Page 18 of The Beast King's Bride

“Take her, then.” The Faerie shoves at me with a pointed, sharp toe. “All yours. We wouldn’t dream of getting in your way. But why bring a human all the way here? Unless it is to cross with her to the land under the hill?”

The Fae king lifts a hand and the raven on his shoulder takes flight, vanishing in the night. “My comings and goings are my own business.”

“Except when smuggling humans through the gates,” the spindly Faerie says, “against the wishes of her Imperial Majesty.”

“She has no right to stop me from claiming a tithe.”

The Faerie cackles. “You’re bold, king. But the Empress has every right and you’re but her vassal. Never forget that.”

“How could I forget? I wear the reminder,” the Fae king growls. Then he grabs my arm and lifts me to my feet. He turns to the Faeries. “Off you go. Go back to tormenting people, as is your way, and leave me in peace.”

They sketch hasty bows, but their cackling spoils the show of deference.

“The Cursed King,” they mutter as they bow and straighten, bow and straighten, over and over, like marionettes. “The King Who Never Cried. The Cursed King still hopes.”

With another growl, the Fae king drags me away from them and back up the slight slope. “You ran away from me. I crossed the gate at a great cost and peril to find you.”

“Am I supposed to feel grateful?” I snap, too exhausted to care if I anger him. “I asked you to let me go.”

He says nothing as he hauls me away. The trees close over us again, plunging us in darkness, and again he begins to glow faintly. He leads me with sure steps under the trees and back to the cave. The black horse is grazing in the cracks of the rocks.

When he releases me, a violent shiver almost sends me to my knees. My teeth are chattering.

With a harrumph, he tugs again at his coat, and this time he manages to unbutton it and shrug it off. Underneath, he’s wearing a silk shirt, laced in the front—black, of course—and where his collar folds back, his strong, pale collarbone gleams.

No necklaces, no crown, no jewelry. A king as unadorned as the dark he represents, yet so beautiful that any adornment would have been excessive.

Shaking out the coat, he drapes it over my shoulders. “You would have died from the cold, had you run,” he says in that growly voice. “No more running away.”

“I won’t promise you that,” I reply even as I slide my arms into the sleeves and pull the coat closed over my chest. It’s not buttons it has, I realize, but small hooks and I fumble with them, as delicious warmth spreads through me. The coat smells of leather and of his odd scent.

Fae scent, I suppose.

“You don’t have to take me with you,” I whisper. “You don’t need a human. A king has plenty of slaves. What use do you have of me?”

In response, he grabs my arm and pulls me to the horse. A tiny flare of hope goes through me as he lifts me up and I straddle the horse. Would he let me go?

But he grabs the saddle and climbs up behind me. The light in his hand makes another appearance, illuminating the rocks and trees, the carved pillars of the cave.

“Please—” I say again.

He spurs the horse onward, speaking words under his breath, the glow that’s emanating from him intensifying until I can see every leaf and patch of moss and carving outside the cave. Then we enter the dark opening, the light splashing inside turning it into a kind of temple with more pillars supporting a high ceiling that’s covered in ivy and hanging white flowers, a pool in the middle, still like a mirror.

“Embar, adel!” the Fae king clicks his tongue and I choke on a scream as Embar leaps into the pool.

Cold, burning ice scrapes over my skin, my face, my eyes, drying my mouth, crackling in my hair. We’re falling, levitating, falling again, spinning, blown about like the leaf I’d imagined myself to be before.

I’m gripping fistfuls of Embar’s mane, shaking, the Fae’s arm around my middle once more my anchor. I find myself grateful for his presence behind me, even knowing he’s the cause of all this. I close my eyes as if that could stop the vertigo, the feeling of weightlessness, the sense of being tossed about by sudden gusts of wind.

And then Embar whinnies and trots forward, splashing through shallow water.

We’re on a snowed meadow, clusters of trees in the distance, a town crowning a hill further on. The air smells of ice and some sort of resin, like pines, only more pungent.

It’s beautiful, quiet.

But then I notice that the sky is a pale pink all over, the clouds curling into spirals like snails, the trees look like giant mushrooms, and the town on the hill seems to be moving.

I squint at it as Embar’s hooves crunch over the snow. I must be seeing things. It’s the exhaustion. All the fear and tension are catching up with me.

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