City of Fae

“Maybe …” I whispered. “Maybe I can control these terrible things inside us, maybe I can help you, like Shay said.” His eyes widened. Emotional anguish contorted his expression. He bucked and collapsed. I don’t know if it was mention of Shay, or the words themselves, that broke him. I settled my hand on his shoulder, soaking up the wracking shivers assaulting his body, and waited for him to change or ride it out. “Maybe together we can harness the hound and protect the people here. Is it too much to hope there might be some good in us?”


Minutes passed. I didn’t know if he’d heard anything I’d said, but I hoped he had. If memories of us together could push back the touch of the queen in my head, maybe those same memories would help Reign control the hound. Or maybe it was the foolish hope of a week-old girl. Reign’s shivering ceased, and once his breath slowed, he said quietly. “It’s never too much to hope for good.” He blinked his normal fae eyes up at me. He was back. He’d beaten it. For now.

Much of me wanted to throw my arms around Reign and drag him into a soul-sundering kiss, but that would very likely tip him over the edge again.

Slowly, carefully, I shifted away and stood on surprisingly steady legs. I’d have offered to help him up, but that probably wouldn’t end well either. The best thing I could do was leave. We had to clear the arena, get the public out. “We need to warn everyone. She’s close, Reign … I feel her.” A beat hammered in my chest, but it wasn’t my heartbeat. It was hers. The queens controlling rhythm. I’d escaped her clutches, but she was still inside me. She always would be.

The twin daggers glinted on the floor. Reign arched a brow as he saw my gaze linger on them. Climbing to his feet, using the dressing table for support, he slumped against its edge. “I will warn them, but I have to finish this.”

“You can’t continue with the concert.”

He lifted his head. His weakness faded away behind a determined glare. “I have to. It’s all I have. This is it for me, Alina. When she comes, I’ll release the hound, and pray to Faerie the thing goes after her, but until then—until everything I’ve worked for comes crashing down, I need to finish this.”

“Reign …” he threw me a look that said he wasn’t negotiating. Considering how close we’d come to killing each other, I stayed quiet.

“This is my fault,” he said. “Had I not killed the Keepers, none of this would be happening. I fully intend to throw everything I have at her. Maybe I can focus the hound somehow. Whatever happens, she’ll likely kill me, but I’ll die taking the bitch with me.”

“This isn’t your fault. She’d have found someone else to manipulate.”

“But she found me.” He stood and scooped the daggers off the floor. He weighed them in his hands, and seemed to consider his options, before handing them out. “Know that if I see you helping her, I’ll finish this between us.”

I met and held his gaze. He would. And perhaps, if it came to it, I’d have it in me to finish him too. What a terrible pair we made. Drawn together and pulled apart. “If I revert back to that, I’ll welcome it.” I took the daggers. A satisfied smile alighted my lips. The killer in me—the part that itched to fight—her influence, would always be there. At least until I met my expiration date. “If you wait until the concert is over, it might be too late.”

He gave me a purely fae glare, a look left over from another world, eyes ablaze, jaw set, a look from when he’d been a warrior; once. “I won’t let her hurt them.” That look told me he’d sacrificed himself before. He’d do it again.

I straightened my shoulders and shut down my emotions. “Did you really bespell someone?”

He winced. “Yes. I had no choice. The appearance of the hound at the docks left me weak, and tonight … tonight I need to be all I can be.”

My stomach turned, whether from nerves or regret, I wasn’t sure. I knew what he was, I knew what he had to do, but that didn’t make it right. It never would.

Head bowed, eyes up, peering at me through his lashes, he said, “I can’t apologize for what I am, Alina.”

I sucked in a breath. “Neither can I.”





Chapter Twenty-eight


I couldn’t think about what might happen. About the fact I might not survive, or how I’d been ready and capable of killing Reign, or how even now the queen’s touch spilled through my veins. None of that changed the now. The now was me standing at the side of the stage, out of sight, but close enough to see the sea of people stretching into the back of the bowl-shaped arena.