AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He wanted me to laugh, but I couldn’t. I hoped he was right. I couldn’t thank him, so I did the next best thing. I gave him a hard hug. “I appreciate you.”
“And I, you.” He rubbed a hand down my back. “We’ll be quick. If there’s someone that could fortify you at court, we need to find him. Fast.”
“We’ll find someone.” I had no other choice. Not anymore.
Chapter Five
CHRIS
After what had to be at least an hour, I was still alone at my round table. There were exactly eighteen of them in the room, all raised about a foot and half or so above the pillow-seats. There were a few tables that only had three or four people sitting at them, a couple were empty, but the rest had at least six each. Nearly one hundred and twenty people in the room and not one single person had come to talk to me.
It was hot as hell in there and the scent of the sweet smoke wasn’t helping me at all. Gone was the feeling of air moving, and I didn’t like being underground. Not even a little bit. It was funny how I’d hated being out on the dunes with the hot wind, and now I was desperate to have even a few seconds of that wind back. I picked up a piece of bread and hoped that food would fix how I was feeling, but after inhaling the rich food, I was left only with a churning brick in my stomach. And yet I was still hungry.
My wolf needed meat, but there was none here. Rayvien had warned me, and I was taking that warning seriously. I’d heard stories about nonfey entering the underhills, never to be seen again. Some of them warned not to eat anything or else risk getting trapped here. I wasn’t sure that eating tainted, rotting meat would trap me, but it could make me sick or worse…
A voice rose above the others. One of the fey men stood from his spot, throwing a tray of food across the room. In a flash of fire and smoke, the man disappeared. The room was silent for a second before the whispers started.
I’d given up on trying to eavesdrop hours ago. I spoke English, French, and a touch of Spanish. Anything else was a bust. Whatever fey dialect they were speaking, I didn’t know it, and I had yet to hear the few fey words Cosette had taught me. If I’d had paper and some charcoal, I would’ve been happy to spend the time there sketching all the faces and commotion of the room, but I had nothing else to do but wait.
A few minutes later, the room was back to normal. The fey alternated between talking—or more accurately, yelling—with each other while they traded their little sparkling coins. I wasn’t sure if they were placing bets or if it was a weird game or if the coins signified something else. I couldn’t figure it out, and Rayvien hadn’t come back so that I could ask her. She was still at the same table, sitting on the same man’s lap, and hadn’t spared me a glance since she left me with the order to wait.
She showed the man sitting across from her a large, glittery disk, bigger than the quarter-size ones that seemed the most popular. He reached for it, trying to snatch it from her. Rayvien laughed and the coin disappeared.
This was getting stupid. What the hell was going on? I felt like a waste of space just sitting here, but she’d told me to sit and wait. Maybe it was a test, but of what? Patience? Or a test to see if I was willing—and daring enough—to disobey the only request made of me so far?
I needed help from the Court of Gales, so I was hesitant to go against Rayvien, but I couldn’t get over the fact that Cosette was in danger and I was stuck here doing nothing. My thumb might as well have been up my ass for all the good I was doing her. And what was the point?
I glanced at my phone for the hundredth time. I’d tried to send a million messages to Tessa, Dastien, and Cosette, but none of them were going through. Cosette said that tech was a little unreliable at court, but I’d never believed it was this bad. I’d spent the last six weeks alternating between being annoyed that Cosette wasn’t answering my messages fast enough and desperately missing her, but as I watched another message fail to send, I was no longer annoyed. Now I was impressed she’d managed to get any messages through at all.
My hand started to tighten around the phone and I heard the barely there groan of metal and glass. I let go. It wasn’t the phone’s fault it wasn’t working. I wiped a bead of sweat off my face. It sure as shit was hot enough to be hell in here, but it didn’t resemble what I’d seen in the chapel.
“It won’t go through,” a voice said behind me.
My wolf rose up. Fur rippling along my skin and I instantly shut down the change. I won the tug-of-war I played with my wolf, but it cost me precious calories.
Damn it. I hadn’t heard him coming. The loud, smoky room was blocking my senses, and I hated that. But my wolf hated it more. I turned to watch the man move from behind me to sit at my right.
The man’s skin was a dark tan. His beard was long and had a few strands of gray running through it. His long hair was pulled back away from his face. He was smaller than me, and if I didn’t know he was fey, I might’ve assumed I could take him in a fight. But assuming something with supernaturals was stupid.
We sat quietly assessing each other. Staring him down wasn’t the same as staring down another Were. I didn’t feel the pressure of his power pushing at me, urging me to back down. But still, we were two predators figuring out a possible threat.
My cell buzzed in my hand. I didn’t want to look away first, but something told me that this man would hold my gaze for days before he looked away. Being fey meant he was a host and since he was talking to me, a potential ally. So, I gave in and looked at my phone.
Another goddamned failed message. “Is there a network I
’m not seeing?” I finally asked.
He tilted his head. “You could say that.”
Cosette was usually more straightforward, at least with me, but I’d noticed how she talked in circles sometimes with everyone else. Usually that meant that there was something there, whoever was talking to her just wasn’t asking the right question.
I had to change my approach. “What would you say?”
“I’d say that you are a stranger here, and we’re not about to let you into our court and let you call in all your wolfy friends with a simple location finder.”
Except I wasn’t sure my friends could get here that fast. Not without help. “So this is specific to me.”
“Yes.”
