Page 9 of Faerie Fate
The knots held firm.
“Sampson, explain. You might be the only one with half a brain cell left in your miserable goddamn skull.” Kendrick stomped closer to the man lying in a fetal position only feet away from me.
“It seems, Alpha, that we can see her but you can’t. Which makes it some kind of?—”
“Dark magic.” Kendrick grumbled out the word with equal parts realization and desire.
Onyx had said that his father maintained his youth and long life with the use of dark arts. The memory surfaced and brought with it pain as well as insight.
The instant my mind latched onto the name, a sketch of my friend appeared behind my closed lids, with his face tilted up in laughter.
Onyx was dead. And his father was very much alive.
I was the only one left with half a chance at balancing the scales, because the universe surely fucked up with that one.
“If you’ll permit me, Alpha, I’ll walk you to her,” Sampson said. “Touch her. You can assure yourself she’s real and we’re telling you the truth.”
Silence, then a muffled thunk followed by a grunt. Kendrick must have punched or kicked the wolf. I grimaced and ground my back molars together. He really was a monster.
Would the glamour hold if he touched me?
Doubts drowned out the rest of my sanity until the voice inside my head became a long, drawn out droning scream.
“Here.”
Feet shuffled against the floor and I yelped at the first probing fingertips along my collarbone.
“See, Alpha?” Sampson sounded eager to please. “You see?”
“Interesting,” Kendrick said. His voice dropped into a chuckle, then laughter. Absolute joy and amazement. And then— “I can feel you, Tavi.”
He leaned in to whisper the words directly next to my ear and it felt like cold water dousing my entire system.
“There you are.”
Each word hit with the thud of a hammer against a helpless dented nail head. The glamour fell away piece by piece and thesafety of the magic was replaced by Kendrick’s gloating laughter. It pierced my ears until they wanted to bleed.
“Leave us. My fiancée and I need to have a little alone time. Get the fuck out of here!”
He sent the other shifters away.
Just us now.
Alone.
My shaking increased until my entire skeletal system was replaced by arctic ice.
Kendrick pinched my chin and wrenched my head back. “Open your fucking eyes, Tavi, andlook at me.”
The command in his voice made it impossible for my wolf to ignore. She rose up inside of me, taking control, hating the way we cowered. The way his voice made us want to show him our belly.
Like it was the ultimate defeat.
“I said open them,” he repeated with a barely constrained roar.
Terrified, furious, my eyes slowly opened for him, and Kendrick forced my chin higher. It left me with no choice but to meet his gaze.
His smile grew when we connected. The gloating glint in his mud-colored eyes sent a wave of sickening heat through me.
