Everything else quietens. The fae stop, their arms poised, spells ready. They look at me with expectation. Prince ends the space between us, a hand gripping my arm.
“This is it." And though I feel like puking, he smiles. I think it's supposed to be reassuring but it fails. I see it in his eyes. The ambition. The greed. I don't like it. "Stretch out your hands."
I do as he says, stretching my hands out in front of me. The silence is a suffocating, heavy blanket.
"Close your eyes," he says, and I obey once more. Then his breath tickles my ear, and I clench my jaw not to say a thing. "Call to your power. To your shadows. You know what to do."
And he steps away. I hear him taking several steps away, definitely to protect himself. He wants my power, but he doesn't trust it, even when he oversaw my short training. Doubt curls inside me, but I hear another pair of steps coming closer, the presence I got used to filling my senses.
"If it backfires," Prince calls out, not to me, "you'll get killed."
He's talking to Tristan. Could my magic kill him? "I don't care," Tristan replies, his voice strong like the good heart beating in his chest. His hand brushes the back of my hair, and I feel his affection all over my skin. "I'm with you."
A yelp, and I know Oreo is with me too. He presses his warm body to my leg. Their presence fuels me on. I call for my magic, and the trickle of cold grounds me.
It enlarges. The power inside me swells, like I'm breathing in, filling my lungs way past their capacity. It keeps coming, and the trickling turns into a shower, growing warm. It makes my skin prickle, the hairs in the back of my arms raising as in a lightning storm.
This feels different. More powerful than ever, like I'm sucking juice from an endless source. A smile threatens to spill from my lips. I open my eyes.
Sparks of electricity arch in my fingertips, reaching out for the woods. The woods respond in kind, the shadows moving toward me, more and more intense by the moment. I gasp for air, delighted at the easy reaction. The fog eases between the trees, showing me a path, clean of woods, ready to receive us. The treesnow call for me. Something inside them calls for me, something that connects straight to the core of my magic.
The Cursed Realm. It's calling for me.
"Yes," Prince says, and I look at him to find him grinning, hungry eyes on his face. "That's it. I can almost see it."
The ambition on his face is a dampener on my power, and doubts return. Should I let him in? Is he going to fuck things up if he does? But what choice do I have?
I tremble, my power falters. Prince snaps his gaze at me, barely controlled rage simmering underneath his features. "Hold it, Mage," he barks the order, and that's what does it.
From the first moment we met, he hasn’t called me by my name. Memories of the past days blur past, and I notice it for the first time. I introduced myself, but he either calls me ‘pet’ or he uses the Shadow Mage title when I’m neither. I don’t belong to him, and I’m not defined only by these powers. These stupid powers I never asked for.
Fuck that.
Curling my fingers, I close my hands in fists, letting the power go. The connection ends. Dark fog rushes to cover the path once more, crashing to the ground like a wave. This is wrong. My guts tell me I shouldn't let him in. I shouldn't let anyone in. The moment I let my hands drop to my sides, pride fills my chest. I won't let Prince use me. I won't let him do whatever he wants to me.
And the way he whirls around, stormy eyes connecting to mine, I know I'm fucked. Every doubt I had about him using Tristan's safety against me returns. He'll hurt him, and he might hurt me, but he's done playing, and he's done pretending.
He strides closer, and the threat enlarges with every step. Tristan positions himself in front of me. Oreo drops into an attack stance, raising his cute butt. Another fae gets closer, and everything goes into slow-mo. A fight is about to break, I know it. There are too many fae, they'll just put Tristan down. I won't have a choice. Prince will force me.
Orange explodes in my peripheral. Fire drapes to the ground from the skies, covering the entrance to the Cursed Realm with high flames that blind me. The heat blazes closer and I raise an arm to protect my face. Fuck, it's raining fire.
I crane my neck back and look up at the sky, expecting dark clouds or an Apocalypse Horseman. Instead, my gaze locks with a black dragon.
A dragon.
This has to be the cherry on top of this freaking weird month.
CHAPTER 15
APOLLO
Powerful flaps of my wings make the flames grow wilder, licking at the dead grass and the front of the several SUVs parked in a semi-circle. The fae go mad, bending away from the fire and protecting their faces while I circle, looking for my mate.
Cassandra stands in the middle of it all, untouched by the fire, the first row as she lifts her head and our eyes connect. My dragon releases a roar, identifying his mate, and the danger she's in. Her eyes widen, and I see the fae some steps from her, his face contorting in fury, an arm extending toward her.
Anger simmers inside me and my dragon core fuels the feeling into more fire. It burns up my throat and I let it fly, burning a line between the one who looks like the fae leader, his minions, and Cassandra. I knew someone would buy her, and Ren had the brilliant idea of looking for the most likely place. Several visits to public libraries later, we found out there was a human city here once, rich for its connection to both realms. A city where all lived in harmony. Sounded like a children’s story, but it fucking worked. If we weren't fast enough to find this spot, who knows what would have happened.
Who knows what this fae would have done to my mate. Who knows what he's already done to her.