Page 5 of Taken to the Shadow Realm

But it was no use. How many times would I continue to fight? How many times would I continue to fail?

For years, I had been losing the fight. And what remained, I’d spent pulling that fire alarm.

“I’m sorry, Father,” I said in a meek voice, interrupting his ramblings. “The next one, I swear. This one wasn’t good enough for our family name.”

Father let out a scoff.

“As if you know what’s good for our family,” he hissed. His grubby finger was in my face, his eyes narrowed. “I warned you you wouldn’t like what came after. I meant it. Tomorrow night. At ten, in the foyer. Doll yourself up.”

He tugged at his suit jacket with a huff, an annoyed tic of his.

My blood froze when I digested the meaning of his words. It was enough for me to snap back into my body and for tears to prick my eyes.

This isn’t a standard meeting.

All the others had been during the day and outside. Whoever I was meeting… I was already worried about what my father had promised them.

The next day, I waited down in the foyer for him wearing the same dress I always did when meeting these men.

It was a red off-the-shoulder dress with a neckline lower than I usually felt comfortable with. The dress was made of a flowy yet thin fabric that melded to my body, giving them a look at the only thing they really wanted to see.

My mind had gone through scenario after scenario all night long. My anxiety was through the roof. I had an inkling of what he had promised the man and I didn’t know what would be worse.

His promise, or what would happen if I ran off on yet another one.

It was twenty past ten when I started to worry. I checked my phone again, my eyes drifting to the door. I hadn’t heard my parents welcome him yet.

Did he run off? Or heard of my reputation?

I was scared of what my father would say. Of what the consequences would be if I managed to chase off another suitor.

Yet a different part of me, one that I normally hid behind locked doors in the recesses of my mind, felt relief that I wouldn’t have to entertain another man.

How long is this going to go on?

I thought about it often, but I knew. This would never end. Not until my belly was heavy with some random man’s kid that would someday take my family’s name.

There was suddenly a burst of color coming from the corner of the room, and it caused me to jump. My head swiveled to it, only to come face-to-face with something I’d only seen in my nightmares.

She was crawling over the couch toward me, long hair white as snow, large bloodred wings spreading behind her. If the wings or her red eyes didn’t tell me she was otherworldly, the long horns that curled back around her head would have been more than enough.

Pink flowed from her, along with fragments of yellow and green, all of them painting a picture of her thoughts about me.

I jerked back, trying to get as far away from her as possible, but her hand snapped out to grab my ankle. It was cold and claw-tipped. The talons on her fingers were sharp and brushed against my skin gently, but the threat of what they could do to me was loud and clear.

I held in my shriek, not wanting to draw attention to this room.

This is not real. I’m just so stressed I’m hallucinating.

Obviously, that was the true answer. Yes. All the stress of being passed around from man to man was making me see things.

Right. That’s it. I’m seeing shit.

I needed to stop daydreaming about being saved from my reality by being whisked away to another world, or else seeing random demon fairies was going to be the consequence.

I tried to blink rapidly to dispel the image in front of me, but nothing I did worked. I even pinched the meaty part of my thigh, but the thing was still there, her red eyes watching me intently.

Then she inhaled deeply through her nose, a small humming noise coming from her throat.

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