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I coughed and spat, slowly pushing off my hands to make sure nothing had broken during the fall. A rush of air surrounded me as the beast of a man approached, throwing dirt into my face. I sat back on my heels to shield my eyes from the whirlwind of ash, peering through fingers at the offending figure floating gracefully to the earth in front of me. When his feet finally kissed the ground, he tucked his wings swiftly behind his back, and the air finally settled once more between us.
I opened my mouth, intending to send a lashing his way, but the quick breath disturbed the dust coating my throat and made me choke. A violent coughing fit followed, one that doubled me over and returned my nausea with a vengeance.
“Are you almost done?” He asked impatiently above the sounds of my misery. “I don’t think you’ve alerted every vampyre in the realm of our location yet. Thankfully for you, I created a ward around us to mute your retching.”
As the coughing fit ceased, I held up a finger until the churning of my stomach soothed. I muffled a gag behind my other hand.
He placed his fists along the bones narrowing his slim waist and said, “It’s fine. Just throw up. You’ll feel better.”
I turned away from his watchful gaze, crawling on all fours to a grassy patch of the clearing we landed in. “Look away!” I pleaded between lurches.
“Nah.”
I heaved again behind my palm. “You’re gross.” Something was rising in my chest, and there was no willpower left in my body to hold it down. My stomach squeezed and pushed what little contents it held back up my throat. The burn of bile seared my tongue as I vomited in front of the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on.
Above my retches, the crunch of his steps advanced behind me. A hand smoothed down my spine, settling the remaining quakes still lingering. Apparently, my stomach was insistent to get every last drop of bile out of my body.
“I suppose I can let your harsh words slide this time, given your state. I forget how sensitive you mortals are,” he said, rubbing small circles across the small of my back. Heat flooded my face and I recoiled from the strange comfort.
“You dropped me.” I hissed.
“You attacked me,” he said. “Not quite the first reaction I get from women, but you don’t seem the type to care for first impressions.” He patted my shoulder as if to make his point.
I spat to clear my mouth.Who does this guy think he is?If he wanted a proper first impression, I’d give it to him.
I’d once thought I’d trained twenty years to become a runner—until I used my learned skills to send a backhand across this guy’s face.
Thatwas my true destiny.
The blow sent him reeling, knocking him off balance to the ground from where he knelt behind me. I used his startled reaction to pounce on his faltering figure, still clutching the side of his head. My legs straddled his waist, and I placed one hand around his throat while threatening his lovely complexion with the other.
“What the blight was that for?” he asked, glancing between my face and my fist. The bronze skin on his cheek turned scarlet.
“Who are you, what are you, and why did you save me?” I asked, each question more like a demand.
His dark brows furrowed, then he flashed that infuriating smile again. “You have a little puke on your chin. Right there…” He scratched the corner of his own mouth.
“What—” My voice was harsh with humiliation as I withdrew my hand reactively to wipe my lips, finding them dry. In one quick move, I was on my back, his hips seated on top of my own, pressing me into the earth. The sheer weight of him anchored my figure into place while his face wore a triumphant grin.
“You know, you’re actually very beautiful when you aren’t trying to vomit.” He said in a voice as smooth as the satin of my sheets.
I breathed deeply, trying to settle the rage building in my heart and in my fists, which he’d seized above my head. “Listen you oversized canary, I don’t have time to squabble with a conceited beast like yourself! I’m expected to arrive at Grimsbane anytime now. The gate will only stay open for a short window, and if I miss it, I’m done. It will not open for me again.” The man perched above looked down on me with a curious expression.
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
My mouth hung open stupidly at the question. “To be stuck out here on my own? And with those things running around? Of course, it would. I’d never last.”
“You wouldn’t be on your own, darling.”
“Oh, I’d have you to keep me company? Still not tempting,” I replied on the edge of a heartless laugh. It was a lie—he was a little tempting.
Moonlight filtered through his pale hair, creating a halo of starlight around his head. If it weren’t for the pressure of his thumb pressing against my pulse and the heat of his body smoldering against mine, I’d think he was too ethereal to actually exist at all.
He dipped his head lower, crouching over my face and pinning my wrists firmer against the dirt. “You serve a queen you know nothing about. If you had died ten minutes ago, no one under the mountain would even mourn your death. Are you foolish or just desperate for the queen’s approval?”
I scoffed in his face, letting my breath blow away his curiosity into a scowl. “Queen Eivor is all I have, she protects me—protects us from the night and its…creatures.” I looked him up and down, and my head lifted off the ground between our faces. “You know nothing about me or what I’ve been through. Do not mistake my ignorance for innocence.”
The starlight in his eyes darkened into a more sinister color, and his wings unfurled to their full size behind him, stripping my confidence bare. Good gods, they were beautiful. The colors of their feathers matched the silver gradient in his eyes, each one with veins of midnight sprawling across their downy surface. In the light of the moon, they shimmered, and in the darkness, they were like great shadows casting a gloom I knew all too well.
