Page 105 of Faerie Fate
“Look at these fucking traitors! They’re part of it. They’re friends with the damn enemy.” His sword pressed to my collarbone. “I’ve caught something good here,” he murmured.
His pause gave me the room I needed. If he didn’t go in for the kill, then I had to. I lunged up, moving for the hilt of his sword. Grabbing his wrist, I squeezed, forcing his tendons to twitch and his hands to loosen their grip. The fae yelped and I plucked the sword out of his hand.
I pointed the tip at him. “You are going to leave them alone.”
He rolled backward, kicked it, and disarmed me. Just like that.
My blood boiled. My neck throbbed, chest heaving, and Grant swiped the sword at me again, accompanying it with a wave of fae magic.
Adrenaline fueled, I tried to punch his throat, but he just knocked me aside. Every single hit he parried, dropping the sword to grab a dagger from his weapons belt.
“It’s much better up close and personal, isn’t it?” he hissed with a smirk.
“You tell me.” Bronwen’s voice came from behind him.
Grant whirled, but couldn’t move quickly enough to avoid her or the murder in her eyes. Bronwen bit down on the hand holding the dagger before he could slash it across my skin.
We moved with the same patterns, muscle memory of all those attacks in our past with our pack taking over. I punched forward, but he reared back and my knuckles skittered over his armor. His magic burned me and I yelped at the white-hot agony in my hand.
Grant kicked at us and I gripped his leg, twisting until the bone snapped.
“Tavi!”
Bronwen tossed me the sword, holding the dagger in her own hand, and before Grant had a moment to react, we moved. I dropped his leg and Bronwen drove forward.
Together, we slashed at his neck, and Grant’s head toppled off his body. My breath came in terrible gasps, pushed out of my body as the full implications for what we’d just done filled the empty space.
“My god.” Mike tore at his hair, pulling the strands, his voice sounding like it was coming from far away. “Oh, this is fuckingbad.”
“We really don’t need the reminder, Your Highness.” Bronwen waved him away and stashed the dagger in her pocket.
Mike pried the sword from my numb fingers. “You know the rules about changing things in time. I told both of you.”
I swiped my hand across my face and smeared blood. “There wasn’t much of a choice. He wasn’t going to stop.”
Mike’s eyes told a different story. As though there might have been some way for us to pull a win out of our asses without spilling any blood.
It was too late now. Much too late.
Another fae charged us and a fireball grew between their outstretched palms. The warrior used it like a paintbrush,scalding the air in a slashing motion and going for the three of us.
Killing the fae soldier had put us on the enemy list.
Mike pushed me aside as the fae regrouped. “Go, go!”
We backtracked the way we came and took a left turn rather than a right this time. The maze of hallways made it impossible to follow a direct path, and equally impossible to escape the fighting. My lungs felt two sizes too small and shrinking. Noren was the only one who didn’t seem to give in to the panic.
The hall opened up and belched us back into the foyer. My chest hardened and my lungs felt pierced by needles. Mike’s groan echoed the sentiment from his end.
A flash of blue came from the side as Poppy, laughing like a maniac, brought down a soldier on her own. Elfhame hovered above Poppy’s shoulder as the two of them fought together.
“I wondered where you had gotten,” Poppy cried, glancing toward us. “I’d hoped you were smart enough to stay far away but had a feeling you’d turn up.”
“You did say they would,” Elfhame agreed.
Their corner of the entryway was surprisingly quiet compared to the rest of the fighting, and conspicuously filled with fallen bodies. Together, Elfhame and Poppy were lethal.
Poppy’s attention fractured as a fresh wave of fae attacked. They moved in unison like a well-oiled unit, thinking victory was a foregone conclusion. We were a hodgepodge group: one pixie, one Poppy, and three young adults. Even a direwolf wasn’t enough to make them reconsider.
