These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows 1)

With no reason to pretend anymore, I squirm in the giant male’s hold. “Put me down.”

Pretha winks at me, then pushes past two sentries and through a heavy wooden door, revealing a sparsely furnished office illuminated only from the street lanterns outside the windows.

I’m dropped to my feet. As my eyes adjust to the dark room, I finally get a look at the male who was carrying me. Everything about him is terrifying. He’s massive, with broad, muscular shoulders and thickly muscled arms. He stands at least seven feet tall, even taller if you measure the horns that curl toward the back of his head. His eyes are black where the whites should be, with blazing red pupils. His long hair and trim beard are red, and he wears a hoop in one pointed ear.

“I think she likes you, Kane,” Pretha says. “Either that or you’re so ugly you’ve scared her speechless.”

“You found her,” says a deep, melodious voice behind me.

I whip around, drawn to the owner of that voice, and bite back a gasp at the sight of the male before me. He’s lounging on a chaise with one leg stretched long and the other bent at the knee. His dark curls have been tied back like they were in my dream, and he holds a book in his big hands. The office is large, yet he seems to fill it, with his size, with his piercing silver eyes, with his presence.

My captor shoves me forward. I stumble and fall to my knees before a menacing shadow faerie for the second time in as many days.

I hate this place.

“She was running from the castle,” Pretha says.

I glare at her. “You.”

She lifts her robe off the floor and gives a little curtsy. “Abriella, I told you we’d meet again.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want—” She huffs, scanning the space. “Why is it so dark in here?” She snaps her fingers, and the wall sconces around the office blaze to life. “Better.” She turns back to me with a satisfied smile. “I want to help you. Nothing’s changed since yesterday in that regard.”

“You made me think you were a human,” I spit, and there’s more anger in the words than there should be. Pretha was a virtual stranger, but her sin is the same as Sebastian’s, and it feels good to have somewhere to direct the hurt eating at my chest. “You’re a vile liar.”

The male lounging in the chaise laughs. “That’s fresh coming from the human who claimed to be Arya’s handmaiden.”

I narrow my eyes at him. I don’t like that this strange male is showing up again, and I like even less that I dreamed about him.

Nothing in Faerie is coincidence.

“I don’t think she has control of her power,” Pretha says, all grace as she steps toward me and tenderly tucks my hair behind my ears.

I yank away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Or her emotions.” She tears her disapproving gaze away from me to meet the eyes of the male in the chair. “I think she’s actually in love with the golden prince.”

My cheeks go hot. I hate that these faeries are talking about me, speculating about my feelings. “You don’t know anything about me.”

The male in the chair tsks. “Let her be, Pretha. I’ll take it from here.”

Pretha bristles. “Finn—”

Finn. Finally a name for the enigmatic silver-eyed elf.

“Leave us.” The words are softer than the ones he spoke before, but they are full of authority and leave no doubt as to who’s in charge of this little trio.

Pretha tenses, and I know she doesn’t want to obey, but she gives a sharp nod and leaves the office. The horned brute trails behind her.

I watch them go.

“Rough night?” Finn asks me. Such a casual question, as if we’re chatting over tea and his people didn’t knock me unconscious to drag me in here.

I glare at him. “Who are you—other than some Unseelie kidnapper? I hope you realize that no one’s going to pay a ransom for me.”

He arches a dark brow. “Oh? It seems you know more about me than you let on. What else do you know?”

Dangerous. This faerie is dangerous, and I need to stop antagonizing him and focus on getting out of here. “Nothing. I know nothing.”

He lifts his chin. “I’m curious. Why are you so sure I’m Unseelie?”

“Your eyes.”

“What about them?”

“Everyone knows that the Unseelie have silver eyes. Don’t make bargains or ties with the silver eyes,” I say, parroting the rhyme we sang as children. And what a lovely job I’ve done following that age-old wisdom.

He grunts. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You were taught that the entire Unseelie Court has eyes like mine?”

“Don’t they?”

“No. Only very few.” And even as he says it, I think of the sentries at Mordeus’s castle. Did they have silver eyes? I don’t remember. And is Pretha Unseelie? Her eyes are brown. And Kane’s were that creepy black and red.