He wags his brows a few times. “More fire.”
I can’t speak. My throat has closed around something sharp and desperate and he had no idea the heart attack he almost just gave me.
Where’s Kieran?I need to know where Kieran is. It feels like a compulsion inside me, not magic, just need. The kind that claws at your chest when you can’t find the people you love.
Movement at the tree line has my heart pounding and my neck snapping when I turn too fast.
Kieran walks out of the Dark Forest, swatting something that tries to follow him back. No logs. Just annoyance written across his sharp features.
When he sees me, though—when those ice-blue eyes find mine across the distance—the world snaps back into place.
That’s when it hits me.
I would burn down this forest to get these two back.
Not metaphor. Not exaggeration. I would set fire to every ancient tree, every wrong-eyed creature, every mile of glowing moss that just tried to kill us. I would watch it all turn to ash, and I wouldn’t feel a single thing except relief that they were safe.
I’ve never loved anything enough to destroy for it before.
Turns out I love three things that much.
And if it weren’t for Morrigan telling me exactly where Finnian is, I’d have already started.
I want nothing more than to murder Amarantha. But it’s not for me.
I would, though. And I think that’s what matters. That’s what is well and truly important.
Even more? Death is the easy retribution.
See, if anyone hurts these men. These Fae who somehow became the only solid ground I have left. I’d torture them.
I’ve done it. I’ve spent long hours watching men twitch as I pull their nails off one by one, all while singing the theme song toStrawberry Shortcake.
The eighties version.
It’s honestly incredible to see how fast they break over that.
Truth is, one day I woke up and realized I just didn’t want to be that person anymore. Told myself I’d changed. Evolved. Become someone who didn’t need the control, the power, the way their screams meant I was the one in charge for once.
The darker truth? I gotoffon it.
I’d do it again. And again. And again. Just to make sure every night these men are beside me as I fall asleep.
The person I was trying to stop being? She’s still here. She’s just found something worth being monstrous for.
Maybe that makes me a villain. Fae, even.
Or maybe, just maybe, that makes metheirs.
“What is it?” Kieran steps close, his eyes flickering between mine. Reading me the way he always does. Seeing the fractures, the fear, the feral protectiveness I can’t quite hide.
How do you tell someone you love them so much you’d kill for them?
I mean honestly, if I overthink it—and I’m going to—we’ve only been really together a short time. If that’s what you’d call it.
Besides, it’s not dating. That word is too small.
It’s so much deeper than that.
