Rhi almost laughed at the thought. Constantine, the prick, would prevent anyone from even thinking about it. Never mind that she had risked her life by helping to rescue Denae and Kellan, and had been helping the Kings when Balladyn took her.
As for her lover … that was just wishful thinking. Whatever paradise they had found had only been on her end. He hadn’t loved her as she’d thought, hadn’t opened his heart to her as she had done.
She had been duped, suckered.
The laughable part is that she had begun to help the Kings again. Now, when she needed them the most, they were nowhere to be found. She should’ve known that’s what would happen. Once more, she had been tricked by them.
Would it be the Dragon Kings that she focused her hatred on? Would she go after them when she turned Dark? Would she even remember the Fae she had been when the evil took her?
Rhi hurried to dash away any trace of tears when she heard the sound of Balladyn’s boots hitting the stone as he approached. The last bout of torture had felt as if it lasted an eternity. She had been hanging onto the last of her hope when it finally ended. How many more sessions of torture could she endure?
The door of her prison opened and Balladyn walked in. He didn’t bother to close it behind him. She couldn’t raise her arms, much less stand, so escaping was out of the question. Thanks to the Chains of Mordare holding her, any time she tried to use her magic, an electrical shock went through her that felt as if she were being split in half.
“I didn’t think you could look any worse,” Balladyn said as he squatted beside her. His Irish accent was thick, making her long to hear a Scot’s brogue.
“Kiss my grits,” she said with as bright of a smile as she could dredge up.
“Still doling out the insults, I see.”
She forced a laugh that sounded crackly to her ears. “Me? Go eat yourself, douche canoe.”
Balladyn’s cold smile was his response.
Rhi inwardly shrank away, because she’d pushed him too far. Perhaps he would unintentionally kill her and end the hell she was living in.
Balladyn’s red eyes held hers as he stood and took a few steps back before he spread his legs and held out his hands, palms facing each other level with his chest. Rhi whimpered when the black cloud billowed from his hands, but it was drowned out by the deafening sound of evil yawning toward her.
She thought about the first time she had seen her lover, her magnificent Dragon King. The thought was barely in her mind before she was thrown across the room, her body slamming against the stone.
A scream tore from Rhi as bones shattered.
*
Shara entered her family’s home, her heart still pounding with excitement over her time with Kiril. After Kiril dropped her off in Cork, she was surrounded by Dark who had escorted her home.
She walked to the kitchen and looked around. They, like so many other Dark, had taken residence in a human home. Shara didn’t even want to know what her family had done to the original occupants.
The manor was large, the design ancient, and yet her family kept it updated with modern conveniences. Three hundred years ago, her mother had decided to give the manor a facelift and had the entire outside redesigned to look more modern.
The Fae—both Light and Dark—once fought to claim Earth as theirs, but the Dragon Kings hadn’t stepped aside. The Fae had relented to a truce when the Kings began to pull ahead. The truce stated that no Fae could venture into Scotland or remain on the realm for long periods of time, but there was something about humans that drew them. None could stay away for long. And somehow, someway the Fae began to integrate with the humans in Ireland. They kept themselves separate, but always near the humans.
As Shara looked around the house, it gave the appearance of humanity, but there wasn’t a scrap of good within the walls. Evil lived, breathed, and bred there.
She lived there.
How was it that she didn’t feel evil after spending time with Kiril? She was born into a Dark family, had done evil herself as was evidenced by her eyes and the silver in her hair. As she looked around, she felt like a foreigner in her own home.
“You’re back early,” Farrell said as he sauntered into the kitchen, his eyes raking over her. “Your hair is messed up. Did you get him in bed?”
She wasn’t sure why she made the decision to lie, only that she did the instant the words came out of her mouth. “Kiril has a convertible, if you’ll remember. Of course my hair is going to be messed up.”
“You were at his house. Didn’t you use your wiles?” he asked in a mocking tone.
“I did. He kissed me.”
“Kissed you?” Farrell twisted his lips in a smirk. “Is that all you managed with your seduction?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to go screw himself. Instead, she smiled sweetly. “I suppose you’re used to the whore’s seduction, brother dear. Would you even know what it was if a lady seduced you?”
“You’re no lady.”
Her smile grew. “Oh wait. You don’t know because you don’t know how to get a woman without using your name or the family money.”