“Are you deaf?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.
“Come on, you two,” Ryker groans, stepping closer to me. “Play nice.”
“What are you doing out here?” I ask, pulling my eyes from Seb to Ryker, considering he is up in my space and too close to me to avoid.
“Sneaking out to a club. There is a big celebration tonight, and it will be fun. Lots of alcohol,” Ryker tells me, selling me on this with his final comment. “Even fae wine. Come with us.”
Curious about how they sneak out, I play along. “Let’s go then.”
Ryker grins like he just won the lottery, and Seb looks as grumpy as always as he steps closer. Ryker places his hand on my upper arm and Seb’s, and we all disappear in flames. Travelling like this is weird, as all I see for a long time is fire, but it doesn’t hurt me at all. When we reappear, we are next to a wall of magic, and right in the middle of it is a small gap.
“All magic walls have a weak point,” Ryker explains as we step out of the trees, “and this is the only one this magical ward has.”
“Tell the secretive assassin, who we know jack shit about, all our secrets, why don’t you, brother?” Sebastian sarcastically comments, walking ahead of us. How exactly does he know I’m an assassin?
“Has he always got a stick up his arse?” I question Ryker.
I expect him to laugh, but he doesn’t and looks down to meet my gaze. “Have you ever met a person who hides who they really are under dark humour and being a total asshole to everyone?”
“Maybe,” I counter.
“Seb is not what he seems, and if he lets you close, you will see what he is really like. He is my brother in every sense other than blood, and he is a good man, one of the best I know. Don’t be so hasty in judging him,” Ryker suggests to me. “Even though he is a prince, it does not mean he has had an easy life.”
Seeing as I don’t have a good and not snarky reply to Ryker, I stay quiet as we get to the gap in the ward and slide through it one by one.
“Are you two the only ones that know of this gap?” I question. “And why hasn’t the queen ordered it fixed?”
“The Unseelie fae built the wards, and it is powered by their magic,” Seb answers. “My mother cannot fix magic she cannot control or understand. One day this whole ward will fall, and my father will be the one to put up a new ward with Seelie magic.”
Seb doesn’t wait for me to reply as he carries on walking, and we follow, even as my eyes drift back to the ward. I could fix it.
But there is no way in hell I would do that for that bitch on the throne. I pull my hood up when we get closer to the city, as do the guys, and they both somehow move to my sides, almost like they are protecting me. I almost laugh. It’s they who need protection from me, not the other way around. We soon mix into the crowds of reapers on the street lit up with lamps and glowing spheres of light that float around above our heads. Ryker takes a sharp turn down an alleyway, and I stay close as he stops in front of a brick wall. Knowing things aren’t as they seem, I wait as Ryker places both his hands on the wall.
“Copy me,” he suggests and winks just before he falls through the wall. I glance back at Seb, who nods once with a slight smirk.
“Not worried we are trying to kill you off, are you, vixen?”
“How many people do you want to hate you before you die, Sebby?” I question, and his eyes narrow as I place both my hands on the wall. Instantly I feel magic building up under my hands, and as I fall through the wall, I’m sure I hear Seb reply.
“Everyone.”
I stumble into a dark room, heavy beating music filling my ears and the intense heat of the place wrapping tightly around me. Flashing lights flicker across my eyes, and Ryker’s hand finds mine as he stands next to me. I’m tempted to pull my hand from his, but he tugs me along, down a pathway and into a massive room. Flickering white lights skirt across the dancers spread around the room, and in the middle of them are lit up stages with beams surrounding men and women who dance. Spheres of all different lights move around the ceiling, past the many different levels, and bars line the walls.
“You be yourself here. Everyone is free,” Ryker whispers to me. I don’t look back to see if Seb’s following us as Ryker leads me to the bar and pushes his way through the people waiting. The bartender, a young woman wearing a tiny skirt and little less than a strap of white material around her huge tits jumps several times when she sees Ryker.
“You’re here! I’ve missed you!” she tells Ryker. Her eyes flicker to me for a brief moment, and then she pretends like I don’t exist. Bitch. “The pack are excited to see if you win this academy test, and drinks are on the house for you and the prince.”
“And our friend, Daesyn. Daesyn, this is Willow,” he introduces us, and we both give each other a fake smile.
“The usual drinks?” she asks Ryker. “And I finish work in an hour. We can meet up at the top room—”
“Not tonight, and give us fae wine. Two bottles, three glasses, Willow,” Ryker requests. Her cheeks go a little pink, and she nods, turning away.
“She is going to hex our drinks,” Seb murmurs with a smirk. “I told you not to stick your dick in that one. She has clingy written all over her.”
Ryker looks like he wants to strangle Seb, who apparently couldn’t give a fuck. Eventually Willow comes back with our drinks and makes sure not to give me eye contact as the guys say goodbye to her. Ryker grabs the silver wine bottles, and I pick up the glasses, following them both over to a booth where a couple are so lost in each other they don’t notice the guys until they are standing over them.
“Get out,” Ryker demands.
The guy chuckles into the neck of the red-haired woman and slowly lifts his eyes from her. “Why don’t you fuck of—”
He pauses, his eyes going wide, and in seconds both of them stumble out of the booth, blurting out apologies.
“We could have sat in any of the empty booths,” I say, taking a seat.
Ryker pulls the cork off the wine bottle and shrugs. “I like this booth.”
I roll my eyes and lean back as he pours the thick pink wine into the glasses. The wine moves around in circles inside the glasses, sparkling under the light of the spheres of magic. Ryker holds his glass up.
“Happy birthday to my brother and best friend, Sebastian. Twenty-one years younger and all that shit.”
“It’s your birthday?” I question Seb, and he nods before taking a long ass sip of his drink. I drink mine next, the magical wine tasting like pure heaven as it goes down my throat. I don’t know how long we sit and drink for, but soon Ryker is stumbling out of his seat to get more wine, and I’m laughing at a story Seb is telling me.
“So he was butt ass naked and stuck on the roof of the castle,” Seb says, and I can’t stop laughing, just imagining Ryker like that. “All I saw was his ass flying in the air as he fell off the side of the castle. That was the last time he snuck out of a married woman’s window. We were stupid idiots at sixteen.”
“At least you had fun!” I counter.
“One of us did,” Seb replies, meeting my eyes. “Come and dance with me, vixen.”
