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Ah. “Of course.” I extended my hand, and the fae took it. I noticed that while his own hands were strangely cool and soft compared to mine, there was a wiry strength to him. I’d heard stories and rumors that their kind were much stronger than their willowy frames and pale pallor suggested, but it was interesting to experience firsthand.
Nothing happened at first, then I felt a tickling, itching rush creep over my skin. It wasn’t quite off-putting, but there was a certain wrong feeling here that I couldn’t put my finger on. It was like Ayla’s magic, but more…grating.
However, I didn’t want to insult the man who had saved our asses. Besides, he finished about a minute later, then the creeping sensation was gone. Looking down at my palms, I couldn’t really see anything different.
“How do I look?” I asked the others, hoping I’d have something hilarious, like a giant nose or crossed eyes.
“All of them know that it’s you, so the glamour won’t work,” Aodin said, already moving on to Ayla.
But I just blinked at him, not sure I heard that right. “Pardon?”
“Glamours are complex things, not some full proof mind trick to make anyone believe what we want. If we could do that, we’d have taken over the world millennia ago.”
“Oh, I thought that was how it worked,” Darla said, verbalizing my own thoughts. “What is it, then?”
“It’s a suggestion. If you know you’re holding a spade, I can’t convince you what you’re holding is a snake. But if you walk into a new place you’re unfamiliar with, and that spade isn’t yours, it’s fairly easy to make you see a snake. A motionless snake, mind you, but one nonetheless.”
“We’re learning all sorts of things about you,” Ayla remarked, chuckling.
“My people won’t be pleased about it but, hey, if you do succeed in this quest of yours, I figure it wouldn’t hurt for you to know just how much we want justice for all the citizens of Camdaria. Not just the rich and connected. And, no offense, not just shifter kind.”
“None taken,” I answered. “Camdaria’s strength comes from all of her citizens, humans, and cryptids alike. This attitude of shifter supremacy in the capital needs to end.”
“Well, it looks like we’re agreed on yet another thing,” the fae answered before he glamoured Ayla. I still watched the process closely, wondering if there would be some hint I could see, but no. Like Aodin had said, Ayla was still Ayla. My beautiful, impressive mate.
Gods, even with everything going on, I still felt like the luckiest man in the world with her. A single circumstance could’ve changed between us, and we’d have missed each other like ships in the night, never understanding the spell she’d have me under.
Once Aodin finished up, we headed out of the barn.
I expected us to end up on a city street, albeit one toward the poorest neighborhoods, where a few farms were pressed close to the walls. But instead, we stepped out to broad sunshine and into what was clearly an abandoned field.
“This way,” Aodin said, gesturing yet again. “There should be a steam wagon nearby we can use. It’d be less conspicuous in this area to use horses, but we sold all the animals here since we didn’t have a caretaker for them.”
A steam engine? That was technology that’d gone out of fashion long before I was born, but the old mechanisms were still used in poorer, rural areas, and in human cities.
It was so strange that we had cars and things that could take to the air, but also remnants of technology twice as old as I was. Camdaria was being suppressed while also surging forward.
Or something, or someone, was holding it back.
Despite our disguises, Aodin suggested we all lie in the backseat under the cover while he navigated. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable ride, with only roughly spun burlap bags and thin blankets to lay on, but my weary body was grateful. I lay on my side as Ayla scooted up behind me, her hand ever so gently sitting above my wound. I hadn’t seen it, and was becoming increasingly aware of the burning, stinging pain radiating out in vicious waves.
“You sure you have energy for that?” I said, yet I was too exhausted to object. Ayla was a grown woman and an experienced healer. If she thought she could help, I needed to trust her.
“I just want to stop the bleeding. You shouldn’t be too active, but it’s not scabbing up either. Did you get hit with a spell?”
I shook my head. “Alpha wound, remember? Tends to stick around. I think it’s a pheromone thing. Since I’ve submitted, I’m definitely affected by them, even if I don’t want to be.”
I could see the upset on Ayla’s face without having to roll over. Strange to feel so warm and loved when she was rankled at my father’s treatment. After so many years at the palace being expected to just endure, it was nice to have someone who acknowledged what the royal children went through.
“Good alphas shouldn’t abuse their power like that.”
“At this point, I’m not sure there’s any part of my father left that can be called good.”
As soon as I said it, I recognized it was true. Neither of us said anything for a long time, but when Ayla spoke again, I could hear the pain in her voice. “I’m sorry.”
I did roll over at that and, despite her protests, pressed a kiss to her hand. “Trust me, you have nothing to apologize for.”
“I know, but I’m still sad you had to go through it at all.”
