City of Fae (18 page)

“You hear her?” Reign stood back, as did Warren. They loomed, poised should I strike.

“I hear her, but I don’t think she can hear me, else she’d have known I’d slipped her control long before now. Maybe she can’t hear me outside Under?” It was almost comical, how they watched me like
I
was the deadly one. The problem was, they were right. But Reign had said the farther away from Under, the less control the queen might have. I wasn’t entirely sure if I could blame it all on her control. There was something in me; something harder, leaner, faster. The part of me that knew how to kill. That part was me too. I looked at Reign, at the stoic mask not quite hiding the pinch of concern on his face. He was calm now, unlike when I’d fled his apartment. “You tried to steal my draíocht.”

He frowned, and then remembered what I was referring to, and smiled a salacious know-it-all smile. He smiled! How dare he use one of his cheap smiles on me? “In your apartment, you tried to sex me up to get your kicks.” His smile bloomed into a grin. I growled. “You think you’ve seen me angry, pal, you have no idea.”

“Sovereign …” Warren warned.

“No, this is good.” Reign encouraged. “She feels, she cares.” He turned a brazen gaze back to me. “Tell me how much you hate me.”

I hated that what he’d done meant so much to me. “Is that why you’ve been keeping me around? For a convenient snack? You’re a lying son of a bitch, you know that?”

“I had to taste you, to know for certain what you are. You have the queen’s draíocht in your veins, Alina. You’re not human.” He hesitated. I expected him to look away as he usually did when he was about to deliver something I wouldn’t want to hear, but he didn’t. He glared, unblinking, and delivered the truth. “For future reference, you should know I can’t bespell you, and taking your draíocht is dangerous. You’re made of draíocht. If I took too much it would drain you, possibly kill you. Unfortunately, in my apartment, when we were … close, my control was slipping. I needed to push you away.”

“Why?”

“Because …” he glanced at Warren, who gave him a dry look, clearly not wanting to get involved. “Because if I get too close to the queen’s draíocht, to her … it has an unfortunate side effect. I had to make you leave. I was exhausted, starving … and volatile. I’d have hurt you.”

He hadn’t tried to bespell me. I couldn’t even be bespelled. He’d deliberately pushed me away. So everything I’d felt for him, every tingle, every fluttered heartbeat, every maddening thought; it was all real. Maybe these sensations were the only thing about me that was real? What was I? Tears welled in my eyes. A horrible knot of emotion balled in my gut. Was I even real? “Untie me, please.”

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.”

“How’s that working out for you?” I sounded as cold as I felt. I’d wrapped myself in a brittle shell. I heard his words, their meaning, but none of it penetrated. If it did, I’d break apart.

“There’s good in you. More good than bad. I knew you were sent to kill me, Alina. I just couldn’t figure out why you hadn’t tried.”

“I still might.” It was the truth. My palm itched, urges spurring me on. It was written in my DNA to follow the queen’s orders.

“Warren will kill you,” Reign warned, his tone darkening. “If he thinks she has her fangs in you, he’ll execute you before you have a chance to beg. I’m not trying to scare you. It’s a fact.”

I bowed my head. It still might come to that. “Maybe it’s for the best.” By the end of the week it wouldn’t matter anyway. If Warren was right, my expiration date was fast approaching.

“I’m sorry. Do you see why I had to keep you at a distance, why I couldn’t trust you?”

Moistening my lips I lifted my chin and straightened my spine. “I understand you were using me, leading me along like the pet Warren thought me to be. Sure, I see … I see you, Reign. Now, get out of my way. I want to talk to Andrews.”

“Alina, please …” He reached, but I backed away.

“I said not to touch me, ever,” I growled. His pained expression added to the dreadful weight of emotion pushing down on me.

“When we touch, what you feel … It’s real. It’s fae.”

“It doesn’t matter!” I snapped. “By the end of the week, I’ll be gone, or burned out, or whatever the hell happens to her constructs. Just, get out of my way, Reign, before I do something I’ll regret … or maybe I won’t regret it.” Maybe I couldn’t regret?

Reluctantly, he stepped aside. I gripped the door handle, pausing as he said, “You can help us. You’re the same as her, Alina … Closer to the queen than any other living thing this side of Faerie. We need you.”

With a sigh, I replied, “What about what I need?” And I opened the door.

They’d gagged Andrews and cuffed him to the heated towel bar with his own cuffs. His eyes widened when he saw me, then narrowed suspiciously. I wouldn’t have been pleased in his position either. I crouched down beside him and worked the gag free.

“Where’s the keys?” I snarled over my shoulder at Reign.

He loitered in the doorway. “We can’t let him go. He’s our insurance you won’t kill Warren.”

So much for Reign trusting me. “If I stop caring, having Andrews tied up isn’t going to mean a damn thing to me.”

He held my stare and witnessed the truth in my eyes. He wanted to deny it, wanted me to be the answer to all his problems. It was misplaced hope. The words to tell him so settled on my lips, unspoken.

With a sigh, he closed the door behind him, leaving me on my knees, frowning at Andrews.

The detective arched an eyebrow. A healed cut sliced through his bottom lip and an angry bruise had bloomed across his jaw. His creased clothes twisted at his waist. “Nice bathroom,” he drawled. “Whoever fitted the towel rail wasn’t messing around, it’s not coming off the wall.” He rattled his cuffs.

At least he was alive. The smallest of smiles flicked across my lips but fled in seconds. “I’m so sorry they’ve done this to you.”

“Considering Miles left me out cold, this is progress.” His attempt at a smile also died too soon.

Mention of Miles turned my stomach. “It really isn’t all right, Andrews. Nothing is all right. It may never be all right again.” I dropped my gaze and focused on my trembling hands cradled in my lap. “Miles isn’t coming back.”

In the corner of my eye, I saw his disgusted grimace. He turned his face away, uttering a curse. I gave him time, listened to the soft murmuring of the two fae in my kitchen and the muffled sounds of London outside the window. When his despondent gaze searched my face, he saw the tears pooling in my eyes.

“How?”

“The queen …” I couldn’t find the words. How do you explain how, from one moment to the next, someone is alive, and then they’re not? Miles was a bastard, but he didn’t deserve to die in those tunnels.

“I believe you, you know. About the queen, about everything.” He shuffled around, getting himself onto his knees to face me while his wrists dangled from the towel bar. “My jacket pocket—”

“What … ?”

“My phone.” He dipped his chin, gesturing toward his side. “It’s in my pocket. Your fae friends are lousy cops.”

“They’re not my friends,” I mumbled. I didn’t know what they were, but
friend
wasn’t the right word. Shuffling closer to Andrews, I dug inside his pocket and withdrew the phone.

“Find videos.”

I scrolled through the menu. “Okay …”

“Go to Monday. Time-stamped twenty-two fifteen.”

Selecting the correct video I recognized the black-and-white CCTV footage of the Chancery Lane platform and Reign’s prone figure collapsed below the billboard. “This is when I met Reign. Why do you have this?”

“I searched Miles’s desk and found a whole load of suspect items. Evidence bags from cold missing-person cases. Files he shouldn’t have been working on. Old fae cases. That video was on his computer, in a folder marked with your name.”

Missing people. Could Miles have had something to do with helping feed the queen? I searched Andrews’s face as he urged to me to watch the video, but my thoughts snagged on his missing sister. Could Miles have taken her? Fed her to the queen? I didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to give Andrews false hope, or scare him. I hadn’t seen any evidence of anyone being alive in the queen’s reservoir. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t know. “Andrews, I—”

“Watch the video. After your story about getting off at the wrong stop that night, I took a closer look at the footage.”

“You saw through my lie, huh.”

“As I said, you’re a terrible liar. Watch the time.”

The ten fourteen train pulled up at the platform. The train I’d been on. “I know what happens. I was there.” What was this supposed to accomplish?

“Keep watching. Just after the doors open.”

Frowning at the little screen, I waited for the doors to open, expecting to see me step onto the platform. Ten fifteen p.m. And there I was, just as I expected. “I don’t get it.”

“Watch again. Watch the time.”

I did, settling into a sitting position between the basin pedestal and Andrews. “Train pulls in, doors open …” I wasn’t on that train. I blinked, stopped the video, then dragged the scene-selection bar back to when the doors open again. From the angle of the camera, I could clearly see inside the car. It was empty. Nobody got off that train. I was simply not there. The time proved it. One minute the platform was empty, the next I stood there, checking my phone for messages.