Wild Magic: A Victorian Faerie Tale (Iron & Thorns Book 2) by E.B. Wheeler

Author:E.B. Wheeler [Wheeler, E.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowan Ridge Press
Published: 2023-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

Cassandra ventured hesitantly onto the path that ran through swirls of shadows. She limped, but it felt awkward. Wrong. She tried another step. Her foot no longer twisted when she put weight on it. She gasped and held up her right hand, now as whole and nimble as the left, its only flaw the demon mark. She laughed, tears clouding her eyes. It had to be a trick, like when Fitzhugh had tried to tempt her to come to the Unseelie Court, but she ran a few steps and twirled just to remember what it felt like. Glorious and free, something she could only do in her dreams.

“Cassandra!” Henry called.

She smiled and spun to face him as he stepped from the shadows.

“Mr. Stewart!” She extended her hands. “Look!”

He took her right hand. “That’s amazing. This place is amazing, don’t you think? Like a dream?”

“It is,” Cassandra said, a troubling thought wriggling through her happiness, though she could not quite make sense of it.

Henry grinned. “If it is a dream, then we can do anything we like.”

He drew her closer, and her breath caught, her heartbeat pounding at the thought of being close to him. Of kissing him again. He met her gaze, something wild and hungry in his eyes. Eyes that were dark. Not Henry’s eyes.

She pushed him away, scrambling for her iron knife, but it had vanished. “Get away from me. You’re not Henry.”

The man smiled, and his features shimmered into something else. A handsome, boyish face with an innocent smile but dangerous eyes.

“I can be him, though,” the man said. “I can be anything you want. You can be anything you want while you’re here.”

“No, it’s not real.”

“Does that matter, as long as it makes you happy? I could make you forget what’s real and what’s not, you know. You could live out eternity here, with me, in dreams we spin together.”

She clenched her fists, and her fingers brushed the scar on her hand, the wound stinging as though it were fresh. She gasped. “I know what you are: incubus.”

He grinned. “But I wager you don’t imagine what pleasure I can offer you. I don’t only produce nightmares, but also dreams beyond any fantasy your innocent mind has conjured. Dreams where you are always whole, nothing holding you back. Where you forget all the sorrows of the past.”

His fingers brushed her hand, and a shiver of longing ran through her. A hunger. She wanted to feel more of what he promised. To be free. To forget her pains in a dream of endless pleasure.

But then she would also forget her sisters, her friends, Henry. Even herself.

“No,” she managed, yanking her hand away. “No! Being trapped here would always hold me back.”

She hurried past him, but he followed her.

“This may be illusion,” he called, “but everything in your dreams is real. Your friends have done terrible things. What makes them any better than I am, when I can offer you so much, and they can offer you nothing?”

“They want to be better,” she said, more to herself than the incubus.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.