Red and Her Wolf (Kingdom, #3)

“You must!” she shrieked, face contorting, blunt teeth becoming momentarily sharp as familiar eyes bled with shades of red. The kind visage became for a moment, the true face of the fae. “I’ve not protected her all these years only to have her slaughtered because you feel the need to rut her like a mad fool. She is not what you think she is, Ewan. Aye, she’s your mate, but she is much more than that. Much more than just fairy magic. Do you understand what the lass truly is?”


Grinding his jaw, he inhaled deeply. “Mine. That’s what she is. I’ll protect her--”

She scoffed, her laughter hollow and dripped with scorn. “Do you not wonder, for even a moment, why she’s been hidden? Why I lied to you? I love all my boys. I always have. Especially you, you were never supposed to be mine. You belonged to the dark witch and I hated you for it. For choosing her, for fighting for wrong. But then I saw your heart and I hated myself for lying to you. The girl is powerful, but she’s dark. Wicked. Her heart is full of hate.”

“Because of ye and yer kind,” he growled, unable to hold his tongue. Nails clawed grooves in the palms of his hands.

“Nay! Because it is in her nature.” Danika’s wand sputtered and crackled with energy, no longer did the wee fae tremble. “She is all the darkness that is within a fae soul. Thousands of years, legend states, that the Ten most powerful fairies in all of Kingdom divested themselves of their darker nature. Dumping that darkness into the earth. That blight took form. A beautiful babe emerged from the ground, swaddled in shadow. They should have killed it then.”

He growled and her eyes shot to his.

“But they couldn’t. She was a child, and the Ten decided Jana was the most pure of them, and would guard her, keep her safe.”

Ewan remembered the day Malvena’s crows sought out his clan. A muscle in his jaw ticked as the night turned chilly. “I ken what happened.”

She nodded. “Aye, as do I.”

“Why did ye keep us apart?”

Danika pinched the bridge of her nose, her features reflecting the innocence of before. “She must kill Malvena. ‘Tis the only way.”

“I could kill the Black. I know her weaknesses.”

She shook her head, her curls bobbed hard. “No, it has been foretold, it must be the girl and no other. But to do it, she had to come into her powers and to do that, she had to learn to hate. Her powers are driven by darkness, Ewan. Not love. Not light. Keeping her safe and sheltered kept her weak.”

“I need her back,” he heard himself plead, hated himself for it, but he was desperate.

“She will hate you,” Danika didn’t blink, “but in order for her not to destroy herself, and all of Kingdom with her, she needs you too.” She closed her eyes. “This will not be easy, Ewan. But I will do all that I can to protect you both and see you safely to Malvena’s castle.”

“I understand why ye did it, Danika.”

Her eyes were wide, brimming with unshed tears, a soft smile flickered the corner of her rosebud lips.

“But I don’t forgive ye for it. Take me to my mate.”

A single tear spilled from her left eye. She didn’t wipe it up. “Aye, Ewan. I’ll take you.” Glancing at Jinni, Danika nodded. “It is good that you are here, Jinni.”

His lips curled into a tight grimace. “Deceiver. I hate your kind, I always have.”

The old fire returned to her face and a nasty smirk crossed her lips. “You and I are not so different, are we genie? Or have you forgotten what brought you to me?”

His hand flexed into a tight fist.

“Aye, my friend, not so very different at all.” She nodded toward Ewan. “You’re to go with him. You’ve a purpose to fill in all of this.” With those words, she swished her wand, a glowing portal opened before them and Ewan’s heart sped.

There would be blood. Lots of it.

Chapter 4

The moment they stepped through Danika’s tunnel, he smelled her. But she was different. Before she’d been fresh, like the sharp scent of verdant grass and new life. She still smelled of life, the warmth of the sun, and magic… but all of it edged in violence.

The woods were dark, shadows danced on trees, twisting them into shades of the macabre. Ewan ran, ignoring Danika’s cries or Jinni’s caution. Blood--particles of it--tickled his sensitive nose, teased his brain with visions of slaughter. The metallic, iron rich scent flooded his synapses, making him go blank, think of nothing other than his desperate need to reach his mate.

After all this time, she was near. And though there was blood, the scent of her crisp scent reached out to him, shivering across his skin like thousands of massaging fingers.

Air, thick and white, puffed from his jaws as he urged his muscles to work harder, push faster. He swerved in and around trees, paws sinking into the thick fluffy snow. Sweat slathered his haunches, even as the cold brushed an icy caress against his face, threatening to freeze the air he frantically gulped into heaving lungs.

Ahead a wash of light beckoned like a beacon, he was a moth to its flame, drawn by scent and sight. She was in there.