Beneath The Surface

I've been a hostage before. I've never been a bargaining chip in a war between the ANC and something calling itself the Darkness.

Whoever's really pulling the strings wants the portals to and from the Netherworld, and they're convinced Knight will hand them over the second my life's on the line. I tell Jax he's wrong. I tell myself the same thing every time I picture Knight's face and feel my chest cave in a little. Knight won't negotiate. Knight won't trade the ANC, or the Netherworld, or anything else for me, even if it kills me to say it out loud.

I believe that. Mostly.

Somewhere beneath Splendor, beneath the office where my best friend might still be alive, beneath every lie Jax has told me since he dragged me across the border, there's a truth I'm not ready to face: the people who took me already planned for Knight to say no. Which means whatever happens next was never really about getting what they want from him.

It's about what they're willing to do to me once he does.

I've spent my whole life learning to survive on my own. I never planned on needing to survive long enough to find out if the man I love loves me enough to break every rule he's ever followed, or if he loves the world too much to let it burn for just one fairy.

Beneath the Surface is Book Eight in the Knight's Fae series, where the deepest threats are never the ones sitting in plain sight.