“And when the spray settles,” I said, proceeding logically from his perspective, “with me at your side, ye would be able to rule over the Queens, as well.” At last it all made sense; I knew why the Winter Queen had been so eager to find me—she must have figured out who and what I was early on. Through Jack, perhaps, or any number of agents she’d hidden within the Chancery. Had I agreed to her terms when last we met, she would have been able to supplant Oberon and her sister, the Summer Queen, to rule over the Fae unopposed.
With me locked away in a block of ice, no doubt.
“I’m no despot,” Oberon claimed, raising a bushy eyebrow. “I simply wish to keep the Fae safe. To let them live according to their natures. I provide balance. Is that so wrong?”
I hated to admit it, but that didn’t sound terrible. If anything, it sounded like the Goblin King was entitled to rule. But then—although I disagreed with my aunts’ plan to “fix” the Fae realm in practice—there was something to be said for checks and balances. The Goblin King’s leadership—or lack thereof—could lead the Fae down a dangerous, bloody path.
Of course, all that was a moot point.
Because I wasn’t interested in taking anyone’s side.
“I’ll consider the offer,” I replied, choosing diplomacy over honesty.
Oberon’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t leave this place without choosing,” he asserted. “No matter how clever you think you are.”
I shrugged. “Aren’t ye supposed to be takin’ me somewhere?”
The Goblin King spun on his heel. “To the brig, it is.”
Ooh, a brig. That was exciting.
I’d never seen a brig before.
The brig was basically a cage, not much bigger than my bedroom, with thick, iron bars. Alucard met me at the gate in his normal form, hands wrapped around the metal so tight they groaned. “Quinn! You’re alive!”
“Aye, I’m alive,” I replied, glaring at the vampire. “Now, how about ye tell me why the fuck ye let them put ye in a cell?”
“He made a deal with me,” Oberon answered for him. “He’s my prisoner, to do with as I wish, so long as I keep you safe from harm. He swore on his power.”
“Quinn, I—” Alucard began.
I sucker punched him in the gut through the bars, as hard as I could, before he could say anything else. The breath whooshed out of the vampire and he fell to his knees, clearly winded. “That’s for bein’ a fuckin’ gentleman after I told ye not to,” I snapped, massaging my knuckles.
I found Oberon looking up at me, eyes wide, when I turned around. He clucked his tongue as he retrieved a set of keys, shaking his head. “I take it back. Maybe it’s best you and I don’t join forces, after all.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll beat ye to death on the regular?” I asked, my blood still up.
“No,” Oberon replied, “because it’s possible you’re as crazy as I am.” He unlocked the cell before turning towards me, his form shimmering. Suddenly he loomed over me, horns like antlers sprouted from his head, his teeth and nails extending—everything about him immense and imposing. “There can be only one to lead the Wild Hunt, after all,” the Goblin King said.
I eyed him as I stepped into the cage, skirting warily by. “Whatever ye say, Highlander.”
Alucard snickered.
Oberon slammed the cell door shut, a mere goblin once more, glaring at us both. “Guards will be posted outside at all times. Don’t bother trying to escape. There’s no Fae here who will harbor you. To do so risks not just my justice, but the wrath of Macha and Badb.”
“Bye now,” I said, folding my arms over my chest.
The Goblin King spat onto one side of the floor, then walked back the way we’d come.
“And what did you do to piss him off, cher?” Alucard asked.
“Refused to hop into bed with him,” I quipped.
“What?!” Alucard yelled, suddenly back up against the bars.
“Calm down,” I said, placatingly. “It was an expression. I t’ink.” I frowned, wondering if what Oberon had suggested included more than a joining of forces; I wasn’t always the best at picking up on flirtation. I shuddered, hoping that wasn’t the case. “Anyway, as much as I’ve loved our little Faecation, I t’ink it’s time we got the fuck out of here.”
“I think you mean you need to get the fuck out of here,” Alucard amended, hanging his head. “I can’t go anywhere.”
“Why, because ye swore on your power?” I asked.
Alucard nodded. “As long as he keeps his end of the deal, I’m useless to you.” He rapped his knuckles against the metal bars, producing a dull clang. “I couldn’t break you out of this if I tried.”
“Aye, that was fuckin’ moronic of ye,” I replied. “But not half as dumb as he was for makin’ that the conditions of the deal.”
“Why’s that?” Alucard asked, glancing back at me.
I opened my mouth to explain, but snapped it shut as the sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the corridor outside. A moment later, Oberon returned with two mugs of water, presumably for us prisoners. Once out of the hallway, the Goblin King’s form wavered and—in an instant—a remarkably handsome Faeling stood in his place.
Ryan, no longer concealed by his glamour, tossed the mugs to the floor. “So?” he asked. “How’d it go with your aunts?”
“Your what?” Alucard asked, raising an eyebrow.
I glared at the Faeling. “I was thirsty,” I growled.
Ryan shrugged. “Should’ve said something sooner. Like, right before I dumped out your water.”
I sucked my teeth. “Does this have somethin’ to do with why ye were ready to kill me earlier?” I asked.
“He what?!” Alucard said, whirling to face Ryan.
“Please stop talking,” Ryan said, flicking his eyes at Alucard, who looked like he was about to have an aneurism.
I settled a hand on the vampire’s back, patting it. “He’s right,” I replied. “Why don’t ye have a sit down, ye wee, powerless mongrel?” I jerked my chin towards the corner of the cell and winked. “I’ll let ye know if I need someone to jump in front of a sword for me.”
Alucard looked a little hurt by my teasing, but I didn’t care; the moron deserved a ribbing after risking his life over and over on my behalf. I was sick of knights in shining armor riding in on their high horses, fucking things up—first Jimmy, and now Alucard.
It’s like I had a type.
The vampire huffed, but did as I asked, settling against the bars on the far side of the cell.
“Now,” I said, giving Ryan the full weight of my attention. “Spill it.”
The Faeling crossed his arms over his chest. “First, I want to know how you know her.”
“Know who?” I asked.
“The silver sprite,” Ryan replied, as if that should have been obvious.
I frowned, remembering Ryan’s bizarre fascination with Barbie from earlier. “She found me on Hook’s boat. She saved me life. Well, her and Peter.”
“Holy shit, that was Peter Pan?” Alucard asked, eyes wide, then winced; the dirty looks Ryan and I gave him were so intense that he had to look away. He mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key.
“So you never saw her before?” Ryan asked, gauging my reaction.
“No. Why, should I have?”
“I want her name,” he replied, ignoring my question.
“And I want to go home,” I said, crossing my arms, mimicking the Faeling’s defiant posture.
“Then I suggest you take the offers you’ve been given,” Ryan said, sneering in contempt. “Any one of them would see you back home in a heartbeat. Of course, we both know you’re far too selfish to do that.”
“What the fuck is wrong with ye?” I snapped, snatching at the iron bars in anger. But, before he could reply, pain—immense and immediate—sent me howling away from the bars of our cell. I cried out, tears in my eyes, and stared down at my hands. They looked singed, as if I’d touched a blisteringly ho
t stovetop. Alucard had his arm around me in an instant, and I was in too much pain to shrug him off.
“Huh. Guess it’s already begun,” Ryan said. “You know, I could hardly believe it when they told me. My friend, Quinn, the Morrigan’s daughter. You could have told me, you know.” He sidled up and tapped the cage with the toe of his boot. “Soon you’ll be just like us. Well, like them, at any rate. The Tuatha were before my time. But, no matter how this turns out, eventually you’ll have to leave your precious mortal realm behind, just as I did.”
“Why?” I asked, staring down at my poor palms with tears in my eyes.
Ryan made an exasperated noise. “Because, they can’t afford to leave you to your own devices, obviously. Gods aren’t allowed to do whatever they want. You know that.”
In hindsight, Ryan’s logic made sense; I did know that. In the mortal realms, gods and goddesses could pick champions, but never interfere directly. I’m not sure if it was a written or unwritten rule—I’d never been privy to a cosmic library—but it was definitely the way things worked. Of course, that wasn’t what I’d meant. “No, not that…” I replied, my voice tight with pain. “I meant why are ye actin’ this way? Is it just because ye t’ink I kept t’ings from ye? I didn’t. I just found out what I am, meself. That’s why I came to Fae in the first place. To figure out what I am!”
“Whatever you say, Quinn,” Ryan replied, but the tension in his shoulders lessened somewhat. “Listen, give me her name, and I’ll go.”
“Why d’ye want it so badly?” I asked, shrugging Alucard off to rise, the skin of my hands already returning to normal.
“Because she and her fellow renegades killed my father,” Ryan snapped. I noticed Alucard’s body language change out of the corner of my eye, but didn’t dare look away from the Faeling. “When she chose to side with the Manling born in Fae over her own people,” Ryan continued, “the silver sprite and her kind broke every bond they’d ever made. And, now that I know where she is, I intend to hunt her down and cut her to pieces.”
My shoulders slumped as everything began to fall into place. A conversation from months ago, on the day of Ryan’s departure, played in my head. I remembered how Ryan’s father had supposedly died—taken down by pixies and sprites during one of the Goblin King’s Wild Hunts.
Taken down on the orders of the Manling born in Fae.
Nate Temple.
Wylde.
Barbie’s friend.
I glanced over at Alucard, who refused to look up, and realized he must have figured it out, too. Luckily, it seemed Ryan hadn’t discovered the connection between Alucard and Nate. Yet. “You’ll die if ye go after her,” I said, finally.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve always treated me like I was inferior. Like a kid brother you could boss around or beat up whenever you felt like it. But you don’t know the first thing about me. About the Fae. About our vengeance.” He sniffed. “You know what? I don’t care what you decide to do. Just don’t get in my way, Quinn MacKenna.” And, with that, he turned on his heel and left.
Leaving me with one less friend.
“Could’ve at least given us the water,” I mumbled.
Chapter 28
Over the next couple hours, I filled Alucard in on everything that had happened to me since before and after we ended up separated from the dinghy—including what little I could remember of that fight, at Alucard’s insistence; it turned out his memory of things since we’d crossed over into Fae was hazy at best.
“I can’t explain why this is happening to me. The only major difference between my last trip to Fae and this one was I had Nate to guide me,” he said, gritting his teeth as if hating to admit it. “But this time around, I don’t know…it feels different. Not like I was on the outside looking in or any of that nonsense, but like everything sounded like a good idea.”
“Your wild side,” I offered.
“I guess so. Except before, I had direction.” He frowned. “I mean, it was Nate’s direction, but it was like all his goals became my goals, even if I went about things in my own way.”
I scowled as I considered what Alucard was saying. I wasn’t certain, but I had to admit it sounded a lot like Alucard had fallen prey to pack mentality. In essence, Alucard had given up his autonomy to the alpha—Nate. Frankly, I found it hard to imagine someone completely dominating Alucard, but being an alpha wasn’t always about being the smartest or the strongest, often it was about confidence—the ability to say something and believe it with such assurance that everyone else around you ended up siding with you, whether they wanted to or not. And—while I’d only had two run-ins with Nate Temple and had wanted to junk punch the bastard in both instances—I had to admit the wizard exuded unassailable confidence like an expensive cologne.
And that kind of cologne could get you killed.
“Well, anyway, you’re better now, right?” I asked, deciding not to voice my opinion on the matter; if Alucard wanted to play follow-the-leader with Nate Temple, he was welcome to it. So long as they stayed the fuck out of my yard.
He nodded. “As soon as I made the contract with Oberon. He took my power, but he took away the urges, too.” He frowned, arms draped over his knees, back against the bars.
“I prefer ye like this, if I’m bein’ honest,” I replied. “Firefang was pretty damn close to gettin’ himself shot.”
Alucard snorted at my nickname for his wild side. “Bit possessive, huh?”
“Just a smidge,” I replied, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground; my ass was falling asleep, and I couldn’t risk touching the bars, since it was likely they’d end up frying me again. I glanced down at my bracelet once more, wondering if Macha had disabled it completely. It was obvious she and her sister had done something to me, as well. It wasn’t simply my sudden iron allergy—although, as symptoms went, that did tend to stand out. But there were other, fairly noticeable, indicators I couldn’t quite describe.
You know when you’re about to get sick? How your body aches just a little, and you wonder if you did something to make yourself sore the day before? And then, how the mental fog sets in, making it harder to think than usual, like your brain decided to take the day off?
Well, this was pretty much the opposite of that.
I felt fucking grade A fantastic.
But I shouldn’t have. The Fae realm had officially chewed me up and spit me out; I’d been cut up by pixies, goblin-handled, knocked unconscious, forced to swim through a sea of fire, thrown into and then off a boat, and—finally—hit with some of the heaviest emotional baggage I’d ever been asked to carry. I should have felt like shit. I should have felt like my whole world was one big lie. I should have been angry, and tired, and ready to kill anything that moved.
Hell, I’d even lost my shoes.
But, if I was being honest, I could have cared less. All I really wanted to do was crawl up on top of the vampire in the corner and find out what he tasted like. Which I knew was a very, very bad idea. And so I sat on my hands, trying my best to be a good…whatever I was.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to suffer for very long.
Because someone decided to crash the party.
On the far side of the room, the wall began to melt.
Steel, so hot it turned red, began to spill down towards the ground, replaced by a pure white light so bright it hurt to look at. At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect—what fresh horror we were bound to face in the belly of Oberon’s warship. I was betting on a Kraken, even though nothing about our current situation indicated that was the case; it was just that Oberon seemed like the douche who’d have a pet Kraken.
I held up my arm to block out the glare—glad, for once, to be behind bars. At least whoever or whatever was coming would have to get through iron to get to us, I figured. At last, the light dimmed, and I was able to stop shielding my eyes long enough to see what horrible fate was in store for us.
A woman I didn’t recognize stepped through the gaping hole in the wa
ll. She had red hair, like mine, although it was a shade brighter—the color of true flame—and braided so heavily it sat flush against her scalp. She was also wearing decidedly normal attire: combat boots, a pair of grey denim jeans, and a black t-shirt that read: Do You Even Kill, Bro? In fact, aside from her hairdo, the only thing about her that struck me as remotely Fae-like was the wicked-looking black bow she held. She swiveled that bow from side-to-side as she entered the room—clearing it with the professionalism of a SWAT officer.
And I knew her.
“Huntress? Is that you?” Alucard asked, peering out at the woman in disbelief.
I frowned. “That’s not the Huntress,” I said uncertainly. The Huntress was a scary-ass Faeling with flaming eyes, who wore a pile of furs and a cloak of shadows and had a wicked-looking black bow.
Alucard raised an eyebrow at me, clearly in disagreement.
The redhead—who may or may not have been the Huntress—completed her circuit, glancing first at the vampire, then at me. “All clear,” she called, keeping her voice down. As if on cue, a head was thrust through the opening. Not metaphorically, either; Cassandra—the headless horsewoman capable of opening Gateways into Fae, and one of the very few Faelings I still thought well of—held her own head in her hand, raising it high over the other woman’s shoulder, her smile wide.
“Quinn!” she shouted, gleefully.
“Quiet!” the redhead hissed. She approached the cell, eyeing the iron bars with disdain. “Should’ve known getting you out wouldn’t be that easy,” she muttered.
“Why are you here?” Alucard asked, keeping his voice down so as not to alert the guards—wherever they were.
“I came for the girl,” the redhead—who was probably the Huntress—replied. Her eyes flashed, spewing flame for just an instant, confirming her superheroine identity.
It was the Huntress. She looked rougher around the edges than when I had last seen her. Then it hit me. Her wild side.
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