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CHAPTER ONE

An hour from dawn, Ian sat in the dirt at the bottoan was still alive With his ass on a couple of sharp rocks and a black scorpion not two feet away, he’d never felt so useless in his life than right now

A slow-e another thousand feet below the streambed When the rains came, this dry ould spill a tall waterfall into the river

Right now, it was as ean, the Ruby Fae

He sat back and twisted his thu with shit All but one of the, the one he turned to let off some steaht and day to keep safe

He also used the heavy bling to beat the shit out of wraith-pairs Maybe that was part of his proble He enjoyed using his fists, going mano-a-mano

Regan had disappeared froo, abducted by the Ancient Fae In truth, he didn’t know if Regan was alive or dead But each ti inside hihtened so hard he couldn’t breathe

She can’t be dead He didn’t knohat life was supposed to look like without Regan in it, even though she hadn’t been a real part of his world for a long ti alongside his own He’d loved her once with a kind of madness he’d never experienced since

And never wanted to again

He lifted his head and stared up at the wall of h it was still full-dark, he could see every detail as clear as day For the past few decades, he’d becoht and at times even to the stars and for that reason had to wear shades

But he could definitely see theonly a handful of very powerful realm-folk could see To most, the ht there and nothing else What lay behind the etta, the wo over the Nine Realms, had created it

He rose to his feet, but listed sideways Spots hovered in front of his eyes In his desperation to find Regan, he hadn’t been feeding as often as he should If he waited er, he’d fall into a coma and die

When a crippling spasm hit his stoer He’d have to suspend his hunt for Regan for the next fifteen minutes or so to take care of the problem

Levitating swiftly, he flew above the gorge cliffs and headed to the outpost hae was located where the cliffs dropped down to Leberion Plain, not far from the Peralin River

Once he arrived, he flen the short ht iron lantern hanging outside the village inn He landed on the ay, but lurched forward to plant a hand on the heavy wood door in order to catch his balance More spots moved back and forth in front of his vision

Blinking several tilasses to rub his eyes then put theht hurt

When he was steady, he jerked the door open and saw one of his regular doneuses, Charlotte, sitting on a bar stool in the pub She wore rust suede, thigh boots, a short denied jacket She held a bottle of beer to her lips, but paused when she caught sight of him

Setting the bottle down on the glossy wood bar, her eyes widened in shock “Ian,” she cried, sliding off her stool “You’ve waited too long again Sweet

Goddess, open my vein now” She moved swiftly in his direction, her arms outstretched

“Charlotte, thank the Goddess you’re here” His gaze had settled on her pale throat, but he stu his balance

The lovely fae woman showed some sense and pushed him into the nearest booth Given his size, he needed to make some room and used a booted foot to push the table to the opposite side He was dizzy again, and fell backward onto the seat

She landed on hi in, mastyr Take what you need”

As his fangs descended, he slid a hand around the back of her neck, tilted his head to the right angle then struck Within a split-second, he was sucking down her blood