it?”
Yes. Yes, I do.
“It doesn't matter. We have a task to complete.”
“You won't survive ignoring when the players on the board change.”
A presence flows through the old forest, the weight and breadth of an alarming alien power that tastes familiar approaching. I shiver, chilled by the arctic edge in the air, flinching when the female gasps, clutching her head. I sympathize.
The magical barrier surrounding us rips apart. I bite back a groan, the pressure in my head shifting to throbbing pain.
Something is coming. Something is hungry. Something is displeased.
Someone.
The stronger the mind, the deeper it burrows into sleep. The longer it takes to wake, the more destructive the ripples when triggered to full consciousness.
The female steps toward me again, but the male jerks his head around. She curses at him, her hands frozen.
“I said I wouldn't if I were you,” he repeats.
“Release me.”
He ignores us both. She's all mouth and flash, but he's stronger, the one to fear.
A Fae male emerges from the tree line.
If the mages' power is an acid tang, his is a glacial maelstrom, with him in the deceptively calm eye.
I catch my labored breaths as his otherness sweeps through me, sick heat between my temples, throbbing, mocking my strength. The mages freeze, his prey the way we were theirs. They are High Fae, he. . .
Yes, I know this face.
Sharp, aquiline bones, crafted in ageless, cruel perfection. Light brown skin now a pale ivory from decades without sun. Ancient eyes stare at us, a color somewhere between moonlight and a summer sky, alternating between bright and colorless as if the glittering irises can't decide their hue. A white silk shirt drapes broad, strong shoulders and chest, his black hair shining with blue loose to his narrow waist.
The sensual, but currently colorless, lips. The sinuous grace in the long, muscled planes of his lean body.
Not just High Fae, but an Old One. Finally awake after centuries of sleep, and years ascending from the depths of his hibernating mind to emerge fully onto the living plane.
Halfling girl. Juhainah's child.
A Prince. Accustomed to power, accustomed to rule. Don't wake the fucking Prince.
