Page 94 of Cursed Shadows 2

The blood rushes out of my face in a split moment of panic. I don’t get the chance to shout‘no!’before he yanks it clean off the strap.

All I see are little beads flying through the air.

I choke on a strangled sound.

The beads hit the floorboards. It’s all I hear, like the blow of a horn in my ear, but it’s little precious beads skittering and scattering.

Slack-faced, I turn my wet eyes up at him, at the shadowy look he gives me, the gleam of hunger in his eyes—hunger to destroy me, hurt me.

“Did you think it would that easy, Nari?” He tilts his head to the side, as though genuine confusion has him in its grip, like he just can’t imagine a world where he would gift me forgiveness. “That, if you seduced me into you, it would change how I feel?” His voice drops to a gravelly growl as he takes a menacing step closer to me. “I made my promises.”

Stepping off the trunk, I swat at my damp nose with the back of my hand. “Fuck you.”

Cobalt eyes flash in the dark.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” My voice wobbles into a whine. “That hurt.”

In two steps, he’s on me. His hand snatches out and steals my neck in his grip—then lifts me until my feet dangle above the floor and my face is turning hot.

“I’ve made it very clear,” he brings his snarl to my face, “that I intend to hurt you, Nari. But nothing I can do to you will ever mend the shame you committed against me. This war will end in blood.”

Abrupt, he releases my neck.

I drop with a thud, my feet slapping to the floor.

I swat out at him with a hiss. “Careful, Daxeel. You forget how weak you think I am. By the time you’re done, I might be broken beyond repair.”

Shoving by him, I take a few steps before I can’t control it a second longer, and I drop to my knees. I start hunting for the beads. I need to find all twelve of them.

For a moment, he stands there behind me—and just watches.

I don’t look up at him, I have my hunting sights on silver beads.

Then he leaves without another word.

And I silently weep until I find all the beads.

Those same grandstands from the opening ceremony have been erected around the courtyard again. Tall, the blackwood structures reach all the way up past the height of my favoured tower.

With every noble, family member, spectator, iilra, scribe and contender crammed into the courtyard, it’s suffocating down here. Last time it was this busy, I stayed tucked against a wall with Eamon as I waited for the dance to start.

Now, I have no such reprieve from this chaos. I’m stuck in it, my shoulders bumping into the hard muscular arms of the warrior fae waiting around for the beginning of the first passage, and I have to make myself smaller as I squeeze between their predatory bodies.

That’s the unease in the air, the one that prickles my flesh, curls my upper lip in a silent snarl—predatory.

On the hunt for a familiar face, any familiar face, I push and slip and sneak my way through the throngs of fae. Each one of them sheathed in holstered daggers and throwing stars, in leathers and light chainlink armour draped over broad shoulders, in thin plates of metal shielding their chests, with bows and arrows and axes, I’m finding it harder to fill my lungs with each passing moment.

The panic in my eyes must be obvious to anyone who cares to spare me a glance, but none do as I search for Eamon, or Aleana, or even father—I’ll take anyone at this point just to feel a little safer out here.

My cobalt boots are soft on the stone ground. Plain breeches shield my legs, and the blue sweater hugs me tight like a comfort blanket. But with the vulnerability I’m plagued with in the thrum of the courtyard, I feel I might as well be naked, standing in a field of vicious faerie hounds.

I’m about to manoeuvre my way between the backs of two dark males when the one with spidery chainlinks draped over his shoulders takes a step back.

I suck in a sharp breath, muscles bolting to my bones.

He doesn’t look at me, he only moved to reach down for his weapons belt and tuck away a gold flaked dagger—one I recognize, though it’s been ten years since I last saw it.

Still, out here in the pit of predators, my reaction is instinctual, it’s my primal self rising, and that silent snarl isn’t so silent anymore.

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