Page 166 of Bride of the Fae Prince

“We’re almost there,” Edvear says as the full moon comes into view over the stair’s railing. It is almost to its zenith. I swallow against my parchment-dry throat.

Then I give a sudden sharp yank on Edvear’s arm and throw my weight into him, pressing him against the stair railing. It catches him off-guard just long enough for me to pin him.

And to press a glamoured knife to his throat.

The knife isn’t real, but I send the illusion of its sharpness, its lethal tip into Edvear’s mind.

He freezes, his cat’s eyes dilating in sudden fear.

“What have you told the High King?” I demand.

His hands come up in surrender, his face crumpling. “He was going to kill every one of my staff! I didn’t know what to do! I never wanted—”

Heavy, armed footsteps sound at the top of the staircase, beginning their descent. I react immediately, covering Edvear’s mouth with my hand and losing the glamoured knife.

They cannot find us like this, with me in control of Edvear, knowing the truth behind his betrayal. Not unless I want the High King to carry out his threats.

I could run, but the outcome would assuredly be the same.

“Grab me,” I mouth, and when he doesn’t move, I take his hand and clamp it down on my upper arm. Then I begin pulling against him, struggling just enough to get his eyes to widen, his mind to catch up with what I’m doing. Horror makes his mouth fall open, but he still does what I say, and begins dragging me the rest of the way up the steps.

Two winged guards meet us only a second later, and I don’t even have a chance to look back at Edvear before they grab me, lift me straight off my feet, and carry me between them the rest of the stairs. I struggle against their relentless grips even as my heart races and I wonder if I have just sacrificed myself for nothing.

Then, just before a strange, black door at the top of the staircase is opened, I tilt back my head and scream at the top of my lungs: “Ash!”

I’m flung to my hands and knees on a woven red rug, and the door behind me slams shut.

My hair falls around my face as I breathe in and out. I become aware of a second, softer breathing rhythm in the room with me.

Slowly, I lift my head.

The golden, sandaled feet before me are framed by heavy, white-gold robes that land in elegant folds on the ground. Two bejeweled hands hold the carved lion heads of the chair’s armrests.

Above that is a broad chest, an elegant neck, and a mask of living fire. The sunbeam crown glows upon his glorious head. Faradir takes one graceful hand, removes his mask, and lets his bright blue eyes fall to me. “Hello, Princess Stella.”

Coldness like winter rushes through my blood.

“I have bided my time until now,” the High King says. He reaches out one long-fingered hand, takes my jaw, and tilts it upso my neck is taut, exposed. I cannot even swallow, not as he strokes one line down my throat with his sharp nail.

I keep my eyes locked on his, on the way his gaze runs over me. My skin crawls, but I refuse to look away. Refuse to cower. Refuse to let my guard down for even a second.

He wants something from me. That is why he has brought me here, why he hasn’t slaughtered me already. If he wants something from me, then that means I have power. And if I have even a shred of power, then I am not completely helpless.

Not even before the High King of the Fae.

So I let him hold my jaw. I let him touch my neck—as if he wants to sink his fangs into my vulnerable flesh. I say nothing.

And I wait.

“You seem to have woven some spell over my son,” Faradir says, clicking his tongue. “Which shouldn’t surprise me, considering that you”—he gives the tip of my nose a little tap—“have glamour magic, don’t you?”

I keep my mouth firmly shut.

The room isn’t particularly large. Neither is it especially beautiful, or perhaps it only seems that way when a fae of such magnificent beauty such as the High King sits between its four dark mahogany walls. Vases with liquid of various levels line a row of shelves toward the back of the room. A table sits to one side with discarded cloths, discarded trays, little measuring beakers, funnels, and worn notebooks. Behind the rickety chair Faradir sits in now is another shelf that bears what almost seem like bits of flesh, floating in liquid.

Is this some sort of poison study room?

If it belongs to the High King, I can see where Ash got his fascination with poisons.

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