Death's Kiss

Prologue

My father told me 'curiosity killed the cat' and you know what, I believe him, cats are stupid. They spend all day worried more about being clean than they do about their stealth. While I am dangerously curious, I am not a cat. I don't need nine lives to live because I'm not dumb enough to lose my first one.

"Don't cross into fae territory, they are allowed their own forms of justice which are cruel and far worse than any discipline you've ever received," my father had said every time he caught me coming back from the forest where I should not go.

But I couldn't stop going, I had to see her. Did she know I existed? No. Would she ever know I existed? Probably not. But she was a dream, a silver, shimmering fae with raven hair darker than the night.

I sat perched in my usual tree, making sure to cover my scent with a little something I had stolen off my brothers dresser. No one would be able to discern what I was even if they picked up an oddity, which would make them assume I was a bird or some kind of forest beast.

She was down by the river with her sister. They came here every day. I was never close enough to hear their conversations, but I imagine they couldn't have been that different from what me and my brothers talked about.

In my head, I'd read their lips and make up my own dialogue.

"Oh sister dearest, this water is too cold, I fear I will faint," the little sister would say.

"But it is so beautiful, it shines like the stars in the heavens," the fae who had my heart would utter.

I imagined she would be poetic. Someone so beautiful would surely have a way with words. But. . . I couldn't help noticing how sad she always looked. Today was worse than usual. She kept her arm clutched in one hand, close to her body, as if she were protecting herself from whatever pain was to come. I knew that face, I had seen it in the mirror after I lost my mother. She was losing someone.

Part of me wanted to go down there and tell her that things would be okay, that it would get better. That was a lie everyone told me. It never got better. Even now I could feel tears prickling at the edges of my eyes, threatening to fall and display my weakness.

The water splashed.

I cocked my head to the side. They never went in the water, it was always too cold. My heart lurched in my chest. The younger sister held the one I cared for under the water! She was trying to drown her!

All logic left my brain as I clamored down the tree. "Hey! Let her go!"

The young girl looked up at me in disgust, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders. "It's a pity you had to be here, wolf. This means I'll have to get rid of you."

I threw a punch that connected with the girls jaw and grabbed her by the hair, dragging her off her sister. "I'd like to see you try."

The young girl screamed and slashed backwards with a knife I hadn't seen till it cut through my arm. A burning trail of pain ripped through my clothes and flesh, making her let go.

"Wolf!" The girl cried. "Wolf!"

The other one got out of the water and looked at me with wide, dark eyes. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. She didn't say anything as several fae patrol guards ran toward them and grabbed me by the arms.

"You don't understand, she was going to kill her!" I cried, throwing my body around and trying to escape the guards hold.

They tightened their grip. The leather armor on their bodies only furthered how intimating they looked in the light of the rising moon. They glowered down at me as if my very existence was a crime.

I dug my heels into the earth, doing everything and anything I could to slow them down. There was a screaming feeling in my gut that something bad was going to happen if I left, but no matter what I did, I wasn't strong enough to stop it.

The younger sister smiled at me and twirled her knife in her fingers, a promise that she was coming for me next.