Cursed Shadows 4 (The Dark Fae) (Cursed Shadows (The Dark Fae)) by Quinn BLACKBIRD

Author:Quinn BLACKBIRD [BLACKBIRD, Quinn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

22

††††††

The smooth sound of his voice jolts me.

A breath pins to my staggering heart, and I nearly fall over myself as I flip around. My knees press into the bloody soil, hands fisted, and I look up at the trees.

A pair of sleek black boots of fine quality dangle from above. I trace them upwards, dragging my gaze over the muted leathers wrapped around legs carved from muscle, up the black vest that looks painted on his lean physique, a black so dark that it’s a striking contrast to his porcelain complexion—

Then I find his face.

Marble, smooth, beautiful.

Inky waves brush his brow, a glitter of gilded irises beneath thick dark lashes, a jaw so sharp it’s not unlike a fistful of knives.

The knots in my shoulders unwind.

Dare flashes me a grin. The smile behind it is sincere enough to melt his eyes into pots of molten gold.

An aching swell rises through me.

I choke on a raspy sound, somewhere between a laugh and sob. The sob wins—and in a heartbeat, it wracks through me. My shoulders jolt at the same moment that my face twists into something ugly.

Relief.

That is what carves into me.

That is what brings my hand to my aching chest as I aim my twisted face up at him.

And there Dare is, through the glaze of my tears, perched on a bough, sitting, as though merely enjoying a day amongst the trees.

He arches a brow. The width of his wolfish grin fades. Then, in a blink, he’s pushed off the bough and falling down to the ground.

He lands in a crouch, the soft thud of his boots on frosted soil just a touch more than silent.

Before he’s even fully risen, I have already scrambled out of the hot pool of blood, and I’m running at him.

I slam into his chest, hard.

My arms come around his middle, firm, a grip that is locked, that is afraid to let go—afraid that he will leave, and I will be alone again, fighting to survive, starving and running and hiding.

“What took you so long?” I choke through my sobs, the very sobs that rattle me and shudder my breaths as though grated.

His arms come around me.

He holds me to him.

His voice is soft, a murmur, “You made good work of masking your scent. I might admit that I’m a little impressed at just how evasive you are, heartbreaker.”

A wretched, watery smile warps my face. It’s buried in his chest. My hold doesn’t loosen.

Neither does his.

If Dare isn’t much of a hugger, he dismisses the urge to peel away from me. He allows me this moment of relief, of comfort. A flicker of what I now realise is friendship.

Maybe pity, too.

“I landed at the summit,” he murmurs into my caked hair, thick and cracked with dirt and blood alike. “To say it’s been a battle down this far is something of an understatement. Though, it is me we are talking about,” he adds, and I can just picture his lopsided grin forming, “so I cut through those litalves like they were nothing more than butter, and I looked great doing it.

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