Princess of Shadows: A Dark Fae Fantasy Romance by Olivia Hart (read me a book txt) 📕

get up. He knew that there was nowhere for me to run. It wasn’t like I could hop on a bus bound for humanland. At least not that I knew of.

I was so lost in this world. So lost about myself and about that damned man. Somehow, even knowing there was an assassin who was supposedly going to try to kill me just didn’t compare to the feeling of lost.

I closed my eyes before I even turned away from Sebastian and let my other senses open up. I heard the soft buzzing of some kind of insect. They had insects in fairyland? The scent of cinnamon floated in the air. Where did that come from?

Then there was a very loud snort. I opened my eyes immediately and saw just how close I was to the unicorn. I stopped abruptly, almost falling as I realized that I’d come within fifty feet of the massive creature. I’d been wrong. This wasn’t a horse with a horn on its head. It was a Clydesdale with a horn on its head. My head wouldn’t even reach its back.

The unicorns that humans had memories of must have been foals. Normal sized and nice. I’d been around horses a time or two, and I knew the pawing at the ground and snorting for what it was. A warning.

I wouldn’t be able to pet the thing much less come even an inch closer. He, and I was sure it was a he, was extremely unhappy about my proximity. I turned around and ran back the way I’d come. Back towards Sebastian. For all his frustrating attitude, Sebastian was the closest thing to a protector that I had in this place.

And if that unicorn decided to charge me, he would be my only hope of escape in a field this large. I didn’t want to think about what that horn could do even ignoring the fact that he was a beast that every human knew would have powerful magic.

I looked behind me and saw him barreling towards me, hooves pounding the ground and throwing up a cloud of sparkling dust behind him.

“Help!” I screamed as I looked at Sebastian who was still sitting against the tree several hundred yards away.

The unicorn was getting closer and closer by the second, and Sebastian wasn’t even moving. He just stared at me, his head resting against the trunk and his hands flat on the ground.

My lungs felt like they were going to give out at any moment, but I kept sprinting away from that terribly sharp horn that I was sure would pierce my back at any moment.

And then a fog began to rise around me. I didn’t stop running, but I changed direction as soon as it covered my vision. And I felt hands wrap me in an embrace, one arm around my chest, and the other around my mouth, silencing the scream that instinctively tried to escape my mouth.

“Silence, Rose.” Sebastian’s voice. I listened, hearing a trumpeting and snorting as the unicorn searched in vain for me. Hooves pounded the ground again, and I knew that Sebastian had saved me from yet another brush with death.

His hand moved from my mouth, and I felt it wrap around my hand. It was strangely cold. Maybe that was what happened when you used magic? I was blinded by the fog that was so thick that I wouldn’t have been able to see my hand in front of my face. Yet, the light seemed to pass through the mists easily enough because it wasn’t dark.

Sebastian tugged on my hand, and I followed him. How had he gotten to me so quickly? I didn’t trust this man, but I trusted myself even less at this point. How was I supposed to know that a unicorn would be so aggressive? I hadn’t tried to hurt it. I hadn’t even really gotten that close to it.

A horse would never have acted like that, even a wild one. It may have rushed me, but it wouldn’t have pursued me like that. Then again, a horse didn’t have a giant horn on its head to gore people that annoyed it.

The fog began to fade, and I found myself back at the tree that Sebastian had been sitting in front of. He was still sitting there. The hand that had held me was fading just like the fog, and I blinked.

He’d seemed so real, but he’d been just another copy. Like the ones in the tunnel. “Why didn’t you tell me that unicorns were so aggressive?” I asked accusingly, my hands on my hips even though I was still shaking from my brush with death.

“You didn’t ask?” he said with a shrug. “It’s generally a good idea to expect everything in the Immortal Realm to be aggressive. Then you’ll be pleasantly surprised when something isn’t. But, unicorns are one the worst since they don’t die easily, but they’re easy to aggravate.”

I blinked a few times trying to register what he’d said. “Have you killed a unicorn?”

“No. As I said, they’re tough creatures to kill. Especially when they’re in a herd, and they’re almost always in a herd. He’s young, and it’s mating season, so he’s probably trying to find a mare to breed. The older males in his herd wouldn’t have let a young stallion like him anywhere near their mares.”

“I never would have stopped here if there’d been a herd, but I’m not worried about a solitary young male. They haven’t learned enough magic to deal with mine.”

He stood up and smiled, and his eyes seemed even mistier now, as though there were almost transparent clouds beginning to cover his pupil.

“Your eyes change color,” I said softly, completely ignoring the comments about unicorn mating. My mind wasn’t ready to think about things like that.

“So do yours. It’s a Fae thing. But it’s been long enough. Time to go. There’s another warren just a short walk away from here that will lead to a safehouse where we can