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“I’m sorry Lacey, I sound like a spoiled child. I forget you’ve gone through so much.” She shrugged her shoulders, her lips pulled into a tight smile.
“I’ll see you later. I’ll be some time,” I said, closing the door behind me and left for my ride. It was time to visit my uncle and find out the truth of that night.
Straddling my bike, I turned on the ignition, leaned back for a few minutes as I contemplated my life, my parents' deaths, everyone. I only rested for a little while before I dropped my head and spilt a sob.
Stop it.
My dad would hate what I’d become. It was time to sort myself out and stop wallowing in self-pity and become someone my parents would be proud of. I wiped at my eyes and sighed as I took the helmet from the seat and lifted it to my head.
But the surrounding air shifted. My hand rose to rub a prickle that settled on my neck, and my shoulder rose in response. Closing my eyes briefly, I exhaled a silent breath, then I placed the helmet back on the centre of the bike and flicked a quick glance over my right shoulder.
I saw it.
A gust of darkness that sparkled through the low winter sunlight. I stared for a moment but knew he was back and this time he decided he wanted to be much closer. As the dark shadow loomed towards me, I should have started the ignition and roared away to somewhere far into the distance. But I didn’t. I had a hunch to stay. Because as much as my brain was definitely considering getting the hell out of there, my instinct told me staying was the right way.
The shadow disappeared in another gust of air.
I blinked. Then I blinked a second time. He loomed visible again, but this time he was no longer a shadow but the same man I’d seen around me at the university. The same cropped white-blond hair, a sharp nose and the deepest and palest blue eyes I’d ever seen, almost translucent as I looked into his mind, seeing the tortured soul behind the white mask. He dressed in a black tunic with dark-coloured trousers. Not modern, but medieval.
He wasn’t the man in my dreams.
The man in front of me was dark inside, and I should have been fearful. But I wasn’t. Carter was right. There was some sort of black magic around me, but he didn't scare me, because my father always taught me to be prepared.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
He took a long stride toward me and my head rose to see how tall the beast was. He was much taller than the Dark Fae men and they were the tallest around campus, all standing at least six and a half feet. But this beast was close to seven feet tall but at least six-nine and the tallest man I’d ever seen, towering above my five-nine when I wore these three-inch high-heeled boots.
His height didn’t really scare me, but I grimaced when he sneered, seeing the down-turned lips and his narrow intense stare focused so intently on me, not wavering one bit. And when his frown turned into a grin, that was when I knew he was definitely batting for the evil team.
He wasn’t about to ask me on a date.
“It’s time,” he said.
His words were short, not sweet, his voice gravelly as though he smoked twenty cigarettes a day, but there was a hollowness in his voice. It was like it was devoid of life.
It’s time.I hadn’t the foggiest idea what he meant. But my heart thudded and my nerves had frayed at the edges. I took a sly step to my left, only a small step, but just that little closer to my helmet, which might come in hand—or, more likely, not. Any self-defence was good, but seriously, I wasn’t sure if anything my father had taught me was going to protect me from him.
“Time for what?” I shouldn’t have asked, not just yet. I should have planned a little more, worked out my exit plan, tried to see his weak spots.
Think first, Lacey.
I took in a few deep breaths, which helped my heart rate to slow down just a little.
“To choose, Sunshine,” he said.
I inhaled a deep breath as my nickname rolled off his tongue in an eloquent and prolonged manner. Swiping my tongue across my dry lips as I considered the name he had used, because somehow this man knew me. This wasn’t a random meeting. Not when the name Sunshine was a code name for when I met people outside of the magical kingdom, sometimes my fighting name and always used to hide my identity when I was younger.
“Choose?”
“Between death and… the Dark King.”
Chapter 25
Lacey
Yep,shouldn’thaveasked;my heart rate jumped again.
“You’ve got the wrong girl. I’m not ready to die, I’m afraid.” I stood tall and smiled because at that moment my voice sounded so like my poor, deceased mum’s.
