Authors: Sierra Dean
“Oh no? Is there not always a need for more power when you’ve had a taste?”
“The only power I want is my own. You have it, and I’m willing to make a fair trade to get it back.”
“Ah, well, there’s the problem. If I give you your powers
and
my errant fae…what do I get?”
I didn’t like where he was angling this conversation. One of my biggest fears in this plan had been what would happen if Aubrey decided he was getting the short end of the stick. Sure, technically he
owed
me because of the broken promise, but a fairy was a fairy. If they could find a way to stay within the boundaries of their rules and still come out on top, they’d do it. Right now Aubrey was trying to determine how he was going to manage it, and I didn’t see an easy way to win this.
“You broke a promise.”
“Let’s be clear, I will give you the fae. I have no interest in protecting someone who would willfully disobey me. It’s whether or not I will restore your powers that is the question.”
“I gave you my power in exchange for Kellen. I’m giving her back.”
“Direct exchanges are so…”
“Boring?”
He snapped his fingers, and instantly the phantom hands vanished. “Yes. Boring.”
“Doesn’t fairness factor in at all?”
“Rarely.”
“You guys are old-fashioned… How about I promise you my firstborn?” Considering I couldn’t
have
children once my abilities were restored, this seemed like a safe thing to offer.
“An interesting offer, but we both know your womb is no good.”
It made me sick to my stomach that he knew that without my telling him. “If not that, you must have something else in mind.”
“Yes, something very simple.”
I doubted that. “Let’s hear it.”
“When I agree to your terms…I want you to say,
Thank you, Aubrey
.”
I froze, unable to move or breathe. When I was finally able to form words, I whispered, “You want me to be in your debt.”
“For whatever and whenever I see fit to ask for, yes.”
I wanted to say no. Desperately I wanted to scream at him, to smash all the mirrors and say
no
. But I had to be realistic. If I didn’t give in to his request, I would be dead soon anyway. What good would it do me
now
to worry about what might happen at some distant point in the future. I might never have to make good on this hypothetical favor. Aubrey would live thousands of years longer than me, and time was different for the fae. A few weeks for him would be years and years for me. I might be good and dead before he thought to call on me for his request.
That didn’t mean I had to like it.
“There’s nothing else you’d consider?”
“No. I want your gratitude.”
“And if I say thank you, you’ll give me the fae and restore my powers to me
immediately
?”
“By the time you leave this room everything will be set right.”
I was one hundred percent sure I would live to regret this. “Okay. I agree.” I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Aubrey.”
His smile was self-satisfied and ghastly. I knew this decision was going to haunt me. The fairy king was going to be a shadow of uncertainty that followed me around for the rest of my days.
“One more thing, Miss McQueen.”
“Yes?”
“This is going to hurt. Fantastically.”
“I don’t—”
I was flattened to the floor, my cheek pressed against the cold glass of the mirror. All I could see was the white of my own eye and my breath fogging my view of the room. Black fog swirled around me, dampening sound and grasping at my limbs with icy-cold fingers that couldn’t find a hold. Those fingers raked nails over my flesh, and I understood what Aubrey’s warning meant.
The fog hands swept back and forth over me while a fist of it parted my lips and clawed down my throat, shredding my esophagus and stealing my ability to breathe. Everywhere I was touched my skin split and shredded, leaving me torn and exposed, every inch of my body became one raw nerve. The fog moving over me was agony. I cried when I couldn’t scream, but my skin shrieked in protest from the salt poured over a fresh wound. I opened my mouth and tried to let the pain out, but I choked on the oppressive strength of the hand in my throat.
The instant I knew the torment was too much and my human body was about to shut down, my senses dulled. The white-noise feeling I recognized as vampire healing settled over me, and the black fog vanished, leaving me cold and broken but able to breathe.
I lay in a sticky puddle of my own blood and slowly, horribly, my skin began to knit itself back together.
I wanted to be angry at the violation, but I couldn’t feel anything other than relief. I was myself again, and that had been what I’d come for. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
My apartment felt cold.
Not in the way I’d become accustomed to with human senses, but in a completely psychological way. Only a month earlier I’d sat in my living room with Kellen and Brigit while they coaxed me through my heartbreak over Lucas leaving me at the altar. Now the room was empty, and neither of them would ever sit here with me again.
Only hours after my encounter with the fairy king, I sat on the loveseat and breathed in the smell of the room, with my senses newly restored. It smelled right, but I didn’t feel any better.
Rio poked her head out of the bathroom and said, “
Breow
?”
“Yeah, I’m all right.” I wasn’t, but she was a cat. She didn’t need to hear about my problems. She bounced across the room and up onto the couch with me, rubbing her head against my hand, demanding I pet her. I scratched her behind the ears and under the chin.
The trilling sound of my phone came out of my purse near the door. I let out a groan and hauled my still-sore sack of bones off the couch to collect my cell.
“Hello?”
“
Where the hell have you been?
” Mercedes’s voice was high with panic but still managed to convey annoyance.
“It’s a long story.”
The sound she made could only be described as a coughing growl. “You’ve been gone for
three
weeks. I’d say it would have to be one hell of a long story.”
“Cedes, I promise I’ll tell you all about it. Just not tonight.”
“You can’t brush this off, not this time. You need to explain why I just got an unsolved homicide across my desk for Brigit. The NYPD doesn’t usually investigate the undead.”
“She’s dead-dead,” I replied quietly.
“What?”
“Brigit is gone. Mercy killed her.”
“Your mother Mercy?”
“I don’t know of any other homicidal werewolf bitches with that name.” I rubbed Rio’s ears, focusing on the cat so I wouldn’t start crying again. After my experience in the mirror room, I wasn’t sure I even
could
cry.
“Oh, Secret…”
“Can you give me a pass now? I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
My front door opened, and Rio tensed as Holden came in. The cat hissed and darted under the armchair.
“Cedes, I have to go.”
“Secret, I—”
“I promise I’ll call you tomorrow.” I hung up before she could protest.
“You should probably come outside,” Holden said.
“I don’t feel like moving.”
“You should
really
come outside.”
I climbed to my feet, my body protesting with each movement, and followed him out to the front street. Lucas was leaning against the side of a town car. Dominick stood a short distance away looking more serious than I was used to seeing him. Desmond himself was standing near the trunk, running his fingers nervously over it.
I stared at them all warily and said nothing.
“Are you…back?” Desmond asked. He’d been gone when I left Calliope’s, and now I knew where he’d been.
“I am.”
He didn’t say anything, just gave a nod.
“Is she really gone?” Lucas asked, referring to Kellen.
“Yes. She’s where she belongs now, and I think she’s happier than any of us will
ever
be.” I directed the brunt of my glare at Lucas specifically. “What’s in the car?”
Lucas jerked his chin to Desmond, who popped the trunk and took several steps away from it. I skirted the car and looked inside. Five dead-eyed werewolf heads stared back at me. I didn’t ask about their bodies.
“Where’s Hank?” I asked, doing the mental math and not seeing his head in the pile.
“We assume he’s with Mercy.”
I closed the trunk lid and drummed my fingernails on it. I wanted to feel bad for this. I’d sentenced these men to death, and without me they would still be alive. But the guilt didn’t come. I’d made a call Lucas should have made on his own. The men in that trunk represented more of a risk to Lucas’s pack than they had to me personally.
“Well done,” I said.
“That’s it? That’s what you’re going to say to me?” Lucas asked, his cheeks flushing with rage.
“Do you want me to high-five you?”
“I want you to admit I’ve done something worthy of your forgiveness.”
I snorted. “No. You’ve done what a good king needed to do.”
“You
asked
for this.”
“And I shouldn’t have needed to. Mercy’s pack was a threat to you. Don’t kid yourself that you did this for me. You just let me make the hard call for you.”
“I killed them for you.”
“How romantic.”
Lucas threw his hands in the air in a familiar
why, God, why
gesture. But I no longer cared if I tested his patience. In fact, I no longer cared what Lucas thought of me at all.
“You—”
Desmond interrupted him this time. “Lucas,
shut up
. She’s right. You should have taken action against them. That’s
your
job, not a favor you’re doing for her. You talk about being a king and making the tough calls? This was a call for you to make, and she did it for you. So just shut up.”
Lucas looked ready to blow. He snapped his fingers at Dominick, who seemed disgusted but followed with the king faithfully. Lucas paused by the passenger door of the car. “You should know, while you were busy shipping my sister away, your mother left. She saw what we did and she’s gone.”
Even after he got into the car, I continued to stare at the place where he’d been standing. All I could think was
He let this happen on purpose
. Followed shortly by,
I did all this for nothing.
I took two steps back and sat on the steps leading down to my apartment. The car pulled away, and I was left alone with Desmond and Holden once more.
“She’s gone,” I said, mostly to myself.
“But you’re you again,” Holden reminded me. Until then he’d been waiting patiently off to the side. Now he was standing directly behind me. “The threat is over.”
I jerked my shoulder away from his touch and got to my feet. “It’s not
over
. The threat won’t be over until she’s dead.”
“Then you’ll find her.”
I looked from Holden to Desmond, then let out a labored sigh. “I thought this would do it. I thought I’d finally be done with her.”
Holden and Desmond exchanged a glance, and I was betting neither of them knew what they should say to me. How could they? I didn’t know if there was anything anyone could say to make me feel hopeful right then.
“Don’t fill your mind with one werewolf now, my dear,” came a voice from the stairs below me.
I pedaled backwards, almost tripping as Sig materialized out of the small landing and into the stairwell. He was carrying a glass aquarium, which he handed to me when we were on even footing at the top of the stairs. “I believe this is for you.”
Inside the tank was a frog giving me a clearly disapproving glare.
On top of the tank was a note that read,
For a promise broken — A.
So this little bugger was the cause of so many problems? I’d expected to be given the fairy in his or her natural form. I guess Aubrey had some fun with it first. Keaty was going to be thrilled when I dropped this off at his office.
“Thanks,” I told Sig. “I think?”
“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t come with good news.” He leaned close and sniffed the air around me. “But I’m pleased to see you may once again be in a position to survive.”
“Survive?”
He patted my cheek gently. “How soon the memory of things fade in youth.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother is the least of your problems now.”
“What does that mean?” Desmond asked.
“Fuck me,” Holden answered, obviously coming to a conclusion I wasn’t able to reach. “The lifeline lock.”
“The…” My eyes widened. Oh Jesus. In Brigit’s passing, I’d been so caught up in losing my friend I hadn’t thought of the bigger consequences. Brigit had stood up for me, using her life as the tether that kept Alexandre Peyton bound. The one person other than my mother who would want me dead the most.