Reign Check (3 page)

I cringed. “What are you doing?”

“Be quiet, I’m concentrating.” His hand began to glow with a strange, dim light and his brows drew together. After a moment, he shook his head. “It’s too late. I can’t save it.”

Before I could say anything else, he swore under his breath, got up from the desk so quickly that his chair skittered backward, and stormed out of the room, casting a very dark look at the teacher.

“Nikki,” Mr. Crane said when Rhys was gone. “What happened? Where’s he going?”

“He, um, wasn’t feeling very well.”

Mr. Crane nodded with understanding. “Not uncommon during this particular experiment, I’ve found.” He watched as a girl, covering her mouth with her hand and gagging, ran out of the room next.

I felt off balance. First from having to talk to Rhys at all, and second from his furious reaction to the dead frog (may it rest in peace). And what had he meant by saying it was too late to save it? Was he trying to bring it back to life? Could he really do something like that?

Apparently not, since the frog was still majorly dead on arrival.

I didn’t know all that much about faeries, other than they were territorial and dangerous and had wings and pointy ears that could be covered up with a glamour.

Now I knew they might be card-carrying members of PETA.

At least Rhys was gone. But I didn’t feel relieved. Not yet.

“Check it out,” a guy named Pete two rows up from me said. “I totally slayed the slimy beast.”

He’d cut the frog’s head off and had mounted it on the top of his knife like a frog lollipop.

The sight of it made my oatmeal breakfast suddenly decide it wanted to make a reappearance. I clamped my hand over my mouth before I hurled right then and there. Thankfully, I didn’t. But it was hard to breathe. My eyes burned and my back and temples itched. Worried equally about vomiting in public and turning into a horned, winged Darkling, I got up from the desk, grabbed my things, and ran out of the classroom.

“There goes another one,” Mr. Crane said, and sighed to himself as I whizzed past him.

Luckily, he didn’t try to stop me.

3

After a few deep breaths in the hall outside the classroom, I began to feel better. I didn’t see the girl who’d run out, but I did see Rhys sitting halfway down the hallway with his back against the lockers.

I’d hoped he’d taken the dead frog as a bad omen and gone back to the faery realm.

My first instinct was to return to class, but instead I marched over to where Rhys sat. He glared up at me, anger at my biology class’s mistreatment of innocent amphibians still apparent in his expression. I also saw something else there, something a bit more raw. Sadness and …
grief
? That’s what it was. But why would a dead frog affect him so much?

It surprised me a little and I lost some of my determination.

“You need to go back home,” I said simply.

He got to his feet and I took an automatic step back from him, suddenly reminded how tall he was. Before I’d met him, I’d always thought faeries were small and delicate. And, well,
not real
. But Rhys was very real. And not small or the least bit delicate.

“I’m not going anywhere until I accomplish what I came here to do,” he said firmly, despite that strange grief-filled look in his eyes.

It wasn’t just the frog. Something else must have happened to Rhys. Something bad.

“And what was that again?” I asked, then held up my hand. “Oh, right. The ‘Is Nikki Donovan a threat to faery life’ thing. Well, trust me, I don’t have any deep, dark secrets.” I paused. “Except for the one you already know, of course.”

He studied me for a moment. “Have you told anyone else what you are?”

“No.”

Chris didn’t count. I hadn’t technically
told
him anything. He’d seen it with his own two eyes.

“So you think you can still fit in here”—he glanced around—“pretending you’re a normal sixteen-year-old girl?”

“That is the general idea. And since I
was
a normal sixteen-year-old girl until last week, I’m surprisingly good at it. Feels very natural, actually.”

Confusion now clouded his expression. “But … why would you want to do that? You’re royalty—a
princess
—and yet you’d choose a life like this?”

“Didn’t realize I had a choice. Besides, this is what I know, and believe me, I’m perfectly fine not living in a castle all the time. It’s not like I’m just going to give it up for a tiara and … uh, whatever else demon princesses get.”

Still he looked confused. “Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of you?”

“No, not me. Of … of the prophecy.”

Hadn’t expected that answer. “What prophecy?”

“The one about you.”

I blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

That earned me a skeptical look. “You seriously don’t know about it?”

“There’s a prophecy about
me
?”

He seemed genuinely shocked I didn’t know. “Yes. It’s what prompted me to come here in the first place. What made me believe there was no time to waste.”

The only thing I knew about prophecies was that they were predictions of the future. I had my very own prophecy? That was a surprise. I mean, I didn’t even have a blog or a Facebook page, although I was getting to those eventually.

“What does it say?” I asked, unable to help my curiosity.

“All I know is it’s a new one. And it’s raised some immediate and considerable …
concerns
. Otherwise the news of it never would have reached as far as my kingdom as quickly as it did.”

A strange shiver went down my arms. “What do you mean, it’s raised some concerns?”

“That you’re the first Darkling in a thousand years has already put everyone on edge,” he said. “Enough for me personally to come and find out as much as I can about you. The prophecy only adds fuel to the fire.”

“I can’t believe this.”

He seemed unsure what to make of my reaction. I could see it wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Maybe he wanted me to deny it or get angry?

He turned away from me. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.”

I grabbed his arm. “No, I need to know everything you know about this, Rhys. You’re making it sound serious.”

“I don’t know any more about it. My advisers learned of it only the day before yesterday from a source in the Underworld, which means it is spreading throughout the rest of the dark worlds as we speak. Not only the news that the prophecy exists, but that the rumors of King Desmond having a half-human daughter are true.”

A wave of anxiety went through me, and I released my tight hold on his arm. I was about to ask him a dozen more questions but stopped at the pale look on his face. He watched me warily, as if waiting for my scary demon-girl reaction.

“Are you afraid of me?” I asked. It sounded stupid as soon as I said it.

He hesitated. “No. Of course not.”

My eyes widened. “You’re lying. You’re afraid!”

“I’m a king,” he said, scowling at me. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Yeah, you’re a king, but you’re also only sixteen. I’m sixteen and I’m afraid of lots of things. I have a list.”

“We’re different.”

“You’re right about that.” I knew he wasn’t going to help me. I hissed out a frustrated sigh. “Do me a favor and don’t follow me, okay?”

Without waiting for a reply, I went into the nearest bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, staring at my reflection and trying not to think. Unfortunately, not thinking wasn’t something I could control that easily.

My face was now flushed, which brought out the freckles on my nose that I hated. I pushed my hair back behind my ears and rubbed my lips together. At the moment, I looked fairly normal, all things considered.

Maybe Rhys had only been trying to get a reaction out of me—trying to get me to sprout my wings so I wouldn’t be able to show my face in school ever again. Getting all emotional was one way to bring out my demon side. Then I’d be just as much of a freak as he was.

I mean, who had to be a king when they were so young? I’d almost become queen of the Shadowlands—even now, if my father died, I’d automatically have to take the throne—but it wasn’t something I’d ever choose for myself. And why would Rhys, as king, leave his world to come to mine just so he could poke at me like I was his own personal dead frog to dissect? He could have simply sent one of his advisers in his place if he was oh-so-concerned.

If there was a prophecy about me, my father would have told me about it by now, right?

And it’s not like I wasn’t safe. The Shadowlands were surrounded by a magic-infused barrier, controlled by my father, that protected the faery and human worlds from the demon ones—the “dark worlds,” as they were called. Since he was king, my father couldn’t leave the castle because maintaining the barrier was his prime responsibility.

I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Michael, where are you? I need to see you.

Since Michael had been my officially designated “servant” the first time I’d met him, we had this telepathy thing between us. However, it didn’t work long distance. I had no idea where he was at the moment. Probably at my father’s castle. In other words, nowhere close to me.

I desperately wanted to see him again. He’d know what to do. Also, I just really missed him. He was someone who accepted me exactly as I was—horns and all—and I felt totally safe when I was with him, unlike how I felt around Rhys.

I stayed in the bathroom trying in vain to contact Michael for so long that, by the time I emerged, biology was over. Of all my teachers, Mr. Crane was probably the coolest and most easygoing, so I hoped I could make up the assignment another day.

After scanning the hall for Rhys, who was nowhere to be seen, I went to my other morning classes and formulated my plan for how to deal with the faery king. Even though he’d tried to hide it, I’d definitely seen a flicker of fear in his eyes. He didn’t know what I was capable of. I’d use that to my advantage and scare him back to Faeryville. It was worth a try.

It felt like forever before lunch arrived, but when it did I entered the cafeteria, grabbed a sandwich and a piece of fruit—an apple a day keeps nasty prophecies away—and started walking over to the center table that the Royal Party called home.

Despite my recent friendship with Melinda, I was still considered an outsider. At least, that’s the impression I always got from Melinda’s, well …
ladies-in-waiting
was probably the best way to describe the brunette Larissa and redheaded Brittany. The three of them had been closer friends before I’d arrived. Now Melinda either spent time hanging out with me or going to her after-school dance lessons—her latest obsession.

I didn’t get the usual fiery glares from them when I approached the table. They were too busy gawking at the cute guy seated next to Melinda.

It was Rhys, of course. Melinda had obviously swooped in at her first opportunity and snagged him. For a moment I tried to look at him the way she probably did. He was inarguably good-looking and had an effortless confidence about him that helped him stand out in a crowd. However, the moment his gaze shifted to me I could see the gold flecks in his eyes appear to swirl, as if I bothered him on some deeper level he couldn’t hide—at least not from me.

“There she is,” Rhys said with a nod in my direction.

I tensed. Had he been talking about me? And saying what?

Instead of shock or horror at whatever they’d been discussing regarding yours truly, Melinda looked at me with confusion in her blue eyes.

“I thought you said you didn’t know Rhys,” she said.

Caught in a lie. Not good.

I cleared my throat. “I’d forgotten that we do kind of know each other already.”

“Kind of?”

Rhys smiled, but it looked forced. “It’s a family thing.”

“You two are related?” Brittany asked with interest, twisting a long piece of red hair around her manicured index finger. “That’s so cool!”

Rhys let out a genuine laugh at that, and his face shifted into something much more pleasant. It wasn’t hard to see why Melinda thought he was megahot. “Not even slightly related, trust me. No, our families … well, they’ve never really seen eye to eye on most things, have they, Nikki?”

I didn’t know much about faery-demon relations, but I imagined they weren’t particularly pleasant. After all, faeries wouldn’t need the Shadowlands’ barrier to protect them from the Underworld and Hell if everyone was good buddies with each other, would they?

But my father … well, he was a demon, but he also ruled the Shadowlands, which kept faeries and humans safe from the
bad
demons. And yet, Rhys wanted to lump him in with the others. Figures.

“You could say that,” I replied stiffly.

Rhys hadn’t taken his eyes off me for a moment since I’d approached the table. “No offense intended, of course, but I’d even go so far as to call Nikki’s family …
demonic
.”

He wasn’t pulling any punches today, was he?

Melinda’s eyebrows raised. “Wow, that’s harsh. I’ve met Nikki’s mom. She’s really nice.”

“Just my opinion, I guess.” Rhys shrugged.

Not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me yet, but I suddenly realized, crystal clear, that Rhys didn’t just dislike me, he completely hated my guts. Because I was half demon? Or just because I was
me
?

I cleared my throat, feeling the now-familiar irritation toward him bubbling up to replace my uncertainty. I wanted to hate him in return. It really was the least I could do.

He glowered at me, his irises swirling their strange mix of molten gold and chocolate brown. Was I the only one who could see that very inhuman trait of his? Melinda was looking right at him and wasn’t reacting as if anything was strange, so it had to be true. Maybe he didn’t currently have wings and pointy ears, but he was so not human that I could sense it from ten feet away.

Stress began to mix with frustration as we stared at each other and I clutched my sandwich a bit too tightly, my nails popping right through the plastic container. I looked down to see that my regularly short polished fingernails had turned long, red, and razor sharp. I dropped the sandwich in surprise and whipped my hands behind me to hide them.