Page 141 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

“We need to go get Rahk!” I tell her.

We gallop back the way we came as fast as Bartholomew can handle.

Chapter 45

Kat

“Rahk!”Iburstintohis study, gasping for air. He apparently heard me barreling through the hallways and is already getting up. “You must come at once!”

“What’s wrong?” he demands, grabbing his cloak and striding after me.

I’m so winded I can barely get the words out. “Caphryl Wood—there are people—growing stuff—”

His hand lands on my back. “Are you hurt? Did someone threaten you? Frighten you?”

“What?” I look up at him. “No—no! It’s not me. It’s the land! It’s magic! People are growing food that is strange! And there is a troll that wants to eat everyone!”

“People you don’t know?”

“Never seen them in my life!”

“And it’s your land?”

“Well, some of it, yes, but that’s beside the point! You need to come and see what is happening. I ran Bartholomew back hard, so I shouldn’t take her out again. We’ll have to take two of your horses—” I bolt toward the direction of the stables, only to be nearly yanked off my feet when he takes hold of my elbow to guide me in the opposite direction. “What are you—?”

There is a glint in Rahk’s eye. A glint that makes him look wild—and very, veryfae. “Horses are slow. There’s a faster way to get there.”

I look at him blankly. Unless he’s trying to say that there are Paths in the human world as well, I have no idea what he means.

He pulls me after him around the back of the house, past the creek, beyond the view of any windows. Then he turns toward me. There is something in his expression, something in his wide-legged stance, that reminds me—as I’m so often forgetting—that he is a warrior who can tear me apart with his bare hands. That he is not just a tall human with long silver hair, but something entirely different. A being from a different world.

And then reality ripples behind him. The trees shiver like a droplet of water falling into the clear reflection of a still pond. I would have stumbled backward, tripped and fallen over the hem of my dress, if not for his grip on my arm.

Because right before my eyes, a great pair of jet-black wings spread from Rahk’s back. They catch the sunlight, turning dark blue.

“You—you—” I stammer.

His mouth spreads in a slow smirk. He pulls me close to his chest, arching an eyebrow down at me. “You’re going to have to hold on tight.”

“I—what? No! Absolutely not!” I try to pull free, but he bends and wraps an iron-like arm around my ribcage, and another around my knees as he hoists me up against him. “This issounsafe!”

He makes a sound at the back of his throat. “Katherine Vandermore, concerned about safety? No, I don’t think that’s true.”

And with that, he launches into the sky.

I scream bloody murder as the ground shoots away from us. Wind pummels me from the force of his wings. I instinctively flail my legs and arms, fighting to get away from his hold on me. He tightens his grip, growling something at me that I cannot hear over the roar of air and the sound of my own knife-like terror.

We seem to even out, our direction shifting from up to parallel to the ground. I stop screaming long enough to glance down. Then my screaming renews even more violently. There is nothing between me and the plunging fall of my death—nothing except Rahk’s two arms which hold me tightly to his chest.

“Oh saints, oh saints, oh saints!” I shriek, only now realizing that I have a choking grip on his neck.

“I’m not going to drop you!” he shouts over the wind. “Just relax!”

“I’m going to die! I’m going to die!”

“You arenotgoing to die.”

“I don’t believe you!”

---