Page 21 of Taken By Shadows

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

“Denora, take this to my father.” He held the crystals out. “Tell him we’ll get more.” His eyes never left me.

“We will?” she asked as she tucked the shards into her leathers. She looked at me pityingly, her eyes kinder now, if stern.

“Gavrin.” The stranger never took his eyes off me as he spoke. “Take Vega and meet us in the usual spot. Secure somewhere suitable.”

Without deliberation, the other male took off with the black stallion that must have been Vega.

The sword that had been dripping blood was now sheathed at the stranger’s back. My eyes snagged on the blade, the back it was strapped to and the male before me.

I could feel something shift beneath my feet. Something like gravity. Like the world was moving, but I wasn’t. Or was it me who was moving and everything else stood still? Maybe I was in shock, but I felt strange.

They were leaving. Why did he tell the brawny one to take his horse, though?

Gavrin was only just out of sight when Bray crashed through the tree line.

“Gen?!” He stopped short when he took in the sight of the camp through the guttering firelight. The dead bodies, blood, and disarray.

Bray took it all in and, to his credit, didn’t try to paint the grasses with his breakfast like I had.

The female now had an arrow nocked and trained on his temple. The dark-haired stranger spun me around so he was at my back, and we were both looking at Bray.

“What are you—” I elbowed him in the ribs with full force. “Let go of me!”

A small chuckle emanated from the female atop her horse.

My hit didn’t even wind him. The fae male’s arm pressed me to him; it stretched from my left to right shoulder with ease, engulfing me.

“Who in the hells are you? Let her go!” Bray’s voice was loud, clear. Defiant of what lay before him.

I was beginning to feel far too much like chattel today. Everyone seemed to think they could say what should be done with me. Sell me, use me. Rob me, marry me.

“Bray! Go! Just go!” He needed to leave. Now. “They’ll kill you if you don’t!”

As if I’d asked him to, the male’s free arm reached for the sword at his back.

“No! Please. He doesn’t know anything. Don’t,” I pleaded with my captor, but he wasn’t listening.

“Kaedian, are you sure about this? Maybe you shouldn’t …” The female’s voice stilled the male’s hand as it gripped his blade. He refocused on her instead of Bray, who was pacing like a scavenger. “Your father—”

“What else am I going to do?” he snapped back at her. “Do not question me on this. My father needs this. We need this. I need this.”

“I’m not telling you where I got the faebane!” I shouted up at him, pulling on his hold on me.

The female seemed to smirk at my words, but it was the male who replied. “I know. That’s why you’re coming with me.” He sheathed his sword again with a heavy thud.

“You sure you can handle her, Kaed?” But her voice was lost to the ground that faded under my feet as he propelled us skyward.

Chapter six

Initially, I had kicked and squirmed in his grip. But as soon as the ground blurred into a sea of dark green, the trees like dots far below, I stilled. He gripped me tighter until I was pressed to his chest as he sliced through the air, and soon I recognised nothing around me. A mountain range came into view. Were we heading west? It was difficult to focus on anything with the adrenaline and fear mixing in my blood like stardust and fire. It made my head spin.

The air around us felt charged.

Magic. There was magic pouring off him, and it warmed my blood.

A fae. A fae male. And he’d kidnapped me! And flown—actually flown—into the air with me pinned so closely to him I could feel his heart thundering in his carved chest beneath his riding leathers. Could all fae fly? If my magic had ever manifested, would I have even wanted to fly? I couldn’t focus any longer on the world around me as it smudged into swathes of paint strokes, so I looked to the male who held me to him. He was the only fixed thing I could steady myself on. His jaw was set in a hard line, and he refused to look at me while he flew.