Page 9 of The Lord of the Labyrinth

Dozens of Fae knights gripped their swords, and more than one female courtier reached for her hidden dagger. Though they hadn’t been at war with the Seelie for many years, the peace between them was tenuous and Roan’s people were always prepared for battle.

“Brother?” His younger sister, Eudora Moondove, rushed toward him. Her dark hair was pulled up and threaded with blue ribbons. Her purple-and-gold court gown made her stand out among the courtiers. Her pale seafoam wings fanned out behind her, leaving a trail of glittering sparkles like motes of dust catching the sunlight.

Eudora halted at the sight of the woman in his arms. A murmur rippled through the court, then silence fell again as his people saw that he carried a mortal with him. He wished he could shield her body from their view, such were the possessive and protective instincts that surged through him. He wanted to guard her against their inquisitive stares, for the Fae were ever curious about the world of mortals.

But that was not what worried him most. In front of all these witnesses, he had just broken one of the most important laws his people had made since the Arthurian wars.

It was forbidden to take mortals from their world.

“Roan,” Eudora gasped. “What have you done?”

But he knew what he had done, just as everyone in his court knew. Yet he did not care. The mortal woman washis.

He glanced down at the woman in his arms, and that deep, unfathomable peace filled him yet again.

Without looking away from the mortal, he said, “I may have doomed us all.”

ChapterThree

“To look in the face of the dark king is to die, but oh what an exquisite death it shall be,” said the bride as she stood before the throne carved of night and obsidian and the lord who would own her soul forever more.

—Anon.,Tales from the Twilight Court

Roan parted the crowd in the vast throne room with a single shout. “Rath, to me!”

Rath Ender, his First Lance and most trusted friend, stepped forth, his silver cloak billowing behind him as he fell into step beside Roan. Eudora kept pace with Roan on his opposite side as they left the throne room together, still concerned about the human he’d brought to the Twilight Court.

Rath’s dark eyes swept over the woman in Roan’s arms as he walked with them. If Rath hadn’t been so madly in love with Eudora, Roan would have been tempted to banish his friend from his presence so that he could not look upon his prize. He was oddly possessive of the human woman in a way he never had been before with any female.

“It’s been a while since you’ve had a pet,” Rath mused with a dark chuckle. “Are you bored with battling the Seelie? I thought that was my task, to kill those sunny bastards.”

“As my First Lance, you should be focused on protecting anything I care about, whether it’s my new little mortal or my sister.” He cradled the human woman closer to him.

“I’ve been demoted to a human pet-sitter?” Rath chuckled.

“Rath, this is serious.” Eudora shot Rath a cold glare, which he answered with a hot look of lust. Eudora tossed her head and she raised her chin in challenge to the Fae knight.

Roan ignored the tension between his sister and his oldest friend. They had danced around each other like this for a thousand years, and it was beginning to bore him. Like everything in the world of the Fae, nothing ever changed. Not like the woman he held in his arms, a woman who would in a brief span of time age and die, unless he kept her here in his world with him.

He’d broken the laws of his people by bringing her here, but the woman had saved his life. She’d tended to him without knowing what he was or what he could give her in return for her kindness and compassion. She’d even been hurt when he’d entered her car. Her bleeding because of saving him was one of the ways his people could bond to another creature. It had deepened his life debt to a blood bond, a thing considered sacred to the Fae.

When she’d held him in her arms and whispered her wish like a fervent prayer, he’d been compelled to grant it. Not only because he owed it to her, but because he’d wanted tokeepher. If he brought her to his world, she could be his forever, and he would see that she wanted for nothing.

Roan moved through the black-and-white marble halls until he reached his private chambers. Rath opened the door for him, and a pair of tiny brownies paused in their cleaning of the room, their scrunched, goblin-like faces frozen in fear. One of the little Fae creatures quickly swept off her brown cap and bowed deeply to Roan.

“W-we d-didn’t expect...” the female called Babbitt stammered, her sharply pointed ears flattening back a little in alarm.

“Leave us,” Roan barked. The pair vanished with a soft pop. Roan stepped into the room with his sister and Rath, who closed the door behind him.

“Roan, what is the meaning of this? What do you mean to do with her?”

Eudora caught his sleeve. Roan winced and sucked in a breath. Her fingers came away covered in blood, which had soaked through his black tunic sleeve.

“What happened?” She forgot all about the human, focused instead on the crimson blood glistening on her slender fingers beneath the starlight lamps. It had been a long time since his little sister had seen him injured.

“The Seelie happened, dear sister,” he replied as he set the human female down upon his vast bed. The enchantment he’d cast over her continued to work, weaving a beautiful dream that spun in stardust patterns above her head.

As he took a step back from her, he felt strangely untethered, as if he might be carried away by the southern breeze that drifted through the open windows. The weight of her in his arms had felt so right, so natural, but he couldn’t fathom how that was possible.

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