Page 113 of How Does It Feel?

“Callie Peterson, return to me,” I commanded, infusing my power into the words.

She paused, her head turned to look me in the eye. Yes.

“Callie, return to me now, please.” My voice cracked with the surge of power I sent through to her name.

The vixen holding the threads that tied me together smiled sadly. She turned from me and walked away. Completely unaffected.

No! No . . . No!

Callie wasn’t her true name. The goddess had given me a false name the entire time.

My head collapsed against the ground with shock.

She was good. She was so fucking good. Better than I had given her credit for. I clutched at her tooth hanging from my neck. My palm closed tightly around it as I settled further into the quiet, and it made me feel that she wasn’t all the way gone from me.

She would never be free from me. Never.

By now, the dark army had broken through the shields as my powers and I weakened. They descended upon the gridiron floor like ants.

“My lord! Men, kill her now!” the captain of my shadow guard shouted before my smoke reached out just enough to wrap around his ankle and pull him to the ground with a sharp tug.

I winced at the pain the effort had caused.

“No one touches my future queen but me unless they want their head cut off,” I whispered to the fallen man.

He looked shocked, his face full of puzzlement. “But my lord . . . she just . . . we need to get you to the healer now. That was a killing blow,” he said with a pained crease of his brows as two others helped him up and began to fuss over my body.

“It would be if I was a normal Fae, but I am a Smoke Slayer.” I lay back and closed my eyes with a smile.

I was no fool; I had seen through her innocent act the second I had laid my eyes on her. She was a goddess filled with the power to maim. She overflowed with a pool of darkness that matched my own. She was absolutely perfection in every way.

Of course I wouldn’t have shown her my real points of weakness.

No, I would heal, and when I did, I would hunt her down. She would lead me to whoever had made her do this, and I would kill them long and slow for whatever pain they had caused her. Then I would stop at absolutely nothing—nothing—until she was mine forever, my queen. There wasn’t a person I wouldn’t kill or a world I wouldn’t destroy to get to her. If anything, this only made me want her more. I wanted to give her darkness a home—a place to crawl inside of and corrupt. She belonged with me.

A hard smile creased my lips and crinkled my eyes as my vision faded to black.

Chapter 31

A Dream and a Nightmare

Caly

The sharp, bitter smell of antiseptic mixed with undertones of soaps and harsh cleaners drifted into my nose with a hard inhale. Intense fluorescent light burned the back of my eyelids as I struggled to open them. Everything was sterile, crisp, and white. An array of beeps and voices rang loudly in my ears, overpowering my senses in the span of a second.

A grid ceiling with little brown specks and large rectangular panels of lights encompassed my vision.

I sat up abruptly, and at the same time, someone grabbed my arm. Something plastic covered my face, and I flung it off. The elastic band caught under my ear as my heart pounded through my chest.

“You’re okay, calm down, honey. You had a bad accident, okay? You’re at Michigan Springs Hospital. Can you tell me your name? What can you remember?” a pleasant yet robotic voice questioned.

“I’m Callie Peterson. Proud environmentalist and biological technician. I-I was walking through the forest to get my microscope when I stumbled upon an anomaly of luna moths and a perfect circle of destroying angel mushrooms. I live at 4313 Sassafras Road, Willow Springs, Michigan—”

“She’s up! Oh my god, she’s finally waking up! Get everyone in here!” a familiar voice shouted from the corner.

I turned my head toward all the voices. My head was pounding so hard.

I was sitting in a hospital bed with bands and IVs riddled across my wrists.