Page 138 of Flirting with Darkness

As Faolán stared down the pack leader, the wolf-headed one stepped between them. “She’s ours,” he said in a snarling voice, ivory teeth pale against the dark fur of his muzzle. “We saw her first.” He was taller than the leader but had to crane his neck to meet Faolán’s gaze. That didn’t stop him squaring his shoulders and baring his canines.

In the time it took me to blink, Faolán got his hand around the werewolf’s neck, and now the creature’s paw-like feet lifted from the floor.

None of the pack made a sound, just watched as Faolán turned his wrist. It took me long moments to realise the crunch that came with the movement was the werewolf’s neck breaking. That wolf head lolled to one side, then Faolán released his grip, and the creature slumped to the floor.

Clutching my chest, heart drumming against my palm, I stared at the body. Just a heap of flesh and bone with unseeing yellow eyes. Dead. So quickly.

Faolán’s chest rose and fell in the same calm rhythm it had before. He didn’t look at the dead werewolf. His face hadn’t even tensed like it was any effort for him. He looked so…casualabout the whole thing.

Something shifted in the air, pressing on my ears, so discomforting, I shuddered. It was like the feeling in the air before a storm, but a thousand times more intense. This had to be a warning—they were going to attack him for what he’d done.

Yet he didn’t look concerned.

“She is mine.” Faolán lifted his chin. “I ask one more time: will you stand in our way?”

The pack leader held his gaze.

Faolán was all stillness, the only movement those calm breaths.

At last, the leader lowered his head. “No.” His voice came out louder than Faolán’s, but it carried something his hadn’t: defeat.

The pack whined and shrunk away.

“Then I’ll accept your well-wishes for our marriage”—Faolán’s eyes narrowed as he nodded—“and bid you farewell.” He didn’t move, just stood there. This was their land, but in the spaces between his words, he’d just toldthemto leave.

I swallowed, caught between fear and admiration, because the leader backed off, not taking his yellow eyes off Faolán. With his pack, they took their fallen comrade’s body and melted away into the rocky shade without a sound.

Once they were gone, Faolán turned to face me at last, and his sheer size, the breadth of his shoulders, the width of his chest, the massive fucking height of the man had me backing away until I hit sheer rock. Then the image of what he’d just done had me pressing into that rock, like I could seep into it and disappear.

I didn’t need to wonder what he was. I knew enough. He was a creature of casual brutality. A creature for whom violence was normal. A monster.

And I’d agreed to marry him.

He eyed me. It wasn’t a cruel look: his wasn’t a cruel face. Hard and strong, yes, but not cruel. Not as the pack leader’s had been, with his sharp yellow eyes and sneering lips. Then again, I couldn’t see much of his face under the scruffy beard, just that his skin was tanned like a farmer’s. Whatever he did for the Night Queen, it was physical work.

He remained silent, though his head cocked briefly as though he was listening to something.

I shifted from one foot to the other, the silence pressing on my ears. “What now?”

“Come.” He nodded down one of the stone passages and started in that direction. His hulking shoulders brushed the rocks on either side.

Run.

I could.

I wouldn’t.

It would be stupid. The pack was still out there in the woods. He’d suggested there were even worse things in Elfhame.

Worse than the pack.

Worse than him.

I wasn’t sure that was possible. Because he’d just broken a werewolf’s neck like it was nothing more than swatting a fly.

And I was at his mercy.

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