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

predicament when, out of nowhere, she dropped her glass with a crash and began screaming. Her arms reached behind her, trying to get something in the center of her back. I jumped up from my seat and leaped over the table to see what she was clawing at.

“It hurts!” she screamed as she turned so that I could see. When she turned around, I couldn’t see anything.

“My skin. It’s like something is cutting me open. Make it stop!” she groaned. In an instant, an obsidian dagger appeared in my hand, and I ran it under her shirt, slicing the thin fabric in two and revealing her spine. The dagger faded to mist as I released it and pulled the shirt off her.

Two large bumps had formed near the spine and just below the shoulder blade. Something writhed underneath the skin, and a bit of black smoke seemed to rise from them.

I sighed as Rose continued to try to scratch at the bumps. “Stop,” I commanded, and she turned to look at me. Pain wracked her face, and I gritted my teeth. This shouldn’t have happened yet.

“What is it?” she groaned.

“You got your fanfare is all.” I settled down in the chair next to hers and realized that I’d spilled the wine in my glass.

“What do you mean!” Her voice was pitiful, and I began to feel a little sorry for her.

“It’s your wings. You claimed your power, and now they’re trying to grow. You asked about fanfare, and this is it.”

She continued to try to claw at her back, her hands getting nowhere near the two bumps. “God, I hate this fucking place.” She grimaced and finally gave up, putting her hands on the table as tears welled in her eyes. I could feel the pain and frustration running through her.

“I was human until two days ago. I don’t know anything, and all you do is get annoyed when I try to understand things. I’m sorry that I didn’t grow up in fucking fairyland, but I didn’t even know it was a place until you brought me here. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for you to do anything. All I want is to be able to go back home and live out my miserable life.”

Helplessness flowed from her, my empathy letting me feel exactly what she was feeling. I took a deep breath as I realized that I had been more than a little callous. I wouldn’t have known how to function in her world either.

“I’m sorry, Rose. This is part of the process of claiming your power. All gifts require sacrifice for the Fae. This pain is the sacrifice.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t know.” Tears began to run as she gritted her teeth.

“I should have told you that this was what would happen. Now that it’s happening, there are a few options. They’ll eventually burn their way out of your back, but that will be about two weeks of agony. Or, I can cut them out with my knife like I was cutting out an arrow. That’s a night of rest and thirty minutes where you think you’re going to die. Unless…”

I didn’t want to say it. For anyone else, I would have taken them into their dreamworld and locked them there in fantasies until the worst of it was over, but for some reason, I couldn’t push that on her.

“Unless what?” she demanded as she winced again.

I let out a long breath and made a decision. “Unless you let me use magic on you. Unless you let me seduce you in a dreamscape while I let your wings out. For all intents and purposes, you’ll barely notice the pain, and as soon as your wings are free, you’ll heal.”

“It’s the right decision, logically, but you’re… inexperienced.”

I turned around, unable to look at her as she realized what that meant. I glanced down at the spilled wine. I picked up the bottle and took a long slow drink directly from it.

“What are you?” she whispered.

It would eventually come out. I’d known it would, but I hadn’t wanted it to. How stupidly mortal that sounded.

“I’m half fairy and half incubus. I feed on sexual energy both in dreams and in the physical.”

“And… you’ll feed on me?”

“I would. I won’t lie to you, Rose,” I didn’t turn around to face her, not wanting to see the horror on her face. “I also won’t force this on you. I should, but I won’t. It has to be your decision.”

Chapter 10

Rose

Another wave of pain raced through my body, and I whimpered. God, it hurt. Excruciating, white-hot pain that sent my back into spasms. I would never be able to survive two weeks of this.

I didn’t want Sebastian digging around in my back, but I would die before those two weeks were up. The tears were already flowing steadily, and my nails dug into the table as a fresh bit of misery ran through me.

“Which hurts less?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“The dreamscape will be painless,” he said softly as he stood up and removed his cloak.

“Then do it. Whatever you have to do. Fix me.” Another wave of pain coursed through me, and I shut my eyes as I tried not to scream.

When I opened my eyes, Sebastian was standing in front of me, staring at me. Those blue eyes that had slowly begun turning more and more misty seemed to pull me into them, and gray mists filled my vision.

I felt myself falling, but for some reason, I didn’t try to catch myself. The mists whispered to me. Peace. Calm. Rest.

And then they seemed to burn away, leaving me in a room that had to be part of a palace. Ebony posts rose up around the bed that seemed like a cloud made solid. I sank into it, and every muscle in my body relaxed.

The light was dim, barely illuminating anything else. Candles burned in black and gold sconces on the walls, the