Page 26 of Heart of Dawn
Wonderful.
Rather than bow to her sickening desire, I slid off the dais under a burst of adrenaline and rage.
She snorted. “What are you doing?”
I approached her, fists so tight my fingers might snap. “I’m sick of being kidnapped.”
To my surprise, the yeti took a step back. “Don’t you move, fae.”
“Why? Are you afraid? You should be.” I paused. “I mean it when I say I’m grateful for your help. I truly am. But it ends there.”
She did not look happy. “I don’t think so,Orion.”She drew out my name, pouring menace into it.
I kept my spine straight, my own menace practically shimmering around me. “Think what you want. I’ll be walking out of here bound to my mate, not to you.”
Erna took another cautious step back despite her terrifying demeanor. “You are mine.”
“No.” Wow. I never knew my voice could go that low or that loud.
She snarled in response. “What?—”
“I have work to do. I can’t be wasting my time on this crap. Find yourself another husband. Maybe one you won’t break in the marital bed.”
I walked on thin ice here, but screw her. Just because I looked like a pushover, it didn’t mean I was. Whenever I caught my reflection, I saw the taint of the apocalypse in my eyes. My edges were harder, my capacity to survive unyielding.
I’d survived zombie hordes, taught myself to fight, and kept on going even when I missed home so much I wanted to hide in some miserable corner and wish the horrors away.
But I stayed strong. I clung to hope, found new friends, and the love of my life.
I’m a survivor.
No desperate yeti would be getting the better of me.
“Marry me or the queen dies,” Erna countered.
Not likely. She’d already been tossed into the River Thames and lived to beep another day.
I really missed her beeps. She belonged with me, not in that big hand. I fixated on her tiny golden body, ready to reclaim her by any means necessary.
“You have no choice here,” Erna added. “I’m willing to forgive all of this if you say you’ll love me.” She dipped herhead. “Why don’t I deserve love? What did I do to be denied happiness?”
Did she want a list? Firstly, by forcing guys into marriage. Secondly, by shagging them to death. Not great conduct in the search for romance.
I went for a different tactic in a last-ditch attempt to avoid violence.
“What about a fellow yeti?” I wondered, eyes still on Wendy.
She grunted, closing her hand around my virtual pet. “Useless. Ugly. I want a fae husband.” Slowly, she lifted her head, no sadness on her mean face. “I want you. I will have you.”
A dark veil fell over me. How dare she say these things? How dare she go through life forcing fae to be with her? She was scum, pure and simple. The lowest of the low. In need of extermination.
“Give me the queen,” I demanded, livid at her audacity.
She tightened her fist around Wendy. “I’ll crush her before your pretty eyes.”
I checked the cavern for weapons. The only useful objects in my eyeline were the bones, possibly the torches. I’d have to be quick and decisive for my next move.
“Give in to me, fae. We will be so?—”
