City of Fae

Warren growled a warning, but Reign cut him off. “She feels. And she’s no good to us tied up.” He settled on the couch. “If you attack, expect to be restrained, or worse.” I nodded, and angled so he could reach my restraints. Turning my face away, I hid the tears.

I looked human. I sure felt human. These tears were real. My thoughts were human. I wanted human things. Food, I was starving. And I really needed to use the restroom. And I most definitely wanted someone to just hold me, and tell me everything would be okay, that I wasn’t alone. These were all human things, weren’t they? “Am I fae?”

“You’re nothing.” Warren snarled.

Rage twitched through me. I gulped it back, for now. “I stabbed you.”

“And broke my wrist. I heal quickly, call it a perk left over from Faerie.”

“You said.” My voice caught. “You said I’d burn out …”

“By the end of the week, judging from your mental state.”

My mental state. Right. My mental state was going to get up close and personal with Warren’s physical state sometime soon. My palm itched; seeking a dagger. Breathe in, breathe out. Stay calm. Stay in control. I was Alina O’Connor. I liked chocolate ice cream, and X-Factor, and walks in the park, and lazy Sundays … The queen couldn’t have manufactured every tiny detail. What about my clumsy tendencies? Or how I could touch my nose with my tongue. Or that time when I was ten, and I fell down the stairs and broke my arm … I scrambled around my head for that memory, but like all the others, the more I thought on it, the more slippery it became, until it slipped away entirely, and I forgot. Some of the memories, the quirkiness of Alina, had to be my own. It couldn’t all be fake. Whatever I was, some part of me had to be real, and I refused to believe otherwise.

Standing, I dried my face and rubbed my wrists. “Take me to Andrews.”

Reign escorted me out of the living room toward the bathroom, walking close enough for me to feel the warmth of him. But not touching. Tension and lies simmered between us. He blocked my path outside the bathroom, his face the perfect blank mask for him to hide behind.

“There’s so much I need to tell you,” he said, voice hushed, preventing Andrews or Warren from hearing.

“Yes, there is.”

“I’m sorry, I should have told you everything but I thought I couldn’t trust you … I knew you were hers.”

I swallowed hard. “If you knew I was hers, why didn’t you just walk away? Why keep helping me?”

“Because … You weren’t behaving as you should.” He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened his eyes again, he couldn’t quite meet my gaze. “When I took your draíocht on the platform that night, I tasted more than the queen, more than just fae components. There’s more to you than her will. I gave you a dagger, practically invited you to attack me, but you didn’t.” He reached for me. I flinched and backed away. “Don’t you see? You’re different. She’s created life in you.”

A tight grimace wrenched my lips down. I did not want to be reminded that the queen was my creator … my mother. “She said I was sent to kill you.”

“Yes, I think that’s true. She has something over me, something I can’t escape from. I had to follow her orders, to the letter … or lose everything. She knew I was delaying. Once she had you, her obedient construct, she could get rid of me.”

“The queen said something to me about a hound?” I asked, remembering the queen’s words and wishing I could forget the sight and smell of her.

One corner of his mouth tucked into a bitter smile. “The queen can control me. I killed the Keepers.” He swallowed. A muscle throbbed in his jaw as he ground his teeth. He wanted to look away, but didn’t. “Caroline, the Keeper at the after-party. I invited her to her death. A death I served to her.”

I tore my gaze away, unable to stand the weight of his glare any longer. He really wasn’t innocent. He never had been. He was a killer. I stood in my hallway with a cold-blooded killer. But that wasn’t all he was, there had to be more to him than that. Reign had layers, personas he wore like most people wore outfits. He might be a killer, but that wasn’t all. Why, when I looked at him, was he constantly battling with himself? “Why follow her orders Reign?” I knew the answer, because I too had followed her desires. Control.

A snarl curled his top lip, not for me, perhaps for himself. “I don’t have a choice. Warren was to be my next target, but I delayed and told him everything. I asked him to kill me, it was all I deserved.” Reign dragged a hand down his face, wiping away the wry smile. “He refused, said I should live with my guilt.” He tucked his hands deep into his pockets and leaned back against the wall. “We agreed to find a way to stop her, somehow use me against her. And then you were there, and I … I saw an opportunity to use her own construct against her.”