Page 68 of The Unseelie Wish
The hint wasn’t subtle. The poison in the ring. Tears welled in her eyes. She knew she should run, but she couldn’t leave him. Couldn’t abandon him to die. Shaking her head numbly, she felt frozen to the spot.
“How sweet.” Valroy lifted his broadsword. “You wish to watch him die. Very well.” The Unseelie King lunged at Izael, driving forward with a speed that seemed at odds with his size.
Izael dodged, his reflexes as fast as those of his kin. He hissed, baring his fangs, and she watched as the turquoise line that bisected his chest did the same, peeling apart to threaten the King. “Go, Alex!”
But she couldn’t. She just…couldn’t leave him behind. Even if it meant disaster.
Valroy lifted his sword and swung it at Izael.
And she did the only thing she could. She grabbed hold of his music, the pipe organ that sounded far smaller than the bellowing thing beside her, and changed it.
Just as Valroy’s sword was about to remove Izael’s head from his shoulders, it clattered to the stones before sliding into the pool of blood. Where the Unseelie King had just been standing, a cloud of white moths fluttered and flew away.
Izael’s eyes were wide, his body shaking with adrenaline. “You have only bought us moments. But they are moments, all the same. Run, Alex—the ring?—”
“I can’t. I—” love you, she had wanted to say, but never had the chance. Her words choked off as a hand closed around her throat from behind her, cutting off her air.
“Well played, little human!” It was Valroy. He sounded strained, as though what she had done had actually hurt him. But he seemed barely the worse for wear. He tightened his hand around her throat, dragging her back toward him. “I have been beheaded. I have been burned. I have been dismembered, gutted, turned to ash, and scattered to the winds—but never have I experienced that. I thought I had known every death a body could suffer. Thank you for the new lesson in pain.” He lowered his head. “I will be sure to return the favor.”
“Let her go!” Izael threw himself at them in a fit of panic and fury. Valroy threw her to the side, hurling her to the ground to meet his opponent.
Alex landed hard in the viscous blood and gore, its warmth still sickening. Scrambling back up to her feet, she whirled to face the two battling fae.
Izael had a dagger in each hand, doing his best to dodge and avoid the strikes from Valroy. But there was a reason the King was the one in charge. Izael was fast, vicious, and fought like the creatures he resembled, darting forward and back.
But he was also very large, his tail long and curling, and made it difficult to defend all parts of himself.
Alex screamed as Valroy brought down his sword and stabbed it straight through a thicker portion of Izael’s tail. Blood the color of tar shot from the wound as Izael howled in pain.
Valroy left his blade there, keeping the snake pinned in place, and laughed. “No one will come to save you, Duke of Bones. You are unloved. Not even your father is here to protect you now.” Lunging forward again, he struck Izael across the jaw with his fist, knocking Izael to the ground.
I love you— The words stuck in her throat. She was weeping now, tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. What was the point? “Stop—leave him alone?—”
Valroy grabbed Izael by the hair and jerked the other fae upright. A second punch. A third. Izael’s lip was bleeding.
“Stop! Please, stop—” she begged, running a few steps forward instinctually.
Valroy dropped Izael to the ground with a chuckle, wiping the blood from his knuckles onto the dark blue sash he wore around his waist. “I will bargain with you, witch. I will spare his life—I will spare both of your lives—if you use your wish to break the treaty.” He turned to face her. “I know you have not spent it yet.” He dropped Izael, who fell limply to the ground.
“I—” She was shivering. Absolutely shaking like a leaf.
“Destroy the treaty, little human, and I will allow you both to live peacefully wherever you like.” Picking up his bare foot, still covered in blood from the pool, he stepped down on Izael’s throat, pinning him there.
Izael gagged and writhed, his hands weakly trying to pull Valroy away.
“I can’t, I…” She couldn’t take her eyes off Izael. Valroy was going to make her watch as he crushed the life out of the Duke of Bones. She went to lift her hand to turn him into moths again.
“Ah—I recommend against that. As amusing as it was once, it will lose its luster a second time.” He sneered. “I will win, and then you will be forced to listen to him scream as I skin him alive.”
Defeated, Alex lowered her hand. “Let him go.”
Valroy smiled, almost sympathetically. “My, my. What is this? Do you care about him?” He stepped down harder on Izael’s throat.
“Stop!” She took another instinctual step forward. “Please—stop.”
He eased up on the pressure, letting Izael gasp and cough, before stepping over Izael to approach her. “Poor, lost witch. Do not think I do not understand the suffering you endure. And I can make it all end.” He placed his hand to his chest over the dark blue ink that tattooed his skin in the shape of a maze, tangled and twisted up in jagged Celtic knots.
When she took a step back, he stopped his approach. She couldn’t take her eyes off Izael. Couldn’t stop staring at the duke as he lay there, wheezing, bleeding from the mouth and from the sword still keeping him pinned to the stone.