Page 7 of The Shadow Heir

Each panicked thought pounded through my head to the beat of my pulse.

“You’re not going to steal me. Ignacio will be here any minute.”

“You mean the guard I put to sleep over there?”

I followed his gaze and ground my teeth as I spotted a dark shape on the garden’s path. Desperate, I tried again. “I’m the daughter of a wealthy man. He can pay you whatever you like.”

Behind me, the man’s chest shook twice as he chuckled. “Oh, but he’s already paid.”

My blood ran cold.

“You see,” he said, dropping the blade so I could spin out of his grip and look him in the eye, “he paid twenty years ago, when he bargained with the Shadow King for a child.”

My throat closed up, and my ragged breaths sawed through my lungs as I tried to breathe.

“You had your twenty years, now it’s time to come with us.” The man flicked the iron dagger aside the way someone might toss a piece of fruit when they discover a spot of hairy mold, then shoved his shirt sleeves up once more and hooked his thumbs on the top of his pants. He tilted his head so the moonlight rested against his upraised cheekbone and the bridge of his nose. Stupidly, I imagined him under a spotlight on a dance floor. He had the perfect thin yet strong build of a dancer. A panicked shiver raced down my spine at the thought of dancing with him.

He smiled. “You’re going to be fun.”

4

Zara

Hatred seethed out of my pores as I marched between the two men, away from my home and away from my family—dysfunctional as it was. This could not be happening.

But as I walked back into the woods, helpless to defeat these magical beings, I couldn’t tell if I hated them or my father more.

I’d known about his bargain since I was six years old, when Papá sat me down and told me about it against my mother’s wishes. It hadn’t made sense to me then, and over the years—other than my weapons training and my father’s unusual spurts of affection around my birthday—the bargain was never again mentioned except once. I was fifteen. My father had just betrothed himself to Nina after seven years as a widower. He had allowed me to be present while he told Nina of the curse on my life. She, of course, was appalled, but my father’s wealth beckoned louder than her fears. I would never forget the way she looked at me that night, as her expression of horrified shock transformed into one of quiet delight. In those eyes, her intentions were plain: she hoped to give birth to the heir whowould inherit Papá’s fortune, and I would be left to the whims of fate.

I stopped walking, too rattled by the reality that was starting to sink in.

The well-dressed fae I hadn’t stabbed, Felipe, paused before he crashed into me, but I could feel his breath over my shoulder.

I whirled on him, elbow first, and rejoiced as his eyes closed in the tiniest flash of discomfort. It might not have hurt his immortal, perfect body much, but at least I’d surprised him. His friend, marked by two bloodstains I’d given him, smirked.

“I can’t go with you,” I blurted out.

Felipe’s brown lips curled like drying apple peel. “You don’t have a choice. Your life belongs to the Shadow Court.”

I looked him up and down. Between his ostentatious black suit and baked-in look of disdain, he definitely seemed like he belonged in the shadows. “You said my father made the bargain twenty years ago. But twenty years ago, I wasn’t born yet.”

The man’s onyx eyes sparked as he shot a look at the other fae. “How old are you?” he asked me, eyes attempting to puncture me with their intensity.

My stomach knotted. “Nineteen.” It was true. At least for a handful of hours.

The other fae moved so quietly I spooked like a horse as his shirt brushed against my upper arm. “You can’t be nineteen. You are Zara Valencia Calderon, and you were born this day twenty years ago.”

These creeps knew my name.

“The time for your life in the mortal realm has come to an end,” he continued. “My father requires you at his court.”

“Yourfather?” I glanced between him and the suited fae.

His thick brows lifted. “We really don’t have time for questions. We can compel you to follow us, but we’d hoped you’d come willingly.”

I shook my head, desperation mounting.

The fae sighed. He was so tall that my head only reached to his collarbone, even though he slouched with his neck tipped sideways and his hips at a lazy tilt.

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