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“Rei, do you know how big of an army King Ash could raise?” Chen inquired.
“If you’re talking trained fighters, he could raise an army of ten to twenty thousand.” Rei flashed him a small smile. “Our numbers will never be as big as human numbers. Our lives are too long and we don’t have many children.”
“Not to mention that you also enjoy killing each other off,” Yichen muttered.
Rei snickered and bumped his shoulder into Yichen’s. “Near immortality is a long time, and we get bored,” he teased. His expression turned more serious as he lifted his gaze to Chen. “You can increase that number by another ten thousand if you include other members of the fae, such as pixies, gnomes, goblins, and such.”
“But that’s the problem. We’re never just fighting elves or gnomes,” Ethan interjected. “We’re fighting them plus magic.”
“And on their own turf,” River added. “If it was a shifter against a vampire in the woods, I’d give the advantage to the shifter unless the vampire possessed a nature-related gift. But if you took the shifter out of the woods and forced them to face the same vampire in the city…” He clicked his tongue. “My money would be on the vampire.”
“That brings us to the two options we have when dealing with King Ash.” Yichen leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees while threading his fingers together in front of him. “Option one is to lure him into a trap. Naturally, the best place to lure him would be a city setting where his powers would be at their weakest.”
“I believe the one lure we might have is Rei,” Xiao Dan stated.
“Absolutely not!” Yichen roared. He tried to launch to his feet, but Rei caught his arm with both hands and held him in his seat. It didn’t matter. He could shout just as easily sitting. “There is no way I am letting anyone turn Rei into bait for that bastard!”
“I’m not suggesting we do that, either. I’m only stating the few options we have,” Xiao Dan replied calmly, as if Yichen wasn’t teetering on the edge of losing his shit.
“Besides, as bait goes, I’m not very good,” Rei murmured in his ear. Yichen whipped his head around to find the elf smirking at him. “That’s not to say that dear old dad wouldn’t love to remove my head from my body, but I don’t think he’s stupid or reckless enough to chase me into the city to claim his prize.” He tipped his chin across the table toward Yichen’s er-ge. “The other bait would be Chen. He took the king’s arm. I’m sure he’d like another stab at him.”
“But as you said, I don’t think that desire for revenge is big enough to make him take such a chance,” Chen stated.
“Then we need to come up with better bait. Something that King Ash can’t possibly walk away from,” Bel countered, but received silence in return. “You mentioned two options. What’s the other?”
“The other is…someone sneaks inside and kills him when his guard is down,” Rei answered. “Namely, me.”
Yichen’s heart lurched at Rei’s words, and he sat up straight, his hands balling into tight fists. “There’s no way I’d let you go in there alone. I’d be right there with you.”
“No!” Chen and Moon shouted, jumping to their feet.
“To hell with that!” Chen added. “You may not go anywhere near that castle and the fae. I forbid it!”
“He’s not,” Rei stated.
“What?” Yichen’s voice might have cracked, but in his defense, it was out of shock. “Of course, I’d go with you. There isn’t anyone else who knows the layout of the castle and the grounds. We even studied the pattern of the guards. I can move through the area as easily as you.”
“And your clan worked too hard and suffered too much to get you free. You can’t return.”
It was a reason. Maybe even a good one. But there was no fucking way he was allowing Rei to go back to that place. Definitely not alone.
“I think we can agree that it’s an option, even if it’s not a very good one,” Marcus said in a calming voice. “We should table it for now. There’s nothing we can do without either more fighters at our disposal or better intel on the castle.” He turned his gaze to Xiao Dan as Chen and Moon returned to their seats. “The reason Aiden couldn’t be here tonight is that he’s meeting with a human leader. As much as I hate to say this, humans are more plentiful and better armed than vampires. If we could have their armed support, we’d have a better shot at pushing the fae into their realm.”
“But isn’t that a tremendous risk? Revealing ourselves?” Xiao Dan choked out.
A chill ran through Yichen at the suggestion. Hiding their true identity from humans had been the one constant in his life over the past two thousand years. He’d watched their poor reaction to anything even slightly different, whether it be race, religion, or sexual orientation. He could hear the near unanimous cries for their extermination in his mind.
“It is,” Marcus murmured.
“But so is allowing King Ash and Queen Belladonna to run unchecked,” Rei argued. “Humans with guns are little more than cannon fodder in a battle with the fae, but if you throw enough of them at my father’s forces, they could slow them, allow the vampires, witches, and shifters to make a real difference.”
“That is a very grim picture you’re painting,” Moon mumbled.
“It’s also the truth,” Marcus replied before Rei could. “However, Aiden isn’t revealing our secret without a backup plan. Rafe is with him. While my brother can be chaotic, he was also gifted with the power of mind control. If Aiden feels this human can’t keep the vampires’ secret, he will have Rafe wipe his memory.”
“That’s a relief.” Xiao Dan sighed. “Our secret would be safe, but we would still be in the same difficult predicament that we are in now.”
“True,” Marcus grumbled.
