Page 3 of Brutal Fae King
My skin prickles in terror—my body’s paralyzed. I’d only ever heard tales of the raids. My mother used to tell me about how the fae used to come for the women of the village and take them away, never to be seen again. I just assumed that she was telling us tall tales to scare us away from being inside the forest when it grew dark.
But… it’s real…
“Ebelor!” Maribelle wheezes. “What do we do?!”
I turn to her and open my mouth-
Asmashcauses me to whip around, and I see them.
They all tower over me, every one of them. They wear black, spiked armor, including obscuring helmets, their eyes hidden. They barely fit through our front door, the spikes on their shoulders spread so wide. As three of them barge into our house, their iridescent insect wings spread wide. Each one of the wings is as big as my leg is.
I back away. My heart feels like it’s throbbing—it’s beating so hard.
The dark fae leading the crowd looks over their shoulder:
“Captain! There are two more in here!”
The dark fae start striding in—there are five of them now, walking right on in.
My chest is tight. I can barely breathe, but I suck in a breath and squeak:
“G-get out of our house!”
They all turn their gazes on me. There’s a rumbling of dark laughter among the group. A voice echoes in from the outside.
“Take them both!”
As the terror cascades through me, it’s followed up by a bolt of rage. The soldiers start walking toward Maribelle. She screams—to the best of her ability—but it comes out as a weak croak.
Another bolt of rage crashes through me:No! NO, YOU DO NOT TOUCH MY SISTER!
The rage keeps coursing through me like a waterfall, smashing, crashing, swirling, and frothing. It all seems to boil in my torso, filling my stomach and swelling in my chest until I have so much hot rage in me that I can’t contain it anymore.
I thrust my palm out toward them.
“NO!”I scream
With a mightyBANG,a bolt of lightning strikes across the room. It hits one dark fae and sends them tumbling across the room. They all gasp and start backing off.
My head’s whirling already; my powers already take so much out of me. But I keep firing lightning into the room. The dark fae back away, and I run forward to Maribelle’s bedside. I lean on the side of the bed, heaving in breath.
“Ebelor!” my sister begs.
“It’ll be okay, Mari,” I pant. “It’ll be okay…”
My head is reeling. My vision grows dimmer and dimmer. My chest is spasming—I just can’t catch my breath.
“Captain! This human! She-she has magic!” one of the knights calls out toward the door.
“What?”
Another dark fae comes in through our doorway. Bigger than the last few, spikier. It’s a hulking mass of a being.
“Very well,” they growl. “Leave this house. I shall handle this one.”
“What about the other one?” one of the dark fae asks.
“She’s on her deathbed from Weeping Fever; it’s useless to take her,” the Captain answers.
