Page 1 of Fae Reckoning

1.BY A DRAGON’S TENDER SWINGING BALLS, BY A BABY DRAGON’S SLIMY PHLEGM

ELOWYN

The air was a stifling, oppressive black. I attempted to draw in a breath of it beyond a suffocating weight. I sucked through my nose, gaped through my mouth—and pulled in only an incomplete, insufficient inhale.

A mass as large and dense as a boulder compressed my chest and belly, immobilized my arms and legs, and sent agony racing up and down my battered body. For too many panicked seconds I wondered if I’d failed. Perhaps I hadn’t properly activated the mysterious map that glowed an eerie crimson along my body. After all, I’d only guessed as to how it worked. I was unaware both of its origin and meaning. Maybe I’d only imagined the connection I’d felt to Rush across the murderous forest to the faraway palace. Last I’d seen him, he didn’t remember who I was—or who I was to him.

Had I succeeded in transporting my friendsand myself away from the queen? Or had I condemned us all to her hideous vengeance?

I dragged in a mostly empty, ragged breath and forced open my eyes. It was still dark, but stars winked in my vision. Someone groaned somewhere, far beyond the throbbing in my body. The boulder slowly asphyxiating me shifted to one side, and I rasped in a loud, jagged inhale that wasn’t enough but was still better—I’d fucking take it.

Encircling me, more grunts and groans filled the elusive air.

“By a dragon’s tender swinging balls,” wheezed a voice I’d recognize anywhere despite its uncommonly thready nature.

Xeno. My oldest friend.

“Get the fuck off her, Bolt,” he croaked, his voice growing stronger.

Bolt?Rush’s horse was the one killing me slowly when the queen would fell thousands of her own subjects for that privilege?

“Get off,” Xeno snarled, but the command lacked the dragon protector’s usual power.

Bolt’s massive body merely twitched.

More stars twinkled in my vision, stretching toward each other, connecting into bright patches, chasing away the darkness. At least they were pretty.

Xeno grunted with effort, and Bolt slid off me a few inches.

My immediate breath was a desperate, croakinggasp.

“Guys,” Xeno called in the opposite direction. “Help me. Bolt’s crushing Elowyn.”

Was he hurt? Xeno was a shifter, and usually strong as a bull, enough to maneuver a horse on his own.

More groans preceded scuffing—and then Bolt was pushed off me. The horse did nothing to soften his fall, sliding to land beside me with a dull thud.

“Wyn. Wyn, you okay?” Xeno asked, urgency crispening his voice.

I could only breathe and blink away the stars. They gradually receded, and eventually I blinked up into Xeno’s face. His brow was furrowed, his lips pinched tight. His hair was shaggier than when I’d left him so abruptly in the Wilds, the dark strands long enough to curl around his chin had they not been stuck to each other in thick clumps, possibly still from the umbracs’ gunky poison I’d survived alongside him.

“Wyn…” he repeated, before glancing behind him. “Shit. I think she got hurt. She’s not saying anything.”

“She was already hurt.” That was Edsel, though he sounded as rough as rolling thunder.

Xeno’s hand grazed my shoulder while he scrutinized my body. Even with my vision restored to normal, it was still dark, but Xeno was part dragon. He’d be noticing the great damage my body had suffered since the magic of the Fae Heir Trials had yanked me away from him.

“Wyn,” he uttered yet again, this time in a concerned whisper barely audible above the manygroans that filled the space like a chorus. Where were we, anyway?

“I’m fine.” But my assurance was too weak, too faint, and Xeno’s brows and lips only pinched harder. “I’llbefine,” I amended, unsure whether it was true. How many times could a woman be crushed before she was too broken to be repaired?

At least one more fucking time.

I cleared my uncomfortably dry throat and nodded, ignoring tugging wounds. “X, I’m fine. Promise.”

The surprise encounter with the queen in the forest coalesced into distinct scenes I could examine, and my eyes widened in terror. I went to propel myself to sitting, failed utterly, and told Xeno, “Saffron. By blazing sunshine, tell me he’s alright.”

The dragonling had been curled around my back before the map had—apparently—succeeded in taking us … well, wherever the hell this dark room was. From my prone vantage point, I could distinguish dilapidated wooden walls, a dirt floor, and not much else. It was like arriving all over again in the hidey-hole where the queen had hidden my mother for most of my life.

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