Roxy walks pressed against my side, her hand wrapped tight in mine, warmth bleeding through where our palms connect despite the arctic cold radiating from the Seelie Realm. She’s shaking, not from fear but from adrenaline crash, the aftermath of captivity and magic pushed beyond what any half-trained witch should be capable of wielding. I can sense the exhaustion radiating from her, the way her legs threaten to give out with each step, but she refuses to slow down or show weakness even now.
That’s my girl.
The landscape around us shifts with that impossible fluidity unique to the Fae Realm, crystallized forests bleeding into meadows of frozen starlight, pathways that existed moments ago vanishing into mist when we try to retrace our steps. Reality bends here according to rules I barely understand, laws written by beings who treat linear time like a suggestion rather than an absolute, and navigating it without fae magic feels like walking across ice that keeps reshaping itself to throw you off balance.
“We need a way out,” Coil hisses from behind us, his serpentine eyes tracking the horizon where the sky meetsground in ways that make spatial awareness a meaningless concept. “This realm will reject us soon. We’re not meant to exist here.”
He’s right.
Already, I can sense the seelie magic pushing back against our presence, reality trying to eject us like foreign bodies from a wound. The air turns dense and resistant, every inhale tasting faintly of magic and starlight, like the realm is pushing back against anything that doesn’t belong here. My dragon stirs uneasily beneath my skin, fire and ice grinding together in patterns that speak of discomfort bordering on pain.
We need to leave.
Now.
Before this realm decides we’ve overstayed our welcome and finds creative ways to enforce its displeasure.
“The portal the witch opened brought us here,” Scar says quietly, moving up beside me with that preternatural grace that makes vampires so lethal. “But she didn’t provide a way back. I’m assuming that was intentional.”
Of course it was.
The witch doesn’t do anything without purpose, without layers of meaning woven through every action like threads in a tapestry that only she can fully see. She sent us here to prove I’d changed, to demonstrate thatcontentmentwasn’t some abstract concept but something I’d earned through blood, sacrifice, and the slow, agonizing process of learning to balance elements that wanted nothing more than to tear each other apart.
Mission accomplished.
I defeated the prince, shattered his fortress, reclaimed what’smine.
But getting home?
That’s apparentlyourproblem to solve.
I glance down at Roxy, taking in the dark circles beneath her eyes, the way her magic still flickers weakly around her fingertips in patterns she can’t quite control. She’s depleted, running on fumes and willpower, her witch abilities stretched beyond their limits in ways that will take days to recover from.
“Can you summon a portal?” The question comes out rougher than intended, gravel and smoke layered over genuine concern.
She lifts her chin, defiance sparking behind exhaustion. “I can try.”
“Roxy—”
“I said… I can try.” Her grip on my hand tightens, nails digging into my palm hard enough to leave crescents. “I’m not leaving you here. I’m not leaving any of you here. So, unless you’ve got a better plan, Frosted Tyrant, let me work.”
Maul rumbles something that might be approval from where he’s still partially shifted, his werewolf features bleeding through human skin in ways that speak of wounds not quite healed. Thorn nods once, thorns receding slowly from his shoulders as he conserves what little strength remains after bleeding sap across half the Seelie Court. Even Ruckus, who rarely takes anything seriously, watches Roxy with an expression that carries the weight of genuine respect.
My brothers.
My family.
Standing here in this impossible realm because I asked them to follow me into war for a woman that all of us barely knew two months ago.
And not one of them hesitated.
Not one of them questioned.
They came because I asked.
They bled because I led them.
And they’ll follow me home because that’s what family does, that’s what the Kings of Anarchy means beneath all the violence,criminal enterprise, and carefully maintained reputation for absolute brutality.
