Page 40 of Night Fae

But it wasn't peaceful sleep.

Even from the doorway, Zev could sense the wrongness, the void where dreams should be.

He approached the bed silently, studying Malik's face in the moonlight. The human looked younger in sleep, more vulnerable.

"Malik," Zev said softly, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Malik's eyes opened immediately—too quickly for natural sleep. They stared up at the ceiling, before Malik slowly turned to Zev. No surprise registered at finding him there, no emotion of any kind crossed his face as he sat up.

His eyes—those expressive eyes that had sparked with anger, softened with compassion, burned with determination—were flat and vacant.

What waswrongwith him?

"How are you feeling?" Zev asked.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

Malik didn't respond to Zev. He just stared past him at nothing in particular.

Zev grabbed his shoulders, shaking slightly to make Malik look at him. "Tell me what happened."

"They took me to the forest this morning," Malik reported. "Your grandmother and your father."

Curse it all. Of course his family was behind this.

"There was an excavation site," Malik continued in a monotone voice. "A pit, fifteen feet deep. With a tunnel at the bottom."

Zev had the worst suspicion that he knew what came next. "What kind of tunnel?"

"A shadow path." Malik's eyes met his, empty as a sunless sky. "They forced my hand into it. The darkness... it was hungry."

The coldness in Zev's chest spread. He understood. The shadow paths fed on emotion, on memory, on self. They stripped away everything that made a person who they were.

Zev's hands clenched into fists.

Lord Darius and Lady Morvena had promised that nothing would happen to the human, and yet they'd taken this bright warm soul and offered it to the shadows.

But then, that was what they did.

What this familyalwaysdid.

"I saw you," Malik whispered, though his expression didn't change. "You had two dead werewolves at your feet."

Slowly, the rage in Zev's chest grew hot. Yes, he'd killed. He'd had to, because the Night Court wanted to make him just as unfeeling as Malik was now. They'd both end up as hollow shells of their former selves.

But Zev was done standing still and letting people walk over him.

He wasn't empty, he wasangry.

He seized a crystal decanter from a nearby table, and hurled it against the wall where it shattered beautifully, fragments glittering like stars as they rained to the floor.

Malik stared at the broken glass, gaze empty still.

So that wasn't enough to rattle him, was it?

No matter.