Crown of Shadows (Court of Midnight and Deception #1) - K. M. Shea Page 0,109

sound, air, debris, and even I felt pulled in to the creature as if by a vacuum.

Solstice—the largest of the night mares—charged it with a glass-shattering scream.

“Solstice—no!” I shouted.

He ignored me.

“Astrum!” I shouted, activating my prism.

Purple magic flowed from the glass crystal. I snatched the magic up as fast as I could and forged a ward that glowed around the gelding’s hooves. I finished—creating a barrier taller than Solstice—just before the creature jabbed a clawed arm at him.

My barrier held, but it fizzled and sparked as the creature tried to claw through it with another soundless shriek.

Is this one of those attacks King Solis talked about? But I don’t see anyone around here, or feel any fae magic—and I’m standing directly beneath a drone!

“We’ve got to get out of here!” I yelled.

That drew the thing’s attention to me. It switched from its bird head to its flat face and sniffed, slowly turning in my direction. It blinked its tiny, slitted eyes at me, then abruptly froze.

“Come on!” I shouted.

Before any of the night mares moved, it launched itself at me, using its powerful arms like a gorilla and pushing off the ground.

The point of my prism bit into my palm as I forged a ward, which quickly bloomed into a barrier and protected Blue Moon and myself.

The creature smashed into my ward, leaving a smoky residue on the surface when I pulled back.

To my horror, the residue seemed to eat through my ward, weakening it.

It smashed its fist into the barrier, then hooked its claws into the surface, slicing straight through.

I nudged Blue Moon, who finally launched into a canter. But before he’d taken more than three steps, the monster’s fist broke through my barrier, and it grabbed onto the back of my neck, ripping me off the saddle and throwing me to the ground.

I slammed into the paved road with a pained wheeze, and the creature was on me, its fingers tightening around my neck as its claws bit into my skin.

One of the night mares screamed, and Nebula and Twilight charged it. They each bit it on the elbows, their jagged teeth digging into its flesh and their yellow eyes gleaming with a wild frenzy as they bit chunks out of its arms.

The creature screamed, but the smoky haze that curled around it settled over the wounds, restoring it.

Comet joined Nebula and Twilight, scraping her hooves down the monster’s side.

It let go of me long enough for me to flip so I was belly down. I tried to scramble to my feet, but it latched onto my lower back, its nails digging into my muscles. It slammed me to the ground, and I whimpered.

Worse than the pain, I briefly opened my hand, and my prism fell from my grasp and rolled down the street.

“No!”

I heard hooves, and I saw a rider on a sun stallion come pounding down the street. The rider wore the crest of the Summer Court—a bird silhouette on a blue sky. This was probably the cheating rider King Solis had warned me about.

When he saw us he slowed his horse to a trot. The sun stallion snorted and tossed its head, frightened by the monster.

“Help—please!” I begged.

The rider smirked at me, then kicked his horse.

The sun stallion squealed and refused to go, but the rider ripped on the reins, painfully hauling the horse’s head around, and he kept kicking the animal until it shot past us, leaving us alone.

Fae are the worst. They won’t help, even if someone is in real danger? Why do I even care about these people?

Chapter Thirty-Two

Rigel

“Send someone to help her!” Lord Linus had a derby official by the collar of his shirt, and his voice had lost its usual happy tone for a darkness that promised death.

“W-we can’t interfere!”

Lord Linus shook the employee. “This isn’t allowed by the rules—there’s a monster attacking her! And it’s not a fae monster! Get. Her. Help!”

King Solis was pale as he watched the screen—where Leila screamed in pain while the monster dug its claws into her back. “Escape, Queen Leila. Escape,” he whispered, as if he could will it. His eyes flickered to the monster she was fighting, and he shivered at its grotesque features.

One of the night mares rammed into the monster—the smaller mare named Eclipse, if I properly remembered the queen’s stupid names.

The monster staggered, then ripped its claws higher up Leila’s back so it could keep her pinned to the ground by stepping on her lower back and stand up