BRAVE ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “And I tried it out a few times back home.” Tink shrugged as he peered up at me. “Sometimes they got out.”

  Oh my God.

  Those damn dolls had been alive!

  “Man, I don’t know what about today is more fucked up,” Ren muttered.

  “The Queen,” Faye answered. “That is the most fucked up thing.”

  “What are we going to do now?” Miles asked.

  No one answered.

  Because no one had any answers. We spent this entire time believing we were dealing with a psychotic prince, but now we had a Queen to deal with and none of us were prepared for that.

  Ren caught my hand, holding me back on the steps as everyone else made their way into the sprawling home.

  “Come here,” he said.

  I wasn’t given much of a choice. Not that I needed one. Holding on to my hand, he pulled me against his chest and folded his arms around me.

  Letting out a ragged breath, I closed my eyes and soaked up his closeness and warmth. A long moment passed before he spoke.

  “I’m so sorry.” Ren kissed my forehead and then each of my eyelids. “I know how you felt about Daniel.”

  I shuddered. “That was why he was so accepting of me, of what I’ve changed into. Shit. I thought it was . . .” I couldn’t finish that thought. Not right now. “I just can’t believe it. Never in a million years would I have ever thought he would turn on us.”

  “I know.” He dragged his hand up the center of my back, threading his fingers through my hair.

  “When did this happen? Was he always working with the Queen? Did he know she was here or did she get to him somehow?”

  “We’re never going to know.” The arm at my waist tightened. “But you did the right thing back there.”

  I had.

  That didn’t make it any easier.

  I swallowed again. “When she grabbed you by the throat, I’ve never been more afraid in my life.”

  “Got to admit, I wasn’t exactly happy myself.” He paused. “But you didn’t seem afraid. You were actually pretty badass in your response.”

  “I would’ve done it. I swear to—”

  “I know,” he whispered. “And that scares me.”

  “You were pretty badass, yourself. Punching the Prince and all.”

  “I want to rip his throat out, Ivy.”

  I shivered. “He didn’t . . . he didn’t even try to stop you.” Slowly, I lifted my gaze to his. “He didn’t retaliate. The Prince I knew would’ve, Ren. You know that.”

  Ren looked away, a muscle thumping along his jaw.

  “What are we going to do?” I whispered hoarsely. “We have him in that house and a crazy, really powerful Queen about to do God knows what. We don’t even know how many Order members are left—” My voice cracked. “This is . . . this is terrifying.”

  He rested his chin on top of my head. “We’re going to figure this out,” he said after a moment. “We have to.”

  I didn’t see how we could. If we didn’t know how to defeat a prince, how in the hell would we defeat the Queen?

  The hand in my hair slid to my cheek. Ren tilted my head back, and my eyes drifted shut. He kissed me, and it was gentle and sweet, and somehow it reminded me that there was still good surrounding me. That there was still us in this mess.

  Opening my eyes, I pulled back and cupped his cheek, wiping away a smudge of blood. “We better head in there.”

  “Yeah. We better.”

  We walked into the house, and both of us stiffened at the sight of the Prince. Fabian placed a hand on his shoulder, steering the silent man away.

  “I don’t like this.” Ren crossed his arms as Fabian led his brother toward the kitchen. “At all.”

  “Me neither.” I watched Tink buzz after them. I couldn’t believe that the Prince had been in the car with us and now was in this house with us. There was so much to worry about. Too much. “Are we even safe here?”

  “I don’t believe Daniel knew where you guys were staying, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find out.” Miles dragged a hand over his head. “Shit. What am I going to tell his wife?”

  “Do you think she knew of his actions?” Faye asked.

  “I want to say no, but hell, I never saw it coming with Daniel. She could be in on it too.” Shoulders tensed, he looked away. “I need to get in contact with someone at the New Orleans branch. I need to . . .”

  He needed to make sure they were alive.

  God.

  I couldn’t let myself think of those I knew—those I cared about possibly being dead. If I went down that hellish hole, I would probably never resurface.

  Miles turned to me, and for the second time that night, I could see emotion in his expression. It was sorrow this time, deep sorrow. “What you did back there? With Daniel? You had to.”

  I blinked and swallowed against the sudden burn.

  “I just want you to know that.” Miles shuddered with a sigh as he looked at Faye and Kalen. “It’s just us now.”

  Kalen lifted his chin. “We can’t stay here long. The Prince might’ve put her through the wall, but it wouldn’t have killed her. Wouldn’t have even taken her out of commission for that long.”

  “The Queen.” Faye let out a ragged breath. “I can’t believe it. This whole time it was Breena.”

  “If I didn’t need any more reason to hate her.” I rubbed at my hip with my palm. “What I don’t get is if Breena was always the Queen, then how was I able to overpower her that one time?”

  “I think you caught her off-guard.” A weak smile graced Faye’s lips, but it faded quickly. “I don’t think she ever expected you to attack. I thought it was just Breena’s arrogance. In reality, it was the Queen’s arrogance.”

  I still couldn’t fathom how we didn’t know that she was the Queen, but then again, as an Order member, Ren and I were raised and trained to believe that there were no courts, no princes, no queens. We’d been led to believe that they were nothing but dust.

  I started to pace.

  “We need to address something far more important at the moment,” Ren said. “What in the hell are we going to do with him? Are we seriously just going to let him roam around? He—”

  “I know, Ren. But I am telling you that man in there is not Drake—not anymore.” Faye sat down on one of the thickly cushioned chairs. “That is the older brother of Fabian. The heir to the Summer Court. In all reality, he should be the King.”

  I gave a curt shake of my head. I didn’t even know what to say to all of that. “And where is the real Drake? I’m assuming he was real, wasn’t he? Tink saw him once in the Otherworld.”

  “He must’ve died in the war,” Kalen answered. “And Queen Morgana instilled Fabian’s brother in his place.”

  “And none of you knew this?” Ren demanded.

  “We did not grow up in the Otherworld,” Faye said, shaking her head. “We never saw Drake or Fabian’s brother. We wouldn’t have known. We saw what the Queen wanted us to see. Someone who could pass as Drake. That is how powerful her enchantment is.”

  If Tink had seen him in the Otherworld before the Great War, then how old was Tink really? Geez. But that wasn’t important. “What if this is a trick?”

  “Do you not see him?” Faye scooted to the edge of her seat. “He is not the same man I loathed and feared. He didn’t strike back when Ren attacked. That alone should be enough evidence.”

  I met her gaze. “I don’t care if he’s Team Good Fae now and forever, he’s still the man I loathe and fear.”

  Faye pressed her lips together. “I can understand why. I really do. But he attacked the Knights and the Queen. You have to trust me when I say—”

  “Trust you?” I laughed as I stopped pacing, standing in front of her. “You all have lied to me since the beginning. You knew that I’d be trapped in the Otherworld and you failed to tell me that.”

  “That is messed up,” Miles chimed in.

  I shot him a look.

&nbs
p; “I’m glad we’ve circled back to that little piece of fuckery.” Ren’s voice hardened to stone. “There is no way in hell Ivy is completing that ritual. No way.”

  Faye tensed.

  “I just want to point out that I didn’t know about that.” Kalen lifted his hand. “Not at all.”

  I looked at him.

  Kalen shrugged. “Just saying.”

  “We hoped to have found a way to ensure that you were not trapped,” Faye begun. “We—”

  “You hoped that you’d find a way to make sure I wasn’t trapped? Are you kidding me? What do you think would’ve happened to me if we completed the ritual and I was trapped with the evil version of the Prince?”

  “We didn’t have a choice!” Faye shot to her feet, her eyes fierce. “You are the only halfling we know, the only one strong enough to complete the ritual. What other option did we have? Opening the doors would destroy this world. I’m not being dramatic by saying that. It would destroy everything.”

  “Sacrifice one to save many?” I laughed harshly.

  “We hoped it wouldn’t come to that.”

  Ren stepped forward. “Do you know how badly I want to end all of your lives right now?”

  “I’m sure you do, Ren, but how is that going to help?” Miles raised his brows. “We’re it. And if you don’t trust them, I get that. But the last damn thing I ever expected to do was find myself standing with fae and agreeing with them.”

  “You agree with them about the Prince?” I whirled on Miles. “Seriously?”

  “We’re going to need him, aren’t we?” Miles met my gaze and then Ren’s. “If he really isn’t Drake and he’s that other big blond dude’s brother, then we’re going to need both of them to defeat her, because what I saw in there—what I saw that she was capable of was nothing like I’d ever seen.”

  I stepped back, surprised.

  “Then what are we going to do?” Faye sat back down. “The Queen is here. Do you have any idea what that means for mortals and fae alike?”

  “Oh, I’m guessing the usual bloodbath is in store for everyone,” I snapped.

  “I know what we need to do.”

  We all turned at the sound of the voice. It was him. The Prince. Formally known as Drake, currently still the guy who holds the number one spot on my to-kill list.

  The blood had been washed off his face and his now blond hair was damp and pushed back from his face. “We need to stop the Queen.”

  Chapter 32

  My heart started thumping heavily as I stared at the Prince. I could feel the anger and tension rolling off of Ren, but it was nothing compared to the riot of emotions currently battling inside of me.

  Behind him was Fabian and Tink, who was no longer in tiny Tink form. He was full-grown and thankfully dressed.

  “You want to know what we need to do,” he said, his voice now more like I remembered. Deep. Oddly accented. I wanted to vomit. “We must stop her.”

  “No shit,” I snapped, and his left brow lifted slightly. “There is no ‘we’ in any of this.”

  Fabian exhaled roughly. “He’s—”

  The Prince raised his hand, silencing his brother. “She has every right to be angry. To hate me. As does he.”

  “Glad we’re on the same page,” Ren bit out, his jaw tense. “It’s literally taking every ounce of my self-control not to take this stake and shove it through your fucking eye.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath as my gaze darted from Ren to the Prince. The latter’s face was impassive, so much so that Miles had to have been impressed by the utter lack of emotion.

  “And I would not stop you.”

  Surprise shot through me. The Prince couldn’t be real. There was no way he’d stand there and let Ren kill him.

  “Really?” Ren stepped forward. “Let’s give that a try.”

  Fabian stiffened, but it was Tink who spoke up. “Guys, I get that you want to get stabby-stabby, kill-kill with him, but you really need to let that go.”

  I glared at him. “Easy for you to say.”

  “It really isn’t that easy.” Tink met my glare. “I know what he did to you, but who he is now is not the Prince you knew.”

  My breath caught. “There is no way I could trust anything he has to say. Enchantment or not, he is the Prince. He held me—”

  “I know what I’ve done to you. From the moment I saw you in that hallway, after the enchantment was broken, I remembered. I close my eyes and I see it. When it is silent, I hear your—”

  “That’s enough.” Ren’s voice was low with warning.

  His gaze slipped from me to Ren. “I recall what I did to you, how I became you—”

  “Seriously. Do you have a death wish?” My hands were shaking, so I clasped them together.

  “Perhaps,” he murmured, and I blinked. “What the Queen wanted is not what I wanted. It never has been. I have no intention of following through with her plan.”

  “So you don’t want to knock me up now?”

  His jaw tightened. “No offense, but no.”

  I lifted my brows. “Relieved.”

  “I know there is next to nothing that will make you believe me—”

  “Actually, there is.” An idea occurred to me just then. “How would we weaken a prince enough to be able to kill them?”

  “You have—”

  “Brother.” Fabian gripped his brother’s shoulder. “If you tell them, they will use it against you—against us.”

  “It’s a risk we must bear then,” the Prince replied, shaking off his brother’s hand. “There are two ways to weaken us. If our magic is turned back on us, it can severely wound us, taking us months to heal. And there is something that is quite poisonous to us if it touches our skin. Worse if it invades our bloodstream. The three of you carry it on your person.”

  “What?” Miles stepped forward.

  “A four-leaf clover,” the Prince answered, and Fabian closed his eyes. “It is poisonous not only to us, but to our Knights and other Ancients.”

  My mouth dropped open as my hand went to the chain around my neck. The encased clover was like a body part, such a part of me that I didn’t even think about it. “Are you serious?”

  He nodded. “Most of you already carry our greatest weakness. Use that and a thorn stake, and we are not so hard to kill.”

  Clasping the back of his neck, Fabian looked away.

  “And a Queen?” Kalen asked, speaking up for the first time since the Prince had walked out. “Would it weaken a Queen?”

  “It would. Normally. Queen Morgana has built up a tolerance to it over the years. It will not affect her.”

  “Of course not,” I muttered, crossing my arms as I glanced over at Ren.

  He was still clutching the thorn stake and he hadn’t taken his gaze off of the Prince. Not once. I couldn’t tell how he felt about any of this beyond the murderous rage clearly etched into his face.

  “What does the Queen plan to do?” Faye asked quietly while I was still hung up on the fact that a four-leaf clover could’ve weakened the damn Ancients and the Prince this entire time.

  “She’d want to still open the doorway, right?” Miles sat on the arm of a nearby couch.

  “She can’t without a prince willing to carry out her demands.”

  “What if she finds a male halfling and engages in some bow-chicka-bow-wow?” Tink asked.

  “The prophecy has never mentioned what would happen if a Queen or King procreated with a halfling, but I imagine it would work,” the Prince said.

  Fabian faced us. “It would have the same effect. A King or Queen is not of this world, as is a halfling and a child of such a union. It would undo the seals.”

  I exhaled roughly. “Now we have to worry about the Queen finding someone and getting pregnant?”

  “Morgana cannot conceive,” the Prince answered.

  “And how do you know this?” Ren challenged.

  “No. He’s right.” Hope sparked in Faye’s eyes. “Remember? I told you tha
t.”

  She had. The day I met Fabian.

  “The legend we were taught was that Morgana had committed a great misdeed and to escape having her powers stripped, she gave up the ability to create life.”

  “This sounds like a really bad fantasy novel,” Ren muttered, and I blinked slowly.

  Everything about this sounded like that, but that was nothing new.

  “What great misdeed did she commit?” Tink asked with interest.

  The Prince’s jaw hardened and the glint to his eyes mirrored what Ren was giving off. I had a suspicion that whatever thing the Queen had done, it had involved the Prince.

  “What will she do now?” I asked, making sure we stayed on topic. “I doubt she’s just going to tuck tail and hide.”

  “If her original plan was to fail, she had a back-up,” the Prince explained. “She would go back to the Otherworld, and we must stop her.”

  My lips parted as I stared at him. There was no way I had heard any of that right.

  “If she was to go back to the Otherworld, then why would we stop her?” Kalen frowned.

  “You don’t understand,” Fabian spoke up. “She has the Crystal. If she takes that back to the Otherworld with her, she will be able to reopen the doorways at any time from her side.”

  “She will come back with whatever army she can gather and there are . . . creatures in our world that would wreak a kind of havoc no mortals have ever seen before,” the Prince clipped out. “Out of pure spite and vengeance, she would lay waste to cities. Millions would die.”

  “Wait.” Ren frowned. “The doorways are sealed—”

  “They were sealed when we came through, were they not?” The Prince met his stare. “They can be reopened again. Not only are there Ancients willing to end their lives to open the doors once more, she wouldn’t need them. She could open the door with the Crystal.”

  I remembered when he’d come through. That was a night I’d never forget. “If she’s always been able to open the door to the Otherworld, then why hasn’t she before? Why not just bring the army through instead of trying to get a halfling pregnant?”

  “Because she can only go through the gateway she came through,” he said. “And with the Crystal, she won’t need to wait until the Winter Solstice. The Crystal is strong enough to open any gateway.”