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“I’m going to offer you a choice,” I continue, my gaze sweeping over them. “Join me, and be a part of the new world order that I will create. A world where Shadowkind are no longer the outcasts, the pariahs, but the rulers and the conquerors. Where we embrace the power that has been dormant inside us for centuries.”
I pause, allowing my words to settle in the air around us.
“And if we don’t join you?” a meek voice drifts up from one of the younger fae at the front of the crowd. “What if we just want to get away from here and live a peaceful life?”
A few of the others murmur in agreement.
I cannot have that.
“Well, then you can refuse, of course.” I stop speaking, allowing the silence that swells between the trees to be broken only by the distant screams of the dying Leafborne. I lower my wings, allowing them a full view of the carnage that lies behind me.
I allow my shadows to curl upwards, dancing around my limbs.
My eyes flash red.
I fix them on the one who spoke up.
“Who will be the first to join me?”
FIVE
Garratt
“Out of the way!” I push through the crowd waiting to be let into the inn, and unlock the door.
“What got your mudweed in a stew this morning, Garratt?” someone calls with a chuckle.
“I think he had a late night,” says another. “Never thought you had the charm to woo two females at the same time.”
I grab hold of Elodie’s arm and heave her through the door after me. Pria slams it closed and bolts it shut, then turns and folds her arms in front of her chest. She taps her foot as if she’s annoyed I didn’t correct the hecklers’ assumption.
Or maybe she’s annoyed I never tried to get into her bed.
Who the fuck knows.
Right now, we’ve got bigger things to worry about.
Elodie tugs against my grip and I realise I’m still holding on to her. Tight.
Shaking her off, like a piece of garbage stuck to my shoe, I hurry over to the bar, slam three glasses down on the counter, and pour three almost-overflowing whiskies.
I down mine, refill it, and down it again before offering Pria and Elodie theirs.
I can hardly breathe. I’m not as fit as I used to be, but it’s not the journey from the castle to the inn that has winded me; it’s the hammering drumbeat of fear in my chest.
It is so loud, so hard, so fierce I can hardly breathe.
I lean forward onto my forearms and close my eyes.
Outside, regulars are still banging on the door demanding I open up – now more annoyed than amused by my strange entrance.
Elodie hugs her waist. She hasn’t taken even a sip of her whisky. Pria, however, is drinking hers slowly, and studying me as if she’s waiting for me to say something profound.
Panic is rising like bile from my gut to my throat.
I tug at my collar and turn away from them, leaning back on the bar, trying desperately to remember how to breathe.
“Garratt?” Elodie’s voice is willowy and small and makes me want to throw her out into the street with the others. Except then I think about actually doing that, and it makes me want to do the opposite: pull her close and hold her there.
