Page 91 of The Dark Fae Princess
“I c-can’t,” I stammer, trying with every fiber of my being to shoot it from my hand into Anders’s face. “I c-can’t!”
“You can. I believe in you,” he replies weakly.
Then, I see him plummet from the sky and hit the ground with a sickening thump behind Anders, Shifting back into a Fae, his body broken and bent.
My men have fallen.
Every single one of them.
There is no way that Trey and Jerrick made it out of the battle alive.
I sob openly, the hot tears stinging my eyes. I can’t give up. They didn’t do all of this so that I could give up and let Anders have me.
But without Raize’s strength, I don’t have enough to fight off Anders anymore.
He knows it as well as his grip on my right arm loosens, leaving the orb hovering at my left palm. He takes the blade that he sliced his own palm with and slashes it across my left forearm, making me hiss with pain and the orb disappears instantly.
“Better,” he says and then before I can stop it, he clamps his bleeding palm over the wound on my arm, mingling our blood together, thus binding the blood oath in a swirl of magick that makes my stomach twist and turn over. I gasp and bend over to throw up on the floor at Anders’s feet.
“Savvie! No!” I hear someone shout from a distance away, but I don’t know who it was. The blood is roaring in my ears as Anders grips my hands tightly and drags me a short way, outside the no Puffporting zone, before he Puffports us away, landing in a filthy dungeon with a gilded cage, which he shoves me into. I fall to my knees in the dirt and he locks it tightly before I can get to my feet.
“Welcome home,” he says with an evil smile before he disappears, leaving me in the cold, wet, muddy cage, alone, terrified, humiliated by my absolute failure to protect myself and utterly devastated by the loss of my men.
“Don’t cry,” a familiar voice comes at me from out of the darkness.
“Ambrosia?” I call out.
She lights a fire torch and saunters over to my cage, giving me a pitying look.
“I can get you out of there. All you have to do is give me what I want.”
I grip the bars of the cage, ignoring the sizzle of my flesh as I ask, “What? What do you want?”
“Oh, I think you know, stupid girl,” she says. “Your freedom for my Kingdom.”
I grit my teeth.
I should’ve known.
“Fuck you,” I snarl and then I’m plunged back into the darkness as she blows out the torch.
“Think about it,” she says, ignoring my curse. “And trust me when I say, you want to think about it quickly. Anders has vicious, vile tastes and he will be down here soon to take them out on you for a while.”
I know she’s left me alone again as I feel the darkness and isolation close in on me. But there’s also something else. My blood is tingling. It wants me to make good on my oath and I know things will only get worse for me if I don’t.
But I’m not giving up my Kingdom, nor am I giving up on my love for my men. Anders will never have me willingly. I will fight this magick to the bitter end.
I just hope that my bitter ends comes soon.
The End
