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“They didn’t know,” she murmured softly.
“What are you talking about?”
“My family. They didn’t know I left, so it wasn’t like they let me go off alone.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“It wasimportant,” she emphasized with a bit of steel in her soft voice that drew my gaze to her scowling face.
I huffed, wanting to laugh at her foolishness. “And look where that got you, faeling.”
Distracted for a fleeting second, I didn’t hear the whistle of the arrow until it was too late.
It struck the left side of my chest, painfully close to my heart, the force of it jerking my body backward. She screamed, falling to her knees beside me, the filthy cloak slipping from her shoulders.
“Let go of her, you fucking wraith bastard,” came the deep voice of a male.
Just as I pushed myself up, the arrow still jutting from my chest, a fair-haired male fae in sapphire and gold regalia grabbed Una around the waist and flew backward, his white wingsshimmering in the gloom. He carried her several feet away, swirling snow into the air.
Growling, I shifted up, only to be pierced by arrows twice more in the right thigh and hip.
“Stop it, Baelynn! You’re hurting him!”
The male fae held her back with both arms, his rage furiously aimed at me as a guard of at least twelve fae males uniformed in blue and gold armor appeared out of the shadows. A royal guard of Issos.
“Hurting him?” The one called Baelynn shouted, now holding Una by the shoulders and inspecting her with a fearsome expression. He visibly flinched when he saw her wings were gone. “We must get you home, sister,” he hissed quietly.
Sister?My mind reeled. She was the royal princess of Issos, Tiarrialuna, the only daughter of Connall Hartstone, High King of Lumeria. I knew this because it was drilled into me by my father to know our enemies and know them well.
“Not before you helphim,” she yelled. Tears streaked down her face as she tried to free herself from her brother’s grip. Tears for me?
A strange charge rippled through my flesh as I knelt in the snow, pulling the arrows from my body, one by one.
“He captured you, Una. What are you saying?”
“Hefreedme, Baelynn. I would have died without him.”
The fae prince looked over her shoulder at me, still scowling. The animosity radiating from him and his guard was a palpable whip in the air. Six of his guards had arrows nocked and aimed at me. I could’ve incinerated them all, but I held still. Some instinct whispering from the place where my magick lived kept me calm and immobile.
“Go home, girl,” I told her, still on my knees. “You don’t belong here.”
Una stared at where I’d been hit, blue blood trickling down my chest.
“Your brother’s little arrows cannot hurt me,” I sneered, disdain falling from my lips.
Though I’d never met the prince, and currently our kingdoms were at a truce, he was my enemy. It was fortunate he did not know my identity.
“Come, Una,” he said, giving her no choice as he urged her toward the fae guard, closing in.
One of them with dark blue wings and black hair stepped forward with a gold cloak and draped it over her shoulders. He gripped her shoulders and whispered softly, “You are safe now.”
She nodded, as if she knew him well and welcomed his comfort.
The small exchange tore a hole open inside of me, one that wanted to devour and maim and crush. My lips curled back, revealing my fangs, which the black-haired fae noticed.
She turned toward me, a wisp of white hair escaping the hood of her cloak.
The fae guard fell in around her to form a shield. Then her brother lifted her into his arms, his wide wings beating hard as he lifted off into the sky. The rest followed, rising fast and hard.
