City of Fae (8 page)

I jerked my head free and wiped at my chin where the ghost of her touch still lingered. “Don’t touch me. And I’m not interested in Reign.”

She threw her fine head back and laughed. It was a cruel laugh, and yet so damn alluring, like the rest of her, cruelly beautiful. “The Trinity Law can’t and won’t protect you, puppy.” She sashayed back to Reign and said something that I couldn’t catch beneath the throbbing beat of music. Reign’s gaze flicked to me, and back to Shay. He bowed his head and spoke close against her cheek. She stilled, her fluidity suddenly hardening, and stalked out of the room, long white robes rippling behind her.

“Please someone turn Reign off,” Warren barked, drink in hand, lips pressed into a grim line. He rubbed at his forehead and winced. “Any louder and the queen herself will hear his caterwauling.”

Mention of the queen wiped the smile from Reign’s face. Someone turned the volume down, much to the disappointment of the dancing fae. As no one was paying any attention to me, I wandered while they returned to their relaxed positions, and they continued to ignore me as I drifted between them. Books lay strewn about. I slipped a glance at a few pages but had no hope of reading the elaborate flourishes. The tapestries drew my eye more times than I could count. What was this place? Why were they all here? The chamber itself appeared to be an old storage tunnel, of sorts, but the fae had made it their own. We’d come here from Chancery Lane, twisting and turning through the tunnels. This was under London, the very place Andrews had highlighted as a hot spot. Did these fae live here? Was the queen here?

I’d made my way around the room and stopped beside Reign. Warren glared at me, which considering all the other fae had ignored me, felt like something of an achievement. I grinned back.

“You can’t trail a human pet around in here, Reign,” Warren said. “Take it back where you found it.”

“Hey”—I’d had about enough of the stuck-up fae attitude—“I’m not some homeless puppy, okay. Get over your own egos already.”

Warren sneered, baring his teeth in a predatory smile with enough gravitas behind it to have me flinching. “You are what I say you are.”

“Whatever.” I snarled. Reign leaned against the bar, half smiling at me. “You.” I pointed a finger. “Why did you bring me here?”

“You wanted to know more about us. Here we are.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t a patchwork of discarded furniture decorated with the entrancing fae. “Okay, I’m listening. What is this place?”

“Right now, you’re in Under, the place the London fae call home. It’s not much, but at least it’s ours. The ones who’ve yet to earn their right to ‘free roam’ live down here. Some, like me, don’t like being trapped, so we strive to get topside. Some, like Shay, prefer it here.”

I flicked my gaze away, not wanting to let him catch any glimpse of my thoughts about Shay on my face. “How big is Under?”

“There are miles of abandoned tunnels, bunkers, and reservoirs under London. Room enough for thousands.”

Thousands? A city beneath a city? Was such a thing possible? Searching Reign’s gaze, I found only honesty there. This revelation was huge. The implications were terrifying. We thought we knew the fae. They were our neighbors. Friends. Another mom at the school gate, a colleague at the office. But Under wasn’t normal. This place, it didn’t even feel normal. The mismatch of tired couches, the astonishing tapestries, and the fae themselves. It felt like an accident, like trying to force pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together when they wouldn’t fit.

“What about the queen?” I asked, moistening dry lips.

“The queen …” Reign leaned an arm on the bar and lifted his eyes to the tapestries. “She wove those,” he said with a slight air of sadness tinging his words. “Too long ago for her to remember. There was a time when she was very different to what she is today.” He offered me a half-hearted little smile and probably sensed I was about to unload a barrage of questions. “Judging by the spiders that attacked you, you have something the queen wants, whether you’re aware of it or not. She doesn’t send her constructs after just anyone; it takes a great deal of draíocht to create them.”

“Is she here?” The fine hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

“Close.”

I leaned against the bar. “Until yesterday, I hadn’t even met a fae. Whatever she wants, it has to do with you. You’re a fae-at-large. The cops asked me to call them if you showed up again. Before I met you—”

“Your life wasn’t yet complete?”

“My life was …” Words failed me, just stopped. I mentally groped for some sort of defining sentence and failed. “I was fine. Happy. It was—is—my life. This isn’t about me.” I rubbed at my hand. “Tell me more about the queen.”

Reign’s gaze flicked to Warren, who finished his drink and slammed the glass down on the bar. He raked a hand through his jaw-length hair and stroked his fingers over the tip of his right ear, drawing my eye to where the scar continued. He’d lost the pointed tip of his ear. I blinked away, but he saw my reaction, and leaned over the bar.

“If you want scars like mine, keep on walking the road you’re traveling. You’ll collect them soon enough, if you survive, that is. Humans are weak, fragile …”

“I’m not walking any road.”

“No? Aren’t we all walking roads?” He gestured, as though pushing me away. “You’re asking for trouble with that one Reign. You should kill it now and put it out of its misery. Or at least bespell her. Prevent her from talking about what she’s seen here.”

I’d had enough. “Hey, buddy, you can’t call people ‘it’. I respect what you are, so why don’t you do me the courtesy of acknowledging me in return?”

Reign checked Warren’s frozen face. The older fae straightened and sucked in a hissing breath. “She doesn’t belong. Get her out of here, or I will.”

“Oh, you’re something,” I growled. Reign caught my arm but I snatched free and pointed a finger at Warren. “There are words for people like you.” Reign tried again and grabbed my wrist. He tried to pull me away from the bar. “Racist, for one. You know that? You’re racist against humans. Well, guess what, buddy? You’re in our city, so you have to play by our rules. Nobody is forcing you to stay in London—”

“Alina …” Reign warned, manhandling me toward the door.

Warren grinned. “Wrong again.”

Reign swung a warning glare back to Warren. Wait, I’d stumbled across something important. “Who’s keeping you here?” I blurted. Warren snarled, and Reign stilled. “Is it the queen?”

“Alina!” Reign yanked on my arm, dragging me toward the door.

Trying to shake him off wasn’t having any effect. I twisted, like a worm on a hook, but his grip only tightened. “You brought me here for answers. You can’t kick me out when I start asking questions.”

“Don’t let him get to you.” Reign growled.

I tugged back. He jerked me forward, dragging me after him. “Let me go.”

“You need to calm down.”

“No.” Digging my heels in brought us to an abrupt halt by the door. The heat of a dozen stares burned my back. “You brought me here, so have the balls to stick to your decisions.” Someone behind me chuckled. Reign shot a glare over my shoulder and the laughter died.

“It’s not that simple,” he said.

“I’m a big girl, I can figure out what’s simple and what isn’t.”

“You’re nineteen.”

“So? What are you? Twenty-three?”

His lips twitched, holding back a smile. “A little older …” He seemed to realize he was still gripping my arms and finally let go.

“Twenty-five?” I shrugged my jacket back into place and brushed my arms down, working out the aches he’d left me with.

“I stopped counting at two hundred.”

Two hundred?! My mouth fell open. He held my incredulous stare, face neutral. Behind us, someone turned the TV up. He was two hundred years old?! He didn’t look a day over twenty-five. I knew the fae aged slowly—another reason we coveted them—but for him to be two centuries old? I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around it. I glanced behind me, at the surreal beauty of them all, and felt more out of place, more human, than ever.

“There so much you don’t understand,” Reign said, voice softer.

“Then help me understand.”

His gaze flicked over my shoulder again, perhaps checking to see who was listening. I kept my eyes glued on him, watching tiny changes in his expression. Concern tightened tiny lines around his eyes. What was he so worried about? Was it Warren?

“Not here,” he said, opening the door and beckoning me outside into the cool tunnels. We walked along an abandoned Underground track. Makeshift strings of lights dangled along the tunnel ceiling, battling the dark into the farthest curves of the tunnel walls. Occasionally a rumble rattled the debris by our feet. The air should have smelled damp, and stale, but it didn’t. Instead, the air I breathed tasted clean, fresh, with a hint of floral sweetness.

I stuck close to Reign, hands deep in my pockets should the urge to touch get out of control again. Goose bumps continued to lift the tiny hairs on my arms. Behind us, the tunnel curved away. I didn’t know how we got here, or how to get back, and only had Reign as my guide; for all intents and purposes, a stranger, and a fae. His words in the stairwell came back to me. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me unless you had to … ?” He didn’t answer; just strode on. I tried another angle of attack. “What did Warren mean, you’re stuck here?”

He marched on, steps light on the tracks, coat flaring. “Where we’re going, we’ll both get our answers.”

“Where are we going?” The silence devoured my voice.

“To the queen.”

A fae queen. Royalty. What would she be like? If the every day fae were stunning, what type of woman was I about to meet? “Should I, I don’t know, bow or curtsy or something?”

“No,” Reign growled, gaze locked ahead, face stony and cold. “When we go in, I want you to stay back, out of sight. I don’t know how she’ll react to seeing you.”

I crossed my arms and hoped she didn’t hate people, like Warren. I’d researched a few instances of the fae lashing out at people, mostly in the early days, shortly after the fae had revealed their presence to the world. It was long before my time, but every now and then a story would emerge of hidden crimes only now coming to light. Without the Trinity Law, some of the fae had taken it upon themselves to abduct people. And it had been happening for years, long before they stepped into the limelight. Even now, after the Trinity Law had drawn a line in the sand, the human-fae truce was a fragile one. This place, Under, it represented our innate fear of the fae; that they weren’t what we believed, that their glamor was a lie. Clearly, some of the fae still resented us. If the queen was anything like Warren, we may not get along.

I shivered, teeth chattering. “Does she have a name?” Another rumble shook the ground, raining dust from the tunnel ceiling. The string of lights flickered. Reign paid it no mind.

“She did, once.”

I jogged, trying to keep pace with Reign’s unforgiving stride. He didn’t elaborate and stomped ahead, jaw clenched, eyes fierce. He’d shut me out, and hadn’t even looked at me in the last five minutes. “Are you mad because I argued with Warren? I’m not going to apologize. He’s an ass.”

Reign’s lips twitched, but my comment hadn’t quite earned a smile. “Warren comes from a different time, an older time. He remembers and prefers the old ways.”

“He’s still an ass.”

We rounded a corner and passed through an arched doorway into the redbrick antechamber. Ahead an iron door blocked our path. Rust flaked off its hinges and bubbled along the seams. It looked like a piece of old London, forgotten down here, like everything else. Churches had iron doors like those to keep out demons; now I wondered if we had it wrong, and they’d been trying to keep the fae out.

Reign sucked in a breath. “Okay, don’t say or do anything. Once inside, I want you to hang back. Don’t draw attention to yourself unless I call.”

I nodded and tried to rub some warmth back into my arms. Reign’s breath misted, but otherwise the bitter cold didn’t appear to bother him.

So the queen was behind that door. I’d been expecting something more regal, and less dungeon-like. The rusted door didn’t even look as though it would open.

“It’s not too late to go back to your happy little life.”

I frowned up at him. “I can handle whatever’s in there.”

He didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked like he’d rather grab me and haul my ass out of there. Concern gouged deep worry-lines into his face. The fear I’d glimpsed was back, but he made no attempt to hide it; not this time.

“Reign, should I be afraid?”

He swallowed, gritted his teeth, and curled his fingers around the iron handle, “Yes.”

He heaved the iron door open. Aged metal and brittle hinges howled and groaned. Reign plucked his hands free and winced in pain. The fact iron seemed to burn him was the least of my concerns as he swung the protesting door closed behind us. Ahead, countless brick archways galloped into the distance. Candlelight licked over black puddles, reflecting ripples of light onto the crumbling brickwork. Like a hall of mirrors, the maze of arches seemed to reflect their opposites, until my addled mind couldn’t make sense of it. Reign’s footfalls echoed into the distance, swallowed by the endless quiet. The sound of dripping water certainly didn’t help ease the crawl of fear working its way up my spine.

I made a move to follow Reign inside, but he gestured for me to stay back and shook his head. He walked on, boots casting ripples through the puddles.

I really don’t like this.
This place didn’t feel right. And it wasn’t just the creepiness. I was being watched. From where and by whom I couldn’t tell, but there was something here, something that triggered primal instincts, warning me to get away, to run and hide.
What kind of queen lives here?

A scurrying to my right snapped at my attention. I peered into the layers of shadows, watched how the candlelight made the dark dance, but couldn’t find anything to account for the movement.
Just my mind playing tricks.

Reign had walked far enough away that I couldn’t make out his expression when he glanced over his shoulder. I moved closer to one of the arches so I at least didn’t feel as exposed. A soft hiss rose up out of the quiet, almost like a faucet running, but not nearly as loud. A breeze maybe? Although I couldn’t feel any movement in the air.