Page 121 of Throne of Dreams
“How does it feel to be second best?” she taunted, circling around him, igniting the ill-tempered wrath building inside him. “How does it feel to know that Parisa values my brother more than she does you?”
“Shut your mouth, you bitch,” he snarled and dove for her, tackling her to the ground. Her sword of sunlight slipped from her grip against the strength of the blow, clattering onto the stone floor. Maeve strained for it, reaching with her left hand, but the tips of her fingers barely grazed its hilt.
Fearghal laughed, but it was rough and cruel. He held her to the ground, snaring both of her arms and pinning them above her head with one hand. She caught the flicker of nightshade in the dim light as he pressed the flattened length of his blade beneath her chin, tilting her face up to him.
“Maeve…”Tiernan’s panicked voice sounded in her mind.
She gritted her teeth.“Not yet.”
“It will be such apleasurewhen I carve you up again.” Fearghal’s sick threat loomed above her and his hideous grin widened. “Except this time, your scars won’t be so…” He traced the tip of his cold dagger around one of her tattoos. “Pretty.”
Maeve strained against him, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. Fearghal tracked the movement with his glowing eyes.
Typical fucking male.
“Perhaps I shall invite the High King to watch when I take you,” he murmured softly, bringing his grotesquely hot mouth by her ear. “Do you think he’d like that?”
Maeve laughed. Harsh. “Not a chance.”
She jerked upward, slamming her forehead into the bridge of his nose. Blood sputtered and he swore, instantly covering his face with his hands. Maeve rammed her elbow into his throat, so he choked. Wheezed. Throwing him off her, she rolled away, snatching her sword of sunlight from off the ground. She clambered away, bracing herself for his attack, when a low growl tore from between his lips and the world shifted. A glamour. He was going to shape shift. No chance in hell.
Fearghal threw his arms out, preparing to morph into whatever animal he chose. Black mangy fur coated his skin, his eyes took on a hellish gleam. Right as his jaws snapped, lunging for her throat, Maeve heaved her sword and plunged it directly into his heart.
He screamed, a convoluted howl, then fell to his knees.
Maeve attacked, throwing herself on him and tackling him to the ground. Straddling him, she tossed her sword aside and pulled out her Aurastone, driving it into him again and again.
He thrashed. Jerked. Twitched. The pungent scent of blood filled her nostrils as it pooled around his lifeless body, staining the stone beneath him. But the screaming didn’t stop. It continued until her throat was raw, until her tears dried to salt on her cheeks, until his chest was nothing but a pulpy mess of flesh beneath her revenge.
“Maeve.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a soothing baritone whispered her name. But she was too far gone to stop. She wouldn’t quit until there was nothing left. Until Fearghal was unrecognizable. Until she ended him completely.
“Enough,astora.”
She gasped, her Aurastone still clutched in her hand, as two strong hands hauled her up and away from the lifeless body sprawled on the ground. The earth surrounding them quaked, crumbling from the cavernous ceiling above.
“Out!” Tiernan yelled. “Everyone out!”
Maeve slumped against the hardened wall of his chest, unable to stop the broken sob ripping from her heart as he carried her out of the darkness.
ChapterThirty-Five
Maeve sat on the blackened earth with her back pressed firmly against Tiernan’s chest, his arms locked tightly around her. His knees were propped up on either side of her while he rested against the crumbling remains of a building.
Her body had not yet stopped trembling.
Saoirse was crouched in front of her, wiping the splatters of Fearghal’s blood from her face with a piece of fabric she’d torn from her blouse.
The Furies kept watch. Though sunken in and scarcely human, the look of awe and something that could’ve been mistaken for concern haunted the planes of their faces.
Tethra looked upon Maeve, then glanced over at his brothers. “Remind me to never piss her off.”
His comment elicited no response from his queen.
She simply sat there, cradled in Tiernan’s arms, unmoving. Her mind was numb, lost to the terrors of what she’d just done. Lost to the agony of her past, of all that was taken from her. Of all she’d destroyed.
Those mortals within the Scathing…in a matter of seconds, she’d erased their very souls from existence. Was that all she was now? Magic, and power, and death? Was this to be her entire existence? Just defeat the dark fae, kill Parisa, then become an empty husk of a soul with no purpose unless someone needed to be murdered?
