Page 35 of The Forbidden Fae King

They look like lambs led to a slaughter, startled by the butcher’s blade.

My attention lingers and lingers on them. On one with a curvaceous body, with a generous swell of breasts and the sweetest curve of hips, hidden beneath a green dress. She has a magnetism that pulls at me.

I drag my attention back to Cyprien’s warriors charging down the slope, double taking.

Men and women pour from the hilltop, double the amount he initially revealed. The sun glints off the metal of their swords and the plates in their armor. The air rumbles with the crashing of their boots and the yells of their attack.

“To me!” I yell at my loyal band of exiles. “Forget the spriggans. Do not let them take the human girls.” I point my sword at the humans stepping out of that damned portal.

My people rally to either side of me, and we form a wall of bodies. The few kelpies of my band transform to their half-humanoid and half horse shape, pulling free the weapons strapped to their sides. They stride eagerly back and forth across our line, without the discipline to hold position.

“Do not kill Cyprien’s guard.” I growl. “I will not have any deaths from the Spring Court on my conscience.”

“Makes our job a hell of a lot harder.” Silvan grunts at my side, pulling throwing knives from their sheaths strapped to his thighs.

“I didn’t say you can’t maim.” I ignore the smirk that forms on his face.

The enemy streams down the hill. I wait for them to enter the reach of my magic, calculating the speed of each body and their position in the next moment. The first boots land within my domain and I allow them to trek through it, for more to enter before I spring my trap.

I thrust my power down into earth and pull up the roots beneath their feet, belonging to the surrounding ancient trees. The thick lengths elongate into spikes that crush up through the ground, forming a woody wall between Cyprien’s people and mine.

Soldiers crash into that sudden barrier at full speed and the crack of their bones reaches my ears. The second wave of warriors hack at the roots, slicing through them with swords. I pull more roots out of the ground, plucking up soldiers and wrapping them up within woody binds.

None would even attempt to rival my magic to wrest control of the roots from me.

Cyprien conjures a localized wind volley that picks up dust and branches alike, forcing me to shield my eyes from the dirt that flicks in my face. With that tempest, he snaps multiple sections of my wall and walks straight through it.

A ripple of anticipation runs through my band as the enemy falls upon us. Sweat drips down my back and my muscles tighten in preparation.

In a great crash of their air shields against our air shields, bodies against bodies, a clap of thunder rises from us. My teeth jar as the impact runs through my bones and my feet slide back in the dirt, but I hold my stance.

The enemy soldier before me bears his teeth. It is all I can see of his face beneath a helmet with a nose and cheek guards. His sword swings at me and I evade the strike, catching it on the spiked armor of my forearm, reinforced by a shield of air. Sparks fly as the blade slides away and the metal against metal releases a high screech.

I kick the man in the center of his torso and propel him away with a blast of air, his body arching through the air and colliding with a tree trunk. With a flick of my hand, I have the branches wrap aroundhim, pinning him in place, but he uses the same vein of magic to part the flesh of the entire trunk in two and slip through the back of it, healing the tree as he retreats.

Kai bolts before me, the hooves of his powerful equine legs beating against the ground, and shoots an enemy rushing toward our line with a jet of water. The kelpie rears on its hind legs, kicking another in the chest, then speeds away. There is a huge smile on his humanoid face.

These lower fae are absolute chaos on a battlefield.

An arrow whistles past me, nicking the bare flesh of my shoulder. The wound is shallow, but it hurts like hell. The sting radiates throughout my muscle. Iron arrows with ash shafts. It takes longer than it should to heal.

“Gods damn you, Cyprien! You’re going to kill someone!” I scream, looking for him on the battlefield.

Hawthorne has a shaft through his thigh and two of Cyprien’s warriors are binding his arms in iron where he kneels.

A rage runs hot through me, powering my every muscle and focusing my attention on Cyprien. That fool would have saved us both a lot of heartache over our lifetimes if he listened to me.

I stalk straight to him, parting the battlefield around me with a huge gust of wind that picks up all the fae in my path, tossing the enemy force like ragdolls and wrapping them in roots on the ground, and gently placing my own people back on their feet. It expends far too much of my power.

I swing my sword in loops as I approach Cyprien, pooling all of my menace into my words. “Call your people off. Let us have a rational conversation. I don’t want to hurt you,”,” I say through gritted teeth.

He sends the sword out of my hand with a sharp slap of wind, then has roots grab my ankles from under the earth.

“Well, now, you're really pissing me off,” I snap.

Cyprien laughs, but there is no mirth in it. “We can talk when I have you in iron chains.”

I unsheathe my daggers and throw them at him, toward his armsand legs, and run into my attack, snapping the twigs wrapped around my feet. A battle of whirlwinds erupts around us, as my magic tries to guide the blades and his to throw them off course. Every single one slices into his flesh, in gashes too shallow for my liking.

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