Page 63 of The Mortal Queen

“Just a quick taste then, Balor,” another nameless fomori said from afar, “beforehecomes to fetch her. This is too perfect.”

“Yes, yes,” said another. “I thought we’d have to hunt her down. Steal her fromhiscastle to undo this union. But now that she’s here, we can do it quickly. Nobody will know. Just a taste.”

“What makes you think you get a taste, Mul?” Two fomorians shoved Mul to the side.

“Just a finger,” Mul whined.

“Let him have the fingers. Meatless and useless,” one said, “but I claimthe thighs.”

“I’ll skin you alive before you claim all that flesh, Bashuk,” a female growled from atop one of the caves.

Balor whipped his head and roared at the horde. He silenced their griping and sprayed both saliva and slimy, unidentifiable chunks across the rocky meadow. They flinched at the reprimand, knocking their knees as they withdrew, cowering.

“Just one b-bite, Balor,” another fomori pleaded, madly fiddling with his own fingers. “It’ll be even more delicious knowing it’s his bride. Knowing it won us our rights once more. The fury in the Sidhe king’s eyes?—”

The fomori stopped, unable to finish the sentence for the squeals of delight that possessed him.

Balor growled, “Don’t speak his name nor his title here.” And so, the fomorians shrank away, hiding behind one another once more.

Balor eyed the mortal queen from head to toe, bringing his icy fingers to her chin and examining Aisling’s face. Aisling jolted at the contact, willing herself to stay put. How long was Aisling to stand there before Lir intervened? How long must she endure this? It occurred to Aisling then, she should’ve, at the very least, inquired of Lir’s plan more fully.

And once Balor was satisfied with whatever he’d studied in Aisling’s mortal features, Balor’s pupils flared at the blood still dripping from Lir’s prick. Red and warm and wet.

Balor licked his lips with a thick, textured tongue.

“Why are you here, fleshling?”

“To speak with you,” Aisling said dumbly, biting her bottom lip.

“Perhapshehas given her to us as an offering,” a small fomori said. “To remedy the damage this marriage has done to us.”

“Yes, yes, after all,hewouldn’t leave his queen all alone shouldhecare for her wellbeing.”

“It could be a trick,” one shouted from within the caves.

“Or she ran from him; you know how these mortals are.”

“Just one taste, Balor, then we can sort it out.”

Balor inhaled again. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, lost in ecstasy.

“Alright,” he relented, his raspy voice cracking mid-word. “One nibble. But do it quickly. Before and ifhecomes for her.” Balor grinned, yellow eyes glittering. “On the other hand, take your time. I’d indeed enjoy the look on his face if he found us mid-meal.”

The horde of fomorians scurried towards Aisling, descending from their caves like a colony of ants.

Aisling gasped and before she could move, Lir wrapped his hand around Aisling, reaching for Iarbonel’s dagger and puncturing the nearest fomori in the neck. And at the touch of iron, the ogre’s skin sizzled, boiling and dissolving the nearest flesh. Nothing like the clean cut she’d given to the trow with Lir’s axe. No. This iron was ruthless, blistering the fomori’s flesh like acid.

The impaled fomori collapsed on its back, writhing viciously as the others paused and looked on in shock.

“Iron! She carries iron!” they shouted. But soon their attention was not on her but on the fae king who materialized beside her. Glamour gone, he stood with one hand around Aisling’s, the other twisting the dagger into the fomori still gurgling on his own inky blood.

Balor’s jaw fell open as he stumbled back, wincing at the weight misplaced on his lame leg. The rest of the fomorians recoiled and clamored behind their leader as though death itself had been named. And perhaps it had.

“You filthy fleshling,” Balor growled, flicking his bulbous eyes between the mortal queen and the fae king at her side.

Aisling’s heart leapt as she beheld him: the fae king glimmering in the moonlight, crowned by the whispers of the bygone pines as he straightened, dagger dripping with fomori blood between them. Beheld him as if for thefirst time. A warrior and guardian to the arcane spirit of the forest.

The fomorians’ knees rattled, their fangs chattered, cold sweat caked their sickly chests and backs. They feared him. Observed him in both horror and fury. And Aisling found a strange, sadistic sort of joy bloom within her. That the creatures who’d delighted in her own torment were now the tormented.

---