Daughter of the Red Dawn (The Lost Kingdom of Fallada) (4 page)

“My parents died
in a car crash
when I was a baby,” she blurted. “There is no other family so Gram took me.”

“I had to leave my home because of a war,” he answered. “My parents are now prisoners of that war and it is unlikely that I will ever see them again.”

She’d known he had an exotic look about him. A war that had imprisoned his parents meant he was from another country.
But where?

Selena gasped, her throat clenching with emotion as she looked back up at hi
m. His face was etched in agony,
the blue eyes lowered and filled with sadness, the corners of his mouth turned down and pinched. She reached out
to grab his hand. His fingers were icy against her warm ones.

“I’m so sorry.”

He looked down at her, his face grown harsher in the moonlight, the glint in his eyes deadly. Selena’s heart skipped a beat and her breath caught in her lungs
,
but she didn’t flinch as she met his narrowed gaze with her wide-eyed one.

“You shouldn’t be here, with me,” he said, his voice a low growl.

Selena frowned. “But you
—”

“I saw you earlier Selena, running through this field. You were so
…
”
he trailed off, his Adam’s a
pple bobbing as he swallowed, “
…
b
eautiful. If only you knew the power you possessed, how important you are, and how dangerous I am to you…” he
paused
again, groaning in frustration and tearing his gaze away from hers. “Run, Selena.”

“What are you talking about? What are you saying?”

“Run!”

His voice was animalistic this time, a roar that shook Selena to her
very core. He leaned toward her, barring his teeth as another primal growl rumbled through his chest. Selena was sure that his canines lengthened, glistening behind his lips in the moonlight.

Scared to death, Selena gladly took his advice.

She
turned on her heels and ran from Titus for the second time in one day.

Once home
,
Selena
was grateful to find that
Rose
had gone to bed for the night. She checked all of the doors and windows to be sure that they were locked before fleeing to her room. She closed the door and sank to the floor, Titus’ words whirling through her mind like a Texas twister.

If only
you
knew the power you possessed
…
how dangerous I am to you.

So she hadn’t been exaggerating
. He’d told her with his own mouth that he was a danger to her. And to think, she’d almost ignored her intuition and allowed herself to be alone with him in an empty field at night. The situation had ‘horror movie’ written all over it.

But then, curiosity reared its ugly head once again. If Titus was so concerned about hurting her, why had he come to the Dairy Queen that night? Why pursue her after she’d run away from him this afternoon?
How
w
as he thi
s cute, charming boy one minute
and a menacing psychopath the next?

One thing as for sure, Selena did not have any interest in finding out.

Well, maybe just a little.

~*~

Chapter
Two

Mollac, Fallada

“What news from the world of men, my
Queen
?”

Eranna curled her blood red lips into a sneer as she turned to find Ushma, her most faithful witch, shuffling through the door to her chambers. She wrinkled her nose at the old hag before turning back to the mirror
resting against the wall in a
gilded frame.

“He has not yet fulfilled his duty, Ushma. I fear that we may have to take extraordinary measures.”

“Even more extraordinary than taking his family hostage?”

Eranna sighed and rolled her eyes in annoyance as Ushma shuffled toward her and back into her line of vision. Heavens, she hated having to look at them
,
but the
Witches
had their uses. Ushma, with her pointed nose, wart blemished chin, and leather
y
skin, was perhaps the ugliest of them all. However, Eranna knew that tolerating their presence was well worth it. When she was High Queen of Fallada, she would banish the ugly creatures to some far-flung corner of the country where she would never have to look upon them again.

With that
decided
Eranna turned back to the gilded mirror and ignored the ugly, gray-robed, hump-backed mass that was Ushma. She ran her hands over the
ruby-red silk gown she had put on for dinner, the perfect complement to
her snow white
skin
and midnight-black hair. She
turned to the side and felt a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth as she eyed her perfect figure.

Two-hundred years old and one would think she was only one hundred, so perfectly trim her body was.

“It would seem that taking the
W
ere-boy’s parents into our custody w
as
enough to send him into the human world, yet not enough to bring Eladria of Damu to me. I have been watching him through The Eye of Mollac. He is taken by her innocence and
beauty
.”

She spat the last word like a foul curse, jealousy curling low in her belly at the thought of anyone’s beauty surpassing her own. She’d seen Princess Eladria of Damu through the Eye. She’d seen the girl’s discovery of her powers.
Eladria
was coming into her own, discovering what she was really capable of. And now, those cursed
Fae
ries were plotting against her. Oh, she knew about Adrah’s plan to send the scribes Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm into the world of men to retrieve the lost princesses. Adrah
continued to underestimate Eranna
and did not realize that she had eyes inside of Goldun and knew her every move.

Eranna would not care about Princess Eladria’s beauty or power, if not for the fact that Adrah meant to bring the girl back to Damu and see her seated on her throne. That
,
Eranna could not have. Restoration of the princesses to their former thrones would mean disaster for her and the certainty of the demise of her plans.

“
What do you suggest then?” Ushma asked.

Eranna lifted her gleaming silver
tiara
from its place of honor beside her mirror. The intricate design of intertwining branches and
leaves was further enhanced by a dusting of crushed diamonds. One large
, clear
stone dang
l
ed between her eyebrows.

“Oh
,
Ushma, it’s been so long
since I’ve left this castle. It i
s about time
I did
, don’t you think?”

Ushma’s cackling laughter mixed with the musical sound of Eranna’s giggle. Ushma rubbed her hands—gnarled like tree branches—together and moved back toward the door.

“I will pre
pare your chariot
, my Queen.”

“I know that you will Ushma. You are so very faithful.”

Ushma bowed several times before disappearing through the door. Eranna turned back to the mirror and continued perusing the hypnotic reflection staring back at her.

Perhaps I will keep the
Witches
around,
she mused as she reached for her favorite diamond choker.
They have their uses and at least with them around my beauty is magnified ten-fold.

~*~

Titus shivered and pulled the coarse blanket tightly around his shoulders.

He had been trying to sleep for hours
,
but couldn’t seem to drift off. His encounter with Selena left him shaken and he couldn’t get her out of his head.

How was everything going s
o hopelessly wrong? His assignment should have been an easy one: track down Eladria of Damu and kill her. One bite of his strong jaw at her throat would have done the job nicely,
and yet Titus just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He turned onto his side, facing the wall of the small, abandoned cabin he’d been living in since crossing over into the world of men. Titus felt like a fool, a failure, for allowing
Eladria’s
pretty face to distract him from his mission. His parents and little sister were being held captive by Eranna and all Titus needed to do to free them was end the life of one little girl. It should have been easy.

But Titus hadn’t been expecting her to be so beautiful and not just in a physical way. The afternoon when he’d first stalked her across the abandoned field, he had every intention of getting the job done then and there. Then she’d started to run. With the wind in her
coppery red hair
and a genuine smile across her heart-shaped face, Titus saw Eladria as the pure soul that she was.

He just couldn’t do it.

Titus sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to tear his thoughts away from Selena. He thought about home instead. He missed Mollac and its endless stretches of pristine white snow. He missed the jagged mountains and
snow
-dusted pines
. He missed stalking dear
and hares
through the peaceful forests with his pack. Most of all he missed his family.

T
itus could picture them clearly,
his father’s beautiful white pelt, his mother’s sleek form and his sister’s kind
brown
eyes. For them, he had no choice
but
to do what Eranna commanded. Her reach was growing and soon all of his race would be enslaved. Titus planned to rescue his family and get the hell out of the way. When Eranna had wiped out all who opposed her, Titus did not plan for himself or his family to be among them.

He shivered again beneath the blanket and frowned as a chill rolled up his spine. Twin Oaks, Texas had been nothing but blistering hot during the day and muggy at night since his arrival.
Yet now, he felt his body temperature rapidly lowering. It felt like being home.

Titus shot up on his creaky cot, his eyes widening when he noticed his own breath, white on the night air. He
trembled
uncontrollably as a splintering, crackling sound filled the room. He looked down to find ice spreading across the floor and up the walls in a rapidly moving sheet of cool blue.

Dread filled him as snow swirled around the bed, producing the form of Eranna, seated on her
colossal chariot
. The vehicle was made of ice and was pulled by a pair of perfectly white polar bears. The massive beasts dropped to their haunches and waited obediently for Eranna’s command. Wrapped in ruby silk and diamonds, the Queen of Mollac was as
striking
as Titus remembered. Yet the beauty never quite reached her eyes, which resembled cold, hard bits of coal. She fixed those eyes on him now, her gaze narrow and assessing.

“Titus of Mollac,” she said, her ominous voice filling the room. She stepped down from her ice carriage and stroked the head of one of her bears before approaching.
“You’ve been a very bad dog.”

She extended her hand toward him, producing a white, snowy mist from her blood red fingernails. It swirled around Titus, seemingly fragile, yet incredibly strong as it wrapped round him, pinning his arms to his sides and forcing him to his knees. Titus felt rage boiling up in him as he felt the beginnings of transformation ripping through him. A tight squeeze from Eranna’s
snowy mist
quickly sucked the air from his lungs
and made that impossible. He settled on glaring up at her as she approached with a low chuckle.

“Now, now,” she said, running her hands through his hair. Titus shivered in revulsion but remained still. “There will be none of that. You and I can speak civilly or I can kill you now, return to Mollac
,
and kill your family.”

Titus felt his fingernails elongating and biting into his palms. His canines itched to tear free from his gums but he fought against it, knowing that one false move would ruin everything he’d been working for.

“I’m listening,” he said, just a hint of a growl underlying his voice.

“Do you not care for the well-
being of your family?”

“You know that I do, Eranna.”

Eranna smiled. “Then why have you not carried out your assignment?
Eladria of Damu is still alive and I have been watching you both through the Eye of Mollac.”

Titus hung his head and sighed. “I do not understand why you wish to kill th
e girl. She does not even know—”

“It is not for you to
understand
!” Eranna bellowed, chilling him with a frigid blast of air. The very atmosphere around her seemed to darken and her eyes took on a red glow
as she drew herself up to her full height until her head was nearly touching the ceiling of the dilapidated cabin.