Page 5 of The Crown of Nyx

Darkness loomed in the corner of my vision as I sought Ivy out in the crowd. But I couldn’t see her as shadows wrapped around me, forcing me into its chilling embrace.

NOW

I awoke to agony and thirst.

My heart crashed hard against my rib cage, a thundering beat that matched the pounding in my head. My ears rang from the attack and whatever they’d used to knock me out.

I struggled to sit up, taking in the dark room we were locked in. Other than the bodies of my fellow bond mates, there were several guards surrounding us with guns raised. They barely moved when I sat up.

“Knock the vamp out again,” one of them growled. “The cunt shouldn’t be awake.”

I grunted as feeling came back to the rest of my body. It ached with the same ferocity as the thirst.

I knew I’d promised Ivy that I wouldn’t feed from anyone but her. But I would gladly tear these onesapart, drain them, and leave them to be found by their worthless king.

My fangs burned as they slid free. “You will have to try harder than that.”

“Move, and we shoot your friends,” another spoke up, cocking his gun at Elias’s unmoving form. He, like Adrian and Rowan, were still unconscious.

Maybe it was the fact I had over two hundred years on the three of them. Or maybe it was Ivy’s magic helping me burn through whatever poison they’d used.

Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to let the chance slip from my fingers.

Before I could strike, the shadows around us thickened, darkening until it became a heavy weight upon us all. The guards cursed, but I still had the one I needed, his scent in my lungs. Not even the shadows could keep me from detecting his fear, sweet and overwhelming, perfuming the air. The sound of his racing heart was like music to my ears.

I pounced, landing atop the male, ripping the gun from his hand. Before he could scream, I tore into his throat with my teeth, drinking in the bitter, watery taste of his blood. The male jerked beneath me, falling against a wall, but ripping into his spinal cord was enough to keep him from fighting back.

As I pulled away, a different gurgling voice bit out, “The Shadow Knight of Nyx,” before succumbing to their own injuries.

That was a name I did not recognise, but as I drew myself to my feet, and the shadows slid back to whoever controlled them, I stopped.

A male stepped out of the darkness, tendrils of shadow slithering across his suit jacket and pressed pants.Blood splattered across his cheek and throat, hands dripping with it, but his violet eyes barely met mine.

“Prince Orion.” I slid a dagger free. I knew enough about the prince, had heard plenty of rumours during my days with Ivy at the academy, and knew he’d watched her keenly. “Are you friend or foe?”

The prince raised a brow; his eyes were wild and wide, and a wicked smile played at his lips. “I am more than a friend, Maeve Grey. That, you have no need to worry about. My allegiance is to the true Queen.”

I didn’t lower the knife. “Prove it.”

His eyes narrowed; he didn’t appear to be a threat, but he was also closest to the others. I couldn’t trust that he was who he said he was with their lives on the line.

Orion cocked his head and eyed me. “I was her first. The one you callmystery mate.”

“You’re the one who abandoned her?” I asked, a different kind of anger boiling within me. Anger at the young male standing across from me who hurt my mate. The instinct to tear him apart was one I could barely hold back.

There was an unsettling calmness about him that shouldn’t have disturbedme the way it did. He remained eerily still, observing me with those dark, violet eyes. Perhaps he was assessing whether it was worth keeping any of us alive. Hoping that maybe, we would not be missed if he slaughtered us the way he’d so easily killed the other guards.

But rather than responding, he slid his weapons into their sheaths and kneeled beside Adrian’s unconscious body. “Ivy is holding Dante back. We should try and wake them up. There is only so much I can do with the shadows, and I fear there aren’t many worth trusting right now.”

A cold chill swept over my body. Taking a shaky step towards him, I dropped to one knee between Elias and Rowan. “What do you mean, she is holding Dante back?” I asked through gritted teeth.

The Fae prince glanced up at me and rolled his eyes. “Unlike you, I don’t coddle our extremely powerful mate. She has Hawk Nash with her right now, but she doesn’t need any of us for protection. Right now, as a matter of fact, she has almost taken Dante out.” He turned away from me to swipe his hand through the air above Adrian’s body. “She knows I have you. Trust that she can handle herself.”

I swallowed hard and carefully reached for the bond. The thread linking me to her was dim and quiet, but as I brushed it, a flicker of light appeared in the darkness of my chest. A pulse of warmth followed, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally felt her.

“She’s okay,” I breathed, feeling the unfamiliar burn of tears pricking my eyes. Quickly, I blinked them away. “I feel her again.”

He bowed his head in a nod. “Good. Once we get out of here, we should perhaps work on protections to keep that from happening again. Ivy was terrified when you went dark. It took all my power to stop her from leaping onto the stage.”

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