“I haven’t cast you aside, Veronica. There’s been nothing between you and me for years and years.”
“Years mean nothing to me, Fox. Mere brief moments in time. You were always going to come back to me – that is until she arrived.”
“She’s got nothing to do with the reason we are no longer together, Veronica. Keep her out of this. Don’t take your sick fascination with me out on the girl.”
“Too late, Fox darling,” she chimes happily.
I search her face for more signs of duplicity. Is she lying?
“What do you mean, ‘too late’, Veronica?” I snap, the shadows already creeping from my fingertips, angry and frustrated.
“I have her, Fox, darling. I have your little girl. And I have her somewhere safe and secure – somewhere you can’t reach her.”
“You’re lying,” I hiss. “You’re lying to me again, Veronica.”
I know how strong Briony is. I know how strong the Princes are. There’s no way Veronica could have snatched her away. There’s no way Briony would have gone with her.
I shoot my shadows toward the woman standing in front of me, but I’m too slow. She jumps to one side, cackling with amusement, and the shadows shoot right past her and over the dark lake.
“Where have you taken her, Veronica?” I yell, my shadows swirling so fiercely inside me that I can barely contain them.
“Oh, Fox, you truly think I’m going to tell you? If you want to know, then you’re going to have to follow me.”
I shoot more shadows at her, quicker this time, but she skips over the sand, and then – before my very eyes – the fabric of the air tears in half. A great red gash opens in the atmosphere, and Veronica slips right through it, vanishing from sight.
“Come on, Fox,” she trills. “What are you waiting for? If you want your girl alive, you’re going to have to come with me.”
I swing my gaze around. This is another trap – another trap that Veronica has laid before me. But it’s a trap I’m going to have to walk straight into, because if there’s any chance, any chance at all, that she has Briony – that she’s holding her, torturing her, feeding on her–
Fuck. I can’t even think of that.
But if there’s any chance at all, then I have to find her. I have to get to her. I have to save her.
I yank my ring from my finger, discarding it in the soft sand, hoping that if I’m wrong about this – if it is a trap – then Briony will find it and she’ll understand.
And then I’m sprinting as fast as I can as the red tear in the air begins to close up. I only reach it just in time, diving through into the abyss as it seals behind me and the dark lake disappears from view.
Chapter One
Briony
We stand on the shores of the black lake, the perverse red line shimmering in the air before us and Fox’s ring warm in my clenched fist.
The three Princes stare back at me. Their faces are worn and tired and full of skepticism.
Fox wasn’t at the trial. He isn’t at the academy. And he isn’t here at the lake. He is nowhere to be found. All that is here is his ring and the strange shimmering line – the strange shimmering line that hung in the air after the Madame and the demons escaped from the grotto.
It seems there’s only one logical explanation for Fox’s disappearance – he’s stepped through that strange portal and into the demon wastelands.
But why?
The Princes want to believe the worst of Fox, assuming his loyalty has been to the Madame all along, that the two of them – both vampires – have been working together.
But I know the truth. Fox Tudor looked deep into my eyes and promised that he loved me. He placed a piece of his magic around my heart. He says I am his fated mate. He swore he’d never betray me. And I believe him.
The Princes are being led by their prejudices – the same old prejudices that run deep in this realm. Just because Fox is from Slate, just because he’s different from them, they believe he is capable of betrayal. I know what it feels like to be judged that way, and I refuse to be swept along in their poison.
I spin his ring in my fingers, the metal warm despite the bitter cold. It glints in the feeble light as if it’s winking at me. I trace the engraving with my fingertips and then I force the ring onto my thumb.
