I was awoken from my depression nap by guards yelling at us to move. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been a rejuvenating experience, because I’d dreamed of blood.
In my nightmare, Dick had beaten me until blood had splashed in my eyes. At first, it had burned, but then the warm, sticky substance had been almost…comforting.
I was officially losing my mind.
Instead of dwelling on my creepy dreams, I let the guard escort me out of the prison without a fuss.
Jax and Cobra growled and scowled, but they didn’t lunge at the guards, who pointed glowing batons in our direction.
With a sad, sleepy wave to Legolas, we were escorted out of the dungeon without explanation.
Since people were no longer throwing their feces at the dead guard, things were definitely looking up.
Also, unlike last time, the guards didn’t shove me forward as they led us down the palace halls. They walked a respectful distance behind, with their flaming batons held out in front of their bodies as a warning.
Our hands were cuffed, and they held our long chains, but they didn’t shove us around.
I understood their hesitancy.
Jax was a mammoth of a man, and he towered over all the guards in height and width.
Meanwhile, Cobra’s body was mottled with bruises and covered in blood splatter. The crystal collar around his neck made him look like a chained animal, and he bared his teeth every time a guard looked at him.
Plus, let’s not forget the fact that Jax had popped a guard’s head like a grape and Cobra had beaten a guard to death in the bedroom.
At this point, I was the only alpha who hadn’t killed someone in a fit of rage.
Who would have thought I would be the most mentally stable?
Not a role I’d ever seen for myself.
As I walked beside them, my long dress dragged across the ground. Apparently, being five and a half feet tall made me unnaturally short in both the shifter and fae realms.
Besides Jax and Cobra with their impressive physiques and general energy of unwellness, I looked like a nonthreatening child playing dress-up.
As we walked down the massive halls painted with elaborate murals and covered in gold foil, I tried to get my bearings.
The problem was, I was overwhelmed by everything we’d learned about the realm, and I was too hungry to think critically.
My big takeaway—the queen was a cunt, and I’d been kidnapped.
I probably should have been over the moon that I might have a loving family waiting for me in another realm, but all I felt was sadness. Lucinda was my family, and she was an entire realm away.
The only blessing was she was at school until she turned eighteen and had no idea the bullshit that I was going through.
I tried to visualize a plan.
All I had to do was survive the queen, escape from the fae realm, navigate through the freezing shifter realm, go to Dick’s tavern, kill Dick if he was still alive…and be waiting for Lucinda when she returned.
Thank goodness she wouldn’t return for two more years. Something told me I was going to need all the time I could get.
My stomach hurt, and my eyes burned with tears of frustration. Could life be easy, just once? It didn’t feel like I was asking for too much.
Instead of sobbing like a little bitch, I breathed in deeply through my nose and focused on the positives.
We were no longer in the rancid prison, and I wasn’t naked.
It could be worse—I could literally be on fire.
A guard pointed his glowing baton at a golden archway and yelled, “Walk out those doors!”
I stepped through the golden stained-glass door and almost passed out.
Good news—the fae realm wasn’t forty degrees below zero and a cold hellscape like the shifter realm.
Rays of sun tickled my cheeks, and my golden skin danced as warmth bathed my body. Hot, warm, toasty, cuddly, bright, brilliant, fantastic sunshine slapped my face with a juicy kiss.
Holy tits.
Two massive suns hung bright and bloated in the sky. One was a bright yellow, and the other was a bright green.
I’d never felt such delicious warmth before. It was like soaking in a hot bath. From the impressive heat radiating all around me, I could tell that even on their own, each sun was way warmer than the red sun in the shifter realm.
“Wow, the shifter realm sucks,” I said as the warmth wrapped me in the toastiest hug. Before this very moment, I’d never stepped outside a building without my skin prickling in pain as icy wind blasted my face.
I didn’t know the air could be so comfortable.
Shit, if the entire realm was like this, I wanted to live outside. Who needed buildings?
“It’s too hot,” Cobra grumbled like he wanted to be back in the cold of the shifter realm.
Since he was covered in bruises, and just generally an asshole, I ignored him. He’d taken too many blows to the head, and it showed.
Jax smiled down at me and then tilted his massive head to the warm, bright-blue sky. His gold piercings glinted and the chains in his long braids twinkled in the breeze. “I’m glad you like it, little alpha.”
I smiled up at him and admired how his dark skin shone underneath the bright suns.
Sure, my life sucked, but everything felt less awful because Jax was by my side. His big presence and calm energy were relaxing.
For a moment, it was just the two of us smiling in the sun.
“Oh my sun god, it’s just a little sunshine. Stop acting so dramatic,” Cobra sneered as he stomped past us.
Moment over.
I fought the urge to punch Cobra in the dick. Even though he was bruised and bloody, the hundreds of jewels embedded in his skin refracted the sunshine in a beautiful halo.
Just like Jax, Cobra was breathtaking to look at. However, unlike Jax, he did not give off calm energy.
“Walk to the chariot,” a guard ordered behind us.
Startled, I looked away from the aqua sky and its dual suns and took in the rest of the fae realm.
My mouth dropped. It was glorious.
We stood on a white brick path that cut through an expansive lawn of bright-green grass.
At the end of the grass, there was a golden road with hundreds of chariots rolling by.
On the other side, a forest of green and pink expanded as far as the eye could see.
There wasn’t a mountain in sight. I never knew that land could be so…flat.
Sprinkled throughout the lush foliage of the forest, big pink flowers swayed in a warm breeze. Their petals were longer than my body and looked huge, even from far away.
The forest didn’t contain any tall pine trees like the shifter realm. Instead of conifers, vines and ferns jutted from the earth in every direction.
Everything seemed to sparkle in the bright sunshine.
I hated to say it, but the fae queen was a beast at landscaping.
The palace lawn was so gorgeously manicured that I almost forgot she was an evil hag I wanted to brutally murder.
Our chains clacked together as we walked down the white brick path.
I squinted and pretended I was a spoiled princess enjoying her riches. Little ponds with waterfalls and fish lined both sides of the path, and at its end, a golden chariot waited for us with an open door.
It was just like the other chariots that passed along the busy road beside it. I’d read about the chariots in fae books, but they were even more breathtaking in person.
Massive white stallions, three times the size of horses in the shifter realm and less furry, were attached to the golden carriage.
The horses’ coats were white as snow, and their manes were long and glossy, with rainbow streaks.
A part of me recognized that I was bound and chained, being carted away to sun god knew where at the orders of a psychotic, evil, immortal queen.
However, the other part of my brain just said, sparkly, and little bubbles of excitement traveled up my throat.
“What are those?” I asked Jax as I pointed to the funky-looking plants that lined our path. They had long stalks, and their leaves cast shade across the bricks. The gurgling ponds meandered around them.
They towered so high in the sky that I tilted my head back to see their leaves.
Jax shrugged his massive shoulders. “I have no idea.”
Cobra sneered, “Oh my sun god, they are palm trees, not that exciting.”
We both stared up at the palm trees and pretended Cobra wasn’t being a grouchy ass. Jax just rolled his eyes and smiled at the snake shifter; he was used to his frosty attitude.
Instead of snarking back at Cobra, I focused on the epic landscaping.
If the shifter realm was cold and gray, then the fae realm was warm and bright. The sheer number of colors that surrounded me was overwhelming. It was an explosion across my senses.
I saw a piece of the fae castle in my peripheral vision.
Holy mother of the moon goddess.
I almost broke my neck whipping my head around.
Once again, my mouth dropped. I ignored the angry-looking fae guards holding batons of pain and focused on the castle.
The palace towered over the landscape. Massive colonnades, round turrets, arches, and thick green vines decorated its gleaming gold facade. The palatial structure sprawled so far across the horizon that I couldn’t see where it began and ended.
But the most shocking feature was its roof.
Massive gold cups that resembled chalices were covered with vines and pink flowers and jutted off the roof of the structure.
Sunshine streamed into the chalices and formed glowing balls of blue light. As rays hit the golden edges of the cups, steam swirled across their rims and formed glowing balls that hovered in the air above the cauldrons.
The glowing balls of turquoise were like nothing I’d ever seen before, and there were at least a dozen floating atop the structure.
It was breathtaking.
“Into the carriage,” a guard ordered, and I unbroke my neck to face forward because our chariot awaited. Literally.
I grinned like a loon. It was getting harder to remember I was being held captive.
I stared at Cobra’s misshapen, swollen face to remind myself the fae realm sucked. He rolled his emerald eyes at me, and my gut sparked with annoyance.
His wounds were already healing, and technically, he wouldn’t have been beaten up if he had just had sex with me.
It was hard to pity him.
“Get into the carriage!” a guard shouted near my ear, and I jumped with surprise.
My hands were still chained in front of my body, and I squinted at our transportation.
The good thing was I didn’t have to mount a horse, something I was not very skilled at.
The bad thing was the edge of the chariot was level with my chest, and it didn’t come with a convenient step stool for shorter folks. A massive design oversight.
As if sensing my plight, one of the guards put his hands on my waist and began to lift me.
I jolted because no one likes to be touched by a strange man. I resigned myself to the help.
Cobra and Jax did not resign themselves.
The guard’s hands touched me for point five seconds.
Then, in a blur quicker than I could track, Jax slammed the guard to the ground with his cuffed fists and Cobra stomped on his face.
The fae screamed in pain, and all the guards backed up.
“I told you to stop attacking people!” I alpha-barked at my men with annoyance.
Instead of respecting my prowess, female fortitude, and ability to make decisions for myself, Cobra and Jax grinned at each other and fist-bumped with their chained hands.
Yes, they were bonding over stomping on a man’s face. I couldn’t find some normal fucking dudes to spend my time with?
I got psycho alphas.
“He was just helping me inside,” I grumbled and mouthed “sorry” to the downed fae, who was still writhing on the ground.
“He touched you against your will,” Cobra spoke softly, and his emerald eyes flickered to snake ones.
Jax knelt and cupped his large, bound hands in front of his body like a step. “We will help you up, little alpha.”
They both moved closer to me, and the scent of frosty chestnuts made my mouth water. My skin prickled at their proximity; they were both so large and delicious-smelling.
The guard moaned on the ground, and sanity returned.
I shouldered past and ignored them both. “I can do it myself.”
Like a strong, independent woman, I jumped over the edge of the chariot and entered with no help.
Just kidding.
I struggled for at least five minutes, trying to shimmy myself in with my hands shackled in front of me.
Who’d made these damn things so inaccessible?
It was just rude.
I jumped but only got a good two inches off the ground.
My saber-toothed form was made for jumping. This form was made for enjoying brisk walks and lounging while reading a book.
When it was clear jumping would not work, I tried to use my bound arms to pull myself up over the edge.
I blamed my lack of nutrition growing up for what happened next.
Long minutes passed as I strained with all my will and failed to get into the carriage. I pulled at least three muscles, trying to get my body up and over the damned edge.
I’d just barely pulled half of one of my small boobs over the edge when sweat began to pour from my forehead like a fountain.
Suddenly, Cobra swore viciously.
Before I could yell that I was doing fine by myself, a lie but a hill I was going to die on, Cobra grabbed my kicking feet and shoved me forward.
In an ungraceful heap, I fell into the carriage.
For a second, I lay gasping on the gold floor and felt sorry for myself.
Not only had I not conquered the task, but I’d also lost every shred of dignity I’d had left.
Spoiler—there hadn’t been much to lose.
With a heavy sigh, I scrambled up and onto one of the benches. Before I could lie back and enjoy a much-needed exhaustion nap, the carriage tilted and shook.
Both Jax and Cobra easily cleared the lip.
They jumped like they were built for vertically flying five feet in the air with their hands bound in chains in front of them.
I was slightly mollified when Cobra slammed his head into the low ceiling because he’d jumped too high.
Cobra smirked at me. “Impressive display of strength. You really showed us.”
I smirked back. “How’s your head feeling?”
Jax raised his eyebrows at us but shook his head and said nothing, because, unlike Cobra, he wasn’t a complete ass.
The guards stood outside the door, holding our three chains in their hands, but didn’t move or close the door behind us.
I shifted to try to get more room on the bench while we waited. The inside of the carriage was quite small.
Cobra sat next to me on the bench, and he spread his legs wide so his large body took up most of the space.
I tried to spread my legs to get some space of my own, but his legs were like tree trunks and didn’t move, no matter how hard I pushed.
Jax sat across from us, and his wide shoulders and muscles managed to take up an entire bench. If a guard joined us, which I assumed they would, because of the chains, it was going to be a tight squeeze.
We waited.
After a while of me fighting for more space on the seat with Cobra and Jax resting his eyes, the carriage rocked.
The newcomer turned to the side to fit his wide shoulders through the door and then stared down at all three of us.
Familiar golden hair and large, curling onyx horns sat atop his head, and colorful flame-and-rose tattoos covered every inch of his exposed skin.
His amber eyes were familiar, but there was a hard edge to them, a calculated gleam that hadn’t been there before.
The intoxicating scent of conifer and pines wafted through the small carriage, and my stomach clenched. Frosty chestnuts and pine went together too well.
It was unfair.
“Hello, Princess,” Ascher said in his deep, husky voice.
The shock at seeing Ascher after his betrayal quickly wore off. Before I could tell him to suck his own dick and not to call me Princess, Cobra launched himself off the bench and slammed him to the ground.
Then Jax threw himself into the fray.
There was a loud crash as limbs slammed against the walls of the carriage. I backed up against the wall as fists punched with power and blood splattered.
Ah yes, the alphas were engaging in more violence—shocking.
The entire carriage tipped precariously to the side, and the horses whinnied. Loud grunts, growls, and roars shook through the small space as the men beat on each other.
I sighed heavily and wondered for the billionth time what god I’d pissed off in my former life.
Also, one thing was clear: I needed to stop hanging out with psycho alpha men.
