Page 27 of The Shadow Fae Rhapsody
Thank my husband.
But I don’t dare utter my gratitude to the man, not when he is still brimming with rage. His piercing gaze is drawing a hole in my chest.
I exhale slowly. “I was just trying to do the right thing.”
Silent, black wrath gleams in his ochre eyes. “The foolish thing.”
I ignore the barb in his words as it pierces my heart. Svenn doesn’t get to speak to me like this. I wrench my hand from his hold. His grip on me tightens.
He’s far too strong for me to fight off physically. I should be scared of him. This vampire had just ripped a sorcerer from the safety of his domain, slaughter countless of beasts with just a simple gesture of his hand.
But instead of fear I find myself angry at the dismissal in his voice.
“I want you to let go,” I tell him sharply.
“Say it again and mean it.” His tone darkening like quiet thunder.
I lost the last grain of my calm. “Let me go.”
He looks hurt for a split second before he releases me.
“You can’t stop for two seconds and tell me of your plan?” he asks. There is a rare edge in his voice, one he never uses on me.
I didn’t have time. They’re planning to lock him after that meeting.
“If you needed those rats to be dead, I would have done it for you ages ago,” he rasps, shaking his head like he’s disappointed in me.
I slowly arrange my retort to bite back at him—but wait.
A sharp pain digs into my chest when his words slowly sink in.
“You knew about the monsters in sewer?” I ask with a shaky breath.
Something dangerous flickers in his eyes. “The same way I know a spider is about to devour a fly in an alley five streets from here, a pair of swans are cruising in the nearby lake. Of course I know.”
My heart crashes, burns and dies in my chest. The glimpse of the corpses and poor souls who died in the sorcerer’s hand flashes in my mind.
Svenn knew all along.
All those deaths… and he did nothing.
“If you have the power to help, then why didn’t you use it to save those people?” I fight the tears in my voice.
A crease forms between his brows. Svenn stares at me for a long moment, as though he can’t make sense of what I just said. All the anger on his face has drained, replaced by confusion.
He removes his dismayed gaze from mine and retreats a step back. Wings sprout behind his back, dark membranes with sharp edges arching towards the heavens.
“Wait, Svenn—”
In a whisper of the wind, he is gone.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” I scream to the cloudless night.
My throat constricts and I can’t breathe.
Oh gods. Oh gods. He left…
“Svenn…” I squeak to the night air. “Come back…”
