City of Fae (5 page)

I should thank him?!
“You’re so full of shit, you know that? The only reason I’m here at all is to figure out what’s going on
with you.
” Damn it, I’d left all but one sheet of the research with the spiders. After all of that, I’d only managed to grab the guest list. I checked my pocket,
yup, still there.
That was something, at least. Rubbing my arms, as though trying to sweep off the goose bumps, I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Will the spiders still be there? Will someone find them?”

“No,” he said, more softly. “They were there for you. They’ll have dispersed by now.”

“The window? We should warn someone.”

He gave me a less than impressed look. “You want me to walk into the head office of London’s press and declare I scaled their building, broke in, and rescued you from a cluster of spiders? I’d be mobbed, charged with criminal damage, and locked up before I could mutter the word
lawsuit
.” He spread his hands apart. “Rock Star Fae’s Grand Entrance Ends in FA Arrest.” He paused, waiting for me to return a counterargument. Eyes cold. “Yeah, how about we don’t mention the window, huh?” A car pulled up some feet from us and a couple climbed out. Reign seemed to remember we were out in the open, on display, and he was a fae-at-large. He stalked around me and propped his graceful figure against a wall, but kept his head down. “What did the construct say?” he asked without looking up.

“What’s a construct?”

“An avatar, a puppet …” he snarled impatiently. “What did it say?”

“Reign, what the hell is going on? This time yesterday I was stuck at my desk typing up reports, and now I’ve got the police on my doorstep and I’m trying to avoid getting eaten by organized spiders.” I closed my eyes and allowed the city sounds to soak into my thoughts, soothing and grounding me. “Was it magic?” I asked. “I saw it … The draíocht vapor. I felt it.” Shivers trickled down my spine. “How is that even possible?” An unkind slither of a smile danced across his lips, before the tip of his tongue darted out and moistened it away. How dare he smile, like this was a game. “You better tell me what the hell is going on, Reign, or I’ll give you up to the FA.”

“Alina.” His voice gained a sharper edge. He spoke my name as though wielding it like a weapon. Lifting his head, he narrowed his eyes, squaring his gaze on me. “It is very important you stop avoiding my question and tell me what it said to you.”

I blew my hair out of my face and planted a hand on a hip. “I’m not avoiding your question.”

“Then answer it,” he said quietly. His words contracted, sharpened to points, like the small canine teeth revealed as he spoke.

“It said something about the queen.”

His eyed widened, and his lips parted. He shoved off the wall and invaded my space, driving me back. I straightened, jerked my chin up, and glared. “Do you bully your groupies to get what you want? That’s a side of sexy-Sovereign we don’t see in the press. I know your kind were once brutal to the point of being vicious. Are you?”

He flinched and turned his head away. The twitch in his cheek betrayed how he’d gritted his teeth behind pinched lips. I’d wounded him. Good. Carefully, he met my glare. “What did it say about the queen, Alina?”

There, my name said like that on his lips had a thrill of nerves fluttering low in my abdomen. “I, er …” He stood too close, so that I could easily plant my hands on his chest, but that was the point. I wanted to touch him. Damn. He was getting to me. Maybe the first touch had done more damage than I’d realized. I couldn’t dwell on those thoughts. “Back off and I’ll talk to you reasonably. Get all up in my face like this again, and I’ll scream
unwilling bespellment
and have your roaming rights revoked.”

“Too late; remember, I’ve already broken fae law.” The corners of his mouth turned downward. “If I wanted to bespell you, American Girl, you’d let me.” His tongue flicked across his lower lip, emptying my thoughts of reason. He leaned in closer, tilting his head, as though meaning to kiss me. For a few seconds, panic spooked my heart into flight. But he stopped, face inches from mine, so damn close I braced my arms between us to hold him back. He pushed against my palms. He was warm and hard beneath my touch. He had to be trying to scare me, but the look in his eyes wasn’t aggression. His breathing, steady, controlled, made a mockery of my sharp gasps. If this
was
a scare tactic, it was working, but not for the reason he wanted. I’d seen lovers stand farther apart than we stood, as they’d touched, kissed. His hand lifted, brushing my shoulder, my hair. If he dared touch my cheek, I’d scream. He let his fingers hover beside my face. I’d have thought it a threat, if not for the slight widening of his eyes. Did he want me to back down? Give in?

Pursing my lips, I ignored the rush of heat to my face and glared hard.

“I thought you didn’t have a problem with the fae?” he asked, mouth quirking sideways.

“I don’t.”

“Sure looks like it from where I’m standing.”

“Because you’re standing too close.” I gave him a tentative shove. He backed off, but at his own leisurely pace. “It’s not the fae …” I said, and sighed, relieved, but more worryingly, disappointed.

“Then it’s me?”

I didn’t answer, didn’t need to. Reign was everything we loved and hated about the fae. That little power play was proof. The likes of him were poisonous.

He must have seen the honesty on my face. He threw his hands up and laughed a short, sharp bite of derisive laughter. “You know what … my debt is paid. You saved me at Chancery Lane. I saved you here. We’re even. Have a nice life, American Girl.” With a flick of his coat, he strode away, leaving me standing on the sidewalk, heart racing, watching him glide around pedestrians.
There goes my story.

“Hey …” I called, jogging after him. “Wait …”

He strode on, long, confident strides eating up the sidewalk. The people around us flowed back and forth, eyes blank, minds on their destinations. Reign stuck out like a panther in a litter of kittens.

I touched his arm through his sleeve. He flinched and yanked away, and for a moment he looked at me as though
I
could hurt
him
before the sneer found its place on his lips and he strode on. I mirrored his pace. “It said it was here for me.”

He stopped. I jerked to a halt beside him. We formed an island around which the foot traffic flowed. The sound of marching feet, rumbling cars, and my own rapid heartbeat grounded me in the moment. “What does it mean?” I asked.

He lifted his head and focused somewhere behind me. “It means you should leave London.”

I swallowed. “I can’t do that.”

The aggression I’d seen moments before melted away. His eyes were normal again, as normal as fae eyes can be, and his face had lost the shadows that had made him look almost alien. He blinked and lifted his hand to my face but stopped, not quite touching. His dark eyebrows pinched together, lips parting slightly. Why did he look at me like I was the puzzle?

“Who is the queen, Reign?” I asked quietly.

A thread of fear tightened his face. He pulled his hand back and hid the confusion behind a mask of stoicism. “Go home, Alina.” He turned and strode away. The crowd swallowed him up, leaving me alone yet surrounded by strangers.

The terraced townhouse had all the grandeur of a country mansion, condensed into three floors and sandwiched between its identical redbrick neighbors. Iron railings led up marble steps to a glossy black door. I knocked and waited. A cool autumnal breeze whispered through the leaves of the evenly spaced trees lining the street.

I’d gathered my wits about me, searched the guest list, placed names with addresses, and had begun knocking on doors all within an hour of Reign leaving me with nothing but more questions and a niggling feeling that I was somehow buried deeper in his mess than I deserved to be.

This Victorian terrace was my third stop. The first address had been vacant, the second hadn’t, but the resident, a well-known politician, refused to open the door to me. So far, my run of bad luck was holding steady.

My foot brushed a folded newspaper on the step. I gave it a poke with my shoe and got a look at the headline: A
CCIDENT
C
LAIMS
F
AE
V
ICTIM
. Below the fold, a smaller front-page story highlighted the rise in human-fae clashes. I scooped up the paper, but before I could read it, the doorknob rattled. The door swung open a few inches and snagged on its security chain. I caught a narrow glimpse of Charmaine, the BBC’s Sunday-morning talk-show host. Pale blue eyes darted all over me, around my face, chest, legs, and back to my eyes. Pert, china-doll lips twitched. She had skin like milk; pale and flawless. So used to seeing her smiling and animated on TV, I merely blinked at her for a few moments. “Hi, I’m Alina O’Connor …” I held out the newspaper. She hesitated, snatched it, and tensed. I rammed my foot inside the door just as she tried to slam it shut. My sweet smile turned sour. “Please, I just need to talk to someone who was at Sovereign’s party.”

Her gaze dropped to my foot and then snaked slowly up my body. By the time our gazes met again, her beautiful face wore a hostile frown. “Talk to someone else.” A delicate accent wove through her bubbling, bright voice. All fae had the same accent. Some worked harder than others to shake it in the same way some worked harder to blend in than others. Reign had lost his.

“Please …” Telling her I was a reporter wasn’t going to help. Time to bring out the big guns. “What do you know of the queen?”

Her eyes widened, not dissimilar to how Reign’s had at the mention of the queen. “What queen?”

“Really?” It sure looked like fear on her face.

“Why are you really here? I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even see what happened. I was dancing with Jeremy from Radio London. The idiot was so drunk he had no idea his shirt was inside out, can you believe that?” She opened the door a little wider and I got a glimpse of a fine silk dress draped over slight shoulders. “Do you know what he said to me? He tried to get me to touch him. Like it was a joke. I don’t need that kind of trouble. Why can’t they just … look, like the law says? There’s no harm in that. No, they’re all the same, just can’t help with the touching, consequences be damned. Well, it’s not my fault. I can’t help what I am. Can I?”

“No.” I replied, mind processing the rapid download of information.

“Maybe I should have touched him.” She shrugged a shoulder, tucked the newspaper under her arm, and leaned against the door frame, examining her manicured nails. “Then he’d know never to ask for it again. I might have. I like it, same as we all do, but I like it up here too. Like the sunlight; it feels like liquid warmth, y’know?”

No, not really, but she was talking and I wasn’t about to stop her. “Did Jeremy see what happened?”

She huffed through her nose. “If he did, he was too drunk to care. It doesn’t affect them, anyway. We’re the ones that …” She trailed off and I tried to look innocent and unassuming. “Who are you again?”

“Alina.”
Little harmless me, see how nice and friendly I am.

She pinched her lips and twisted them, as though tasting something bitter. “Where did you hear about a queen?”

“Oh, ya know …around. So there is a queen? Where is she?”

“Are you with the police?”

“No. I … Look, I just need some help trying to figure a few things out. I need to know about the queen, and about the party. I know something happened two nights ago.”

“She died, yes. Horrible, really.”

“What?”

“It’s all over the news.”

When was the last time I watched TV or turned on the radio? Idiot. I’d been so caught up in my own drama, chasing after information on Reign, that I’d not even turned on the news. My heart beat faster. “Who died exactly?”

“Caroline.” Charmaine sighed. “Some of our ancient ones are prickly, but Caroline was different. Quiet. Always polite. Calm. I liked her. I mean, sure she could be a bitch …” Charmaine scrunched up her nose. “She and the other three always talked about rules and restraint. How we should stay
under
. How we’re different,
don’t get comfortable here
, like we have a choice.”

“Exactly,” I agreed, without knowing what I was agreeing to. Clearly Charmaine liked to talk, so I just needed to steer her back around to the topic at hand. “So, she died … Is that why the FA locked the party down?”

“They created the Authority. Caroline, Jonah, the other ancients.” Charmaine’s focus wavered and her pale-blue eyes sparked with color. “They’re saying it was an accident.” Charmaine held my stare, waiting for my reply.

“What sort of accident?”

“Caroline didn’t die in an accident. She was almost five hundred years old. Five-hundred-year-old fae don’t have accidents. Besides, an accident doesn’t usually shred the body.” Charmaine kicked my foot back, dislodging it from the doorway. “I can’t say anymore. I’ve already said too much. No fae will talk to you, Alina O’Connor.” She slammed the door in my face.

Opening the mail slot, I peered inside. “Charmaine, please … Did someone kill her? Is that what you’re telling me? Please, I need to speak with you some more.” Silence was my answer.

“Damn it.” I jogged down the steps, pausing on the sidewalk. Crisp golden leaves rustled around my shoes; city sounds ebbed and flowed on the breeze, grounding me. A fae had been killed at the party. No wonder the Fae Authority were jumpy. I had a few hours left, time enough to continue cold-calling the attendees on the guest list.

A car pulled up against the curb in front of me. I peered in through the passenger window and received a detective-grade glower from Andrews. I flashed him a grin, straightened my bag, and strode down the sidewalk, heading toward the nearby Underground Station. Within a few strides the sound of a car door slamming rippled down the street.

“Miss O’Connor.”

Damn. I turned, smiling a closed, innocent smile.

He planted a hand on his hip, peeling back his suit jacket, and glanced up the steps to Charmaine’s house. It took all of about three seconds for him to figure out I’d been snooping, and then his disapproving stare settled on me. “We need to talk.”