Page 48

CALY

The shadows stretched to conceal me in the grimy alley as I followed the large fae. It was quite a feat to remain concealed with my stomach protruding as it was. I had to bend my back at an odd angle to keep my stomach from pushing against the wall.

The breeze from ahead blew the stench of rotting meat and hops from the man under my nose, and I almost blew my cover then and there fighting back the vomit that threatened to emerge. Thankfully the piece of shit didn’t hear me gag.

Nerves crawled up my fingers, causing my hands to tingle in anticipation.

It felt like forever since I’d done anything dangerous.

Mendax had even gone so far as to keep me from the lab—my own lab, on days when we were working with new magic, for fear I would hurt myself or the fetus. It was stifling.

The fetus—what a doting mother I was.

Ralyn, the man I was about to kill, paused, not quite out of the tucked-away alley; his large frame blocked most of the light from the main road, which tried desperately to illuminate the grimy space behind buildings that no one with any self-preservation would dare enter.

His size didn’t intimidate me; Mendax was much larger, in muscle structure and ego .

For months I had been a saint, keeping my head down and focusing only on being the person Eli would have wanted me to be as Queen of Seelie, but it was too much.

Between Mendax and the rest of the castle scuffling along after me like a fragile doe, I’d had enough.

It was hard enough coming to terms with all of the recent changes: new powers, a husband, castles, magic, and fetuses.

This man, Ralyn, was a known abuser, taking liberties with women and children alike, and as queen, I’d decided to remove him from my realm.

Permanently. When I’d snuck out of the castle tonight, I’d known exactly where I would go.

I knew from my people where this filth liked to linger—I knew everything there was to know about him, even his date of expiration.

My entire ride to town I’d imagined how good the thrill of the chase would be.

Would he run? Fight back? Beg for his life? I secretly wished for all three.

I’d justified it by telling myself it was for the safety of the fetus, but that was a lie; I needed this. It was who I was. I couldn’t take the way everyone babied me, treating me like I would pop like a balloon should I overexert myself.

A tear dribbled down my chin. Yet another unfavorable curse from the fetus: feelings that were unable to be hidden.

As soon as the thing was out of me, I planned to stay as far away from it as possible—it would thank me one day, or not; it didn’t matter.

What mattered was that it stay away from me.

People like me and Mendax didn’t have children.

What if I hurt it in a rage? Even now, it resided fully in my stomach and I had no feelings for it, no motherly instinct.

I’m certain if I had, I wouldn’t be hunting down a dangerous fae in back alleys mere weeks before the thing is supposed to evacuate the chasm of my loins.

No, a good mother didn’t crave violence or lack feelings of nurturing.

“Why are you following me, bitch?”

I stumbled back a few feet in surprise. I had been so engrossed in my thoughts, I hadn’t realized the man had tucked himself against the wall instead of turning the corner.

Having the advantage of surprise, he wasted no time in collecting my wrists in one hand and pulling me against him, his thick fore-arm locking in around the back of my neck so that the front of me was pressed against his mildew-covered clothes.

His rancid breath ghosted across my face like a hot breeze, my large belly pushed against his.

“Well, look at this,” he said as he ran a hand over my stomach. “It’s a two for one.”

I was frozen.

Fear unlike anything I’d felt suddenly gripped me. Panic laced my thoughts like a drug, causing me to remain still instead of fighting back as his hand and body pressed against the baby in my body.

Suddenly I wasn’t haphazardly risking my own life, I was risking our child’s life, the child I was supposed to be protecting this whole time.

What if it never even got a chance to hate me? Mendax would hate me. I would hate me.

It had only been about ten seconds in this shit bag’s hold, but it was the most impactful ten seconds of my life.

Muscle memory kicked into high gear, and I tried to kick the man, grunting in pain when it hurt my side and hardly landed on the man.

Panic surged through my veins at the realization that not only was I out of practice, but I was heavily pregnant and my body didn’t operate the same way.

My heart pounded like a drum in my head as I struggled to call my SunTamer power.

I managed to light his sleeve on fire where he held my hands as I thrashed and fought like a rabbit trapped in a snare.

Oh my gods. What had I done? Why hadn’t I just stayed put in the castle and let Malum Mendax protect me? Tears blurred my eyes as I saw the horrible look in the man’s eyes as he pulled a knife from his shirt pocket.

“I think my baby wants to—” he began.

Flames engulfed the both of us. “My baby—it’s my baby,” I cried out in an unfamiliar voice.

“It’s my baby!” The flames, now a bright sapphire blue, consumed the man, burning the skin clean off his bones, only receding once he fell to the ground in a heap, the smoldering flames on my skin lighting the once-dark space.

Mindlessly, I grabbed the man’s knife from the ground, the one he had threatened my child with, and stabbed him repeatedly with it, only stopping once my panic began to ebb.

“It’s my baby…” I muttered almost in a trance as I moved myself off of the pile of bones while I continued to pant and tremble.

The knife fell from my hand as I covered my stomach protectively, barely keeping it together.

I scrambled out of the dark space and into the well-lit street.

Everything was cloaked in a deep shadow with a red aura.

The darkness from the Unseelie’s sky mingled with the sun from the Seelie’s night creating an ominous nightfall in this part of the realm.

I forced my legs toward the direction of the castle, wishing I was in shape to run home.

I needed Mendax, I needed him to tell me that everything would be okay.

Instead, another surge of panic shot through my system when I heard the sound of footsteps behind me.

“Fuck,” I whisper-cried. I knew it wasn’t Ralyn, he was a pile of charred bones, but you couldn’t have a pyre that size in the dead of night without someone noticing and this was just the area that the worst would notice.

The footsteps picked up speed behind me.

I hugged my belly, silently promising the fetus that I would get us back to the castle safely as I darted behind the owl trainer’s old stone shop.

I had no choice; it was either run around like a scurrying pregnant rat the whole way back or double back down the alley full of bones and take my horse back home.

I willed my heavy breath to quiet as I tucked myself against the wall and closed my eyes, struggling to hear if anyone was truly following me or if it had been something else entirely. After hearing and seeing nothing, I tucked myself back into the dark alley that now smelled like smoke and fear.

There they were again. Footsteps behind me.

My eyes closed in fear. I was tired. Could I even manage to fight off another person right now?

I moved quicker through the dark space and heard the tapping of feet also speed up.

I could feel them behind me. I began to run, my heavy breathing and the echoing footsteps the only sign of life in the abandoned space.

My head snapped back as someone grabbed my ponytail, only stopping my fall with their broad chest at my back.

I tried to spin, but they had looped an arm above my ribs and held me in place.

Panic once again poured over my body like gasoline lighting the fire inside of me.

Instantly flames shot forth from my skin, except this time the person’s grip didn’t loosen; it tightened as it moved from my hair to the front of my throat.

My flames licked at the arm of the hand holding my throat and I realized the amount of smoke that was pouring off of them and also the fact that they weren’t disintegrating into ash.

“Mendax?” I breathed out still in a panic.

“So you want a little excitement, do you?” The low, terrifyingly soft voice of Mendax rolled across the skin on the side of my face, but it brought me no comfort. He was pissed, and when he was this mad, there was no telling what would happen; he became a feral creature.

“I’m sorry, I—it’s too much. You were suffocating me,” I shouted back realizing my poor choice in words when he tightened his grip around my throat.

By now my nerves had calmed and were comfortable enough with their new assailant to fight back.

I elbowed him in the stomach, something that unfortunately hurt my elbow, and flipped around to see Mendax absolutely fuming.

His icy blue eyes had a familiar dangerous quality to them that I unfortunately found irresistible.

“Maybe for reference I should show you what me suffocating you really feels like,” he stated flatly with a cold tone. “If you want to be scared, pet, you needn’t go to town for it.”

My face scrunched. “What are you going to do, huh? Put a scary print on the padded room you lock me and your child in? I’m shocked you’re being this rough with me,” I snapped.

“Get on your knees,” he commanded.

“What?” I shouted. “You get on your fucking?— ”

“Get on your fucking knees, Calypso.”

A thrill ran through me. This felt like the way we were— before finding out about the baby, before he handled me too gently. Excitement sent goose bumps over my skin. “Make me,” I spat out trying to hide my giddiness.