“You started it,” he returned, nipping my chin on his way back up. “You tried to break my nose with a poor excuse for a punch.”
“Poor excuse for a…?” My eyes widened. “You’re such a dick!”
“Tell me how you really feel, darling,” he taunted, cocking his head to the side. “I’m listening.”
“I want to kill you.”
“Yes, and…?”
“Gah, would you just get off me, please?”
“Please?” he repeated, snorting. “My, but you are a polite little girl, aren’t you?”
“I am not little.”
“You act like an innocent child.”
My blood boiled at the unveiled insult. “You know nothing about me.”
“Likewise.”
“Pixie dust, you are impossible. Get. Off. Me.”
“Pixie dust?” He actually appeared confused. “Wait, is that your version of a curse?” When I didn’t reply, he started to laugh. “Oh, sweet girl, the things I’m going to teach you.”
“Not if I kill you,” I muttered.
A pair of dimples flashed as he studied me intently. “I truly hope you try. Punishing females is a favorite pastime of mine.”
“As is raping them, apparently,” I tossed back.
His eyebrows shot up at that accusation. “Rape? I’ve barely touched you.”
“You bit me against my will!”
“You were quite willing, Aflora. Trust me.”
“Because you freakin’ cast a spell over me or whatever it is you did.”
“Freakin’?” He shook his head and tsked. “Fucking, darling. The word you’re looking for is fucking.”
“Dear gods, just get off me already!”
“No.” He had the audacity to bend and brush a kiss over my lips. I immediately tried to bite him, which earned me an amused sound. “You need to rest. There’ll be trials ahead.”
Yeah, whatever that meant. “I need to go home,” I corrected.
“You are home, Aflora. You just haven’t realized it yet.” With that proclamation, he began to hum the most beautiful melody.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t reply, his strange song continuing and surrounding me in an odd sea of bliss.
Another spell, my mind recognized.
But my lips refused to issue a retort, my kidnapper captivating me with his song.
Stop, I pleaded in my mind. Please stop.
“I’m only trying to calm you,” he whispered in response.
I shook my head, trying to clear it and force him out. This is wrong. Everything you’ve done is so wrong!
A deep sigh.
The hint of mint on his breath as he pressed his forehead to mine. “I know,” he agreed. “Trust me, I know.”
What?
Only, he didn’t elaborate.
Instead, he hummed even louder, causing my eyes to roll back in my head.
Soon darkness took over, lulling me into a restless sleep filled with nightmarish images that depicted my new reality. Including the cruelly handsome fae who held me tight, his lips whisper-soft against my ear as he said, “I’m sorry, Aflora.”
That was when I knew I truly dreamed.
Because from what I knew of Shadow, he wasn’t the kind of male who ever apologized.
Chapter Three
Kols
“Any idea what this is about?” Tray asked as we stepped into the portal.
I entered the Council Chamber code and shook my head. “No idea, but Dad said it’s urgent.”
“Clearly,” my twin replied, adjusting his tie. We wore matching suits, but that was where our similarities ended. He represented the darkness of our kind in his hair and eyes, similar to our mother. My features, however, favored the golds and bronze tones of our father’s lineage. “You think it’s related to Aswad?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Could be anything, but probably.” Whatever this was, I just wanted to get it over with so I could enjoy my final week of freedom before the Academy started up again.
Only six hundred and nineteen days to go, I thought, rolling my neck to loosen my stiff muscles. Then fate would take over, and I’d officially have to step in line with Emelyn Jyn at my side. Can’t fucking wait, I thought, fighting an internal groan.
Royal politics came with certain privileges. Arranged marriage was not one of them.
The doors opened to reveal the obsidian interior of Council Headquarters.
I glanced sideways. “Ready?”
“Am I ever?” Tray countered.
With a snort, I led the way inside. Several Councilmen nodded at us as we moved into the room toward our father at the head of the table. He always left the two chairs to his right available for us, and we took them as expected.
Emelyn’s father, Lima, sat in the position of Second Elite Blood on my dad’s other side. In less than two years’ time, he would serve beneath me in the same capacity unless I chose to replace him.
The stoic male gave me a nod of acknowledgment, as he always did. He expected my betrothal to his daughter to be enough to maintain a partnership. Little did he realize I loathed Emelyn. Being related to the female devil incarnate did not win him any points in my book. But I returned the gesture. I was kind like that.
Then I nodded at the other Councilmen in the room who had arrived with their Seconds. My father and Aswad were the only members with heirs of age and status to attend, yet Shade seemed to be playing hooky again. He couldn’t make it any clearer that he had no interest in taking over the Death Magic mantle from his father. Prat.
Silence fell as Tadmir entered, his white hair flowing down his back. “Apologies.” The Malefic Councilman dropped into his chair beside Raz, his second-in-command. “I wasn’t in the realm when the notice arrived.”
My father dipped his chin in acceptance of the apology, then focused on the male sitting at the opposite head of the rectangular-shaped table. “Well, get on with it, then. Why are we here, Councilman Aswad?”
Those two final words dripped with disdain, thickening the air with unveiled animosity.
My twin stiffened beside me, just like half the damn board.
The Elite Bloods and Death Bloods had been at odds for centuries, never seeing eye to eye with how the Midnight Fae Council ran itself. Unfortunately for Aswad and his dark line of necromancers, my family had no intention of stepping down. I accepted the ascension rites on my eighteenth birthday, hence the inky black vines writhing across my skin. They fueled my veins with more power every day, waiting to unleash on my twenty-fifth year.
Ergo, the ticking time clock on my life.
And the dwindling minutes on my priceless freedom.
“Well?” my father prompted, his patience clearly at an end.
The Death Blood actually appeared paler than usual as he cleared his throat. “Shadow has taken a mate not of the Council’s choosing.”
I could’ve heard a pin drop after that that announcement.
My eyebrows actually hit my hairline.
What?!
“And there’s more,” the Death Blood Councilman continued. “She is not a Midnight Fae but an Elemental Fae.”
Phoenix fires, I thought, my jaw on the fucking ground. Of all the things for this meeting to be about, I never in a million years would have guessed that.