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Taliya snarled, a terrifying, high-pitched sound. She might be tiny, but I could see the damage she’d inflict with those long fangs and needle-sharp claws. She would try to tear apart my mate—try and fail.
Then we’d have a dead faerie leader and a whole other host of problems.
“We don’t want anything from you,” I said, stepping up beside Veyka.
I didn’t try to take her dagger—I didn’t feel like testing Isolde’s healing prowess—but I did loosen my hold upon my beast. I let him growl softly, let him rub up against Veyka’s consciousness through the mating bond.
Ironic, that the growl that had made so many fae warriors piss themselves with fear seemed to calm and soothe my mate.
Fitting, really.
I lifted my gaze to Taliya—not an experience I relished. “Show us a way out and we’ll take it.”
“Not until Lyrena is healed,” Veyka said.
I didn’t break Taliya’s gaze, but I lifted my chin an inch.
Her pale blue eyes were similar in color to Veyka’s—even to her mother, Igraine. But they felt wholly different. Maybe it was all the blue around them—skin, hair, brows, even her eyelashes were a pale milky blue.
“You’d like to rejoin yourfriendsabove?” Taliya hissed.
She knew.
The faerie knew what we’d escaped above ground, even though I hadn’t seen anyone give her a report.
“You’ve encountered the nightwalkers.”
“We are familiar with their kind, Majesty. For seven thousand years, the Faeries of the Fen have lived in these tunnels, growing a mighty jungle overhead to protect us. Since your precious Ancestors cast us out, along with all the others—witches, priestesses. We have been preparing for the return of the succubus.”
65
VEYKA
“Seven thousand years of building our fortress, and you’ve led the succubus right to us. The fae bring nothing but darkness and death to the faeries,” Taliya snarled.
She was a vicious little thing. I wanted to squash her beneath my boot.
But she was the leader of the faeries, despite what Isolde said. I’d seen the way the others in the atrium watched our interaction—watched her. The children who’d dropped the torch had bowed their heads in respect before running off. She was the leader of her people, even if some of them believed in an ancient allegiance.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t subvert her insecurities.
Or find out who, exactly, among the faeries believed that Arran and I had a claim to them.
But none of that mattered. It was all happening in the back of my mind; calculations and posturing that seemed to be part of the elemental fae blood that ran in my veins.
Only one word echoed in my consciousness—
Succubus.
“You mean the nightwalkers,” I said.
A feral toss of her head. “A human name—from humans who do not remember their own history. They are so short lived, it is no wonder. But the fae—what excuse do beings who live a thousand years have for forgetting the name of their greatest enemy?”
“There have been other threats,” Arran said. He was thinking of Arthur’s murder. The battles he’d led the terrestrial armies into over the centuries—disputes and conquests with far away continents.
“You fight amongst yourselves, positioning for power. That is all the elementals and terrestrials have ever cared about.” Taliya’s wings slowed. Was she tired already? I was certain Arran noted the change as she lowered herself to the earthen floor. Farther away this time.
Smart female.
