He let go of the rose. Crushed petals fell to the ground, and I dropped the thorny stem, sucking a drop of blood from my finger.
“I was lucky,” he said. “I saw that girl wither and die amongst the fae who took over. I saw the world change and whispered to the banshees who were desperate for a way to regain their lost power. You see, when I fell, so did many others. I dragged them all down with me. The banshees plotted and planned and helped me achieve my return.”
“Killing the queens and organising a bloodbath? How was that any better, Brendan?”
“I was only too happy for their deaths,” he said coldly. “Their mother was the one who helped conspire against me. She tricked their father, too, using her lust to become his wife and mother of his daughters. He saw through her eventually, but their children were already tainted. It took little to make the fae turn against their queens. Grim and Realtín barely hesitated when Sorcha approached them with a plan of execution.”
My mouth dropped open. “Grim and Realtín? They murdered the queens? But they—”
“Just one queen,” he corrected. “One who deserved it.”
“Don’t you feel guilty? You encouraged them to become murderers!”
“We’re already murderers, Cara. Haven’t you realised our rules aren’t the same? The rules are the desires of the most powerful fae.”
“It’s not fair,” I whispered. “None of it is fair.”
“Can you feel that?” He wrapped his arm around my waist, his fingertips pressing against my side. “This is the fae in you, Cara. You project everything you manage to feel on us until we can barely stand it. That’s why Drake is here, why the guards want to watch over you, why I couldn’t kill you even if I tried.” He ducked his head, too close, his eyes dazed and drunk. “That doesn’t make you safe, little one.”
I stared back at him, unsure of his mood. “What do you want from me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” He pulled away abruptly. “It’s getting dark. Keep away from the shadows.”
“What?”
“Go inside where it’s safe. I’ll wait here a while.”
I stepped away from him warily, but his mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t understand the effect he had on me, but I had some kind of effect on him, too. I headed back to the house, half-jogging until I saw Realtín and Grim waiting for me.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you did?” I demanded.
“I told you he would tell her everything,” Realtín said, flying around in circles. “He’ll turn her against us. Make her…” She yanked at her hair.
“Our lives were barely worth living,” Grim said pleadingly. “We had little choice, Cara.”
“If he asked you to kill me, would you do it?” I asked.
They exchanged a glance that told me everything.
“We don’t have to explain ourselves to you!” Realtín screeched, flying at my face.
I batted her away. “I need some space.” I shoved my hands into my pockets and stepped into the home of the king of the fae, a place where I could be killed at any second if I pissed off the wrong person. And this was the safest place on the planet for me.
Chapter Sixteen
Sorcha stood beside my bed the next morning, her dark eyes full of spite. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“Food,” she said, pointing at the tray on the bedside table.
“No, thanks.” Taking food from the fae was a bad idea, but taking food from Sorcha was the height of stupidity. Not that I’d been particularly smart lately—or ever, if I were being honest with myself.
With one last scornful glance, she turned on her heel and strode away, her skirts drifting along the floor like mist on water.
I showered and wrapped a towel around me before stepping out of the bathroom. Brendan was sitting on the bed, studying my phone. He was the only fae there who wore casual human clothes on a regular basis, and I wondered why, but it was kind of a comfort to see familiarity amongst the weirdness.
“Um, hello? Privacy?”
He looked up at me. “Why aren’t you eating? Is this a new game? I told you what would—”
“The last time I ate food Sorcha handed me, I couldn’t leave the room until Drake sobered me up. I still can’t look at apples!”
He tossed my phone on the bed. “Humans need to eat regularly. Most humans die here because somebody forgot to feed them. I need you alive.”
“Well, as long as you get what you want. I need to get dressed.”
He held up my jeans with a grin. “I wish human women in my day had realised how fetching slacks were.”
“They’re called jeans, you turnip.”
He laughed and held them out to me.
I grabbed them and glared at him. “Can I please get dressed now, your majesty?”
He stared at me blankly.
“Brendan… get out.”
“Why? Are you disfigured and ashamed?”
I took a calming breath. “I’m not getting dressed in front of you because humans tend not to get naked in front of strangers.”
“We’re not strangers.” He lay back on the bed, an irritatingly smug expression on his face. “I might be more agreeable if you eat.”
“I’m going to eat on my lunch break and after my classes. And I’m going to be late if you don’t get out of here.”
“Classes?”
“Classes. As in college. That involves actual attendance.”
He sat up, looking excited. “Fine. We’ll go to this college.”
“We? What do you mean, we?” No. Freaking. Way. It was bad enough trying to concentrate on a lecture with a couple of small, fidgety, mischievous fae whispering next to me without the actual king and his entourage tagging along. And if he happened to see Ronnie? Bad news all round.
“I can’t leave you unattended. You attract trouble like a moth to a flame, and I want to be the one who deals with whatever comes for you. It’ll give me a chance to study the tactics of my enemies.”
“As much as I enjoy being your bait, Grim and Realtín have done a pretty excellent job of protecting me all by themselves.”
“They warn and conceal; they aren’t strong enough to protect. And what if your father shows up again?”
“Someone will call the police or something. He’s not going to be there, Brendan.”
“And if another warrior like MacDearg attacks your friends to get to you? What then? Sadler isn’t done with us. He’ll keep trying until the ceremony… to unsettle me, if nothing else.” He grinned at me, his gaze travelling lower. “Besides, I’m curious about those wild college days.”
I gripped the towel a little tighter. “There’s nothing wild about it, and you can’t just walk in and start acting like you belong! You need an ID, a PPS number, a real identity. You can’t just tag along because you’re curious.”
His smile darkened. “I don’t need any of those things. But if you really don’t want me to go, I can always arrange for a fae to take your place in your classes.”
My stomach twisted. “You wouldn’t.”
His brows lifted. “You’re the one who wants to do things the hard way.”
I spluttered for a second. “I need a break from fae stuff. I still need to—”
“Deal with your father?”
“Stop talking about him!” The dam was about to burst. Everything was surging to the surface, and I couldn’t stop it anymore.
“What harm does talking do?” Brendan asked, looking astonished.
“He’s not… just get away from me!” I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. Shit. I was falling apart. The man who raised me might not be my father. The idea had finally stuck, and it wouldn’t leave.
“Cara?” Drake knocked on the door. “He doesn’t know what to do with you when you’re upset, so he let me take the reins. Can you come out?”
I opened the door.
He held out a dressing gown, looking sheepish. “I didn’t know if—”
“It’s fine,” I sai
d.
He turned his back long enough for me to cover up. I sat on the bed, and he followed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked uncertainly. “Would that… make you feel better?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you… do you want to talk to me?”
His hesitation was refreshing, and I found myself nodding.
“Why are you sad?” he asked softly, brushing my damp hair behind my ear.
I shrugged, unable to answer around the lump in my throat.
“Do you miss your family?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been going through stuff in my head, and I think… I think maybe my dad hates me because he isn’t my dad. Maybe Mam had an affair or something, and I’m the reminder of that. He’s nice to other people, and he loved my brother, and I… I don’t look like any of them.”
“No, you don’t.” He slipped an arm around my waist. His wings moved, sending a draft around us. “Why haven’t you asked them?”
I gulped. “I’m scared I’m right. Besides, they don’t want me back there. Mam won’t answer my calls. I can’t ask now. It’s too late.”
He used his thumb to brush a tear from my cheek. “Maybe they’re not worth your sadness. Being around us is making you feel worse because everything is exaggerated here. That’s what we do, I’m afraid. Provoke and coax out the pain.”
“But I don’t know who I am,” I blurted. “I thought I knew, but what if… what if I was wrong? How am I supposed to know who I am when I don’t know where I came from?”
He pulled me closer, his face tense. “I understand. I didn’t know where I came from either.” He looked sadder than I felt.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“Perhaps it would help us both. Help you understand. I was born in the human realm, and I grew up like a normal boy at first—wingless, fatherless, but happy. We had little, but my mother loved me. I kept asking about my father, who he was, where he was. I had this emptiness inside because I didn’t feel complete without knowing my family. She told me I looked like him, but he didn’t know about me, and she couldn’t find him again. Ireland was different then; I barely remember it.”
He closed the space between us, his voice lowering as his eyes went faraway. He ran his thumb across my wrist, and I felt dizzy. “But I remember my sixth birthday. The sun was shining, and I felt different. My skin itched so badly, and I had scratch marks all over me. My mother thought I was sick with an infection, and she left to fetch a neighbour, a healer woman. They called her a witch, but she was more than that. She bartered for her services. My mother had barely kept us out of the workhouse, so she couldn’t afford to bring a priest to see me. The woman came and looked me over, and then she stared into a blue bottle. Something inside it whirled around, and it… it terrified me. Her face paled as she looked, and she told my mother to run. My mother began to cry, and the healer told her to leave me, that my father was coming back for me.”
I gasped.
He gave me a wry smile. “Maybe you were lucky, Cara. Because my mother’s night with the fae resulted in a child she wasn’t allowed to keep. He came, like the healer said, and my mother begged him not to take me. She would have been better off without me. She would have had more food, more time, but she wanted to keep me, and I’m still not sure if it was to have a child or a reminder of her time with the fae.”
“What was he like?” I asked.
“He was everything I had never imagined him to be. I was terrified of him. His hair was long and dark, but I had his eyes. We were more alike than dissimilar, and I hated that. I refused to leave with him, so he tore the skin from my back, exposing the wings that had been there all along, waiting to sprout. Just like his.”
“Did he take you?” I whispered.
“He killed my mother in front of me and carried me back to the land of the fae, where I was kept with other children. But I was different, and I didn’t fit in. I didn’t see my father again, bar once when he asked me to pledge my fealty to his queen. I refused and escaped, but my mother’s body was long gone, along with anyone who had ever known her.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” He lifted his shoulders into a shrug, but his pain was raw. “I flitted in and out of the fae realm, waiting for my chance to find my father again. I found the healer instead. She had sworn her soul away for that blue bottle. It had given her power and a good life for a peasant, but she had to pay for eternity. She taught me things, told me she caught glimpses of the future in that blue bottle. She promised to tell me who my father was and how to find him only if I took her home one last time.”
“Did you?”
He nodded. “She’s at peace now. One day, the fae who gave her the bottle may look for me, but time is so different in that realm that it might never happen.”
“Did you find your father?”
“Almost.” His expression darkened. “There’s still time. I’m closer now than ever.”
“So… how old are you?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know the year of my birth, and time passes so differently in the fae realm that it’s impossible to say. Very old, compared to you.”
“Creep,” I whispered.
He gazed at me. “You should let him accompany you. You’re right to go back to your classes, to be around humans, but it’s a risk you don’t need to take without him.”
“Why can’t you do it instead?”
“It takes a lot of strength to remain in control,” he said. “He would fight me constantly.”
I stroked his cheek. “I could help, give you something to anchor yourself with. Realtín thinks it’s possible.”
I kissed him, desperate to feel closer to him. He let me at first, pulling me closer to him. I forgot everything for one brilliant moment.
He pulled away, his eyes sad. “I don’t want to be king, Cara.” He kissed my forehead. “I have to go.”
“Wait!”
It was too late. Violet had already turned to emerald.
“You’re so rude,” I spat, wrenching myself away from Brendan.
“And you’re slyer than you look,” he said. “Get ready. We leave soon.” He strode out of the room, leaving the door ajar.
I dressed, all the while thinking of what would happen when it was all over. Ronnie was bitter and obsessed with faeries. Was that the life I would lead, never truly living because all I thought about was the fae? She could be my future. But she had warned me. Maybe I could avoid the same outcome. I pitied Drake, but even he had that darkness in him, that need for chaos. His quest for revenge was worthy, however. I couldn’t blame him for wanting payback from his father.
A scratching sound sent my pulse into overdrive. A black cat sauntered into the room, jumped onto my bed, curled up into a ball, and fell asleep. It couldn’t be the cat from my nightmares, the one from my window all those years ago, but part of me felt as though it had to be. Part of me wanted it all to be connected, for me to be connected.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly, reaching out to pet the cat.
It purred contentedly, and I relaxed. It was just a cat. There were plenty of identical cats roaming the streets. Just. A. Cat.
Realtín flew into the room and back out again. “Come on, come on, come on, come on!”
Downstairs, at the front door, Sorcha and Brendan were arguing.
“No,” he said. “You’re staying here.”
“I should be with you,” she said. “You might need—”
“I need you here,” he said sternly. “No arguments.”
She gave me a suspicious glare as we left. I tried to seem as meek and unhappy as possible, so she wouldn’t think it was anything I wanted.
And it wasn’t. Not really. Except… spending the day with the king was kind of exciting. I just wished it was Drake instead.
***
“I hope you enjoy this,” Brendan said as we approached the bustling college. r />
It wasn’t the most prestigious place to gain admittance to, but it was local and probably the best someone like me could aim for. Brendan casually held my hand as we stepped through the entrance, as if us walking to my classes together was something normal instead of one of the most bizarre experiences of my life, though with plenty of competition.
We strolled down the hall, and Brendan’s hand on mine tightened until Drake said my name. I looked up at him in surprise.
“He’s loosening the reins today,” Drake said. “He thought it might make you happier.”
I was so shocked that I reached up and kissed him. He pressed against me, and I thought I might die of happiness.
Realtín sucked in a gasp. “Is that…?”
I pulled away and gazed pleadingly at Grim and Realtín who were hesitantly approaching us. “Try not to see things too clearly today, okay?”
Grim nodded, but Realtín did mid-air somersaults in her excitement.
Drake cupped my cheek and kissed the corner of my mouth. He had never been so free with his affection, and it helped me forget what would inevitably come our way.
“Shouldn’t we be going somewhere right now?” he asked.
“I could take the day off,” I whispered. Maybe it was the presence of the fae, but my lust had ramped up, and his eyes were dazed too.
“You need to calm down,” Drake said, leaning his forehead against mine. “You’re projecting a lot of, well… a lot right now.” He actually looked kind of drunk. “We can’t go anywhere else. People will get suspicious.”
I looked at the students passing us, all of them with their eyes averted. “People seem to be avoiding us.”
“Not those kinds of people,” he whispered. “They’re repelled. They know I’m here, but they can’t find it in themselves to look straight at me or speak. You’re within range of the effects when you’re next to me, I’m afraid.”
“That’s weird,” I said, feeling as though we were the only two people in the world. That was how the fae often made me feel, as if nothing existed outside of them.
“Brendan thought it would be simpler this way.”