Page 58 of The Time Of Kings

“Look out!”

However, both came too late as my foot slipped and for the second time in my life…

I went over the cliff.

25

LIVING IN SIN

Time.

It was a fickle thing.

The way it seemed fated to come back around, making you relive certain moments you had once thought lost, long ago. Like the feeling of plummeting to what should have been certain death. However, I may have once lived as a mortal in a mortal world but that was no longer the case. For this was his world and in it, he was never going to let me fall. Never would he be prepared to let me go.

Never willing to let me die.

Even if it meant breaking my heart and leaving me. He would do it all, just to save me. Because death was not a Fate he would ever allow to happen. Which was why I was soon feeling his arms go around me before he spread his wings and soared back up into the air, preventing us from hitting the ground. I gripped tightly to his clothes, never able to get over my fear of heights despite spending many times like this in his arms. Often, he would take me back to our cave where we would spend the night away from all else. Away from duty and royal obligations. A secret place where only the two of us existed.

Our perfection.

Well, now I had no idea where he had taken me to, only that at some point I had forgotten to act like this was all new and frightening to me. Forgot that this should have freaked the hell out of me, enough to act like some screaming wild cat in his arms.

By the time he landed, we were far from the castle. Now surrounded by woodland and in a clearing that reminded me very much like the one we first met in. It was as though Fate was intervening and replaying like some time-travelling soap opera.

Oh, and yeah, he definitely noticed my lack of ‘oh shit, my fiancé just turned into a Demon with wings’ reaction. All it took from him was for a single raised brow down at me to have me shrugging my shoulders. Then his arms folded over his chest, making me add a nervous giggle to this. And all this before I did the sane thing and spun on a heel to start running for my future. Needless to say, this flight response of mine didn’t get me as far as I would have liked. Not when he opened his wings and took to the sky once more, and when I looked behind me to see how far he was, I found that he was gone. Which meant that I ended up barrelling straight into him instead as he landed right in front of me.

“Want to try that again, little human?” he asked, dropping any pretence of us being the same now that his supernatural side had fully emerged.

Although, it was nice to see his Angel in there, as there were no horns to speak of and his eyes were glowing purple rather than burning with crimson-red Hellfire. There was also no Hellish armour forged on his skin, nor were there scales on his wings, demonically tipped with talons.

Of course, the sight of Draven like this wasn’t exactly shocking anymore. The way his veins glowed purple beneath the skin, or the size of his impressive wingspan was a sight I hadseen many times before. Even the way his dark feathers ruffled before he folded them back behind his large frame was usually something that made me smile.

“Okay, so I know how this looks,” I said lamely, making him cross his arms once more and causing the material to tighten around his shoulders and biceps.

“Is that so? For it looks as though you have been keeping more than one secret from me…for now I believe there to be many,”he added when leaning forward slightly, impatience coating his words.

“Oh, and this coming from the guy with wings! Now that’s rich… You wanna talk about secrets, King of Kings?” I huffed, making him narrow his gaze down at me.

“Yes, and so it seems as though they were for naught, for I see now that my hopes of sparing you the frightening truth was a pointless endeavour,” he snapped back, making me roll my eyes at him.

“Oh please, it was to spare you the chance of having me want to run from you, and you know it!” I argued, and it did nothing to remove that frown from his face.

“Fear tends to make people run, yes,” he pointed out dryly.

“Yes, and wives even more so, especially when they learn they have married not a mortal like they were led to believe but a Demon King,” I pointed out.

He flinched at this because he knew as well as I did that was exactly what he had intended to do.

“Then I should have saved myself the bother and revealed myself to you from the start, for clearly you are no mere mortal yourself.”

I huffed at that again. But when he started to walk me backwards, doing so until my back hit a tree, I knew I had been backed into a corner…literally.

Especially when his wings came forward and I was caged in by feathers and flesh. I spiralled into my own past that night on the rooftop where he had done the same thing to prevent me from running. However, back then, what I had seen had given me more than enough cause to want to escape.

Now…not so much.

“I am just a human,” I stated, making him tsk down at me.

---