Page 5

She stared into the face of a beautiful stranger.

Sharp blue eyes cut through her. His smooth lips were the only thing soft about the hard but angelic lines of his face.

He was dressed in a black tunic and trousers.

Pieces of shining armor covered his shoulders and arms, seeming to reflect the dark more than it did the light.

Before she could speak or even summon a scream, the man grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her flush against his hard body.

Kate couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. When he spoke his tone was low, dark, and it intoxicated her senses.

“Your wish is granted, little one. You’re mine, now and forever. I shall steal you away by twilight.”

The broad swath of moonlight entering her bedroom window suddenly shattered into swirling beams like a kaleidoscope.

“Don’t fear, I have you.” The man’s arms tightened around her body as the world she knew vanished into shadow.

They flew through the night, but it was not any night sky she recognized.

Even the air had vanished. She tried to suck in a desperate breath but couldn’t.

Her lungs screamed until she slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

Roan Arun, king of the Twilight Court, burst into the vast expanse of space between the human realm and his own.

His arms were locked tight around the mortal as he barreled through stars and galaxies.

The dust of a universe’s lost dreams clung to their bodies with their shimmering essence.

Whispers of ancient worlds, stories older than the stars, teased his ears as they traveled faster and faster.

He only prayed that he would reach his home without interference from the warriors of the Morning Court.

Flashes of white and silver lit up in his periphery. Damn, they had found him. He’d hoped they wouldn’t have been watching this path, but they must have known he’d been in the mortal world rather than his own.

Tapping into the dark magic within him, he cast a glamour around himself and the human woman.

It was one of the strongest he could manage and would trick even the Seelie fools, if only for a short while.

To them, he would appear as nothing but a flash of light.

He had only to make it a little farther to reach the safety of his kingdom.

Just then, the mortal woman started to slip from his hold. Her hair whipped at his arms and her sooty lashes fluttered. With a roar, he pulled her away from the retreating tides of time that now tugged at her.

He would not surrender her, not now, not to anyone or anything.

From the moment she’d touched him, colors and sensations had intensified for him, and he was hungry for more.

Her warm body fit to his in the most perfect way.

Roan had granted her wish, to free her of the place that had trapped her, and now she belonged to him, this beautiful little mortal with mournful eyes whose dreams made his chest ache in a way it never had before.

I will give you everything, little one. Everything. So long as you are mine.

With a final burst of strength, he penetrated the last barrier into his realm, along a Fae road that only he could follow. The wind carried him and his prize toward the distant palace of the Twilight Court.

The Seelie warriors dared not follow him into the dark woods. Not even their light shone bright enough to let them find a way out of the forest that covered his lands, and the closest they had dared to appear was upon the tallest of the Black Hills.

Roan careened toward the ground like a meteor, silver-and-blue flames trailing in his wake.

If mortals knew that shooting stars were traveling Fae, they would never look at the night sky the same way again.

Roan landed in a low crouch, the mortal woman cradled safely in his arms. Dust billowed out along the stone floors of the Twilight Palace, and the male and female Fae in his court fell silent at his abrupt entrance.

Dozens of Fae knights gripped their swords, and more than one female courtier reached for her hidden dagger. Though they hadn’t been at war with the Seelie for many years, the peace between them was tenuous and Roan’s people were always prepared for battle.

“Brother?” His younger sister, Eudora Moondove, rushed toward him.

Her dark hair was pulled up and threaded with blue ribbons.

Her purple-and-gold court gown made her stand out among the courtiers.

Her pale seafoam wings fanned out behind her, leaving a trail of glittering sparkles like motes of dust catching the sunlight.

Eudora halted at the sight of the woman in his arms. A murmur rippled through the court, then silence fell again as his people saw that he carried a mortal with him.

He wished he could shield her body from their view, such were the possessive and protective instincts that surged through him.

He wanted to guard her against their inquisitive stares, for the Fae were ever curious about the world of mortals.

But that was not what worried him most. In front of all these witnesses, he had just broken one of the most important laws his people had made since the Arthurian wars.

It was forbidden to take mortals from their world.

“Roan,” Eudora gasped. “What have you done?”

But he knew what he had done, just as everyone in his court knew. Yet he did not care. The mortal woman was his .

He glanced down at the woman in his arms, and that deep, unfathomable peace filled him yet again.

Without looking away from the mortal, he said, “I may have doomed us all.”