Page 143 of Blood of the Fairest

Just as I'm sure I'll reach the edge of the forest, I see a flicker of torchlight nearby. Eris shouts in warning, but it's too late.

A man tackles me from the side. I yelp as I'm wrestled to the ground with brute force. Someone else shoves my face into the cold dirt as my wrists are tied roughly behind my back.

I struggle, kick, and swear at them. But it's all useless because one of the guys manhandling me is nearly as burly as Beowulf.

When he yanks me back to my feet, gripping me tightly by the arms to hold me still, I see that twelve bandits are surrounding me.

Well—eleven bandits, and an older man dressed in a hooded cloak.

The cloaked man watches me closely, but he says nothing as the torch-bearer from before gets right in my face with his halitosis. Others are holding torches now so flickering shadows dance across the faces of these men, including this one.

"Oh-hoh! Now that I can get a better look, you're a beauty, all right—but you must be one of the witchfolk, eh? Else what the fuck did you do to my friend back there, you vixen?"

He highlights his question by gripping my chin roughly, shaking my face to indicate the rotten-papaya-flavored blood on my chin.

From somewhere I can't see, Eris snarls at the hooded older man. "Tell him to get his fucking hands off of her."

"I asked you a question," the man holding my chin barks in my face, stinky spittle spraying.

Turns out, adding stinky spittle to my hatred for condescending men is the quickest way to make me lose my temper.

I don't even care how much it hurts when I bite my lower lip hard enough to draw blood to spit in his face.

The instant it makes contact with his cheek, he rears back. His shrill scream echoes in the Loomdark, but it turns into one of agony as, abruptly, his cheek bursts into flames.

The other bandits shout. I flinch back as the fire spreads immediately, covering half of his face.

Oh, yuck. That smell is fucking awful.

While he screams and thrashes, the hooded man pulls a small bag out of his cloak. Without a word, he throws a plume of grey dust on the man's head.

The fire goes out at once. The man drops to the ground, wailing and clutching at his half-melted face.

"Shut up before you draw a monster here with that weeping," one of the other bandits snaps at him. Then, striding up to me, he leers. "Witch!"

That bandit's open hand flies. The crack of it against my cheek is jarring, knocking my face to one side and making my bitten lip sting.

Eris's cursing is vicious before he shouts, "Malivant. Malivant!"

"Enough! Do not utter that faerie's name again, or she shall lose her head, our orders be damned," the hooded man warns. Then he looks at the other bandits, who are obviously wondering who the hell he just talked to. "Gag the queen and bind her legs. We must deliver her before daybreak."

Hot moisture has risen to my eyes, a reflex from the lingering sting in my cheek. All my old trauma is trying to strangle my ability to think.

Nothing happened when Eris called the Faerie of Wrath. I get the niggling suspicion it's because that fucking asshole is just waiting on me.

He wants me to say his name out loud.

I don't want to give that monstrous jackass what he wants. I don't want his help with anything, ever. But when the extra burly bandit wrenches my head back, about to slide a gag into my mouth, I decide I'm out of other options.

I'm desperate. Angry. Fucking terrified.

But I am not about to be taken hostage again.

After everything I've been through, I refuse.

"Malivant," I whisper, letting all my wrath bleed into that name.

A smoky, cold wind snakes through the looming trees, snuffing out every torch flickering in the men's hands, except for one. The man preparing to stuff the gag in my mouth goes perfectly still.