“This is a bar. I can’t do my stereotypical bartender moves if you only order water.” He winked, joking with me as he tried to lighten the mood.
“Do I need to throw up everywhere, because right now the only thing I can stomach is water?” I countered and watched his face turn to a mask of disgust.
“So rather you didn't. Water it is.”
“Okay, so we know the Fae who showed up at the house knows you. He said as much, and he was in your memories. What we don’t know is if he was with the group of Fae that were with the Mages who attacked the mansion or if he is also the one who blew up the house,” Ryder said as he brought me back to the reason we'd sat down at the bar in the first place.
“Yes, he was there. He raped my mother, and he's the one that killed my father. He also had fangs—like mine,” I whispered past a lump as the memories flashed to life inside my mind. They were no longer as painful as they had once been.
“He knew your name as well, Syn, and he didn’t set the wards off. It’s curious that he got through while they instantly seek anyone else out. Question is, who is he and why does he want you dead? He’s definitely after you alone. It’s possible he was sent to kill you.” Ryder said.
“No idea. Considering we don’t know who I really am yet, I have no idea why anyone would want me dead.”
“We need to figure it out. It might help us determine who is trying to kill you.”
“Alden said that the wards might have been guarding against the Unseelie, but since there are hundreds of different kinds, it would be impossible to narrow it down to just one caste.” The entire club went silent with the word, as if it was taboo to speak it out loud. You could have heard a pin drop from across the room. I looked around, and back to Ryder, since the most I could see was a wall of backs guarding us.
“Could be, but that doesn’t make sense. What would the Unseelie want with you? You are not even of our world, and most of the Unseelie are not allowed into the human world.”
“It took you to your knees the first time you came in; maybe you are Unseelie,” I pointed out.
“That happened one time, and we discussed why that might have happened.” He smirked boyishly. “So, there goes that theory.”
“Okay, but why hide me from the Unseelie? It makes no sense.”
“It makes no sense in a human world, but in ours every caste is always at odds with another. One clan could have hidden you from another. Stop thinking as a human, and start thinking as what you are, Syn. Nothing will ever make sense if you keep thinking as a human. We just need to figure out why they wanted you hidden to begin with. That might lead us to who is trying to kill you.”
“Okay, so say they did. How do we tell which caste he's from, or me for that matter?”
“We don't. We set a trap.”
“With what?”
“With someone who looks like you,” he replied.
“Why not just use me?”
“Fuck. That.”
“I second that,” Adrian shouted over the wall of men.
“I'm not some damsel in distress, and you’d all do well to remember who I was before I changed, because I’m still me.”
“You’re also sick, Synthia. Something is making you unstable, you have yet to tap into the powers you were born with.”
“Maybe it's too much testosterone arguing with me?” Everyone inside the club snickered at that.
“Only way you're going out as bait is if I'm standing right fucking beside you.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Several hours later, we sifted into Ryder's club basement, forgoing the elevator for the more direct route. My house had looked exactly like you would imagine a house would look like if a bomb went off inside of it. Alden had shown up soon after Ryder had sifted me in to see the wreckage, so that I could see the damage for myself. It had been heartbreaking to see it destroyed, but I'd refused to cry or show any more emotion, since it was only a house and no lives had been lost in the destruction.
Alden had been glad to see that he didn’t have to dig me out of the pile of ashes to bury me properly. He'd also reported that the Scribe had made progress on the protection wards that were now destroyed. He had requested more pictures of the wards to determine exactly which caste we were up against, but that was now a dead lead for us.
I yawned, and peeked at Ryder as he walked beside me. I just wanted a bed, and to sleep for days if I could. The look in his bronze eyes told me he wasn’t planning on sleeping. I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling.