Page 24 of A Dance With Fire
Features hidden beneath the shadows of an old, dark cloak, he was obviously male. It was in the width of the shoulders and the gruff grunt he’d emitted when she’d rammed into his wall of a chest.
Fear closed her throat tightly, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to do. Had it all been a trap? A lie? Had the demon-eyed cat not led her to freedom at all, but something worse?
She swung the iron nail out at the man. She didn’t make it within inches of him. Faster than she could blink, his hand shot out and shackled her palms. His grip tightened painfully until she was crying out and felt like her fingers would break. The nail clattered from her fingers to the ground.
She couldn’t possibly beat a man his size, but she had to try. Her feet kicked out, connecting with his body. She rammed her shoulder into his chest, her nails gripping at his cloak and in their struggle, she yanked the hood from his head…
…and froze.
“I—you—”
No coherent words came out.
How could they?
Perhaps she was dreaming. Perhaps all of this was nothing more than a nightmare she couldn’t escape from. Her worst fears come alive to haunt her.
Because she was staring at a monster.
A Fae monster.
It was the scars she noticed first. Dozens of them, raised over olive flesh that bisected across his entire face like the designs on a spiderweb. They slashed over his left eye, seeming to cut through the pupil, making it look white like a ghost’s. The other eye looked normal. Black and glaring. But the scars… His thick beard seemed to hide the worst of them, but they were still visible as they spread over his cheeks, stopping at his hairline.
Dark tufts of hair trailed down his shoulders in thinly braided strands that parted like a curtain, showing off his smooth, pointed ears.
Fae ears.
She didn’t know where to lock her attention on. If on the scars or his ears, if that single white eye or the black one.
Shula staggered a step back. “You’re a Fae.” That wasn’t what she meant to say, but it still stumbled out of her mouth.
The massive man grunted out something that sounded eerily like a snort, but he didn’t reply. He didn’t say anything at all. His white eye seemed to glow in the darkness, and she wondered if she could see her out of it, thinking that perhaps he could when it flicked over her body. Assessing. Dangerous.
It was a stare she felt deep in the marrow of her bones, a stare that stirred the magic inside of her despite the iron locked around her wrists, weighing her arms down. Despite it repressing her magic, she felt something implode within her. Something akin to her fire blazing.
Oblivious to her inner thoughts, the large Fae man blinked down at her. They stared. And stared.
And when Shula felt a touch against her legs, she let out a small shriek and jumped, nearly stepping on the demon-eyed cat.
It wrapped its lithe body around her legs and purred before turning towards the hulking figure. A cry of surprise left Shula’s lips as the cat gave a jump and climbed his tree trunk of a body, perching itself on the Fae’s shoulder.
It was a surprising night.
“Who are you?” she demanded. Her nerves frazzled with each passing second. Staying here was dangerous and she wanted to get away, but the Fae stood across from her as if he had no plans whatsoever of moving out of her way. “You know what… scratch that, I don’t care who you are. Move! I have to leave.” To get out of these confines. To start a new life.
She started past him, fighting back a shiver as their bodies grazed. There was something about him, though she couldn’t quite place what, that made her uncomfortable. It had nothing to do with the scars and everything to do with his silence.
The moment she stepped past him, she felt a yank on her dragging chains, and she fell back against him again, drowning her in the splintering fragrance of his body. Rosemary and chamomile and something darker, intoxicating. She tried to pull away, but he held her firmly in his thick arms.
Like he didn’t want to let her go.
She struggled against him, but he only tightened his hold, and then a voice cut through the night.
“Fuck, Ryker, let her go.”
Like magic, his hold on her loosened and she stumbled, righting herself in time to see men in cloaks step into the alleyway.
The one who’d spoken brought up the front of the two-man procession. His hood was lowered enough so she could make out his features in the dark.
