City of Fae

“Alina … ?”


I jolted and made a tiny yelping sound. The bar of soap flew out of my hand, shot between the shower-curtains and bounced on the floor somewhere outside the bath. “Damn it! Get the fuck out of my bathroom, Reign.” My heart beat against my chest and throbbed in my ears. I’d had enough. He was lucky I was trapped in the shower, had I been dressed, I’d have slapped him and kicked his ass out. Forget that he’d saved me; he was the one who walked me into that nightmare without a warning.

“Alina.”

“Don’t! Just don’t. Unless you’ve come to tell me it was a trick, an illusion?” I knew it wasn’t, but would happily convince myself otherwise.

“No, she was real.”

I splayed my hand on the cool tiles and bowed my head under the water. It was real. Tears fell, hidden by the streams pouring over my face. If she was real, what else lurked out there? What other horrible things lay in wait beneath London? Were the scenes depicted on those tapestries real? Now I knew the truth, I almost didn’t want it. This was bigger than me. I was an out-of-work reporter with no clue how to handle the ugly truth.

“Are you okay?”

I laughed, and I didn’t care that it sounded maniacal. “I am so far from okay, I think I might be crazy.”

Reign’s hand poked through the shower curtain, soap cradled in his palm.

I glowered at it. “Drop it.” He did. I scooped it up. “Pervert.”

“I thought you said pervert, but my ears heard thanks.”

“And I thought faeries had excellent hearing.” Through the opaque curtain I could make out a black smudge in the bathroom doorway. He wasn’t moving.

“The word you’re looking for is selective,” he said.

I rinsed my face under the water, counting to five in my head. When I opened my eyes, he was still there. I wanted to rage at him, to scream and accuse him of lying, of misleading me. I wanted to demand answers, to shake the truth out of him if I could, but most of all, I didn’t want to be alone. “Don’t go.”

His outline shifted, torn between loitering in my doorway and leaving. I replayed my words in my head and realized they could have been taken to mean something else entirely. “I mean, uh, ya know, I need to talk to you; can you please wait? Outside.”

“Sure.”

“Reign …” I called, just as he was about to close the door behind him. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“Are you like her?” I asked softly.

“No more than you are, Alina.”

“I’m human, you’re not. What are you?”

“Royally fucked.” The door closed with an abrupt click.





***





Once I was out of the shower—seconds later, as the thought of showering while he loitered in my living room seemed wrong in ways I didn’t want to think about—and dressed, Reign asked if I knew of somewhere we could go and talk where he wouldn’t be recognized and where we’d have witnesses. He looked at me as though I might start throwing things. I realized why, when I caught sight of my wild-eyed reflection. In all likelihood I would start raging at him; perhaps somewhere public was a good idea.

As we walked to a nearby café, I took in his hooded top, casual chinos, and boots and wondered if there was anywhere on earth he wouldn’t be recognized. Even dressed-down he gave off celebrity vibes. He plucked a pair of shades from his pocket and popped them on with a dazzling smile. Yeah, they didn’t help. Now he just looked like somebody trying not to be famous.

We stopped at a café the Mile End locals called a greasy spoon; famed for its sausages swimming in cooking fat. Reign wrinkled his nose but kept his comments to himself as we found a booth right at the back and well away from the windows. The handful of customers peered into their French fries and dishwater coffee, oblivious to our presence, just as Reign had asked.

We’d walked the block to the café in silence. The encounter with the queen probably weighed heavily on him, as it did me, which was why I’d chosen to postpone my verbal lashing. If he stepped out of line, said the wrong thing, or tried to blow me off with lies, I was more than ready to rage at him. Too much had happened. I needed him to be honest.