Page 88 of Bound By Love
How did she say no to the king of the dark fae?
She didn't, that was how. But why did he inviteher?
Sure, her father was a general on the winning side of the war, but he perished in that war, and she was a half vamp, half human who had never entered a Shadow Realm before. The only things separating her from mortals were that she drank blood, as well as ate food, and she was an immortal.
She had no special abilities, no powers, and though she was stronger than a human, she wasn’t as strong as a full-blooded vampire. She was a nobody holding an invitation from one of the most powerful immortals in all the realms. And she would prefer to throw it away.
Lifting her head, Lexi pushed back a loose strand of auburn hair as she studied the large manor only fifty feet away from her. At one time, the thirty-room, gray stone building was beautiful and in pristine condition.
Then her father entered the war on the side of the “let's make our existence known to the humans” faction and everything changed.
But then, her father never really had a choice. It was either fight or die, and at least he chose the winning side, even if it wasn't necessarily the right one, but she wouldnevervoice that opinion out loud.
If he'd chosen the losing side, then the Lord would have most likely taken the manor from them or destroyed it, and she and Sahira would be on the run like all the other rebels.
She was still staring at her home when Sahira snatched the invitation from her hand.
"It’s an invitation to a ball!” Sahira gushed.
Lexi winced and braced herself for what was to come. She didn’t want to attend some fancy ball, but the sparkle in Sahira’s eyes said her aunt was already planning what they would wear.
The invitation specified attending in their finest attire, which meant ball gowns. That was all well and good, but she didn’t own anything fancy, and she wasn’t in the mood to go shopping.
“It’s to celebrate the end of the war,” Sahira said, “and the king of the dark fae’s sons for helping the Lord win.”
Some of Sahira’s enthusiasm vanished as she spoke. She may love the idea of a ball and fancy gowns, but they’d both lost a lot during the war and didn’t have anything to celebrate.
She’d lost her dad, and Sahira lost her half brother. They’d lost the luxurious life they once lived and most of the humans who once lived at or worked the manor grounds.
But they weren’t the only ones who lost a lot. The human realm lost its innocence about the existence of immortals as well as countless lives. Every day, they continued to lose more.
And the dark fae king planned to celebrate those losses. Lexi found this a little strange considering he’d lost more than half his sons in the war.
She bit her tongue as she lifted her head to gaze into the crow’s black eyes. When it tilted its head, the sun created a rainbow hue of colors throughout its feathers. The crow was the dark fae’s messenger, and it was waiting for her response.
She didn’t know what to say. The idea of going to the Gloaming was tempting, she’d love to see how the dark fae lived, but she still didn’t understand whyshewas holding this invite.
She’d never met a member of the royal dark fae before. She knew Colburn—or Cole as he was more commonly known—and Brokk were the only sons the king had left on his side. Out of his nine sons, five died in the war, and the other two survivors fought for the rebels.
Like everyone who chose the losing side, they were stripped of their titles, land, and money. They were being hunted throughout the realms.
Many of the rebels ended up in the mortal realm where there was less magic and they were harder to track. Many others hopped through the Shadow Realms to avoid capture and death.
“We need gowns,” Sahira continued, and Lexi closed her eyes. “We’ll have to go to the marketplace to purchase them. It will be fun.”
The two of them had drastically different ideas of fun, but at four hundred and fifty-three years old, Sahira was four hundred and twenty-nine years older than her. Her aunt had grown up and lived through far different times.
Sahira once attended balls held by kings and czars in the human realm while Lexi grew up in jeans and T-shirts. Sahira would sometimes talk about the old days with wistful sadness while Lexi’s old days were bowls of cereal in front of her favorite cartoons.
She often missed those days. They were much simpler, and her father was still alive.
This invitation was making Sahira’s year and ruining Lexi’s day. She dreaded everything about it, but she knew what she had to do.
Opening her eyes, Lexi used her finger to check the yes box for her and Sahira. Created by fae magic, a gold mark materialized on the invite. She lifted the invite into the air, and the crow swooped down to take it from her.
It clasped the invite in its talons, released a loud caw, and soared back toward the clear blue sky before vanishing.
With a sigh, Lexi looked beyond the manor to the smoke in the distance. She couldn’t see the ruined remains of the city a hundred miles away, but every day she saw the smoke rising from it.
