Page 5 of The Maleficent Faerie
He’s tall, and the arched peaks of his gigantic black wings make him look even more threatening. He has four horns, two on each side of his skull. Long black hair flows down to his waist, over a pauldron of dark metal. His muscled abdomen is bare, a foolish choice for a warrior in my opinion.
His face, upturned to mine, is pale, grim, and handsome, sharply carved as if someone cut him neatly from a block of white stone. Black brows slash over eyes as dark and deep as the Void itself, but with pupils of glowing green, like emerald stars. His hands are gloved in black from claw-tips to forearms, a telltale mark of the shadow magic he wields.
My gut churns, because even though I’ve never met the Maleficent One, I’ve seen him before, as clearly as I see him now. This creature has haunted my dreams ever since I met the Princess, ever since I knew that one day I might have to protect her from him. What scares me is the accuracy of those dreams, right down to the collar of raven feathers at the back of his neck and the black staff in his hand, with a glowing green stone at its tip.
“I know you.” The words jerk out of me, like splinters being plucked from a wound. “I’ve seen you before. In my nightmares.”
“Hair as gold as the Triune Suns.” His voice is liquid darkness, a living threat. “Eyes blue as the sky. Beautiful as the dawn for which you are named. It is good to see you again, Princess.”
2
I have her at last.
The Crown Princess of Caennith, the child of my two royal nemeses, protégé of the three fucking faeries who shamed me and foiled my plans nearly twenty-five years ago.
It’s as if Eonnula wanted me to have my prize. Dropped her into my lap, so to speak. Thank the goddess one of my ravens saw the Princess at the Lifegiving Festival and told me the routes she might take back to the summer palace. I sent a contingent of Edge-Knights to watch the main road, too, but I suspected the Princess would use the forest road. She’d want to beat her father back home so her little excursion could go undiscovered.
But my raven was wrong about one thing. He claimed the Princess’s bodyguard was with her at the Festival—a winged Fae woman with blue hair. There is no such woman here, only a frightened maid who crawled away into the trees when she thought I wasn’t looking. Perhaps I should send someone after her, just in case—
“My lord.” Fitzell, my second-in-command, speaks from her usual position on my right. “The passage we used will close soon. We should go.”
“One moment.” I press against the Princess’s energy with my shadows, hunting for the edges of glamours, for signs of deceit. But I’m distracted by the dissonance of her aura—like a song that has been dismantled and put back together in jumbled phrases, out of order. Strange…
“Lord King, you told me to let you know when we were running out of time.” Fitzell lifts her necklace, showing me the hourglass pendant. It’s glowing red, which means we have mere minutes to return to the portal. My other group of knights must have already retreated through it by now.
By the blessing of Eonnula, we were near the border when I received word of the Princess’s Festival appearance. Still, I feared we might not be able to take advantage of her unprotected state, since the window of opportunity was so narrow. Several of us worked together to create a temporary magical tunnel from Daenalla to Caennith so we could reach this area in time and avoid the border defenses. But now we need to get back through the tunnel before it closes, or we’ll be stuck in enemy territory.
No time to pry for glamours or analyze the Princess’s aura. I’ll explore it further once we’re back at camp.
“We ride.” I nod to Fitzell.
“Ride!” she cries to the others, and they take off through the forest, back the way we came.
I lift my staff and harden my will, forcing the Void magic under my command to take the shape of a tall, spindly steed whose body streams long ribbons of darkness. I swing astride the creature, slinging my staff onto my back, where leather loops hold it in place between my wings. After draping my wings on either side of my mount’s flanks, I tug on the shadows that hold the Princess.
She gasps as she’s yanked from her spot in midair and pulled back to my side. I seize her by the waist, plant her in front of me, and send our steed forward with a firm nudge of my will.
The Princess’s hand darts down and whips a short sword from the sheath at her hip. She’s almost quick enough to stab me, but I catch her wrist, squeezing hard enough to make her yelp and drop the weapon.
So easy. Poor little human—she’s not a challenge in the least—
Her head knocks back and smashes me in the face with a crunch of skull on bone.
“Fuck!” I spit, blood dribbling over my lips.
She’s already moving, leaping upright, her boot smashing into my groin as she launches herself off my steed.
“Godshit!” I croak, holding my crotch with one hand while I snag the Princess with a coil of Void magic. I jerk her back to me, flinging her across my mount on her belly this time, her golden hair spilling down one side and her legs dangling on the other. I lash her in place with shadows, then reset my broken nose with an unsettling click. Another minute, and it would have healed out of joint. I’d have had to break it again to fix my face.
The pain in my dick is abating, slowly. I shift on my steed, ignoring the backward glances of my knights as we continue through the forest at a swift gallop.
Later tonight, my knights will joke about how I nearly let the Princess escape. In fact I’ll probably hear about it for the next few decades—if our realm survives that long.
Keeping my voice low, I say, “That was a pointless effort, Princess. Someone should teach you better manners.” I eye her rounded bottom, clad in blue silk, temptingly presented to me in this new position. Her dress is backless, giving me a full view of her sharp shoulder blades and the valley of her spine, all the way down to that smooth, plump ass.
She’s writhing, fighting her shadow-bonds with surprising strength.
“Be still,” I command.
