Page 1 of Heart of Dawn
SUNSET
CHAPTER ONE
ORION
Ibacked away from the severed head, its vibrant pink eyes fixed to me.
Pink because of Dawn, filled with knee-knocking malevolence.
“Dawn! Dawn! Dawn! Dawn! Dawn!” That word echoed around me, stirring the dead, ice-smothered trees of the Forest of the Lost.
Dawn was here in Faery when it wasn’t supposed to be, an actual living entity speaking through the head of an undying fae.
My ears rang and my head was a battleground of thoughts. The thick, sickly sweet scent of decay sent my stomach into a roiling frenzy.
“By the stars,” I whispered, lifting my axe as the head continued screaming at me.
What a turn of events.
My virtual pet, Wendy, was actually the lost queen of the replicating bees, and had teleported me from the royal palace to her dead home. Would she bring it back to life? If so, her honeymeant Miko didn’t have to die to end Dawn after all because anything could be replicated with that special honey.
Wow.
But Wendy had to awaken first to make the honey. And since all her worker bees were dead, I presumed it would be a solo undertaking.
Please just wake up…
I prayed to the stars for a miracle, pining for Miko and his pack of werewolves, all of them back on Earth dealing with fresh drama without me.
Every thread of my mating bond to Miko twanged like aggravated violin strings, the frustration at being so far away from him a physical ache.
I couldn’t stand it.
I couldn’t?—
No. No. No. Negativity wouldn’t do. Being here in this forest brought me face to face with hope. Wendy was hope. I was hope, as Miko had dreamed. I wasn’t here for Sugar Twists and laughter, as my mama always said.
A Sugar Twist would help brighten the next minutes. The Faery treat always perked me up after a long day.
The words of Miko’s dream echoed in my head…
He comes, this scarlet-haired man, bearing a golden gift in his hand. For you. It is for you. It is for hope. He is hope.
Stars, those words came with a lot of pressure, but pressure I would transform into a useful weapon against the darkness. I was meant to be in Miko’s life to stop him from dying. To protect him, to love him, to be his mate for more than five minutes.
Determination swelled inside me, making me stand taller.
I can do this.
The head stopped screaming, pink tears still oozing down its sunken cheeks. It bared its rotten, pink-stained teeth. I tensed, torn between running and splitting the wretched thing in half.
“Fae…” It spoke in a clear voice, twinned with a more crackly, alien sound.
The voice of Dawn.
“Cherry fae.” Wisps of condensation puffed from its lips.
My feet were glued to the snowy, frozen ground, my veins filled with ice of their own, my heart pounding in my ears.
