Page 523 of Flirting with Darkness

I had to make it inside. Then maybe I'd have a chance.

And my parents might live, because surely these Fae would spill their blood as easily as they spilt laughter.

One moment, the Fae were behind me, walking languidly across the grass lawn, looking as out-of-place and beautiful as marble statues in the midst of a Wal-Mart. The next, two of them were in front of me on the porch. They were so close I could smell them, the scent of twilight and dew on a humid night, and they leered down at me as they stepped closer.

“You know who lives in this house?” The tallest Fae demanded. “Call them. Call them or I’ll gut you now.”

He pressed a knife to my throat so quickly I never even saw it move. The sharp, cold edge bit against my throat, and I couldn’t tell if he’d already cut me or not. I didn’t dare look down to see if I was bleeding.

“No,” I said.

“We can’t go in if she doesn’t invite us,” one of them pouted, and another glared at her.

“She doesn’t need to know that.” He hissed at her.

“Run then,” the one with the knife said. “You’re boring me.”

He pulled the knife away from my throat suddenly. “I said run.”

I took a step back and slammed into a hard, powerful body. Terror swept through me even higher at the realization they weren’t going to let me run. It had just been a trick.

The Fae around me suddenly looked up, terror written across their faces.

“Hide.” The prince ordered, and his familiar voice brought a sense of relief so powerful I could’ve fallen to my knees.

He pushed me to one side. My legs began working again, and I fled the porch, my feet slipping on the wet floorboards before I landed on the wet earth.

I only turned back when I was at the tree house, ready to scramble up that old ladder.

He moved with that inhuman speed. He took the knife from the Fae who had held it on me.

“You dared raise a knife to my bride’s throat?” he demanded. His fingers wrapped the hilt and though the Fae tried to run, Tor punched into him with the knife still wrapped in his hand, both his fist and the blade sinking into the Fae’s flesh.

He kept going, until the six Fae were all scattered across the yard, broken cries leaking from the survivors’ throats, silvery blood coated the grass like spray paint.

The glowing fairy swept past me, trying to escape.

Then he was beside me, clapping his hands. He crushed the fairy and then let her drop. His palms were covered in luminescent blood.

He turned to meet my gaze. His face was livid, his eyes blazing. He was painted in the blood of those he had just killed.

I took a step back from him involuntarily, then raised my chin. The air seemed to crackle between us. He’d come to rescue me.

And I was thankful to be alive… but I wished Tor had come instead.

11

The prince swept me off my feet.

“Put me down!” I cried, feeling a fresh surge of fear.

“Whenever you walk anywhere, you walk into trouble,” he told me. “I’m merely trying to save us both some trouble.”

“Is that why Tor ate the fairy?” I demanded. “Because they’re dangerous?”

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then snapped back into his usual cool facade. “You saw him eat a fairy?”

“Yes!”

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