Page 112 of The Cursed Kingdom

His muscles flex underneath my fingers, and his nostrils flare as he stares at Lill over the top of my head.

“She hasn’t done anything wrong,” I plead, needing him to hear me. “Please. She’s been here fortwentyyears. She was just a child when she came here.”

Something grabs me from behind. A pair of thin, cold fingers wrap around my shoulders and yank me away from Kie with surprising strength. I stumble against Lill’s chest, but before she can do anything else, Kie lunges forward.

I feel like a yo-yo as I’m yoinked out of Lill’s grasp and shoved behind Kie.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” he spits at Lill.

Lill’s not in a condition to hurt me even if she wanted to, and I fight to break out from behind Kie as Lill wavers on her feet. I thought she was gaunt before, but it’s nothing to how she is now. Her hair is thin, and she’s drowning in my fitted sweatshirt.

Despite it, there’s a fire in her eyes I haven’t seen in years.

She stares Kie down, confidently meeting him toe to toe, while I continue trying to fight my way between them. Does she know who he is?

“Kieran,” she says, answering my question. She definitely knows who he is. “What—”

Kie, while still holding me behind himself, grabs Lill by the neck. His gloved fingers curl around her thin throat, choking her with unnerving ease. She’s too fragile to fight back, too weak, and I let out a pained cry as I fight my way between them.

It’s impossible to get past Kie, though. He’s too fucking big.

“Where is she?” he spits at Lill.Where’s who?

Kie’s voice is cold, void of the annoying personality I’ve grown accustomed to the past few days. It reminds me of how he spoke the first time we met—when he called me a persistent bug and spoke so casually with Mason about killing me.

Even the purple plastic tiara still on his head isn’t enough to lessen his intimidation.

Lill opens her mouth, but all that comes out is a pained squeak.

Kie’s gloved fingers flex around her throat before he turns his head sharply to the left. I recognize the way the air begins to ripple, and it feels like the oxygen is sucked out of the room as the air is violently ripped to the side to reveal a dark, stone corridor.

Magic swirls everywhere I look, the thin specks standing out against the empty passageway.

Lill is shoved through the portal first, and I cry out as she lands painfully on her hands and knees.

Everything is happening too fast, and I find myself tripping over my feet as Kie forces me through next. He’s not hurting me, but he’s not being gentle as he steps into the corridor and the portal shuts behind him, trapping me in the faerie realm once more.

Chapter Forty-Seven

KIERAN

ABBY IS SCREAMING bloody fucking murder.

I grab Lillian and pull her to her feet. The faerie stumbles over herself, the uncoordinated movements showcasing just how weak she’s gotten over the years. Or, at least, that’s what shewantsme to think.

She tracks every one of Abby’s movements with fervor, her eyes never leaving the human despite my attempts to place myself between them. It infuriates me, and I barely resist the urge to stick my fingers in Lillian’s sunken eyes to stop her.

Mason wouldn’t have the restraint.

I never thought I’d see Lillian again, not after she and her mother disappeared all those years ago. It was as if they vanished off the face of the planet, and it appears they did. They were smart to hide in the human realm, one of the few places faeries refuse to travel due to the lack of magic. It’s a miracle Lillian survived there this long. How?

Where’s her mother?

I was still just a child when they disappeared, but I distinctly remember how fiercely protective Callie was of Lillian. It was the only honorable thing about my father’s mistress.

Abby continues screaming, her voice high-pitched and screechy. It’s the tone she uses whenever I do something to make her angry, but it’s laced with a panic I’ve never heard from her before.

I think, under different circumstances, it would stop me in my tracks.

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