Page 97 of The Edge of Darkness

Niall’s voice deepened. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re after, but if a fight is what you’re looking for, I must warn you, you will lose.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” She brought her gaze back to him. “You don’t know me.”

“You’re coming from enemy territory.” He nodded toward The Wastelands. “That makes you my enemy. And right now, that’s all I need to know.” Shadowfire seeped out from behind his shoulders, spreading into the air around us like a dozen whips poised to strike.

The woman’s swirling gray eyes widened with shock at the sight of his shadowfire. It was as if she had seen a ghost.

“You?” Her eyes darted to every corner of his body as if she was searching for something physical that he carried. When she didn’t seem to glean what she was looking for, she narrowed her sights on his actual physique, noting the pointed tips of his ears. “Who are you?” she hissed.

The shadows settled around Niall like a second skin, wrapping him in a menacing darkness as he said, with unwavering authority, “I’m the High Lord of Calledan.”

The woman’s face paled and she shook her head. “A fae?”

“Why does that seem to surprise everyone?” he said—more to himself than to the stranger.

She ignored his remark, her attention ensnared with his physical presence. “That power . . . that strength . . .” Her voice dripped with what sounded like a mixture of disbelief and disdain, but she seemed to arrive at some sort of realization as her visual assessment of him slowly became a perusal of greed. Like he was some long-lost treasure she’d been hunting. “Tell me, High Lord, how exactly did that shadowfire come to be in you?”

When Niall didn’t reply, she continued. “I’d wager the fae don’t take well to a power that is so foreign to them.” Her perfectly-arched brow hitched higher, as if to say, Am I right?

Niall’s unease flickered down the bond just before he entered my mind.

She’s not from here, he spoke into my head.

I had caught the referral as well—how she spoke of the fae as if they were a species far removed from her own.

Then where? I asked.

I don’t know.

If she’s not fae, and she’s not human, then what is she?

Nothing of this world, he said, and my stomach gave an anxious drop.

Her head shifted in my direction, her eyes taking a moment to follow. “And this one . . .” She continued to speak to Niall while looking me up and down, pausing on my rounded ears. “Not fae. But the power in her veins is overwhelming.” She sniffed the air deeply and exhaled out of her mouth. Her eyes flared again. “I know of someone who would give me anything I asked in exchange for you.”

I stiffened, but willed my face to betray nothing.

She had to be speaking of Lyceius.

Niall’s shadows reached out, twining around me protectively, and the woman watched, noting the claim he was asserting.

The silence that followed seemed to tell the woman everything she wanted, or needed, to know. Another sinister smile spread across her lips, and she held both of her hands out before her, mockingly, as a mother would hold her hands out for her children to take. “If you both come with me, freely, I’ll make sure the pain is kept to a minimum.”

Neither of us moved, but Niall’s shadows pulsed in reaction to her words, coiling tighter around me. “You touch her, and I’ll send you back to wherever you came from in a pile of ash. She is going nowhere with you.”

The woman made a show of rolling her eyes. “Don’t make me do this the hard way.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Take it how you will.”

She took a casual step forward, her pointed black boots crunching on the dusty ground, but Niall’s shadows spilled forward, gathering like black smoke at our feet, halting her approach.

“There is nothing of yours here,” he warned. “And you won’t like what happens next if you so much as move another inch.”

The woman smirked. “Fine. I won’t move an inch.”

Quicker than I could anticipate, she extended her arm out like she was grasping for something across the distance between us, and a shadow pushed through the wards and The Veil like they didn’t even exist. Shadowed fingers closed around my neck, and I choked for breath as they clamped down on my windpipe and began dragging me forward.