Page 8 of The Lord of the Labyrinth

She crept down to the kitchen, glad to see that her father and Sandra were no longer there. She filled a bowl of water and grabbed some raw hamburger meat before she returned to her room. The owl was still sitting where she had left him.

“Here you go.” She set the bowl down and let out a sigh of relief when Handsome dipped his beak into the water and drank. “Now, try this.” She offered him a pinch of ground meat. “I bet you’ll think it’s tasty.” He took it reluctantly, but after he swallowed it, he clicked his beak excitedly as if pleased. She fed him piece by piece until he seemed satisfied. That should be enough for a few hours, she hoped.

She returned the leftover meat to the fridge but left the bowl of water on the floor in case he needed to drink. When she got back to her room, she found the owl all puffed up, his feathers fluffed and eyes half closed in contentment.

“Feeling better?” She chuckled. “I have to get to bed. It’s Christmas tomorrow, and I need to sleep if I have to deal with Sandra.” She couldn’t resist touching the owl one more time. Once he was at the rehab center, she might never have a chance like this again.

“You know, I think it was you who saved me tonight,” she whispered. “I don’t know where I would have ended up if you hadn’t crashed into my window. I might have kept driving in the dark and gotten lost. Or worse.”

The owl’s eyes opened wide, as if he understood. But that was crazy.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” She got back into bed, and the weariness she had carried all evening finally overtook her and she slipped into dreams. They were not happy ones.

Then something soft and smooth brushed against her cheek, and a clicking noise pulled her from her nightmares. She came face-to-face with the owl.

“How did you get up here? Did you fly?”

The creature’s head bobbed and swiveled, studying her room from this new angle. She sat up and scooped the owl into her arms, burying her face in Handsome’s feathers. She remembered a moment later that she was hugging a wild animal, but thankfully he didn’t hurt her. He let her hold him and take comfort in his soft white-and-gold feathers.

“I wish I could leave, that you could fly me away from here... I wish I could forget everything.”

She’d had similar thoughts before. Dreams of escape, of freedom. But she had always held back, thinking about her future, about school, about Caden. But right now, she had never meant anything more in her life. What a gift it would be to have the wings to fly far away from all the pain and the loneliness.

Take me away,she wished silently.Let me forget. I can’t hurt if I can’t remember.

Feathers fluttered against her cheek as the owl slipped out of her hold and dropped from the bed, only to rise. She gasped, because it was no longer an owl that stood before her.

It was a man.

She stared into the face of a beautiful stranger. Sharp blue eyes cut through her. His smooth lips were the only thing soft about the hard but angelic lines of his face. He was dressed in a black tunic and trousers. Pieces of shining armor covered his shoulders and arms, seeming to reflect the dark more than it did the light. Before she could speak or even summon a scream, the man grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her flush against his hard body.

Kate couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. When he spoke his tone was low, dark, and it intoxicated her senses.

“Your wish is granted, little one. You’re mine, now and forever. I shall steal you away by twilight.”

The broad swath of moonlight entering her bedroom window suddenly shattered into swirling beams like a kaleidoscope.

“Don’t fear, I have you.” The man’s arms tightened around her body as the world she knew vanished into shadow. They flew through the night, but it was not any night sky she recognized. Even the air had vanished. She tried to suck in a desperate breath but couldn’t. Her lungs screamed until she slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

Roan Arun,king of the Twilight Court, burst into the vast expanse of space between the human realm and his own. His arms were locked tight around the mortal as he barreled through stars and galaxies. The dust of a universe’s lost dreams clung to their bodies with their shimmering essence. Whispers of ancient worlds, stories older than the stars, teased his ears as they traveled faster and faster. He only prayed that he would reach his home without interference from the warriors of the Morning Court.

Flashes of white and silver lit up in his periphery. Damn, they had found him. He’d hoped they wouldn’t have been watching this path, but they must have known he’d been in the mortal world rather than his own.

Tapping into the dark magic within him, he cast a glamour around himself and the human woman. It was one of the strongest he could manage and would trick even the Seelie fools, if only for a short while. To them, he would appear as nothing but a flash of light. He had only to make it a little farther to reach the safety of his kingdom.

Just then, the mortal woman started to slip from his hold. Her hair whipped at his arms and her sooty lashes fluttered. With a roar, he pulled her away from the retreating tides of time that now tugged at her.

He would not surrender her, not now, not to anyone or anything. From the moment she’d touched him, colors and sensations had intensified for him, and he was hungry for more. Her warm body fit to his in the most perfect way. Roan had granted her wish, to free her of the place that had trapped her, and now she belonged to him, this beautiful little mortal with mournful eyes whose dreams made his chest ache in a way it never had before.

I will give you everything, little one. Everything. So long as you are mine.

With a final burst of strength, he penetrated the last barrier into his realm, along a Fae road that only he could follow. The wind carried him and his prize toward the distant palace of the Twilight Court.

The Seelie warriors dared not follow him into the dark woods. Not even their light shone bright enough to let them find a way out of the forest that covered his lands, and the closest they had dared to appear was upon the tallest of the Black Hills.

Roan careened toward the ground like a meteor, silver-and-blue flames trailing in his wake. If mortals knew that shooting stars were traveling Fae, they would never look at the night sky the same way again. Roan landed in a low crouch, the mortal woman cradled safely in his arms. Dust billowed out along the stone floors of the Twilight Palace, and the male and female Fae in his court fell silent at his abrupt entrance.

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