“I don’t think this is wise,” Tink said for what had to be the hundredth time since he realized I was getting ready for a night out. “Like I think this is very poorly thought-out, if you ask me, Lite Bright.”
“I didn’t ask you, Tink.”
My uninvited roommate of sorts hovered outside my bathroom. Tink wasn’t human, but right now, he looked like any normal twenty-something guy. Well, if normal, twenty-something guys had natural, shockingly white hair and were beautiful in a way that almost seemed fragile.
This was his full-grown Tink size, something I was still—even after all this time—getting used to. I was more accustomed to pint-sized Tink with the translucent wings. After all, he was a brownie.
After the attack that had taken my mother’s life and should’ve ended mine, he’d basically moved in with me. He’d been here for the last two years, something Ivy’s husband pretended to be grateful for, but in reality, I knew he secretly missed the dude.
“You should ask me,” he replied. When I glanced over at him, I got a little distracted by the dazzle…emanating from the sequin tank top he wore. It was so shimmery that I wondered if he was using some of his magic.
Tink may be a goofball, but he was also one of the most powerful creatures in our realm.
Thank God there was only one of him.
“I am a wealth of amazing advice,” he continued. Dixon, the cat he’d named after a Walking Dead character that Tink called “the hottest redneck eva” slinked around Tink’s ankles. The cat was all gray except for his tail, which looked like it had been dipped in white paint.
I snorted. “When have you ever given me good advice?”
“When I told you two weeks ago not to eat the whole carton of beignets because you’d get sick and you did,” he shot back.
I winced, picking up my mascara. I had gotten sick, but I deserved that carton of sugary, fried goodness. That day…
I didn’t want to think about that day.
“And what about when you ordered that supreme pizza and ate almost all of it?” he said. “I told you that it would probably make you feel bad later.”
Nose wrinkling, I tried to remember what night he was talking about. There were a lot of Friday nights—pizza night in my household—that I ate an entire pie and felt terrible afterward.
“Or how about that time I told you that the seared ahi tuna looked a little gray for my liking? But, oh no, Brighton knows better.” He reached down, scratching Dixon between the ears. “You ate it all, and then I spent the night cleaning up your puke.”
Ew.
I hadn’t eaten seared ahi tuna since then.
“And let us never forget when you ate the whole bag of—”
“Why do all your examples involve me pigging out?”
Tink raised his brows.
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You know, you used to totally support me going out there and finding the fae responsible for killing my mother.” I twisted toward him just as Dixon scampered across my bedroom, launching himself onto my bed. “I have a name now. The Ancient who was with the fae that night. The one who ripped my mother’s throat out and tried to gut me.”
“I know, and that’s all the more reason you shouldn’t go out there looking for him.”
“I don’t understand your logic.” I pointed the tube of mascara at him. “I’ve been searching for him, and now he’s here, somewhere in this city. I’m going to find him.”
“Aric’s an Ancient, Brighton,” Tink argued. “They are not easy to kill, and they’re incredibly dangerous. Way more powerful than an ordinary fae.”
“I know that. Look, after I saw him at that bar Thieves, no one else has seen him. But Neal has been sighted at Flux. Neal is working with Aric.” I turned back to the mirror, and heavily lined eyes stared back at me. “If anyone knows where to find Aric, Neal will.”
“And you think you can make him tell you?”
“You don’t need to sound so shocked by the idea,” I muttered, opening the mascara.
“Neal is an Ancient, too. He’s been alive for hundreds—”
“I know what an Ancient is, Tink. Look, they’re doing something to the Summer fae younglings, turning them evil. This isn’t just about me.” And that was true. I suspected that I knew what was responsible, a substance called Devil’s Breath. It was similar to one of the world’s most powerful drugs derived from a borrachero tree—scopolamine, South America’s zombie drug. Harris, who had since passed, wrote about it in one of his journals, saying that a white, powdery substance had been found in nightshade, a drink the fae favored. The only way to be sure that it was responsible for what had caused the youngling to turn as he had was to catch one who was infected or get my hands on the drink.
“We need to stop them,” I said.
“Ivy and Ren will stop them.” Tink leaned against the doorframe. “That’s their job.”
An uncomfortable rush of heat rose to my skin as I looked back at Tink. “It’s my job, too. I am a member of the Order, despite the fact that everyone keeps forgetting about that.”
Tink’s pale blue eyes widened. “I know you are. I didn’t mean it wasn’t your duty. You’re—”
“It’s okay,” I cut him off, knowing that whatever compliments he gave me about my battle prowess wouldn’t be words he believed. Over Tink’s shoulder, I saw Dixon stick his furry ass in the air, shaking it for a second before attacking my pillow, sinking his claws and teeth deep as he rolled.
I’d gone through so many pillows because of that cat.
I sighed, turning back to the mirror to get back to work finishing the rest of my makeup. In other words, I made myself look like a walking and breathing Snapchat filter.
It wasn’t just makeup I was putting on. I was reshaping the angles of my cheeks and brow with shading and highlighting, skills I had picked up from a YouTuber who was probably all of thirteen years old. I was drawing in fuller, pouty lips with a liner, and creating the illusion of wider eyes by using thick eyeliner and deepening the lower eyelid with foundation and shadow. Combined with my newly contoured face and the long, curly, black hair courtesy of a wig, no one would recognize me as Brighton Jussier.
Except him.
He would know it was me.
I closed my eyes as a pang lit up my chest. Damn it. I was not going to think of Ca—of the King. Nope. Not at all.
After swiping on a layer of mascara, I shoved the wand back into the tube. Finished, I stepped back and got a full look at myself.
The thigh-length, super-tight, black dress and red lips combo could be summed up in one word. Vampy.
Dressing this way wasn’t exactly normal for me. I was a sweats and a T-shirt type of girl, but no one in this world or the Otherworld was more distracted by tits and ass than the fae, male or female.
Brushing past Tink, I went back into my closet that used to be a small nursery.
Tink followed. “The black knee-highs would complete your I-charge-a-lot-for-sex look.”
“Perfect.” I snatched them up.
He watched me shove my feet into the footwear. “Why don’t we have an Avengers marathon tonight?”
Right boot halfway zipped up, I stopped and looked up at him. “We have watched every one of those movies five times, even Captain America. I don’t think I can sit through another Captain America.”
“The movie is a little boring, but Chris Evans’ fine ass makes up for it.”
I tugged up the zipper and moved to the other side. “True, but not today. It’s Saturday. Fabian is back. Aren’t you going to spend time with him?”
“He can come over,” Tink suggested, clapping his hands excitedly. “You know I’m leaving soon. I’m going to be out of town for, like, forever. We should spend time together.”
Tink was finally going with Fabian to Florida, where a large populace of Summer fae lived. For the last two years, the Prince had been trying to get Tink to visit, but he wouldn’t. The brownie claimed it was because he wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment, but I thought it had more to do with the fact that Tink didn’t go out much. He’d gone with Ivy to California once, but other than a trip to Hotel Good Fae—the compound where the Summer fae lived—he stayed home. I imagined the human world was a bit overwhelming to him.
“You’re not going to be gone forever,” I pointed out, admitting to myself that I was going to miss him and Dixon since he was taking the cat with him. “You’re only going down there for a few months.”
“That is forever. Come on, it will be the best threesome ever.”
Straightening, I arched a brow.
“Chris Evans. Popcorn. Face masks. That kind of threesome.”
“Uh-huh.” I reached into the cubby hole, grabbing what looked like simple bracelet cuffs. In reality, they hid iron blades sharp enough to pierce fae skin and cut an Ancient’s head off. “You can still have that threesome without me.” I snapped the cuffs into place. “I’ll be home late.”
Tink turned. “The King doesn’t want you out there.”
I stopped, and it took me a moment to face him. “That’s why you’ve gone from wanting me to take you with me, to asking that I don’t go out.”
He lifted a shoulder.
Taking a step toward him, I reminded myself that I liked Tink and stabbing him wouldn’t be cool. “Have you been telling him I’ve been hunting?”
The brownie’s face went impressively blank. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Tink.” I met his stare and held it.
He threw up his hands, startling Dixon enough that the cat released my pillow. “I didn’t tell him anything, but just so you know, if he demands it, I have to. He’s my King.”
“Really?” I replied dryly.
“Yeah. Sort of. But, seriously, he hasn’t asked me if you’ve gone out, but he has told me that he doesn’t want you out there. It’s not safe. He thinks—”
“I know what he thinks.” I’d seen the King since he told me that there was nothing between us, which had come right after I admitted to myself that I was developing serious feelings for him—had already fallen for him, actually. Things weren’t exactly amicable between us. I was confident that if Tanner, the fae who oversaw Hotel Good Fae, heard me call his King an asshole one more time, he was going to ban me from the hotel. My jaw tightened. “He’s told me every time he’s seen me that I have no business hunting fae. That it’s the Order’s job. I guess, like everyone else, he’s forgotten that I work for them, too.”
Which was why I kept calling him an asshole to his face. It wasn’t because he didn’t want me, even though he’d led me to believe that he did. It wasn’t because he made me think I was special and beautiful and interesting without the makeup, the fake hair, and the skimpy clothes. He was a different kind of asshole for those reasons. In a way, his dickish attempts to control me—which had failed—made it easier to deal with what had happened. The deep hurt had quickly given way to anger. And cursing someone out was far better than lying awake at night, crying as I ate yet another cupcake.
“He hasn’t forgotten.” Tink’s voice was soft. “I don’t think you understand why he’s done what he’s done.”
Oh, I thought I understood perfectly. I was nothing to him, and whatever we did have had just been a mistake in his eyes. After all, he was not only a fae, he was the King, and I was just…Brighton, a thirty-year-old who had helped his brother once when injured. The King claimed that wasn’t the reason he’d healed me after the attack, but I believed differently. He felt like he owed me.
“I don’t care enough to understand his motivations,” I said. “I know why he doesn’t want me out there.”
The King didn’t want me to stand down just because it wasn’t safe. And while I at least hoped he didn’t want to see me dead, I didn’t think he was losing any sleep over the possibility.
No, the real reason was that the King was also looking for Aric. Back in the Otherworld, the Ancient had been one of his Knights. Aric had betrayed him to Queen Morgana, stabbing him through the chest and weakening him so that he was susceptible to the batshit crazy Queen and her magic. So, yeah, he had valid reasons for going after him.
But so did I.
If the King found Aric first, he’d kill him, and I would never get the chance to carry out my vengeance against the creature responsible for killing my mom. And, well, that was…that was all I had.
* * * *
The rapid thump of music from the overhead speakers matched my mood as I swayed in the shadows of Flux’s dance floor, a club that catered to the fae. This was where I’d found and killed Tobias, one of the fae who’d joined Aric in the attack against my mother and me.
I wasn’t worried about being recognized in the mass of twisting human flesh that churned alongside and against the fae in the place. Most of those that frequented Flux were of the Winter Court—the bad Court that actively hunted humans to feed on so the fae did not age. The very same Court that belonged to Queen Morgana. Every so often a Summer fae was spotted, but those sightings were few and far between.
I saw no fae at all tonight.
Questing hands slipped from my waist and slid down to my hips again. Frustration made me grab What’s His Name’s wrists harder than I intended. I’d honestly rather be scrubbing my lady bits with a brillo pad than dancing with an obvious first-timer to New Orleans, one who wore so much cologne, he could star in an Axe body spray commercial. However, lurking alone in a club like this was suspicious. Not when everyone came here to hook up.
“Damn, girl, you got a hell of a grip on you,” he murmured into my ear. “That’s hot.”
I rolled my eyes as I placed his hands back on my waist.
“So, you come here a lot?” He squeezed my hipbones.
“No,” I said, focusing on the dance floor near the stairs that led to the private second level, where the fae normally chilled in-between glamouring humans and feeding on them.
“Then I guess it’s my lucky night, isn’t it?”
I opened my mouth to tell him to not only talk less but also wear less cologne, when I felt a tight shiver of awareness. The kind of feeling you got when it felt as if someone were—
The man behind me shouted in surprise. His hands left my hips as I spun around. The dark-haired tourist stumbled, catching his balance on a nearby table. He shoved off it, puffing out his chest, but drew up short a second before broad shoulders and a tapered waist clad in a black shirt blocked my view. The guy’s blond hair was secured in a short ponytail, and the scent of summer rain replaced the overpowering musk of cologne.
I sucked in a sharp breath of disbelief as I saw What’s His Name dart to my left, intelligently wanting nothing to do with what stood in front of me.
I could not believe it.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I waited. I didn’t have to wait long. He decided to grace me with a full-frontal of what had to be—unfortunately—the most beautiful male face I’d ever seen.
The King was here.