“You have to come. I … Please.” She rattled off an address in the East End and hung up. I had a half hour to kill before my next shift and had planned to call ahead and then drop in on Andrews. I wasn’t going to make it to the East End and back in half an hour, but Shay’s tone had been urgent. I had to go. I quickly tapped out a text to Nyx letting her know I was heading to the clinic for my top-off—that way they wouldn’t question me.
The train took me only so far. I had to walk the rest of the way alongside a traffic-snarled road and beneath an overpass. Derelict Ford factories loomed out of the dark. They’d long ago been decommissioned and left to rust. Redevelopment hadn’t quite reached this far out of the city yet. The din of traffic dulled my hearing. Fewer streetlights bred layered shadows. I had my daggers in sight. Those and the red-and-blacks should be enough to deter any unwanted attention.
The address didn’t exist. At least not that I could find. I had the right street, but the barren swathes of cracked concrete didn’t have numbers.
“Alina…” A whisper, spoken like a promise. Shivers spilled down my back. I turned my head, expecting to see Reign, but the access road was deserted. I could feel him though; that incessant tug gently drawing me forward. He was here.
I freed my daggers, ducked through a gap in the chain-link fence and slipped quietly down the side of a hollow warehouse. The sounds of traffic faded, until all I heard were the beats of my own steady heart and the wind.
Considering how I’d last seen Reign—on his knees begging me not to summon the worst of him—I wasn’t entirely sure how he’d greet me. I tightened my grip on the daggers and followed the undercurrent of power into the warehouse.
He sat almost dead center on a chair in the vast cathedral-like space, leaning forward, arms resting on his knees, waiting. There wasn’t much else to look at. A tattered old couch, a small table. And we were alone.
“Look at you.” His voiced filled the space, ricocheting about the shadows until the quiet devoured it. “Rocking the FA colors like never before.”
“We need to talk.” There was no sign of Shay.
“Yes we do.” He got to his feet as I drew closer. He looked as good as always, in that raggedy way of his. Ruffled hair, colorful eyes, a smile playing on his lips.
I kept my daggers at my sides but relaxed a little as I drew close enough to see a closed file on the table. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry about the call. I had to get you away from the FA, and you wouldn’t come if I just asked you to.”
More lies. “You put Shay up to it?”
He slid his gaze away and moved to the table. “If you’d like to stick me with your FA daggers, American Girl”—he spread his arms, flaring his coat without looking behind him to see if I was moving—“take your best shot.”
I considered it, if only because he deserved to know what it felt like to have your heart ripped out.
“It’ll take more than a dagger in the back to kill me,” he added.
I couldn’t see his face to know if he smiled, but he sounded as though he did. “You just have to be dramatic, don’t you? You couldn’t just pick up the phone and talk to me, like normal people do?” I noticed a few more personal items along with a few overnight bags. Was he living here? Was Reign sleeping rough on the street?
“Some things have to be said face-to-face.”
An unexpected slice of guilt cut through me. This was a long way from his Kensington house. I resheathed my daggers, crossed my arms, and plastered a rigid expression of indifference on my face.
I wanted to reach out to him, to tell him to talk to me, to let me back in, but we’d moved way beyond light touches and soft words. Only a bitter-cold distance existed between us now.
Reign turned, came forward, and held out the file, expecting me to take it.
“What’s that?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Proof.”
“Of what?” METROPOLITAN POLICE was stamped across the front.
“Your new FA friends and their lies,” Reign said.
I kept my arms crossed and met his gaze. He even had the balls to look sorry. “Did you get this from Andrews?”
He pushed the file closer. “He wants to help you.”
“I’m not the one who needs help.”
“No?” After giving the file a shake, he turned and tossed it back onto the table. “You’re in the wolves’ den, Alina, and they’ve got you so wrapped in their ways you can’t see them hunting you.”
I sighed. Nothing was going to change. He hated the FA, and the FA hated him. And I was stuck somewhere in the middle. “Y’know, they think you’re leading a band of fae in opening a path back to Faerie.”
He snorted. “I’m possessed by Cu Sith, not nuts.” He slid a sidelong glare my way. “You don’t believe their lies.” Lines appeared between his eyes, cutting deep. “Do you?”
“I—”
“He’s really gone to town on you, huh? Little pet Alina led along by General Kael. What’s the appeal? I know you like ’em old, but—”
“Just let it go, okay?” My hand clenched into a fist. He saw it, and his smile turned smug. I’d forgotten how infuriating he could be. “You do your thing and I’ll do mine. I know that now.”
Reign pulled a metal chair around, so it faced the wrong way, and then sat down, resting his arms on its back. “Did you know SO-Thirty has a file on every known fae in London? Some three thousand in total, give or take a few.”
Three thousand. More than I’d imagined.
He looked innocent, like this was just small talk, but I knew him well enough to know everything he did, every word that left his lips, had an ulterior motive behind it.
“That’s great. Look, Nyx will be looking for me. I need to get ba—”
“How’s Samuel?” The way he asked it, just slipping it into conversation, like he hadn’t been dying to ask that since I’d set foot in the warehouse.
I pressed my lips together before anything foolhardy could slip free. He’d been checking up on me, behind my back, and using Andrews too. I unfolded my arms and planted a hand on a hip while the other rested near my thigh, and the dagger sheathed there. “Samuel is fine.”
“Fine? Hmm …” He tapped his fingers on the chair-back. “He’s not who you think.”
I glanced at the file again. “You asked Andrews to look up Samuel?”
“A quick fuck against a fire escape door and you think you know him?”
Cool, slippery rage—the deadly kind—spilled into my veins. “You were watching us?”
He held my stare, his beautiful fae-eyes defiant. “There wasn’t much to see. It didn’t last long. Your Samuel flouts the laws he’s supposed to uphold—a string of unwilling bespellments, year after year, two in the last six months, and every time Kael steps in to say it’ll never happen again. What else does he lie about?”
Reign’s smile had died, and the spark of humor in his eyes had been snuffed out, leaving them cold. This was personal, and pathetic. I wasn’t believing a word of it. Samuel wouldn’t make mistakes, not like that.
“Samuel is—” My voice quivered. I could barely get the words out through the blistering rage. “Samuel’s helped me more than you ever did.” The words sailed into the dark and Reign bowed his head, breaking away from my glare. “What is this about really?” His lips turned down and his shoulders bowed. “Huh? Tell me what I did to piss you off so much that you have to throw this at me? Is it because I left? Or maybe you just don’t like the fact you’re not the center of attention anymore?”
He winced, and I was glad my words hurt him.
“I’m trying to help—”
“You’re jealous. That’s it, isn’t it? You saw me with Samuel and you couldn’t bear the thought that I might actually like someone else. So what, you had to dig up dirt to destroy it?”
I looked away and rolled my lips together, struggling to swallow the acidic rage. Hot tears pricked my eyes. I blinked them away before they coul
d fall. “Ya know, all along I thought I was the broken one. I thought there was something wrong with me. But it’s not me who’s broken; it’s you, Reign. You’re toxic.”
Jaw set, he glared back. “I would have helped you,” he said quietly. “I offered to. I was right there. You shut me out.”
“I shut you out?” How, how could he not see what his betrayal, his selfishness, had done to me? “You wouldn’t even look at me! You did everything you could to push me away. I needed someone, anyone, and you might as well have been a ghost. You had Shay, I had no one. So, yeah, I’m with Samuel and the FA now, because they’ve given me a purpose. And Samuel cares. More than you ever did.” I picked up the stupid police file and threw it at his feet, sending the papers sliding across the floor. “How dare you wave a file in my face and tell me it’s all for nothing! Why don’t you just let me live my own life, Reign?”
He shot to his feet, kicked the chair away, and whirled on me, but he stopped inches from grabbing my arms and pulled himself back at the last second. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“No? I saw you and Shay. I saw you!”
Confusion crossed his face, abruptly ending his anger. And then he got it, and right then, the unspoken sorry softened his eyes. He staggered back and ran a hand through his hair, sending his gaze about the empty warehouse, anywhere but at me. “Did you ever think I might be having a hard time of it too? Yeah, Shay came back, and sure, I’m not gonna lie, I needed her. I needed someone, anyone. I can’t get within two feet of you for fear you’ll pull the hound right out of me. I was going out of my mind in Under. I need draíocht, and I can’t go to a damned clinic because the FA would haul me in. I lost everything I’d worked for in the blink of an eye. When the queen died, so did I. So sure, I fucked Shay. And yeah, I’m taking draíocht where I can. And I’m singing in bars, because it’s the only damn thing left that I own. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Alina.”
I understood all of that, I did. I knew why he’d turned to Shay. But the file, him watching, trying to destroy everything that was mine? His jealousy, his arrogance … It was too much. I lifted my hands and stepped back, struggling to get past the knot in my throat. “I can’t do this. I can’t listen to this—”
Reign stepped forward, reaching. “We’re the same.”
“I’m FA now—”
“I’m well aware of that, but it’s not the FA I’m talking about. The spirits, you feel the connection? I know you do. You can’t walk away from what we share!”
I backed up. I had to get out, to get far away from him. Another step, but he came closer, anger blazing in his eyes. “Don’t walk away from me.”
I swallowed the sting of betrayal and lifted my chin. “Watch me.”
“Alina?” His said my name like a question, as though asking if this was the end. The sound of it raced ahead of me as I strode back the way I’d come. I couldn’t escape him, the spirits within made sure of that, but I could damn well turn away.
“Be careful,” he called.
I didn’t know if he meant those words as a warning or advice, and I didn’t stop to find out.
Reign’s words played over in my thoughts. The things he’d said and done. Going behind my back to dig up dirt on Samuel, and then watching us on the rooftop. “A quick fuck against a fire escape door and you think you know him?” I’d seen him with Shay, but that had been a mistake. What he’d done that crossed the line. He’d always been an arrogant ass, but this was different. He was different from the fae who’d once wrapped me in his coat and told me we could be alone together. But how could I judge him, when I’d changed too? There wasn’t much left of Alina, the American Girl. And the parts I stubbornly refused to let go died a little more every day.
I stopped outside Andrews’s apartment door, breathed in deeply, locked all the concerns down deep where they couldn’t distract me, and knocked. “Andrews?” The door muffled sounds of shuffling and padded footfalls. “It’s Alina.” I pressed my hand against the door, leaning a little closer.
“You shouldn’t be here.” The closed door couldn’t hide the quiver or the accusation in his voice.
“There are some things you should know, as a detective.” Not a friend. I wasn’t here for personal reasons, was I? I swallowed. “I’d also like to see your sister’s journal, if it’s okay?”
“Alina, I …”
“I won’t hurt you.” It hurt enough inside for the both of us. “I won’t stay long.” I just need to see that you’re okay …
The lock clicked. I waited, watched the door open, and then saw a man who barely resembled the easygoing Danny Andrews who’d warned me off asking too many questions. His face had thinned. Shadows hollowed out his cheeks and eyes. His face was a milky pallor, speckled with several days’ worth of stubble. He flicked his hazel eyes to me, then darted them away and stepped back to let me in.
His place was a mess, worse than before. He was a mess. Shock emptied my thoughts of detachment. I’d done this to him.
“Danny …”
“I know. You don’t have to say anything. Please, just … Just don’t say anything.” Even his voice sounded ragged and broken. “You, er, you look really great,” he mumbled.
I mustered a small smile and tried not to show the pity on my face. “There are things SO-Thirty should know, about the fae and what’s happening in London.”
“Wait …” He started to rummage through the papers, books, files, and magazines piled high all over his living room. His shirt hitched on the jagged angle of his shoulders and hung off his thin frame. He’ll die if he continues like this. My heart fluttered. Fear—for him. Guilt twisted an acidic knot in my gut.
He pulled a cell phone free of the mess. “Just … just let me record this. I might—I might forget. My thoughts are … They’re, er …”
“Okay,” I said softly. My heart ached for this ghost of the man he’d once been.
I cleared a space on his couch, sat and told him what I knew, about the ogre, and Kael’s suspicions, then went on to explain Kael’s confessional note. He listened from across the room, his eyes far away, nodding in all the right places, but he was hardly in the room with me.
“I’ll make sure they know. Thank you,” he said. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, meet my gaze.
Where was the Danny who smiled and said the things I was thinking, the Danny who’d sacrificed some of his life for mine, all those weeks ago?
“Do you have your sister’s journal? I’d like to know what she wrote about Kael.”
He nodded and disappeared down the hall.
Rain patted against the windows and somewhere a clock ticked. No radio chatter. The silence and its loneliness weighed heavily in the air.
I studied the mess strewn about the room, regret dragging me toward despair. This wasn’t living. Andrews was going through the motions, but so far away from reality he probably no longer recognized what was happening to him.
I had to get him help, get him checked in somewhere. Nyx would know where.
Andrews reappeared with a butterfly-embossed journal. “She hadn’t written in it for years, not since we were kids. Then, after the fae bespelled her … I think writing events down helped her try to make sense of it all.” He turned the journal over in his hand and ran his fingers over the pattern, perhaps reluctant to let it go. “Most of it is nonsense, but you might find something of use in there. She mentions seeing a fae known as the general, that’s how I”—he swallowed—“how I knew.” He held it out, his red-rimmed eyes darting.
“Thank you.” I reached for the journal.
Cuffs ratcheted around my wrist in a snap. I pulled back, but he yanked me forward, bringing me within an inch of his face, close enough to smell the sweet smell of fear and desire.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have come. Why did you come?” Pain crumbled across his face. He didn’t want this, but at the same time wanted it too much.
“Don’t.” I pushed against his chest. “Don’t, Danny, please
.”
He stilled. His glare held steady, as steady as his grip on my arm. “I don’t have a choice.”
He tugged me off the couch. My knee cracked against the hardwood floor, but it was the elbow between my shoulders blades that slammed me down. I can stop this. I pushed back. He caught my other arm and snapped the cuffs closed, restraining both arms behind my back.
“Damn it, Danny!”
“Sorry, so sorry—” He tugged me upright and shoved me against the couch. Madness clouded his eyes. Bespellment. I knew what was coming, even as he straddled my legs and slammed both hands against my face. Fiery pleasure and pain flooded through my veins. He arched back, eyelids fluttering. Everything Danny Andrews spilled into my head. So much pain, and hunger—the crawling, wicked, devastating need, chased by a cool wash of relief. Life—his—fell through my mind. I had him, all of him, wrapped in my web. He was mine. Too many touches, too much need. He’d teetered on the edge for too long, and now he was falling.
His mouth smothered mine. I could have turned away, but the touch, it summoned parts of me I’d tried to keep hidden. I did nothing.
“So sorry, Alina,” he said against my lips. “I didn’t want to. I tried. But you’re in my head. I can’t get you out.”
Do it. More, the darker part of me inside growled. Life—fresh, real, bright, and delicious. I took it all, and he pulled it back through the touch. The high spilled over me; a brilliant, mind-shattering pleasure.
His face, I’d never seen such peace there before. He’d not rested since his sister had vanished. His memories showed them together. A night out, a movie theater, drinks afterward. He’d slung his arm around her, made her laugh. He’d always looked out for her, and she him. He’d fought for her. He’d never stopped looking. It had been all that he’d lived for. But not anymore. Now, caught by bespellment, his pain, his fears, his doubts, they melted away. Nothing mattered. Nothing but the touch. The need. The high. His head was full of me and the wicked, unreal love had him entrapped. This love was poison, and it had seeped into every facet of his mind.
The touch, the thrill, it vanished. A cold emptiness shivered through me. “Wha … ?” I peered through a drunken haze at a tall dark figure. Dark hair, dark coat, dark boots. And inside, there too he was dark.
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