Page 72 of The Fallen Fae King

Homesickness is strange to me. It means little, as even at my happiest with Lazarus, we were exiles and outcasts. Yet I still have the faded memory hidden at the back of my mind of how we held onto each other’s hands as we escaped our nurse to play in the lotus pools and the wet tickle of fish kissing our feet. Lazarus would laugh first, light like the twinkling of stars.

For all the years that came after, when I was forced to wear gloves, I could still feel the small, certain grip of my twin’s hand in mine, when the loneliness became too crushing.

The imagined warmth of my twin’s hand, when no one else was allowed to touch me, became a created home that maybe never existed.

Plus, I haven’t left this rose and oak and sunshine scented nest, and I am already homesick for it.

When the storm rocks the bed, I order, “Hold onto the frame. It will keep you safe during the opening of the Void. I built it into the plateau. I designed it to withstand what comes next.”

Freya sheaths her dagger, clinging onto Daire.

My King sheaths his own knives.

Freya wraps her arms around the sturdy frame, while Daire clasps his wings around her.

The scarlet linen, which hangs from the gilded frame, ripples in the wind like the waves of a bloody sea.

“You planned for everything, didn’t you?” Daire yells above the storm.

His eyes are filled with ice-cold fury.

“Indeed.” I start to push away from the bed, but Freya’s anguish stops me.

“Don’t you dare walk away,” she screams. “You just stood in front of your entire court and promised us an eternity and an afterlife. You don’t get to take that back.”

Daire snarls, reaching to grab onto my elbow.

I attempt to shove him back, but for the first time, he is stronger than me.

My stomach swoops.

How long has it been since anyone could beat me in a fight?

My face heats.

I am never the prey.

Daire yanks me back, and I tumble onto the bed. Freya keeps her firm hold on him, while he tangles his legs over me.

I growl, attempting to force Daire back with my shadows, but despite being recently drained, his elemental magic sparks along his wings.

He is frighteningly powerful.

The storm is barely affecting him.

He wraps his own, freezing, feathery shadows around me. I can’t move my arms or legs.

I am panting.

Then he leans over me. “The tables are turned, huh? Everyone else is always binding me. Now, you’re safe and can’t do something stupidly reckless like I would. Talk. And be quick because apparently, our epic rutting was so good, it didn’t just move the earth, it may have ended it.”

“I already told you.”

Daire huffs a humorless laugh. “Did you? I must have missed when you explained why you married, fucked, and then abandoned us without any warning.”

I thrash but I can’t break his magic.

How powerful will Daire be when he’s at full power?