A stab of jealousy struck low, but I quickly dismissed it. He wasn’t alone. And that was good. He would need a friend for what was to come.
I left Talen behind and changed out of my sweats and into clean pants and a turtleneck top, making sure to cover all incriminating fae marks. Just because Kellee knew her, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t lose her mind over seeing warfae marks on a stranger.
Leaving the chamber, I considered how this prison had been my sanctuary. As cold and hard a place as it was, I had come to consider it safe. It was Kellee’s and Talen’s refuge and mine. I’d gotten used to it being me, the marshal and the fae. Natalie’s presence jeopardized that. She brought reality in from the outside worlds, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready.
Talen was already in the kitchen area, cooking. He liked to dabble in the kitchen and had cooked up some excellent feasts with the dull prison supplies available. He had changed out of his instantly recognizable fae leathers and into more human dark trousers and a dark purple dress shirt. He made no attempt to hide the pointed tips of his ears and had braided some of his silvery hair at both sides, deliberately displaying his faeness. The rest of his hair fell loose down his back, all the way to his ass. A toned ass that the black pants neatly shaped. I caught my gaze lingering and veered away, wandering the chamber instead. Kellee’s intimate kisses had fired up my blood, reminding me what it felt like to be touched by a male. To be longed for. But all those needs and wants were tangled up with Eledan’s mindfuck and my own human weaknesses.
I came to Talen’s cot and stopped at his stack of books.
“You may take a look if you wish.”
He didn’t look up from his sizzling pans, but his fae senses knew exactly where I stood in the room.
Up close, I could see the books were all old human titles. I had assumed he was reading fae books.
“How did you get these?” I picked up the book he had been favoring lately and opened it where he had left his bookmark.
“Kellee brought them.”
Kellee had brought him books in prison? My first impulse was to ask why, but I managed to keep the question to myself. Kellee had likely pitied the fae. I already knew the marshal had visited Talen often. Gifts just showed that Kellee had a heart, even when it came to his enemy.
I flipped the book over. The cover was dark and faded, but I could make out the title. I wasn’t familiar with the language, but I took a guess at sounding it out. “Drak-uule?”
“Kellee thought it… amusing.”
“Why?” There it was. I couldn’t help it. Kellee and Talen’s relationship didn’t fit with what I knew about them. They should be at each other’s throats, not living together in relative harmony.
“You’ll have to ask Kellee.”
“Ask Kellee, right.” He always deferred to the marshal. I set the book back down and scanned the spines. I had never read a physical book before.
“Would you like to read one?”
I glanced across the room, expecting him to be watching, but he concentrated on cooking and retrieved some plates from a cupboard. Talen wasn’t like any fae I had met before. The families had slaves—saru—to run their houses. How did he know how to cook? He could fight, I’d seen evidence of that when he had defended himself, but he preferred to run and read and watch.
“They’re written in an archaic language,” he said. “I can teach you to read it if you like.”
I picked up a small paperback, its cover torn and text faded. The picture on the front depicted an Earthen bird with black wings. Carrying it to Talen, I showed him the title. He nodded. “I think you’ll enjoy that one.” And went back to his bubbling sauces.
“Thank you.” And I meant it. The old relics were precious, yet he trusted me with one. I was curious enough to spend time with the fae to decipher the words.
“Let’s eat,” Kellee said as he and Natalie entered. “We don’t have water, but we have a concoction of syrup and barley Talen mixed together from the stores.” Kellee brought with him his smiles and jovial persona.
“This is some place you have here,” Natalie remarked, her gaze falling to the massive glass cage. “Shit, all this prison for one prisoner? Who did they keep in there?”
Talen set her plate down in front of her, rattling it against the tabletop. He caught my eye, and we shared a moment. I wasn’t sure what kind of moment, but a mutual something. Distrust, maybe. He didn’t like her. I had to agree.
“This isn’t poisoned, is it, fae?” she asked, making it sound lighthearted, but there was a sharpened jab in there too.
Talen wasn’t laughing. “If I wanted to kill you, human, I wouldn’t waste good poison when I could merely break your neck”—he flicked his fingers—“like that.”
Natalie paled.
“Talen,” Kellee growled.
Inappropriate laughter almost burst free. I cleared my throat and caught Talen’s eye. The fae’s mouth ticked up at one corner, only known to me.
“Ignore him,” Kellee suggested. “He doesn’t get out much.”
“Uh-huh.” Natalie tasted her meal, side-eyeing Talen. “Damn, fae, this is good food. We don’t have much in the mines, and what we do have tastes like salt. Everything tastes like salt down in the shafts. Even the air.”
“How long can you hold out?” Kellee asked. He sat close beside her and tucked into his dish.
Talen and I chose to stand at the counter and eat. I had one eye on our guest and one on Talen, who trusted her about as much as I did.
“A few months with our existing supplies. Scavenging has gotten harder now that we’ve exhausted the first dome. But it could be worse, right? At least the fae haven’t noticed us.”
“And your air?” Kellee asked.
“The mines were always closed-circuits. The filters will work as long as the geothermal pumps are running.” She fell silent while eating, and then added, eyes brightening, “There’s one thing we have that’ll make you jealous.”
“Go on.” Kellee smiled and it reached his eyes. He knew this woman well. There were none of the guarded sideways glances he gave me.
“We have so much water we have to drain it out of the shafts or drown in it.” She laughed. “The fucking irony, right? We’re millionaires and now nobody gives a shit because there’s nobody left to care.” Her laughter twisted into a harder, bitter sound and slowly died. Echoes of it around the chamber soon followed.
I poked at my food with my fork, no longer hungry.
The silence grew, each of them lost in their own thoughts. I hadn’t been there when it happened, when the fae came. I hadn’t seen the first wave or heard the screams or fled for my life. I had been dreaming the whole time, trapped in another world entirely.
Talen had set his plate down, virtually untouched. He was watching me, I realized. As Kellee and Natalie chatted, I tried on a small smile to reassure the fae I wasn’t about to let the dreams pull me under. But nothing about any of this was reassuring. He studied my face while his expression revealed all the sadness I’d seen in him when he had begged me to free him. He had known about the Dreamweaver, known how badly Eledan ravaged his victims. And in his keen eyes and the press of his lips, he understood it all.
“What was your message?” I asked Natalie, deliberately breaking away from Talen’s gaze.
She slowly finished her mouthful and glanced at Kellee, I assumed for permission to tell me. But he was finishing his food and didn’t see. Instead of answering, she pushed the last bites of food around her plate. “You seem familiar, but I can’t place from where, and Kellee here… Well, he says you’re just a survivor like the rest of us, but…” Breathing in, she pushed her plate away and brushed her hands together, wiping them clean. “Your pet fae is a quiet one.”
Talen could look after himself, but that didn’t stop the shards of my heart from twisting at the sound of her derisive tone.
“Natalie—”
“No,” she cut Kellee off, fury shortening her words. “Our world is slowly dying and you’re here, what? Playing house?”