“Thank you,” she said and winced. A habit of courtly etiquette.
He laughed again, softer now, but far from kind.
You will not thank me for long.
Without warning, darkness ripped her backward. She fell through shadow and flame and woke to hands shaking her awake.
“Alora!” A warm hand patted her cheek.
Her vision struggled to clear, her body limp as if she had lost all strength. But she recognized her father’s voice and his distorted features looking down at her. The room was lit with torches that reflected off the armor of the castle guards.
Caelum knelt at her side, concerned. “Princess, what happened? Are you harmed?”
She tried to form words to say she was fine.
Laurent slumped back, his complexion paling when he looked past her. “By the Seven, child. What have you done?”
The spindle rolled out of Alora’s fingers, clattering on the floor. She followed everyone’s stare to the mirror where a drop of her blood rolled down, shaping into a hellish glyph. It blazed and the glass splintered.
Alora tried to move but she may as well be stone. It was as if the shadows themselves had reached into her chest and stolen her breath, her very will. The mirror caught fire, scattering fractures of light into her fading vision.
The world tilted.
Alora tried to reach for Caelum, for air, for anything.
But the dark claimed her first.
CHAPTER 13
Rune
Rune paced in the center of the cavern, wings twitching against his back. He shook his head, not yet trusting this new reality he found himself in. But shadows surged at his call, unfurling like smoke from a fire long starved, veiling him in a dance of darkness and smoke.
His dragon form fell away, and he emerged as a god in armor. A crimson cape fell into place, his wings vanishing beneath a veil of glamor. He rolled his shoulders as the pain faded, bones cracking back into place. Rune flexed his hands, black claws curling into his palms. He smiled at the warmth of magic moving through his veins and the markings on his chest pulsated red.
A shimmer of embers hovered over him, the air rippling with anticipation.
The large chains also shrank down in size. Their divine power fell dormant if not entirely gone. Only the blood of his bride could set him free. And she had.
Alora.
Rune crouched down to inspect the dried smear of blood left behind. Strange. She held magic,powerfulmagic, yet he had not sensed it before.
He supposed it shouldn’t be unusual with her being half fae, but the might behind it was startling. The way it had made the shadows scream and the wind howl…was such a reaction due to her blood clashing with the chains or due to the object she had used to pierce herself.
Why had she brought a spindle with her? It would stand to reason if one were to visit a deadly entity, they would arm themselves properly.
Rune chuckled as he rose to his feet.Brave little bird.
Her heartbeat still echoed in the cave. A rhythm he had not realized how much he missed until it was gone. Rune had to bind her to him immediately.
In their other…life… if it could be called that, he had presented himself as a human rather than himself. Slowly seducing her into his clutches until he could one day claim her soul for himself. But the fates had not afforded him that leisure this time.
The events of their past, present now, were different.
But some things he found were the same.
Alora’s scent lingered like wine in his mouth, intoxicating and maddening as the first time he smelled it. Like a sweet briar rose in sunlight, pure as morning dew. Though it had been tainted by fear, it had also carried something more tantalizing this time.
