Page 18 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
My mother leaned toward me, placing her hand over mine and gently prying my talons from the wood.
“You’re safe now,” she whispered, reaching across me to disengage my other hand. “I will keep you safe this time.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it before I could speak the truth aloud—that it had been a long time since I could trust anyone with my safety, let alone her.
A deep voice echoed through my mind, through my soul.
I protect what belongs to me.
But I hadn’t truly belonged to Draven, not then and sure as hells not now.
“No one is ever truly safe. Isn’t that what you taught me?”What my childhood would have taught me, even if you hadn’t drilled the words into my head like a warrior’s mantra.
She wrapped her arms around me, shielding me from my uncle’s disappointed gaze.
“I just need you to trust me, Everly. Please.”
Her low murmur sounded so desperate that I squeezed her tighter, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to agree. Perhaps my unwilling husband had rubbed off on me somewhere along the way.
I wasn’t sure that I trusted anyone anymore.
Everly
I awoke to screaming.
My heartbeat pounded frantically in my chest, my body viscerally remembering a different kind of wailing, a child in the snow. Blood spilling from the arrow in my husband’s chest.
But these shouts were different. Adult, male. Angry instead of desperate.
What in the frosted hells is going on?
I tore out of bed, stopping only long enough to grab my dagger before wrenching my door open. Zerina wasn’t in the hall.
My heart beat faster, thundering in my ears and muffling the sounds of fighting.
My mother was out there, somewhere. I had just gotten her back, and now she was under attack.
I let my wings expand as I all but sprinted down the hall, stopping just short of running into my reluctant guard.
She held her fingers to her lips while motioning with her dagger for me to return to my room. I shook my head, pulling open the door before she could read my intent.
She cursed under her breath, following me out into the chaos.
The courtyard was a storm of wings and steel. Torchlight splintered against blades, flaring across armored warriors and the gleam of sweat-slicked bodies.
New fae swarmed the grounds, their wings broader and heavier than the Shadow Clan’s, like they were built for thin mountain air and brutal storms.
The membranes were thicker, clawed ridges running along the edges where curved talons hooked sharp as climbing spikes. Wicked blades were strapped to the outer joints, turning each wingbeat into the promise of a killing strike.
Their leathers and armor were strange too, marked with sigils I didn’t recognize. A cliff-dwelling clan, but which one, I couldn’t be sure.
They moved with disciplined precision, fanning out in sharp arcs, pressing back my mother’s guard. The clash of steel rang out, underscored by snarls of challenge and the dull thud of fists against flesh. One fae slammed into a wall hard enough to splinter wood, shaking snow loose from the eaves above.
My gaze darted wildly across the melee. Wings beat the air, blades flashed in the firelight, but I couldn’t find her. Panic clawed up my throat. She was out there. She had to be.
My breath snagged in my chest, until a shadow dropped over the courtyard and a voice bellowed over the fray.
“Enough!”
