Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
“Stop!” Beck’s command has everyone taking a step back. The room quiets. The warrior king of the Seelie Fae looks at Dante. “You know what you’re giving up, cos?”
Everything. And nothing. I’m giving up everything I know—money, power, luxury. It’s nothing compared to what I gain. A cause worth fighting for. A real place for Kaja.
“I know.”
Kaja’s hand finds my chest, and those brilliant blue eyes stare up at me. “Dante, you cannot leave your home. I know why you’re doing this. Please. I will fit in. I will adjust.”
I don’t want her to adjust. I want my wolf. And she is wholly mistaken. “This is what I need. I didn’t understand it before. I’m a warrior. I’m a beast, and this is my cause. Come with me. Fight with me. And this isn’t my home, Kaja. You are my home.”
She wraps her arms around me, her answer rolling across my brain.
Yes.
Beck nods. “You’re more than welcome, cos. You are needed.”
I find myself surrounded by my family. They form a tight circle.
“I love you, brother,” Susan says. “You come home to us someday.”
“My baby.” My mother weeps unashamedly. “I’m so proud of you.”
They walk away one by one, each doing his or her part to get ready. My father looks at me.
“Do you understand what you’re doing?”
“I’m fighting for what’s right.” I wait for my father’s lecture on how naïve I’m being.
My father’s strong jaw trembles. “I raised you well, son. I always knew it. You make me proud. Anything you need, you call your family. And Kaja, thank you. You’re my daughter. Dante’s told me a bit about your plane. Forget them. This is your pack. You are always welcome here, daughter.”
Kaja holds on to me, her chest shaking with emotion. I feel her great love for my family, but I’m doing the right thing. She won’t ever belong here, and I can never be happy without her.
Four hours later, Roan proves true to his word. The guards lay unconscious, and the door to the Refugee plane opens before us.
“Your Highnesses.” Roan gestures to the doorway. “It will be a day’s journey to the Unseelie plane. The decoys have not been caught yet. We will be safe. It is my great honor to serve you.”
Beck thanks him, his face grim. He shows his wife and brother through the door.
We’re on the run. Beck and Cian will win their throne or be buried beneath it.
Kaja smiles as she walks through the door.
I follow. I leave my plane behind because my whole world is wrapped in one small woman. She holds my heart, my future.
I will have it no other way.
The door closes behind me, and I face my destiny.
Epilogue
Bronwyn
The Seelie Plane
The sun warms my face, and I look out over the meadow. The fields are filled with wheat. Tall stalks sway in the wind, and dust blows up from the tiny dirt road that leads to my tower. My hands already ache from the thought of harvesting all that wheat. I put that reality aside. It’s still weeks away. Weeks before I will spend every day in the field. I remember a time when I was a pampered princess.
Now all I have is this tower. From my vantage, it feels like I can see the whole world. Well, mine at least.
“Bron, it’s time for supper.” Gillian’s voice drifts up from the bottom of the tower.
Gillian still thinks of me as the child she saved that terrible day in the White Palace. The day when I lost my mother and father, I found Gillian McIver. The Unseelie princess became my healer, my savior, my surrogate mother. When I was younger, I would never have believed it. Unseelie and Seelie living together, dependant on each other. Loving each other as family. But Gillian has been my world for a very long time.
And Gillian is a slight pain in my ass. I’m twenty-seven years old and still being called to supper.
“I’m coming,” I call back, but I let my head drift to my hands as I stare out over the peaceful field where I spent the last thirteen years of my life.
I dreamed again last night. It’s the same thing every night. When I close my eyes, I try to envision my brothers, alive and whole, but every night when conscious thought flees, they come to me.
The Dark Ones.
I dreamed of them for as long as I can remember. It’s as though they grew up with me. I live a whole second life when I close my eyes and go to sleep. Sometimes they are so real that I wonder which reality is the dream. I remember them as children, playing through my mind as I slept. As I grew, they did as well. We talk about everything in my dreams. I know them as well as I know myself. And then they were gone for a long time.