Shadow Heir: A Dark Swan Novel#4 Read Free Page B

an “it.” It was a she, a gentry woman no older than myself with brown hair braided into a high bun. She staggered two steps toward me, still holding the copper blade, before falling to the ground. Blood spilled from her chest, showing the severity of the wound I’d given her. It had been done with iron—the gentry’s bane—and occurred in the human world, where she was at her weakest. Maybe she could have survived a similar injury in this world, but now, it was too late. The blade fell from her hands as she feebly clutched at her bleeding torso. All the while, her eyes never left me.
    “Death ... to the prophecy... .” she gasped out, just before death took her. The light left those hate-filled eyes, and soon she saw nothing. I felt ill.
    New arrivals from the gate immediately drew my guards to attention, but it was only Jasmine and Pagiel. They looked as if they’d been in a fight but otherwise showed no serious damage. Jasmine looked at me first, and despite her hard face, I knew she was checking me for injury, just as I’d done for her. It was hard to believe we’d once been enemies.
    Satisfied I was okay, she then glanced at the dead woman before meeting my gaze. “Well,” Jasmine said, relaxing slightly. “At least you don’t have to go to Ohio anymore.”

Chapter 2
    The layout of the Otherworld defies human physics. There are no straight lines from point A to point B, even when you walk along a road that doesn’t seem to curve or fork away. One step forward on a road may take you into a kingdom you thought you’d cleared ten miles back. Most of the kingdoms tended to stay in the same proximity to each other, but there were no guarantees. A road whose quirks you thought you knew by heart might suddenly change without warning.
    Fortunately, there were no such surprises today. The road we’d taken to reach the Hudson gate eventually got us back to the Oak Land, with only the expected detours into friendly lands. The Oak Land wasn’t one of my kingdoms. It was ruled by my strongest ally, who was also the one who made me the most nervous. Dorian and I had once been lovers and waged an Otherworldly war together. Things had fallen apart when he’d tricked me into a quest designed to conquer a kingdom I didn’t want. We’d been quite hostile toward each other for a while, but my pregnancy had changed our relationship. He was one of the advocates of the prophecy that said my father’s first grandson would conquer humanity, and so, even though he wasn’t the father, Dorian had vowed to aid and protect my children.
    Once he’d ascertained I was alive and well, however, he showed little sympathy upon hearing about our ambush.
    “I never understood why you had to go to that Ohoho place anyway,” he said, pouring a glass of wine. “I say good riddance.”
    I sighed. “It’s Ohio. And you know why I was there. The twins need medical care.”
    “So you claim. They can receive ‘medical care’ here. Ours is just as good as humans’. Do you want a glass?” He held up the wine bottle.
    I rolled my eyes. “No. And that’s exactly the point. Medicine here’s not the same at all. Wine’s terrible for babies.”
    Dorian swept into the sitting room to join me, elegantly arranging himself on a love seat that displayed his purple velvet robes to best effect. “Well, of course it is. I’d never dream of giving wine to an infant! What do you take me for, a barbarian? But for you ... well, it might go a long way to make you a little less jumpy. You’ve been positively unbearable to live around.”
    “ I can’t have it either. It affects the babies in utero.”
    “Nonsense,” he said, tossing his long auburn hair over one shoulder. Life would be easier if he wasn’t so damned good-looking. “Why, my mother drank wine every day, and I turned out just fine.”
    “I think you’re proving my point for me,” I said dryly. “Look, I know you believe everything’s fine here and there’s no reason I