Page 35 of Cursed Shadows 1

Eamon’s arm stiffens around me. His fingers tighten on the meat of my shoulder.

I lift my head and frown at him, expecting he’s already looking at me, wondering why I’m in a sudden foul mood. But it’s not me he’s looking at, not me he’s reacting to.

His grip on me is protective. I realize that as I trace his hard stare across the courtyard to the shadows of an alcove where some dark fae gather. Contenders.

Daxeel is among them. And he’s looking over at us—no, he’s not paying me any mind, he’s got all that unreadable focus on his cousin. I think fleetingly of the fae earlier sizing each other up, reading one another.

Cousins they may be, but a slighted dark male warrior Daxeel is, and how he considers his cousin chills my insides.

Molten cobalt eyes made brighter by kohl lines, the darkness, the tousled inky hair brushing over his long lashes.

Then without so much as a glance my way, Daxeel turns his back on us. His tight black leathers ripple over his muscles with the movement. Even among his kind, he looks every bit the pure born killer.

While he has turned his back on us, we are not forgotten.

The dokkalf that Daxeel speaks to, his eyes are as yellow as a cat’s and they swerve over the courtyard, and land on us. He considers me, and only me, for a moment before turning back to Daxeel.

Nerves bite at me. It shows in the way I scratch and pick at the grey beaded bracelet I wear for luck.

My eyes are still on Daxeel’s friend with the cat eyes. “Who is that?”

“Rune,” Eamons tells me.

Rune might have turned back to Daxeel, but I study him still.

Cat-yellow eyes, burnt canary hair, and a golden hue to his complexion. I always thought if gold was a person, it would be Eamon. Now I think,what is the embodiment of the sun doing in the body of a dokkalf?

It’s a striking thought, almost as striking as how unsuited he is for the black armour he wears.

If he was born light, he would look divine in our traditional golden armour, the kind that the fae from the Sun Court wear.

My attention shifts to Rune’s side.

A smaller dokkalf steps out from the deeper shadows of the alcove. Not small, exactly, but her height and slenderness is slight enough to pinch my face with a frown. The litalf females are even taller and stronger than this dark female; she’s about the height as I am. I wonder, for a beat, if she’s a halfling, that her height like mine comes from her human side. But the more I look at her, the less likely that theory becomes.

“Aleana,” Eamon says, and I sound it out in my head,Ali-ana,before he strikes my thoughts silent with. “Dax’s sister.”

I blink, once, twice, then look up at my best friend with a parted mouth and a stupid look on my face.

Hissister?

I didn’t know…

I only ever thought he had a brother.

He seems to read me all too well with a reassuring smile. “She’s sickly,” he explains, his voice low enough that even those who wander too close don’t hear what he tells me. “And only around your age. Dax doesn’t tell many people about her.”

Not many dark female babes make it through pregnancy to birth. Less survive the birth itself, and even fewer make it through infancy. A reason for such small female numbers in their lands, and so many males. Another reason for their fidelity culture—there just aren’t enough females to go around.

But why does Daxeel keep his sister a secret? Is it shame—“Because she’s sickly?”

Eamon shakes his head. Those fine, silky braids rustle over one shoulder, and I notice the other side of his head is freshly shaven. “He’s protective of her. Aleana had a few scares—they weren’t always sure she would survive. This is the first I’ve seenherout.” He emphasises the last word, so I know he means out in the circles, the courts, the dances, the ceremonies.

I take in the cropped black hair that brushes over her shoulder blades, the weariness of her sharp eyes—diamond blue, where Dax’s are oceans—and the ashy pallor of her skin tone, one that doesn’t quite match the bronzed complexion of her brother. We might be around the same age, the same height, but there’s a weight she carries in the sag of her shoulders, and yet no weight at all in her slender frame.

If you told me she was human—and I overlooked the fae markings, like her sharp ears, her canines that glint when she speaks words I can’t hear from this distance, the pointed black nails, and the otherworldly essence that clings to her movements—then I’d think she was a pretty one. Very pretty.

“What’s the matter with her?” I ask as I study the silvery shine to her metallic, slinky dress, and I find it suits her cool complexion well.

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