*Maddy*I watch as Isaac leans over his desk to grab another stack of papers from a banker’s box on the far edge. He sighs as he flips through the papers and sets them down, reaching for a pair of manilla folders instead, and sits back down. I turn my head back to the window and watch the rain fall in dizzying sheets of silver, the entire back garden cast in shadow and glistening with dampness. My hand rests on the swell of my belly. Our son kicks me softly, and I smile to myself, tapping my fingers as if to say, “Hello, little one.”“Is he kicking again?” Isaac asks as he leans back in his office chair and places a large, warm hand on my stomach. I adjust the position of his hand and lay my hand over his, waiting. Our son is still so small, but his movements have become more noticeable the last few days. A featherlight movement brushes over Isaac’s hand. I watch my mate’s face as he feels his son kick for the first time. “That’s incredible,” he says, meeting my eyes. “Does it bothe
*Ella*I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no clue where we are, or what to expect when we reach the witches. In my defense, I jumped through the portal blind, unsure what awaited me on the other side beside my mate, who I’d be happy to never see again. I stare into the small warming fire and hug my knees to my chest. The thought of Ryatt causes an ache to spread through my chest, tightening my muscles. My mate. Some people go their whole lives without finding their mates. I should feel blessed that I've found him so soon. Right now, I feel like throwing myself off the bluff we’re sitting next too with a sweeping view of the valley below at our backs. Amanda and Gemma sit beside me facing the forest while their two friends, still in their wolf forms, doze next to the sled where Hannah still lingers in a coma. Amanda brought enough food to feed a small army, but even after not eating for an entire twenty-four hours, I can’t bring myself to take more than a few bites of a sandwich
*Ryatt* Don’t come for me. Those words haunt me as I pick through the forest. Six of my men–my closest, most trustworthy warriors–fan out around me in a wide semi-circle, leaving no stone, twig, or bush unturned. It’s been days, and there’s no sign of Ella. Nothing. Nothing of her, or the maid that flung herself at us right as I used the full force of my powers to spirit us away to Eastonia. Don’t come for me… “There’s nothing here, Ryatt,” Granger says nearby. He stands to his full height, his golden hair gleaming in the sunrise streaming through the tree top. Green eyes meet mine, heavy with annoyance. “Maybe this is a good thing.”“I know,” I agree, but the words leave a bitter taste on my tongue. I hadn’t wanted to do this. I’d bucked against my destiny at every turn. Going to King Isaac’s ball four or five years ago had only made me more steadfast in my decision that I had to find another way to defeat my father without using Princess Ella as the weapon she was born to be.
*Ella*I open my eyes, blinking into the eerie green light of the cramped room I was thrown into a few hours ago. The walls are made of stone and drip with condensation. I look up at the wooden ceiling where streaks of light filter down and cause the floor to dance with pockets of pale gray. The ceiling is a trap door; the room I’m in is an outdoor cellar. A set of slimy stairs lead up to the ceiling, the slime now covered with muddy footprints. There’s nothing down here but me. No chair, bed, bathroom bucket, or food. The bastards who dragged me here stripped me of the coat I’d been wearing, and the chilly fall air bites into my skin. My hands, bound by iron shackles behind my back, are numb from the cold. It’s raining now. Water has been dripping through the ceiling, but now rain pelts the wooden boards above my head so violently it rattles. I close my eyes and imagine my studio, my paintings, mentally going through stacks of canvases and my inventory of paint. I’m just trying to
*Ella*I shove Ryatt away from me, putting several feet of distance between us. I can still feel his touch on my chin from when he’d inspected the bruising on my cheeks. I realize with a start it had been only the second time we’d ever touched, the first being when I placed my hand in his hand when he’d come to take me home, to take me here. Now, I’ve shoved him. That’s the third time we’ve touched. Maybe, hopefully, the last. At least, I tell myself that. Seeing him in the flesh is incredibly unnerving. The sharp angles of his devastatingly handsome face draw me in, and those eyes? They’re magnetic. But being drop dead gorgeous only gets you so far in life. “I told you to stay away from me.”One dark brow arches, and his eyes narrow with obvious frustration. “You said, ‘Don’t come for me.’ What makes you think I’m here for you, Princess?”I bite the inside of my cheek. “Why else would you be here? I didn’t need your help with anything.”“Oh, really?” He looks down at the pile of as
*Ella*It’s raining harder than I thought possible. Outside, the day has faded into night–and whatever gods they worship in this strange kingdom are livid. Thunder booms, shaking the small cottage. I curl my hands around a little metal mug full of whiskey and keep my head low as I listen to the conversations taking place all around me. Ryatt has an entourage–every one of them young, each of them built like a brick wall and oozing with violence. At least, that's what it seems like at first glance. But as the men, and one other woman, in the cottage grow used to my presence, that icy, murderous feeling in the room fades, replaced by something I find shockingly familiar. Ryatt and Granger left, taking Quinn, the only other female beside myself, with them to what sounds like a nearby town. Now, those left behind are playing drinking games and eating whatever feast the Magpie had laid out for his packmates before they all met a gruesome end. In fact, there’s a pile of dead wolves right
*Ella*By all accounts, the village we arrive in under a cloak of inky, starless darkness looks like a small town somewhere in my brother’s territory. Streetlights cast a wide, crumbling gravel street in muted light, and buildings made of wood and stone rise in the distance along curved roads. A narrow, lazy river winds through the village. We cross several bridges, our footsteps the only sound. Our group has been broken into smaller parties of three or four people, everyone in their human forms, everyone acting like they’re simply out on a midnight stroll. As we walk further into the village, the buildings start to group closer together, and noise begins to cut through the hushed night air. There are no cars to be seen, but lighted signs and the sound of electricity buzz as we pass shops and what I believe are apartments. It’s like home, but… different. Less polished, less refined. Less modern, I realize. I stare up at one streetlight as I pass beneath it and see the same strange,
*Ryatt*It doesn’t take long for word to spread about what happened at the auction. Especially since I burned it to the ground once all of my men and women were safely out of the building and scattering toward the outskirts of Twin Rivers. I sent Amanda and Ella with Granger. He’d take them back to the camp we established in the forest, a place tucked several miles from the winding, derelict road leading toward my father’s territory. Quinn, however, stands beside me at a market stall, her hood shielding half of her face in shadow. “I take it you’re staying,” I say to her under my breath as I pick through a variety of produce laid out in woven baskets. “Someone needs to stay behind and watch the Silver Bridge,” she says in a low rasping whisper. Quinn picks up an apple and bites into it, much to the annoyance of the man selling the produce. She flips a small coin in his direction and turns to me. “You’re sure about this? Keeping her?”“You act like she’s some wild animal I mean to
BrieOne second, I’m standing, my feet firmly planted on the floorboards of the uppermost deck, and the next, I’m flying through the air with Sawyer, our bodies colliding with the railing and then bursting through it, the wood splintering painfully across my back and spine. Logan shouts my name, but his voice drowns out, nothing more than a flicker of breath against the sound of the incoming ships trying to burst through the wall of fire so close to us I can feel the heat on my skin. I’m… dangling. My legs are slack, my arms burn and stretch, and my head… aches, hurting so fiercely I can barely open my eyes. A sharp, heady, metallic taste fills my mouth. I try to breathe in, but the scent of blood is so heavy it makes my stomach roll with nausea. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.“Someone grab her! Help them!” Logan shouts, his voice lined with desperation and utter rage. My arms go numb, but my belly slides against the side of the ship as I’m dragged upward, and only when I’m rough
Brie“Logan!” I fly out of bed as the boat tilts dramatically, several books, a pair of boots, and a hairbrush sliding across the floorboards as I dart toward the closet and snatch a pair of pants from a hanger. Logan hastily buttons his shirt, turning his head from side to side trying to locate the boots that just flew to the opposite side of the room. I pull on the pants and grab the first shirt my fingers graze–a men’s shirt, but it doesn’t matter. Logan rushes to the far side of the room for his boots, pulling one of them on, cursing under his breath while the purple lights continue speeding in our direction. “Logan,” I hiss, tossing his other boot at him. “Why are you getting dressed?” he asks, pointing to the bed. “Stay here–”“No, I’m not going to stay here.” I growl, shrugging the shirt over my shoulders and doing my best to button it with trembling fingers. Echoes of pleasure still thrum through my body, mingling with the adrenaline now pumping through my veins. “I’m going
LoganMy knees bite into the floorboards, but I don’t feel a Goddess damned thing except my tongue sliding through Brie’s wetness. The taste of her is… my undoing. I might regret this in the morning. There will be consequences for this, of that I’m sure. We both know this can’t happen. I am stronger than this–I was stronger than this–able to shut any feeling down the moment it tried to flicker to life, but Brie has this otherworldly effect on me that I can’t shake. I’ve given up trying. She whimpers and trembles as my tongue draws lazy circles over her clit. Her thighs flex while she grips the sheets, her eyes squeezed shut as she chases a feeling I know she’s experiencing for the first time. A sense of pride swells in my chest knowing it’s me between her legs. It’s my face she’s squeezing between her soft, supple thighs. It’s me kneeling for her, a queen in her own right. There’s so much I want to do to her. So much I could show her, make her feel, but she’s… new at this. And I’m
BrieI take a step away from Logan, then another, until my back hits the wall just outside of the bathroom. The room blurs, the soft cream fabrics and dark wood turning dreamlike and hazy. We could be anywhere–any kingdom–any room or darkened forest, and I wouldn’t know it because right now it’s just me and him, and I’m utterly, wholly exposed. I’m sure my family and those others who know me well would say I’m a complicated person. They’d be right. Below the surface, beyond my mask of resilience, I’m like ice, and within that icy fortress is something akin to fear. No one has been able to penetrate those walls. Not even Maeve. But Logan is looking right through me, shoving those walls down, clawing at them until they topple and shatter. “If you don’t feel the same,” he says, his tone softening, “I… I understand. I know our situation is complicated, Brie, I get it. I have an… obligation to return to Emberfyll, and you–”“I regret it.” My voice shakes, but my gaze stays locked on hi
BrieI can’t be your friend. I lean my forehead against the railing, closing my eyes as I dangle my legs through the rails. What feels like fathoms below me, the ocean stretches toward the milky light of the last minutes of what had been the most spectacular sunset I’d ever seen in my life. Stars flicker into view overhead, nestled against a blanket of deep orange and crimson, and behind me, I listen to Sawyer and Logan pouring over a map spread out on a table bolted to the floor just beside the helm–the massive wheel used to steer a ship only a pirate would have. Logan doesn’t want to believe we have, in fact, been thrust through time and now sail the open seas in the company of pirates. In his rational defense, I haven’t seen a single person with a peg leg, a parrot, or an eye-patch, so he’s probably right. It’s a fun thought, though. I kick my legs, my bare toes chilled by the wind whipping into the sails as we practically fly over the water. I like this better than the yacht.
LoganSunlight pours over the deck of the Asteria, glinting off the sails. I watch the Artemis drift past, Alex waving from the upper deck before fading into the bright glare of the sun. I grip the railing, closing my eyes for a moment and taking a much needed breath that catches in my throat the second footsteps sound on the stairs nearby. Sawyer grunts softly as he reaches the top of the steps and turns in my direction, squinting against the sun but smiling as he says, “You settled in?”I nod, biting back that breath I desperately needed and all the other feelings threatening to make themselves known the next time I see Brie, which is hopefully several hours from now after I’ve had a chance to cool off. “The Asteria’s the oldest and slowest,” Sawyer says under his breath, joining me at the railing. “But she’s a solid ship. A good girl. My favorite of the fleet, actually.”“Why aren’t you captaining her, then?”He grins and shrugs. “The same reason I’m not on the Artemis with Alex.
MaeveThe hallowed halls of the palace in Moonrise are quiet and somber. Normally, light would spill through the ancient stained glass windows lining the foyer, casting sunlight that made the golden walls gleam, but today everything is dark. Gray. Lifeless. Rain thunders across the glass ceiling, echoing down hallways usually alive with conversation and bodies bustling from room to room. Now, my only company is my shadow, and even that’s trying to curl away, just as worn and empty as I feel. It’s been nearly a week since we lost Brie. I couldn’t stay in Maatua for another second waiting for news.I walk up the grand staircase, wearing a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, a far cry from the sweeping, luxurious gowns of silk I normally dress in when visiting my future home.Yes, one day all of this will be mine. I’ve known it–felt it in my bones since I was just a little girl. I will be queen. Soon. Three years from now, I’ll stand on the balcony and wave down at the people of Moonrise–of a
BrieAt first, I feel nothing but his mouth on mine. He inhales, but otherwise, is still as stone. The tension between us is so thick I could drown in it, and I wouldn’t bother saving myself by coming up for air.I pull away just a touch–just enough to take a shuddering breath. Maybe this was a mistake. I’m not sure what I was thinking kissing him back, but… here I am, wondering when he’s going to start laughing at me.Logan’s nose brushes mine as he closes his eyes. His hands drift to my waist, and my eyes flutter closed as his grip tightens. He takes a step toward me, then another, until I’m forced back, until my shoulders hit the wall. Time moves in slow motion as his lips brush the corner of my mouth, and he groans.Logan presses me to the wall and kisses me hard enough to steal my breath away. I rise on my toes to meet him, my lips parting as I try to suck in another breath, but his
BrieNight falls on the trio of ships. During the course of the evening, the ships had been readied, and the camp on the beach had been totally dismantled, leaving no trace that Alex’s pack had ever been there.Now, against a blanket of silver moonlight, the Artemis bobs in the shallows just beyond the mouth of the lagoon, engines purring and sails drawn.I lean against the railing and soak in the cool night breeze. It smells amazing here–like salt and tropical flowers. It’s almost exactly like Maatua but far more rocky and mountainous. Beyond the mountain shielding the lagoon, nothing but calm, open water stretches as far as the eye can see… which means we’ll be totally exposed to whatever enemies are lying in wait.The deck teems with people waiting for the two other ships to silently leave the lagoon. It’s a rough looking bunch–mostly hardened men with deep suntans and scars on