Faye cleared her throat as she walked to stand beside Tanner. “We wouldn’t have had to kill her. There are other options.”
“Why
didn’t
you just kill me, though?” I asked Faye. “That would’ve taken care of the problem. You had plenty of opportunity.”
Ren stiffened beside me.
Her expression tightened. “We do not believe in killing humans, no matter the situation.”
I arched a brow. “You might want to tell Merle that.”
Merle chuckled as if I had suggested Faye tell her about a new pot roast recipe.
“She is human,” Faye replied. “Humans tend not to value life.”
Deciding it was time to change the subject, I focused on Merle again. “Why did you tell Brighton that Ren would know what to do with the info in the journals?”
She smiled faintly and nodded in his direction. “The young man has trust in his eyes.”
I opened my mouth, but I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. When I peeked at Ren, he was grinning at his booted feet.
Tanner gestured for us to sit in the chairs. Ren and I did so. “I know you have a lot of questions and there is a lot we need to tell you, but we don’t want to overwhelm you. Faye has explained that the last few weeks have been . . . stressful for you.”
I tensed. “Stressful” isn’t exactly the word I would have used. It was also something that I didn’t really want to go into right now.
Ren leaned forward, resting his elbow on his leg and his chin in his hand. “Let’s focus on the most important part,” he suggested, tone firm. His gaze slid to me. “They know how to send the prince back to the Otherworld.”
“What?” I sat up straighter. “How?”
Tanner leaned against the desk and crossed his ankles. “You want to take over?”
Faye didn’t look like she wanted to, but she started talking anyway. “When my family left the Otherworld many decades ago, they took a very special, very powerful crystal from the head of the king’s throne and brought it into this realm. The crystal was then taken by the Order for safekeeping. Or at least, that’s what they said. Their decision to move the crystal without our permission created . . . a rift between our two kinds.”
I wondered if that was why the Order and these fae stopped working together, but a rift didn’t seem like a big enough reason to have everything about their union now stripped from our history.
I thought of the crystal Val had taken from the Order the night the prince had come through the gate. Since I had spoken to Miles about it, I really hadn’t thought about it. Granted, a lot of things had been going on, but I knew where that crystal was. “The prince has it.”
“Did you see the crystal?” Tanner asked, pale eyes sharpening.
“No.” I shook my head. “But my . . . but one of the Order members who’d been working with the prince took it.”
“Hussy,” Merle muttered under her breath, and Brighton sighed once more. “The crystal should’ve never been in the hands of the Order. They do not understand the power or its importance, not truly.”
“I haven’t seen it,” I said, looking around the room. “The Order hasn’t explained its importance. One of the guys there even went as far as saying it’s basically nothing. I’m guessing that’s not the case?”
Faye folded her arms over her chest. “The crystal can send the prince back to the Otherworld, but it is not an easy task.”
“And we don’t know exactly where the crystal is,” Tanner added. “Faye looked for it while she was at the prince’s compound.”
“Never saw it,” she said. “But there were many places I simply had no access to.”
I wanted to know how she came about working for the prince, but that wasn’t exactly important right now. “So, we have to get the crystal and then what?”
Faye took a deep breath. “Then we need the blood of a royal and the blood of a halfling—”
“Only a small amount,” Ren clarified, sitting up. “Like a drop of a halfling’s blood.”
Tanner smiled. “He’s still not happy about that.”
His eyes narrowed. “Finding the crystal and getting the blood of the prince and a drop of yours isn’t the hard part.”
“It’s not?” Doubt lifted my brows. “That sounds pretty hard when we don’t know where the crystal is. And getting blood from the prince is not going to be easy.”
“The ritual of the blood and the stone,” Faye said, drawing my attention, “has to be completed in the Otherworld.”
~
There was a little conversation going back and forth after that. Getting the crystal was the first step, but we’d have to figure out where the hell it was. I couldn’t really even think about getting the prince’s blood, because I really didn’t want to be in the same time zone as him. And then there was the whole issue of getting to the Otherworld.
The whole point of me not getting knocked up with the prince’s baby was to keep the gates closed, but we had to open them. Temporarily.
And we’d need the Order for that.
I had a suspicion baby Jesus was more likely to attend dinner tonight wearing suspenders than getting them on board with opening a gate.
Faye spoke of how they were fully aware of the prince’s plan to go all super-villain on the world. It was about an hour or so later when Ren and I left the room. There was still a lot to discuss, but my head was already bursting with the limited knowledge I’d gained, and it was just good to get out.
Out in the hall, I stopped and looked up at Ren. “Can we go outside?”
“Whatever you want.”
So that’s what we did. We headed out to the courtyard. It was surprisingly free of fae, but then again, it wasn’t particularly warm out here. Drawn to a large swing, we sat side by side.
I had no idea how we were going to deal with the prince and his minions, find the crystal, and get his blood without him kidnapping me, and then somehow magically do all of this
inside
the Otherworld.
We were only outside for a few minutes when Tink rounded the corner, carrying little Dixon in his arms.
“At least he’s clothed,” he muttered.
“There is that.”
“There’s really not room for three,” Ren grumbled as Tink walked up to the swing.
I smiled faintly as Tink plopped down on the other side of me. “There’s totes room for three,” Tink said, shooting Ren a look. “If you have a problem with our closeness, you’re more than welcome to leave.”
Ren sighed. “I should’ve let you starve.”
“Whatever.” Tink put Dixon in his lap. “You wouldn’t know what to do with me.”
Dixon promptly climbed out of Tink’s lap and into mine. I stared down at the little guy, and he stared back up at me and started making bread on my stomach with his little paws.
“Heard you met with Tanner,” Tink said. “He thinks I’m amazing.”
“Let’s ask him what he thinks of you in a few days,” Ren replied. “I bet it changes.”
“Hate the game,” Tink said, leaning forward. “Not the player.”
“What?” Ren frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“I’m just going to ignore you now,” Tink commented, and then jabbed me in the side with his elbow. “I was worried about you, Ivy-Divy. You slept like you were a Disney princess who ate a rotten apple.”
I arched a brow as I scratched the kitten above its tail. “I think you mean a poisoned apple.”
“Whatever. Same difference. Prince Charming over there couldn’t wake you with a kiss,” he said. “That’s all I know.”
“You’re going to need more than a Prince Charming to wake you when I knock your ass unconscious,” Ren said with little heat behind the threat, watching Dixon as he curled into a little ball and promptly went to sleep.
Tink huffed and then laid his head on my shoulder. I was used to him doing that when he was much, much smaller.
The three of us sat there in silence, and I don’t know why, but I felt like crying again. I was such a mess. Such a mess. Maybe I just needed to sleep another two days. The knot in my throat was expanding, but there was something I needed to say.
“I . . . I just want to thank you two for not giving up on me,” I said, focusing on Dixon. I cleared my throat. “For looking for me and for caring.”
“You don’t need to thank us,” Ren said. “You never need to do that, sweetness.”
“For once, I agree with the loser,” Tink replied. “I already told you. That’s what we do.”
Tears burned my eyes. “Yeah,” I croaked out, pressing my lips together.
“You’re going to be okay,” Ren said, seeming to sense I needed to hear that, because I really did. He stretched his arm out along the back of the swing, curling his fingers around my shoulder.
Tink nudged my arm, careful not to wake Dixon. “Of course she will be. She has us.”
Us.
That was the first time I think Tink had ever referenced himself and Ren in the same sentence and had it not end in insults. Wow. Progress. Or he was
that
worried about me.
Tink was probably just that worried about me.
And that was okay. He worried because he cared and loved me. And even as hard as it was for me to believe and understand, Ren cared too.
Ren loved me.
Sitting in between Ren and Tink, I turned my face up to the sky and closed my eyes. I let the sun soak my skin and start to warm places inside me that were cold and dark.
I was a little torn, frayed around the edges, and it was going to be a long, bumpy road to being a hundred percent okay. And nothing was going to stop and wait for me to get there. Drake would be coming for me, or he would be going after another halfling. We had to find the crystal, and we had to stop him. None of that could really wait.
But I was going to be okay.
I was a halfling. I wasn’t the same Ivy from a few months ago. Everything was different now.
I
was different. There were places in me that were still cold, that were still full of insidious shadows, but I wouldn’t be cold forever.
Careful not to disturb Dixon, I reached over and placed my hand on Ren’s leg, palm up. I felt the sharp breath he took. A second later, he folded his hand over mine, and he squeezed.
I lifted my gaze to his, but I didn’t need to say anything. I leaned into his side, resting my head against his shoulder. I felt his body relax almost instantaneously. My gaze slid over to Tink. He was watching us with those pale, blue eyes. He winked.
I was not alone in any of this.
I was only a little torn, but not broken.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be okay.”
And I
was
brave.
The
Wicked
Saga continues with the final book
BRAVE
Coming summer of 2017
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my team who helped bring this book to life—Kevan Lyon, Patricia Nelson, Kara Malinczak, R.S., Sarah Hansen, Taryn Fagerness, Christine Borgford at Perfectly Publishable, Stacey Morgan, and all my friends and family. Special super thanks to the readers, who were incredibly patient while I wrote the sequel.
About Jennifer L. Armentrout
Jennifer L. Armentrout is the # 1 New York Times and International best selling author who lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Not all the rumors you've heard about her state are true. When she's not busy writing, she likes to garden, work out, watch really bad zombie movies, pretend to write, and hang out with her husband and her hyper Jack Russell named Loki.
She writes young adult contemporary, science fiction, and paranormal romance for Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen, Disney Hyperion, and Harlequin Teen. Don't Look Back was nominated as Best in Young Adult Fiction by the Young Adult Library Association. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV.
Under the name J. Lynn, Jennifer has written New Adult and Adult contemporary and paranormal romance, including the # 1 New York Times best seller Wait for You. She writes for HarperCollins and Entangled Brazen.