Seb smiles and lets out a laugh. “Your people are ruthless and dangerous, and yet you wish you knew their plans.”
“What happened all those years ago? Why did your mother join with the fae king and attack the Unseelie?” I question.
“That’s the thing many ask, and no one is ever answered. The reason is unknown,” he tells me, and it’s what I suspected. If there was a reason, a reason they wouldn’t mind anyone knowing, the world would know by now. “But I heard my parents once. They spoke of a rune and a curse.”
I freeze at his words. “Maybe that caused it so many years ago.”
Seb looks over at me, tilting his head to the side, the light catching his eyes. “I should have never kissed you that day in the throne room, vixen. You’re in my head now.”
“You’re in mine too.”
He doesn’t reply, not that I expect him to, and he takes a long sip of his drink. I drink mine, happy to join the prince in a night of forgetting who we are, because this conversation has made me certain of one thing.
I need to find these rebel Unseelie and ask them if they want a new member. For my mother, I have to try and help free and save her people.
“If you were queen, you could free them,” Seb comments, his voice dark and almost expressionless. “You could change everything.”
“If you were king, so could you,” I counter, raising an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that piss your father off? To free the fae who used to rule half his world?”
Seb darkly laughs and smiles at me. It’s a venomous smile at best. “I will drink to that.”
I lift my bottle and so does he before we take a long drink.
Being friends with the prince does have its bonuses after all, and one way or another, I’m going to help my people.
For my mum.
Chapter 32
“Why do you want to find Unseelie rebels?” Mossy questions from my shoulder where he is perched. “You can’t exactly help them fight in the Otherworld.”
“I want to ask them some things,” I briefly tell him, keeping my eyes on the shadows of the forest as I make my way to the gap in the gate. “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”
“I followed you into that troll den that one time.” He shudders, and I hear the disgust in his voice. “And they stunk and wanted to eat me.”
“To be fair, they wanted to eat me too,” I say, remembering the forty or so trolls in that clan I had to kill for a job. They deserved it though, they had kidnapped and killed four human teenagers for nothing more than amusement.
“Things are changing,” Mossy says as we get closer to the gate. “It was always just us. Now there is Poppy, the angel fucker, the dog, and the prince. And the demon from Hell.”
“You’ll always be my family, Mossy,” I tell him. I duck and climb through the gap, pulling my hood up to hide Mossy and my face. “That won’t ever change.”
Mossy doesn’t reply, and I sigh, knowing he has never been good with change. The streets are quiet as I make my way through them, eventually finding some busy taverns with drunk reapers on the streets and leaning against the doors. Picking the busiest tavern I can find, I head inside and dodge my way around tiny tables to get to the bar. The bartender is an Unseelie fae slave, simple to recognize from the glowing green bars around her wrists and neck, how thin she looks, and the drained expression on her face. She might have been pretty once, in the ways fae always are, but life has seriously gotten her down. I slide into a seat, eyeing the green metal bands that are thick with magic radiating from them. I haven’t seen any slave with those on before, but clearly they must stop her powers.
“What do you want?” the bartender asks, stopping in front of me. I eye the two hooded strangers nearby me.
“A private word,” I answer. She cocks her head to the side, and I lower my hood, enough that she can see my eyes.
“Seelie fae are welcome here, if that is your problem,” she replies. “My owner invites everyone.”
“That’s not my issue. Meet me around back in the alleyway,” I tell her and start to leave the tavern. The two strangers at my sides stand up with me, and I turn around to see six hooded men at my back.
“Seelie fae are not welcome here,” the one at the side speaks up. “Fae are nothing but scum, and you walked into the wrong place.”
I place my hands on my daggers under my cloak. “Mossy, check the place for cameras and break them.”
“Got it,” he whispers in my ear before climbing down my back. I push my hood back, and several of them do the same. All reapers, that’s for sure, and older men too.
“She’s pretty. I bet she would feel great around my cock,” the reaper in the middle claims and grabs his junk. Men are disgusting at times. Before he can blink, I whip my dagger out and slam it into his hand over his junk. Blood splatters across my face as I pull the dagger out, his cry and scream blasting off the walls.
Then it’s chaos. The reapers slam shadows into me, trying to hold me down with their magic, and I grin as I push their magic away like it’s nothing more than dust.
“You’re going to have to do much better than that,” I comment. They briefly look scared, as they should be, before I attack right back. Purple shadows smother the space around me, and I point my dagger at one of them, lifting them up in the air by their throat. He struggles as his friend tries to kick me, only to hit my magic and be thrown half away across the room. “I can beat you all by using only one hand. You should run.”
One of them makes a quick escape, smart man, but at least ten more men come through the door. Maybe I will need two hands after all.
“Now this is a party,” Ryker’s voice drifts in behind me. I turn to see my hellhound friend walking around the bar, a bottle of whiskey in his hands. He meets my eyes as his burn to red. “Shall we?”
I smirk and then attack the reapers, jumping into their group. I lose count of how many I punch, and kick, and throw away with shadows. I glance behind me at one point, seeing Ryker covered in blood, smacking the shit out of one of the reapers. Ouch. Someone grabs my hair and slams me backwards, my back harshly hitting the floor.
That’s going to bruise. I groan as he jumps on me, his hands wrapping around my throat. Before I can do anything, a hand shoots through his chest, and the reaper’s still-beating heart is in my face. The reaper looks shell-shocked as the hand moves back, and I glance up at Ryker as he drops the heart on the floor, flames flickering around his body.
Anyone left in the room still alive or awake makes a quick exit as Ryker offers me his hand. I grip his blood-soaked hand and pull myself to my feet, looking around at the broken tavern. The Unseelie fae stands still at the bar, not caring one bit about the mess or blood.
“I guess we are in a quiet place to talk now,” she comments. “Want a drink?”
“Two fae wines,” Ryker grumbles, pulling out a stool and sitting down. I push a literal arm off a stool, set the seat upright, and then sit on it.
