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I hear a dull roar somewhere behind me and guess the Barghest has taken the advantage. He will kill without compunction, like I once did, until the killing got old.

And I needed solitude.

Mab will never understand why, only that I disobeyed her. My punishment, now so obvious as to be glaring, was to give me something I needed with all my heart and soul.

Then take her away. Take my life away from me. Take everything.

The Faerie have no mercy. I knew this, but I didn’t challenge it.

I should have.

I make a third pass over the palace, desperate for any sign of my mate. Her scream still rings in my ears. Faerie attempt to fling their spells up at me, but my hide is thick enough to deflect most of them and my eyes attuned enough to avoid the rest.

“Give me my mate!” I snarl down at those fleeing the burning palace. “Mab! Come out and face me!”

I can scent my mate, but she isn’t in the flames. However, the burning makes it difficult to determine where she might be.

I send another searing bolt down into the main hall and revel in watching how it disintegrates.

Mab thought she could control me.

She was wrong. I am nothing without my mate. I am everything with her, and I will stop at nothing to find her.

The prophecy has finally come to fruition. Alice has ensured I am the Wyrm I should be and not the creature who couldn’t face what he really was.

I am going to be the best mate Alice could wish for. I am going to make sure our young is comfortable and cared for, curse or no. I will be there for her, even if it turns out to be true, and I will never, ever stop searching for a way to break it.

Although, it is Mab who has the power, and she is the one I need.

I’m sure I hear a voice carried on the wind as the flames crackle beneath me. I turn, lifting up over the burning building as the fire creeps over the formal gardens, turning them to ash.

In the air, above an empty space beyond, I see Mab.

Below her, I see a figure I will always, always recognise.

My sweet mate. My Alice. My heart.

She glares into the sky. I’m not sure if she sees Mab, given the amount of smoke, but there is so much defiance in her little body.

I know she is mine.

I am the luckiest Wyrm alive.

Mab turns slowly in the air, her garments flowing unnaturally within her magic sphere. Her eyes are white with rage.

“Wyrm.” The word reverberates around my head, as if she’s inside me. “You will give yourself to me, or your mate dies.”

“You cannot kill her.” I push the thoughts back as hard as I can. “Not while I have breath left to burn.”

The laughter is the worst. Mab tilts, looking down at Alice, and a spike of energy hits my beautiful mate.

It fountains from her, the scent of her blood filling my senses.

Alice crumples to the ground.

There’s a roar which seemingly shakes the entire Faerie hills as I descend, a roar it takes me a while to determine is coming from me. I flame at Mab, not caring whether I hit her or not because I have to get to Alice.

She cannot die. I won’t let her. Fate can’t let her.