Page 122 of Claimed By Prince Daddy

After a calming breath, I insisted, “I am here to help your Lord.”

A tingling laugh erupted from the fae’s throat. “A beast? How can one as lowly as you help our eternal Lord?”

I gritted my fangs.Calm. Be calm. You need them.

“Because I know of a way to defeat the werewolves… No, to defeat Werekind.”

They exchanged dubious looks.

“He speaks lies,” one fae said.

“We should kill him,” spoke another.

I smirked. “Are you really willing to kill me and risk losing the information I hold for your Dark Fae Lord?”

Seconds wracked in tension passed. The fae who first spoke to me eyed me with contempt. He breathed a sigh.

He raised his sword, then thrusted it into the sand. And the world spun on its axis. The land ceased spinning and rocked to a violent halt. I staggered before dropping to a knee, my stomach rolling. I inhaled several steadying breaths, fighting the urge to vomit again. The ground beneath me was no longer made of shifting sand. Instead, it was hard like granite—a deep slate color.

A soft, yet masculine voice sounded from above where I kneeled. “My lord, we have brought a creature who wishes to have an audience with you.”

My insides froze. The fringes of a robe colored obsidian, made of the finest silk, came into view. Slowly, I lifted my head. A dark figure loomed before me. His skin was that of the palest moonbeams. Long Caribbean black hair spilled down his shoulders to graze the floor in a rich curtain. A crown made of dark thorns perched atop his head, a swath of ominous shadows billowing around the crown.

Amethyst eyes gleamed down at me. “A creature?” His voice sounded hollow, like countless echoes in a barren canyon. A sinister hiss lay just beneath, sending a shiver crawling down my spine. I fought to keep my body from trembling. A mysterious power emanated, no, radiated from his form. Something ancient and evil. He inhaled a deep breath, then said, “A beast from the Human Realm. Why have you sought me out, beast?”

I clenched my jaw at the insolent manner in which he spoke to me, like I was little more than the scum beneath his feet. A booted foot rammed into my side, jabbing my ribs. I growled.

“Answer His Highness!” one of the Dark Fae soldiers demanded.

“I have some information that will… please, my lord,” I told him.

The Dark Fae Lord eyed me with skepticism, swirling in his amethyst glare. “Hmmm.” He began a slow circle around me. I could sense when a predator was stalking its prey, testing it, weighing its next meal. I remained still, keeping my itching claws sheathed.

After stopping in front of me once more, he cocked his head to the side. “I can sense darkness writhing in your heart, beast.” He let out a sinister chuckle. “Granted, it does not mirror mine, in any capacity, but it is there. I can sense a seed of evil sprouting.” He squinted one eye. “Speak, before I grow tired of your presence.”

I pushed to my feet. The soldiers stiffened, but made no other moves.

I bowed to him. “I offer my aid to you, Dark Lord, in killing the werewolf Sasha. And I will thereby pledge my allegiance to you. My life is yours to accomplish your will.”

The Dark Lord blinked. “Who is this… Sasha?”

I held back my delight at having the knowledge that this powerful fae did not.

“I thought you’d like to know,” I said. “She is a werewolf that you wanted dead a long time ago. On the eve of her birth, a witch poisoned her. I presume your fae sent this witch.”

The Dark Lord’s features went rigid, his eyes burning with hatred as I recounted events to him. “A witch cursed a werewolf pup long ago with a powerful potion called silverbane, meant to kill a werewolf,” I said. “Except the potion did not work. It merely killed her inner wolf instead, thanks to the pack’s omega healer who diffused much of the potion’s power… or so that’s what they believed.”

“How do you know this?” the Dark Lord demanded. “How?”

I raised my chin. “Because that wolf is now an adult, a latent werewolf that is alive and being protected by my alpha, Damon Hunter of the Stoneclaw Clan.” I clenched my fists at my side. “I was standing guard over her, by order of my alpha, one night when I heard this she-wolf, Sasha, speaking with Nara—a werebear of our clan. Sasha confided in the werebear, telling her of her origins of birth.”

The memory rang fresh in my mind from a week earlier. The two females were giggling and chattering away—random topics that would bore any male. I leaned against the wall alongside the door, halfway dozing, when the two had gotten onto the topic of latents. Sasha told Nara how her inner wolf was eliminated, saving her life from the silverbane.

“My inner wolf still lived,” Sasha had said, her voice ringing clear through the door. “No one… not my parents or anyone in the pack, knew of this. I didn’t even know it wasn’t normal for latents to have an inner beast until I spoke with other latents.”

“Do you know why your inner wolf still lived?” Nara had asked.

“No,” Sasha had replied. “But now that I think about it, it may have something to do with the curse cast upon me as an infant. The silverbane was supposed to kill me…”

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