Free The Demon King by Heather Killough-Walden Page A

and majestic, with horns that spiraled three feet above its
head and were covered with gemstones of rainbow hues from the blue
of sapphires to the yellow of canary diamonds. They shimmered like
prisms where rays of moonlight struck them.
    The animal appeared to have been sliced from
the moon and deposited in the earthly realms like a fallen star.
The eyes gazing at her so steadily were reflective, mimicking the
snow of a mid-winter blizzard, even now in June. Flecks of light in
the irises literally moved, swirling and swaying like the
multitudinous flakes in a December storm. It was a wondrous
creature in every respect.
    And Dahlia was not amused.
    She knew all too well what this animal was –
and what it represented. The fact that two of the three warlocks
who made up her triad coven had become queens was not lost on
Dahlia. She was the only one left, and she wasn’t stupid. She felt
the wolf sniffing at the door and knew the first shoe had dropped
long ago.
    The Tuath Stag was a solitary creature well
beyond rare. There was only one in all the realms. It was said to
show itself to those who were meant for great things. It was a
guide, a symbol, and an omen.
    That was the grade school version of the
Story of the Tuath Stag.
    Dahlia, who had studied the
creature with earnest since she was a child, knew a little more.
Legend told that the blood of the Tuath Stag ran through the veins
of the most powerful, most influential fae. However, what she knew
that few others did was that the Stag’s heart was wild and unruly.
It did appear, seemingly at random, before a fae of importance –
but only to a fae
who had tasted power’s darker, more potent side... and who wanted
more.
    The Tuath Stag had appeared to Selene
Trystaine just before the Wisher had taken her place at the Seelie
King’s side. Dahlia knew why. She knew why the Stag had appeared
before Selene and not her sister, Minerva, even though the two had
become the twin queens of the Seelie and Unseelie Realms.
    Selene had been filled with anger and a
desperate need for justice, and this need had sent her on a rampage
of vigilantism through the mortal realm. Yet she was unsatisfied.
Because, as so many often did after such sprees, she realized that
the general evil of the world was greater than it appeared to be,
and that revenge did not make it go away. It couldn’t.
    In this painful moment where great power met
the chaos of empathetic emptiness, the Stag had looked into her
eyes, and their hearts had beat as one.
    Dahlia gazed at the Tuath
Stag in all of its breathtaking beauty, and her blood heated. She
had wanted to see one since she’d been a little girl. So many, many
years ago. Centuries to go ungratified, her needs and wishes left wilting like
unpicked flowers. So many centuries that she’d stopped counting
them.
    And here it was. Now . When she couldn’t
stand the sight of it because she knew what it meant and she was
done with fate fucking her over.
    “ No way,” she hissed. Her
words came out like a threat, like a promise, and like an epitaph
to sanity. “ No! ”
she yelled, balling her hands into fists at her sides. There was no
way in the nine hells this was going to happen – not to
her.
    But the Stag seemed unfazed by her
reprisal.
    “ I make my own choices, do
you hear me?” she said, taking a step toward the beast. She
expected it to bolt, to get scared and run off. She hoped it would,
in fact. She wanted her words to rest over it like a shroud and
teach it a lesson. She was so fed up with fate telling women what
to do, deciding their existences for them, and shoving them into
roles that were pre-chosen! From arranged marriages to societal
roles to glass ceilings – to this. It wasn’t for her! She’d had
enough of being picked on! “Get out of here! Go find someone else
to play house in your little games! I will not be owned!” she
yelled, placing the most emphasis on her final sentence.
    She took another threatening step, but the
Stag