Page 28 of The Court the Fae Forgot
I was left a sodden, panting mess in its wake, changed forever by the dark fae’s touch.
Still, my body wanted more. It ached for him more than ever, to complete the work that we’d begun, together.
But when I turned to face him, to plunge wholeheartedly into the rest of his darkness, he was gone.
Vanished.
Without a trace.
I was once again standing, alone and half-naked, in the river. It wasn’t until I regained the breaths stolen by the fae’s touch and my spinning thoughts began to settle, that the truth of the matter began to settle, too.
He was really, truly gone. There was no sign of him. No evidence of our encounter aside from my own body still burning with unholy desire.
It took longer still for me to grasp what it meant, to understand what had just happened. I had to fight off the urge to seek the shadows of the forest for answers.
I already knew what I would find in the Wildness, and it wouldn’t be my fae.
The dark fae was gone. He’d left me shivering in the icy water, without a single sign to tell me he was anything but a phantom. A nightmare. A delusion brought on by that wicked grip of the Wildness meant to taunt me until I broke.
Still, I felt his touch lingering on my body, the remnants of it too real to be imagined.
For all the fae’s pretty words, I was once again left to face my fate alone.
I would not be left to face it in silence, however. Not when, as I reached to re-tie what remained of the severed laces at the back of my dress, the night was pierced by a scream.
A scream that could belong to only one person.
Ada.
CHAPTERELEVEN
My sister’sscreams grew louder as I flew into the night, branches and twigs snagging on my skin and skirts. It wasn’t until I saw her running down the hill away from the cottage, her body like a specter dressed only in her shift with her arms waving above her head, that I finally made out what it was she was shouting.
It was a warning.
But by then, by the time I understood it, it was already too late.
“Run, Aurra! Run!”
I’d already taken several more stumbling steps forward before her words sank in. It was still several more before I was able to actually come to a halt, my chest heaving with the exertion of my sprint back up from the river. My clothes clung to my skin, weighing me down, and my breath—never quite recovered from my latest encounter with the dark fae—was now dragging up from my lungs like sharp knives with every draw.
“Go, Aurra! Don’t come home!”
Despite Ada’s shouts, I couldn’t just turn and run. Not while she remained behind.
My mind reeled as I struggled to work out what was going on. What was she running from, her arms still waving over her head now more frantically than before? She didn’t run likeshewas scared for her own life. She didn’t run like she was being chased.
The only urgency in her voice was for me.
And then, as one last frantic wave of her arms was interrupted by a hand reaching out to snatch her, I finally understood.
My mother’s face loomed out of the darkness, pale and angry.
But it was nothing compared to the face of my father when he appeared too—not beside Ada, but beside me.
He leapt from the darkness with a snarl, his hands reaching for me. His swollen fingers wrapped around the back of my neck until I spluttered out a cough, but even then—even when those fingers dug into my hair and pulled it until my scalp screamed, he didn’t so much as loosen his grip.
“Get. Back. In. The. House,” he rasped, his stinking breath in my face.
