Page 9 of Stolen By Shadow Beasts

The bastard doesn’t even react, and my skin is burning like it’s on fire.

“Run!” Rayne shouts. “Get out of here!”

And somehow I know he doesn’t believe he’ll survive this.

Like hell I’ll let that happen. I just found my mate; I’m not about to lose him.

Gritting my teeth, I grab the hilt and pull the dagger out of its back, then I start to stab it over and over again. The creature snarls and suddenly springs off of Rayne and onto me.

Rayne shouts my name, and it feels like a scalding blanket is on top of me. It’s hard to breathe. Hard even to fight. I don’t know how Rayne was still struggling against this thing, but I’m already starting to slow.

And then the demon’s eyes widen, and it collapses on top of me. Rayne shoves it off, and he’s there in a second, pulling me to his chest. We’re both breathing hard, staring at the demon that almost killed us both.

“How did you stop it?” I finally manage, my voice terrified.

After a minute, he whispers, “With my mind.”

I look up at him, and he stares down at me. Rayne just used the powers of a dark fae. Whatever this secret order was afraid of, by sending this creature after us, they’d unlocked it. If Rayne could use this power, after establishing that the history of the dark fae isn’t what everyone has been led to believe, it’ll change our world.

“So, this is done?” I ask, the words coming out shaky.

He looks back at the demon. “No, I’m afraid it’s all just beginning.”

I think of my stepfather. “Teach me,” I whisper. “Teach me to kill.”

Months later,as a prisoner of the shadow beasts, I’ll think back to this moment over and over again. I’ll wonder how one minute I had my mate and was on the cusp of something incredible, and the next I’d lost everything.

SHIFTERS’ FAE CAPTIVE

STOLEN BY SHADOW BEASTS: BOOK ONE

ONE

Ann

I’ve never wantedto kill anyone more than I want to kill my kidnappers. My fists have continued to beat on the back of the shadow beast that carries me for most of the night, but he seems as untroubled by my assault as I would be by the soft touch of sheets against my legs. I don’t know if the creature can even feel, or if he’s not reacting because he’s a huge being of nothing but muscles, but it makes the desperation inside of me grow.

“Asshole!” I shout, but my voice is ragged from all my screaming already.

The woods around us are a blur. I spot the other shadow beasts occasionally when the light from the moon illuminates them for the briefest of moments, and I see the shapes of trees, but that’s it. It’s as if I stepped out of a world of fire and screaming and battle into a different kind of nightmare.

All I know for sure is that I’m being taken further and further from the Royal Fae Academy. From my friends. From the only place my family will know to look for me.

And I’m scared.

In my twenty-three years, I’ve never experienced anything like this. Secrets I know my fair share of. Shame… I know that emotion even better. But true fear? Fear for my life? That emotion is still new to me. It creeps past all the happy emotions light fae are supposed to surround themselves with. And I know how it all started.

With Rayne.

With my mate.

A man who was murdered.

I thump the back of the shadow beast once more, harder, and I shout, but the sound is cut off by a sob I didn’t even know was building. My life before Rayne was boring. I was an average-looking light fae, born to an average family, and sent to the Royal Fae Academy like all royal light fae. I never felt special. I never felt excited about, well, almost anything.

Meeting Rayne and finding my mate was like suddenly seeing colors for the first time. He brought so much joy and love and mystery into my life. Soon, we were creeping together beneath the tunnels of the school, searching for the answers to secrets that only Rayne really understood.

But now I know what he had been doing. He had been trying to save his sister and all the other dark fae.He was too good for this world.

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