Chapter 422: Chapter 422

She ran through overgrown foliage that was as tall as a 6-foot man. With her 5ft4 stature, she was completely swallowed by it ... but so were the people or things chasing her.

If she could even call them that. Her heart pounded violently against her ribs, her breath coming in short, desperate gasps. She wanted to scream, but she had no voice left. She had exhausted it all in the few short minutes following this strange encounter.

Fear coiled around her chest like a vice, squeezing tighter with every panicked step she took. She didn’t know what was worse ..... the terror of being hunted or the paralyzing horror of not knowing where she was or why she was being chased.

A cold, sickening dread gnawed at the edges of her mind, whispering that she might never find out. That she might never escape.

Despite being the only woman who turned heads in any room ... flawless skin, high cheekbones, diamond mesmerizing bright blue eyes .... Shelby was a miserable sight.

Strands of her once-perfect hair clung to her damp face, matted with sweat and dirt. Her dress, once elegant, was torn in several places, exposing scraped skin beneath. Her lips, usually soft and inviting, were dry and cracked, and her bare feet throbbed from running, riddled with cuts from the strange, unyielding ground.

Tears pricked at Shelby’s eyes, but she had already cried until her throat burned. Already screamed until nothing but air left her lips. And none of it had changed the terrifying reality: she had no idea where she was.

A few moments earlier...

Shelby slowly opened her eyes. She was lying on her back underneath a giant tree.

"Uhhh!" She grunted in pain. She felt sore all over and struggled to get up, but the pain was so much.

Her eyes slowly came into focus, and then she snapped them shut, wincing at the sudden action.

’Ah! It hurts so bad! Where am I?’ For the briefest of moments, her mind was blank, and she could not understand her surroundings. Shelby did not see nor feel the light from the pendant on the necklace around her neck dim back to its normal state. It still felt warm against her skin, but in her confusion, Shelby overlooked that.

’Twirling red tendrils swirled across the sky? Why is it like that? Am I dead?’ She mused to herself, frowning and wincing at the same time,

’Is this the afterlife? But- why....’

At that thought-provoking question, all the memories came surging back,

Glass shattering and scattering.....The world spinning... Ava unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching out for her. Her eyes widening as terror gripped her at what was to come. Opening her mouth to scream, but no sound coming out. That helplessness of watching Ava thrown out of the car....

Shelby screamed and shot up,

But the most prominent was that powerlessness and the fact that she could not reach Ian no matter how much she tried! She was all too familiar with that feeling as she had felt it once at the T-Vino Wineries.

’Did they get to me again?’

She wondered, but the confusion of where she was overshadowed everything.

"Wasn’t I thrown out of the car? Am I?...."

’Ian!’ Shelby used all her strength to try her mind link!

’Murray! Please! ... Anyone! Currey!’

Shelby took a look around her surroundings.

The landscape twisted and pulsed as if mocking her confusion. The trees were bent at unnatural angles, their bark shifting and writhing like living flesh, in a pretty but eerie way. The air was thick and damp, like an overly humid summer. It hummed with an eerie, unnatural energy that she had never felt in her life. The sky!

"Why is it like that?"

To Shelby, this was the worst of all. A swirling abyss of deep red and occasional purples and sickly greens streaked with pulsating veins of silver light. It loomed above her like a gaping wound in reality itself.

This wasn’t Earth. Not the earth she had grown up on anyway.

Her body trembled, a deep, bone-chilling fear sinking into her core. She wanted to wake up. She wanted this to be a nightmare.

At that time, she heard two male voices from afar,

"I smell a human here...."

"How is that possible? How can a-"

"Did you hear that? Someone talked!"

"Yes, it was that direction!"

Shelby heard the pitter-patter of footsteps.

She wanted to get up to seek help but then their next statement stopped her in her tracks,

"The king will reward us handsomely if we are able to bring the human person to him. He needs a sacrifice fo-"

Shelby did not wait to hear the rest of the statement and ran as her life depended on it.

She wished that it was all indeed a dream, but the pain in her body and feet was real. She did not have shoes on and Shelby was unsure when she had lost them, nor did she care.

The burn in her lungs was real. The unnatural sounds of something closing in behind her were real. When she had looked back and glimpsed the two men, she had been shocked! The two were definitely not human! But that was beside the point for her.

Shelby had nowhere to run.

After what seemed like forever, she stumbled into the cove, chest heaving, heart hammering against her ribs. The cool stone walls pressed against her back as she tried to steady her breath.

She listened hard but did not hear her pursuers. The momentary shelter and this other fact gave her a false sense of safety, but she barely had time to register it before.....

They appeared. At this close range, she recognized what they were - Two Faes! standing before her as if they had always been there. No rustle of leaves. No echo of approaching footsteps. Just there.

Shelby blinked, disoriented. How? How had they reached her so fast? She hadn’t even caught her—wait, she had. That was the problem. She had taken a single moment to breathe.

A single moment to let her guard down. And now, they were here. Like her husband, she should have known that they would teleport themselves, but her mind was sluggish from the pain.

Shelby’s skin prickled with a sharp sense of danger as she took in their appearance. They looked human—almost. Their beauty was otherworldly, faces too symmetrical, eyes too piercing, but they were little.

One had green hair that shimmered, almost blending with the foliage, the other dark as the void itself. Their clothing clung to their forms like woven shadows and mist, and their smiles were ..... everything was just wrong. Too calm. Too knowing.

"Told you that she was human!"

"Hmmmm....Something’s different about her..." The other mused.

"You’ve given us quite the chase," the green-haired one mused, tilting his head. "But it ends here."

The dark-haired one moved first ... impossibly fast. Shelby barely had time to react before he was within arm’s reach, fingers curling toward her throat. But she was not about to go down without a fight. She was married to a Fae! Even though she did not know how she got there, she would fight with every single bit of her that she could use.

Before he could grab her, she twisted to the side, planting her foot and swinging her fist at his ribs. It connected with a solid thud, but he barely flinched. She expected that but didn’t hesitate. Using the momentum, she drove her elbow toward his face ... only for him to vanish a split second before impact.

Her body lurched forward with nothing to strike, and she barely caught herself in time.

Her body hurt, but this was not the time for her to dilly-dally. Shelby spun, raising her fists again, her training with Ian screaming in her veins. She might not be a seasoned warrior, but she had been trained by her husband! Enough to fight back. Enough to survive.

The green-haired Fae sighed, almost in amusement. "You mortals. Always so eager to struggle."

The dark-haired one reappeared behind her. Shelby sensed him just in time, ducking low and kicking out, aiming for his legs. She had done this several times with Ian during those trainings. But he leapt effortlessly as if gravity meant nothing to him. She gritted her teeth. Damn, these Faes and their impossible speed.

Shelby had been distracted for merely about half a second! A searing grip clamped around her wrist, jerking her forward. The green-haired one had caught her mid-movement, his fingers cold as ice, his strength inhuman. She gasped, twisting, trying to break free, but his hold was iron.

"Enough," he murmured. "You’re wasting your energy."

Shelby’s heart pounded. No. She wouldn’t accept this. She wouldn’t let them take her.

With all her strength, she yanked him toward her instead of pulling away, catching him off guard as he was smiling at his friend at his victory. At the same time, she brought her knee up.... hard.... aiming for his gut, just as she had been taught.

The impact made him grunt, his grip faltering just enough for her to rip free. Shelby didn’t wait. She lunged for the closest thing, a jagged rock on the cave floor, gripping it like a lifeline.

She turned on them, chest heaving, eyes blazing. "Try me."

Both Faes regarded her with something akin to fascination.

"That’s a feisty one!"

The dark-haired one ran a thumb over his lips as if hiding a smirk.

The green-haired Fae straightened, rolling his shoulders. "Very well," he murmured. But Shelby did not relax her vigilance because she could see the change in them, that unwanted lustful gaze that she had been used to all her life. The thing was, if they tried something, Shelby would not be able to defend herself. She barely stood a chance with one, but two?

As if by some mutual agreement, they started closing in on her,

"IAN!!!! MURRAY!!!!!" Shelby screamed,

Where was Murray when she needed him? Why was he never there when she was in danger?!

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