“That is better,” the man with the strange eyes said to Zirel. “Her color is back.” His gaze swept her features. “My guard Amund says he senses your energy level now that we’ve taken you from the building where you lived.”
Energy level?“Who are you? What do you want with me?” Her chest might have stopped pounding, but her brain was going haywire, this way and that and nowhere at all. She couldn’t be away from Jas for long or the anxiety would cripple her. It always did.
“My apologies,” the man said, and delivered a charming grin that might have disarmed a normal person. But Lex wasn’t normal. “I am Garrin Branimir, Fae prince of Dark Kingdom. And you are?”
Lex’s jaw unhinged. “Fae prince?”
She’d been kidnapped by a madman.
“Please let me go,” she begged.
This time, Garrin’s eyes softened. “We cannot.”
She was having a bad dream she couldn’t wake from. That had to be it.
Lex sat up and scooted back. She used the cave wall for leverage to straighten her legs and stand, but the men blocked the exit.
When her head stopped spinning, she darted around them in the direction where pitch-darkness turned gray and what she hoped led out of the cave.
And was immediately ensnared by the prince’s arm, her body pressed to his broad, warm chest.
More heat than normal radiated off him as he tipped his head toward her ear, his mouth inches away. “You cannot leave, Halven. And it would be better if you accepted it.”
She attempted to hit him where it hurt, but his body was solid and unyielding, and he dodged her. Every time she tried, he shifted just enough that she slammed her fist into his muscular thigh instead of his nuts.Dammit!
He chuckled, his deep voice filling the space around her. “You can’t hurt me, Halven.”
She let out a harsh sigh. “Why do you keep calling me that?”
He eased his hold and turned her to face him without letting her go. “Because it is what you are. Created by the mating of one of my kind and a human.”
For a moment, Lex couldn’t speak. Couldn’t get her mind to wrap around his words. “Your kind? You called yourself a Fae prince.”
He grinned, and her eyes widened. He might be a devil, but he was a handsome devil. “Now you are catching on. We are from Tirnan, the Fae realm, as is one of your sires… Curious, that. I wonder who in my kingdom created you? What did you say your name was?”
She hadn’t. And what was with this guy? He’d kidnapped her, but he didn’t know her name? “I’m Lex. Make note of it, because you’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Lex.” He said it as though the word stuck to his tongue like peanut butter. “That is an odd name. But Halven are an odd breed. I give you permission to call me Garrin.”
Breed? Like some dog? “What is a Fae?” she snapped. His companion must have done something to her when he touched her head, because she was braver with these men than any other strangers in her life.
“Ah,” he said, and glanced at the other two men. “If you don’t know you are Halven, you wouldn’t know our history.” Garrin gestured to himself. “I and my people descended from the mating of angels and a few honored humans. We live in a realm known as Tirnan.”
“Oh my God.” He was certifiable. And big. And how was she going to get past him? Lex glanced around desperately.
He cocked his head. “No, thegrandchildrenof God. Please pay attention.” He looked at the others leerily. “We’ve been told Halven are lesser beings, but I didn’t take your kind for having low intelligence.”
Zirel, with the magical touch that slowed her heart rate, shrugged his broad shoulders, his cropped red hair brighter now that he stood in the faint light of the fire. “Perhaps the Halven brain is…” He made a small space between his thumb and forefinger.
Were they calling her dimwitted? “I’m not slow, you arrogant asses.”
The one Garrin had called Amund laughed low, and Garrin shot him a deadly look.
“Take me homenow,” she said.
Garrin motioned for Zirel to block the entrance. “You cannot go home. Others search for you as we speak. Dark Kingdom is fortunate to have found you first. As far as we know, the prophecy has spread wide in Tirnan, and others wish to use you against us.”
These men didn’t seem like lunatics, not that she knew what lunatics looked like. They were well dressed, if strangely, and they were healthy-looking, if extremely tall… Lex gripped her hands together. “What are you going to do with me?” she managed to get out.
