Page 361 of Primal Bonds

His claws slid out. He glared up at the fae, chest heaving.

She gazed back, a smile on her lips. Darkness slithered around the two of them as if the very shadows had come alive.

Rosana growled and took a step forward. “Are you feeding on him?”

The woman pinned her with an icy midnight gaze. “Come any closer, and I’ll freeze you, too.”

Rosana stilled until the fae turned her attention back to Luc. Then she twisted her arms around her body, trying to reach the stiletto in her back pocket. Luc might be a cabrão, but she was damned if she’d stand by while the woman tortured him.

But before she could work the stiletto free, the fae released the pendant and straightened up. Luc’s head dropped to his chest. His breath sawed in and out, the sound harsh in the quiet clearing, as the frost slowly receded.

Rosana brought her hands back in front of her body.

“You will bring me Adric Savonett,” his mistress said. “That’s an order, Luc.”

The earth fada’s head came up, eyes blazing with hatred.

The fae lady only smiled before turning to Rosana. “The Rock Run alpha’s sister, hm?”

Rosana swallowed queasily. Then she pulled back her shoulders.

“That’s me. And if you’re smart, you’ll let me go, because my brother will come after you with everything he has. Hang on to me, and you’re a dead woman.”

“I’ll let the prince worry about that. Come.” She held out an imperious hand.

Rosana found her feet moving. Long fingers clamped around her arm, cold even through her hoodie.

Ice fae, Rosana realized. The woman was an ice fae/night fae mix, her scent a swirl of snow and decay.

“Go,” the fae told the still-kneeling man. “Find Adric and bring him to me. And this time, don’t fail me.”

He rose slowly, painfully, to his feet as if every bone in his body ached. “To New Moon?”

“Yes. I’ll instruct the wards to allow you both to enter.”

Rosana swallowed. If only she could warn Adric somehow. But she could do nothing but stand by helplessly as Luc trudged back to the car.

Blaer murmured something in fae and the air around them bent in a dizzying way. Rosana braced herself to be teleported, and then the bottom dropped out of the forest. For a vertiginous moment, everything went black, and then the two of them reappeared inside a large, dimly lit room.

Rosana’s eyes went night glow.

They were in a large, quietly elegant library. The walls were lined with books, the floor a cold white marble veined with black. The tall, narrow windows were covered with dark shades, the only illumination a few fae lights the color of black opals floating near the ceiling.

At one end of the room was a graceful Art Nouveau sofa and two chairs in a blue burnout velvet, and at the other end, a wide mahogany desk gleamed. Museum-quality statues of smooth black stone were scattered on pedestals around the room: a snarling panther, a feathered raven, a winged woman with flowers spilling from her hands. A table near the window held a silver vase with a single red rose.

Rosana’s heart jittered. She could’ve sworn the room was empty—she hadn’t even scented him—but now a man was seated at the table near the window. Like Blaer in the forest earlier, it was as if he’d coalesced from the shadows themselves.

A night fae, casually dressed in a loose white shirt and black pants, his pale, elegant feet bare. One long-fingered hand toyed with a pair of black dice.

Prince Langdon.

He tossed the dice on the table. She watched, stunned, as they transformed into two iridescent blue butterflies and flew away to perch on the snarling panther’s head.

The prince rose to his feet. Onyx eyes examined Rosana.

Power emanated from him. Cold. Dark. And so strong she could literally feel it, like an icy black ocean sucking at her.

“Lady Blaer,” he murmured without taking his gaze from Rosana. “What have you brought me?”

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