What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)
Harper L. Woods
About What Lurks Between the Fates
Once, I’d chosen my mate instead of freedom.
For weeks, we retraced our steps back to Mistfell and the lingering shadow of the Veil at the boundary between realms. Traveling through the kingdom, I denied the evidence in front of me, unable to fathom that I wasn’t the lost princess of Faerie. Instead, it is Fallon who must fear the consequences of her heritage. Which leaves me with a single, unanswered question.
Then, I awoke, caged high above the throne of the Queen of Air and Darkness.
Mab is the Queen who keeps all of Alfheimr held squirming within her clawed grasp. She uses the children of Faerie to sustain the magic granted to her by the cursed gem atop her crown, which has carved her from the girl she once was into a dark vessel, obsessed with power. She thrives on cruelty, and wields our love as an instrument for pain.
Now, I’ll play the games of the Fae.
I’m a curiosity, my presence an enigma that was never foreseen. I may not be Mab’s daughter, yet she still keeps me close, as she forges me into a weapon against humans and Fae alike. Mab may not own me yet, but she controls the life of the man I love. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to see him freed.
Even if I have to become the villain to do it.
Trigger & Content Warnings
The Of Flesh & Bone series is set in a medieval style world where human women are subservient to their male counterparts. The world is a dark dangerous place for women, particularly those who do not conform to societal standards and the purity culture that determines how they live.
The Fae realm of Alfheimr is even darker and the violence in this world gets darker and more graphic with each book. There is murder, torture, and elements of assault.
As such, some elements may be triggering to certain readers. Please proceed with caution.
– Religious purity culture – Verbal & physical abuse (NOT the male lead) – References to grooming behavior & assault of a minor by an authority figure (NOT the male lead) – References to past physical and sexual abuse – Ritualistic sacrifices – Suicide
– Suicidal thoughts & ideation – Graphic death, violence, & torture – Attempted sexual assault (NOT by the male lead) – Graphic sexual content – Flesh-eating creatures
Prologue
Caldris
One of the twin moons flickered as my mate blinked rapidly. She swayed in place as stars shot through the darkness, cruising toward the earth as if the Primordials themselves wept upon all of Alfheimr. My nails dug into the flesh above my heart, feeling the snake that coiled around that beating flesh pull tighter. Mab’s gaze sat heavy upon me, her command bearing down on my soul as I pushed myself to my feet.
I did not feel the pain of the wounds already inflicted upon me—only the pain of that flickering bond between Estrella and me. Her consciousness faded slowly as I watched. The pain blooming at the side of her head made my own throb in response.
Mab squeezed her fingers tighter, driving me back to my knees with a strangled roar. For centuries, I’d suffered beneath her hand, compelled to obey her whims and commands. I’d always thought them a burden, a torture unique to the Queen of Air and Darkness.
But nothing could compare to the pain of kneeling helplessly as Ophir lifted Estrella into his arms, then hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack. Her eyes connected with mine for a brief moment before they went hazy, and I knew the woman I loved could not see me any longer as the darkness pulled her under. Tears pooled in the shocking green of those unseeing eyes, the color all the more vivid for it, before they shuttered and she was lost to me completely.
The bond snapped shut between us, like the closing of windowpanes in the harsh winter breeze. I stared at her temple where Ophir had struck her; the bruise blooming darker as I watched. I pushed against that metaphysical window, hoping to throw open the shutters and feel through the chasm between us for any sign of life. It lingered there, her mind trapped in the total darkness that only unconsciousness could bring, but her heart still beat in tandem with mine.
She would sleep for a time but wake soon enough. I couldn’t determine if that was a blessing or a curse, knowing what awaited her in the Court of Shadows with the queen who would use her to punish me for the secret I’d kept.
Mab summoned the shadow realm once again, allowing Davorin to step through with Fallon. She didn’t make a move to fight as he walked into the shadows with her. Her gaze connected with mine for only a moment before she looked back at Estrella, her face twisting with regret.
We’d all been so fixated on Estrella being Mab’s daughter, so convinced by the evidence of her powers, that we’d never stopped to consider the alternative. I couldn’t imagine what was racing through Fallon’s mind, what she must be feeling with the sudden realization that she was the very thing we’d feared for Estrella.
And she didn’t have a bit of magic to show for it—that we’d seen, anyway.
Several of Mab’s children chained my wolves, snapping muzzles around their mouths while she used her control over them through me to force them still. I growled low in my chest, feeling more wolf than man as the cwn annwn were pulled through the shadow realm.
Imelda looked at me, her eyes filled with regret. We’d both failed them. Both failed to prepare them for what was coming and failed to deliver them to safety, as we’d promised. She closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to step away from where Fallon had stood. She went to where Estrella’s mother wept silently, holding the wound on her face with quiet resignation. Whatever her experience had been in Mistfell, she never moved to fight for her daughter.