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My world began to crumble in on itself. After everything I’d been through, this was the news, the revelation, that broke me the most.

I knew Ezra had held a grudge, but to actually kill them? And Alaroth, he just expected me to marry him after he’d ordered their execution?

I wanted to scream, cry, shift, dosomething. But more lives were in the balance now, and Alaroth knew my passionate flirting was fake, a means to get what I wanted. As soon as I stopped, he had no reason to play along anymore.

Revenge would unfortunately have to wait.

I kissed my cousins on their cheeks and left them to join the assholes who had destroyed my family and my life.

“Beloved!” Alaroth cooed, wrapping his arm around me. “Don’t you look lovely.”

His nose dipped to my neck and his lips grazed the skin, sending a sick wave of goosebumps over my body. I pretended to giggle, my hands balling into fists at my sides.

Ezra clocked my tension at once and his face scrunched in concern.

What the hell did he have to be worried about? This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Our parents dead, and his sister pimped out to his king.

“So how are we traveling?” I asked. I didn’t see any carriages or horses.

Alaroth whistled loudly, and a small team of grooms came from around a corner, leading half a dozen elk, each as large as a moose. Their fur was spotted like newborn fawn’s, and their gold antlers shone in the sun. Wasabi slithered between them, coming up to me and purring loudly as she rubbed her head against my hip.

“By alderbeast,” he replied. He grabbed me around the waist, nimbly setting me atop one, and then hopped on behind me.

“We will ride together, my future queen,” he whispered in my ear, his hands now slowly rubbing my legs.

Fantastic.

I fought back the urge to scoot as far forward as possible and instead went back, leaning into his chest. “Sounds wonderful.”

Ezra watched us carefully and then shifted. Wasabi hissed and took her place in between us, keeping my brother away.

“What a good little vryscral you are,” I said lovingly. “So protective.” I was too high up to give her a head pat, but she still trilled in response to the praise.

Alaroth clicked his tongue and we were off, Wasabi and Ezra running to keep up with the giant alderbeasts, each with their own fae rider.

The air was fresh and clean, even cleaner than in northern Wisconsin, and it carried a hint of salt.

We rode down a path cut through the forest, with giant, moss covered trees lining the way. Their roots spider-webbed along the ground, creating a network of little holes and tunnels for strange creatures to run through, and I watched in awe.

This was my homeland.

I held onto the horn of the saddle, trying to keep myself steady against the alderbeast’s quick canter.

“I heard about the metal machines you use to travel,” Alaroth began, “when Ezra first came here. He showed me many moving pictures on a device from your world.”

“And how did he come here again? Through a portal?”

“That’s right. He found a wild one quite by accident, it seems,while on his travels.”

“A ‘wild one?’ You mean a wild portal?”

Alaroth pulled me in tighter, resting his chin on top of my head. “Yes. Despite the shifters and vampyrs of your world trying to do their best to close them, the magic in Vespera is too great to be contained completely, and small, wild portals appear time and again. We have managed to find and secure the one Ezra took you through, but the others weren’t stable enough to be of much use.”

I tried to keep the tone of my voice light and easy. “And why exactly have you not just gone through it with the armies you have now? Why do you need us?”

“As much as I hate to admit my failures, the last time I tried to invade your realm didn’t go as I’d hoped, and with the portals mostly destroyed, it was nearly impossible to cross again. But with your birth has come a thinning of the veil, giving my greatest priests an opportunity to create new pathways that will accommodate us. Soon we will be ready to take my revenge, and unite the realms as is our destiny.”

What was soon, though, to a near immortal fae?