Page 1 of Dream Reaper

CHAPTER 1

AVA

Ava Blodrhys had no doubt she was about to die. After all, she’d failed miserably at everything she attempted in life.

Why should staying alive prove any different?

The dark elf girl stumbled toward a skeletal tree shrouded in ghostly mist, her hands bound in front of her by brilliant blue bindings crafted by fire magic. This was powerful magic, not the flimsy sort of gift that she possessed.

She could barely sense her flame inside—a whimpering, simmering flicker that might snuff out of existence at any moment.

A rough hand shoved her from behind, and she quickened her pace, pursing her lips to keep from crying out for help. They had journeyed so far into the Shadewood Forest that no one would hear her cry.

No one would hear her screams.

“Move faster,” her kidnapper hissed in her ear, “or I will kill you and be done with it.”

She had recognized him the moment he snatched her out of the woods: Talos, the dark elf traitor who had tried to murder the prince of Gelaira.

His own cousin.

Ava blinked back bitter tears. “You’re probably going to kill me anyway, so what’s the point?”

She had known Talos for several years, bumping shoulders with him at the palace and avoiding him as much as she could, but she had never realized he was capable of this.

He snorted and prodded her again, more firmly, the jab against her shoulder blade sending a twinge of pain down her tense spine. “If I have to kill you now, I’ll take my time, and it will hurt.”

She didn’t really believe that. Judging by his insistence she keep walking faster, she suspected he still feared they were being pursued, but they’d been stumbling through the forest for hours.

Surely if anyone were coming to her rescue, they would have overtaken them long ago.

And yet Talos wouldn’t let her pace slacken, forcing her to stumble faster, always faster, and always deeper into the heart of the ancient forest. The trees towered on either side of their narrow trail, the bark slick with slime and reeking of mold and decay. The deeper they went, the worse the stench grew.

Ava couldn’t shake the feeling they were headed toward something truly awful.

Did Talos even know where he was driving her?

She guessed he was as lost as she was by now.

She had been lost long before Talos snatched her from the clearing where the prince of Eroth had burst into horrifying blue flames.

She could still feel the painful lick of the dark elf prince’s fire as it flung her off her feet and drove her into the trees, the place where Talos had found her, half unconscious, her head wracked by a blistering pain, her limbs unresponsive. It had been so easy for him to overcome her feeble resistance and drag her into the shadows of the forest.

Ava drew a shuddering breath as she dodged around the hangman’s tree, the mist parting to slip around her shivering body.

She’d been taken without a fight, without a whimpering cry for help. Her magic had done her no good when she needed it most, a fact that burrowed down to the marrow of her bones.

It would have been far preferable to die back in the glen, close to her friends, instead of all these miles away in the endless darkness of the Shadewood, where she was alone and friendless with only her magic to offer comfort—magic that could barely manage weak glamours and flickering flames to illuminate the darkness.

She would never be able to perform magic as strong as the fiery chains that bit into her delicate wrists.

“We’ll have to stop soon.” She gasped, a pain tightening in her side that forced her to hunch with a grimace. “We can’t keep…this up…forever.”

“Speak for yourself,” he said, but his own breathing held a ragged quality that resembled her own.

He was getting tired, too.

Her pulse quickened, but not from exertion. Maybe she would have an opportunity soon to make an escape. She hadn’t dared attempt anything yet, knowing he would overtake her without breaking a sweat. But if she waited until he was weary and off his guard…