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“No deal,” I said and squeezed my eyes closed.
In seconds, hands were all over me, tugging and dragging me off the chair of clover and onto the mossy ground. I screamed as one of the fae opened its mouth, prepared to bite. The next thing I knew, it was plucked off me and thrown across the room. Julian’s face appeared above, with fangs bared, pulsing dark veins, and glowing, blood-colored eyes as he tossed two more fae-like stones being skipped into a river. I shivered when he glanced at me, and his fangs withdrew as he offered me a hand up.
Two more fae came at me, and he dispatched them easily. A third dropped from the ceiling and sank its teeth into his shoulder.
He bucked in obvious pain, and I didn’t even think past the surge of rage on top of my already aggravated sense of anger and injustice. I reached out and yanked it off him, wrestling it to the ground as more fae crawled out of the walls.
“Let us out!” I screamed at the queen, and the next thing I knew I was on my knees in the grass outside of the stone circle, Julian kneeling beside me.
Chapter 4
Visit in the Night
“Are you okay?” Julian asked, hand on my cheek. The cool skin of his palm calmed my racing heart.
“Yes. Are you? That thing bit you. Is it poison?” I tugged at his shirt, but he grasped my hands.
“I’m fine, thank you. I heal quickly.”
“I’m sorry, Julian.” I collapsed back on the ground with a shaking palm to my forehead as the fury ebbed away. “I should’ve listened to you. I thought I could handle it.”
“You did handle it,” Julian said, sitting beside me. “If it weren’t for your mind-bending, we’d still be in there, no doubt overcome by fae.”
“She knows who did it,” I said, frustration so great that tears squeezed from my eyes as I pounded my fists on the ground.
Julian scooted toward me, taking my hand in his. “That does not surprise me. But as much as she keeps an eye on everything, I don’t believe she’s the mole.”
“Then why the hell did we go in there?” I challenged.
“To confirm it. If she’d been guilty, she wouldn’t have tolerated our presence at all. She was much too fascinated by your abilities to be concerned about us being on her trail. It was only a trick, Charlotte.”
“She can’t lie, and she said she’d give me the name of the person who did it.” I bristled, pulling a dandelion and spinning it.
“What were her exact words?” Julian prompted.
I thought back to the strange sort of rhyme. “I shall speak the name you seek.”
“It could have been the name of someone else you seek. Probably one you already know.” Julian stood, brushed himself off and offered me a hand up.
“Who else would I be seeking?” I said, not entirely convinced he wasn’t trying to make me feel better.
“Your father, Charlotte.” Julian pulled me into his arms and searched my face with sad, indigo eyes. “He’s been on your mind lately, yes?”
“But how would she—” I stopped myself mid protest when I realized she’d read that I was a seer so quickly. She had some mind-reading abilities as well. Of course she did.
Julian waited patiently as I worked it all out in my mind.
“I would have been trapped there forever and not even solved the murder,” I said, sagging in Julian’s arms. “I was so stupid.”
“On the contrary. You are the smartest person I know,” Julian said, holding me at arm’s length. “It wasn’t stupidity that made you eager to deal with the queen. It was your uncontrollable urge to help others. That is not something to regret. I only ask that you attempt to protect yourself first in the future.”
I felt the blush worm its way up my neck as Julian’s eyes brightened. “We should find that last liaison,” I said. “What’s the final sect?”
Julian led the way to the car. “I’m afraid we will have to make an appointment to see the last liaison as he is only available at night. I will send a message to him letting him know we are eager to speak with him.”
“You haven’t exactly answered my question.” I snapped my seatbelt into the lock, and Julian took off down the bumpy forest road.
“Other,” he said, looking through the windshield like he knew I preferred even though I understood he had some vampire superpower that allowed him to drive without looking at the road. “That’s the sect name, sadly. It’s the remainder of all the supes that don’t fit into the category of fae, vampire, shifter, or witch.”
