Shit.
His Majesty’s Warlord wasn’t going to be impressed.
His Majesty wasn’t going to be impressed, either, but with luck, Riley wouldn’t have to face him, and he wouldn’t rescind his offer of freedom. Maybe she didn’t have to go home to figure out where the thief would go next, but all possible evidence of the thief’s identity and his employer were in the vault where the Seal had been kept.
Her phone vibrated in her coat pocket. She contemplated not answering it, but if it was the Warlord, she’d need to come up with a rock-solid excuse for why she hadn’t. And as much as the Warlord denied it, Riley suspected he had a bit of farsight since he always seemed to know where she was and when she’d screwed up.
She checked the call display.
Sure enough, as reliable as clockwork.
“Give me an update.” The Warlord’s raspy tenor cut over the speaker before Riley could even say hello.
“There’s been a setback.”
“A what?”
“There’s another fae on the bounty.”
“Are you sure?”
Riley rubbed her aching forehead where she’d slammed it on the subway seats. “I’m pretty sure. And I’m pretty sure he’s Shadow Court.”
Silence. The Warlord had to be considering all the ramifications of that, and while there weren’t many, they were all big, like how did the Shadow Court learn about the theft so soon?
Unless, of course, someone from the Shadow Court had arranged for the theft, and if that was the case, then it wasn’t a far leap in logic to assume that the King of the Shadow Court was involved. Although why he’d want to break the pact when he was about the receive the Seal and ruin the agreement that benefited both courts was beyond her.
The pact, as represented by the Seal and enforced by the magic within the Seal, had been in existence long enough that humans were starting to believe the fae didn’t exist. And now neither the Golden Court nor the Shadow Court were being hunted to extinction.
“You’d better be certain about something like this,” the Warlord said.
“Well, it’s not like he had a tattoo on his forehead saying ‘minion of the Shadow Court.’”
“Riley.” The Warlord’s voice turned darker than usual, and she had to admit that for once her smart-ass comment was out of place. It was true, but not appropriate considering the severity of the situation.
“He smelled like Shadow Court.”
“You and your nose.”
That was as much of an agreement as the Warlord was going to give her. And it wasn’t much. The other fae didn’t like the human half of her, and most of them were only polite because she was the queen’s favorite.
“His Majesty wants to see you.”
“I’m in the middle of a hunt.”
“I believe that’s the point.”
How to turn a screamingly unsuccessful day even worse. Her throat tightened. Please don’t let him change his mind about her one chance at freedom. “Fine. Where’s the closest fairy ring?” She’d GPS it on her cell phone once the call was done.
“Use the relocation spell.”
Riley pursed her lips. “That’s not necessary.” Her relocation spell only went one place: a cell in the Warlord’s dungeon. The last thing she wanted was to transport there. She might never be let out.
“Do I need to remind you that time is of the essence?”
“No. So I really should be getting back to the investigation.”
“Your king calls, Riley.” The Warlord’s tone offered no room for argument. And really, she wasn’t going to win this discussion. She never did. When King Rian called, no matter how ridiculous his request, all those of the Golden Court answered.
Riley slapped the sticker on the back of her hand. “My king requests, and I obey.”
“Good.” The Warlord hung up, and Riley slipped the phone back into her pocket. Could her day get any better?
It would if she could get another round with Mr. Sexy. She might even let him win, just so he could wrap his scent around her again.
Which was a sure sign she was in trouble, and she should never see him again.
She sighed. Here was to arriving in the Golden Court without any dignity.
Chapter Three
Riley said the words of power and magic poured into the empty part of her fae soul. It formed into the shape of her relocation spell, and the world sucked inward like a kaleidoscope. Colors shattered and collapsed in on other colors. The subway tunnel warped and melted, and then she was dissolving into the ether and through that into a realm that was neither here nor there. A place that was in-between.
There was no logical way to explain the world of the fae. It was everywhere and yet nowhere, a vast desert of unpredictable universal essence. Within that desert, were islands of calm, beautiful realms created by the few fae with the ability to do so.
The Warlord’s dungeon was one such realm, a part of the Golden Court and yet separate. In the same space as the King of the Golden Court’s extravagant gardens, the public rooms in his castle, as well as a harpy nesting ground, and yet not. If Riley hadn’t grown up in the fae realm, she was certain she’d never be able to wrap her mind around it since the human world was so… flat.
It had been a shock the first time she’d entered the world of her human parent — she didn’t even know if she was human on her mother’s side or her father’s. She’d found the world shockingly simple and kept getting confused about not being able to slip from one location to the next because they weren’t nestled together, multiple realities overlapping each other. Everything on earth was linear, space was static, not folded in on itself, and only one thing could reside in one place at any given time. It took forever to get from one place to the next, and humans spent an inordinate amount of time traveling.
The smell of the Warlord’s dungeon hit her first, before the kaleidoscope of color had cleared from her vision. It wasn’t what one would expect from a prison. Instead, it was the overwhelming chocolate cherry pheromones that in no way matched the fae it emanated from.
Riley staggered and caught her balance on the cell bars, jerking back from the sting of the iron against her flesh and blinking her vision clear. On the other side of the cell the Warlord — a dark tower of bulky leather-clad muscle — smiled at her. Or was that sneered? It was difficult to tell with the thick scar of melted flesh covering half his face. No one really knew how the Warlord had become so terribly disfigured, and no one asked — it was a sensitive topic, and Riley wasn’t dumb enough to bring it up, particularly when she was on the wrong side of the bars.
The Warlord slid a long-boned hand down the bar in front of Riley. Showing off. He could maintain contact with iron longer than any fae she knew, and he was proving his point. He was a stronger, more dangerous fae than her, and he had her right where he wanted her. Locked up.
“So,” she said, trying not to reveal how much her insides were squirming.
“So.” The Warlord’s ruined tenor filled with darkness. Not a good sign.
“His Majesty wants to see me?”
“Yes.” He rested a hand on the handle of the barbed whip curled at his hip.
Shit. Was he really going to disobey King Rian and detain her?
No. He had to be toying with her. If the Warlord kept the king waiting, it wouldn’t just be Riley facing His Majesty’s wrath.
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Did he really think she was stupid enough to believe he’d disobey the king?
The Warlord’s grip on the whip’s handle tightened and fear flashed through her, fierce and cold and heavy in her gut. He was seriously considering keeping her there, but did that mean King Rian had changed his mind about her? Had His Majesty decided the goodwill of his wife wasn’t worth keeping an abomination around?
God, she hoped not. She hoped she’d get the Seal, win her freedom, and get the hell out of the Golden Court and away from the Warlord. Sure, the animosity between them wasn’t any str
onger than before. It wasn’t even stronger than the usual animosity between her and almost every other fae in the Golden King’s court — everyone except Orlaith, the Queen of the Golden Court — but it made for a really uncomfortable workplace… and residence… and social situation and—
And she needed a change. Riley didn’t even need to have had an encounter with any of the fae for them to hate her. She was an abomination that somehow had ended up in the fae realm — which made her suspect her mother had been fae and her father human. If it had been the other way around, she would have been born in the human realm, stayed in the human realm, and everything would have been different.
Maybe when she was free, she could illegally go to the human realm and pretend she was fully human.
Except she couldn’t unsee what she’d grown up seeing and couldn’t unremember any of it, either. Yeah, there was probably a spell, somewhere, that might fix that — and there were days when she’d seriously thought about looking for someone who could cast it — but she’d still be half fae. A thing that needed to be destroyed. At least knowing about the fae and being under the Golden Queen’s protection — more or less — kept her safe. If she changed that, she suddenly became a target to those fae who had permission to enter the human realm.
No, what she needed was a symbol of the Golden Queen’s protection and the freedom to not have to serve at the Golden King’s whim. With those two things, she’d be protected and able to safely live anywhere.
But that had been a fantasy with, up until a day ago, no hope of ever happening. Now, everything rested on her getting the Seal and her king keeping his word. And that couldn’t happen if the Warlord had her detained in a cell. He’d been looking for an excuse to get rid of her ever since she signed on as a bounty hunter — albeit reluctantly at Queen Orlaith’s urging. She didn’t think he’d jeopardize the treaty between the Golden and Shadow Courts by detaining her and forcing her to fail, unless, of course, Mr. Sexy also worked for the Warlord. But she suspected she would have noticed someone who smelled so good hanging around the Golden Court.
The Warlord’s sneer deepened — and she was certain now it was a sneer and not a smile.
Even if the Warlord never let her out, surely Queen Orlaith would come looking for her.
Surely.
But the longer the Warlord sneered without making any move to release her, the more doubt crept into her.
“One of these days,” he growled, and without warning, the holding cell burst out of existence with an ear-piercing crash.
The room twisted, not quite as disorienting as traveling between realms, but Riley’s stomach still flip-flopped at the sudden magic. There were only two people in the Golden Court with the ability to manipulate the Warlord’s dungeon — the Warlord being one of them — and Riley was certain he liked to do it to shock his victims.
The kaleidoscopic whirl of colors twisted then untwisted around her and she no longer stood in the holding cell. Now she was at the back of the Golden King’s opulent receiving room. It was a large space decorated in a Louis XIV style with every inch covered in gilt and lavish depictions of nymphs and fae playing in a luxurious garden. Half a dozen councilors stood by King Rian’s desk with their stomach-churning mix of pheromones. Sweet, sour, fresh, cloying. All of them unconsciously exuding their auras in a crackling energy — and inadvertently their pheromones — in an attempt to gain a stronger influence on the others. They were all fae, no pixies or sylphs or giants or any of the others, which meant this wasn’t the full council of the Golden Court representatives. Just the privy council and while the privy council met for all manner of issues, the most pressing had to be the Transition and Binding Ceremony and the missing Seal.
“Shut! Up!” His Majesty slammed his bony hand on his desk, and the councilors fell silent. “And Get out!”
Someone squeaked, and two men at the back straightened.
“I said, out!” King Rian roared.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Councilor Ferris, at the front, said with a half bow.
The others also bowed and hurried past her with their mix of pheromones, finishing with a whiff of something too sweet, like overripe berries. They left by a side door hidden in the ornate paneling a couple of feet behind her, and, in a few quick pounds of her heart, she suddenly became alone with the king.
He was dressed to match his office in frills and heavy fabric. The clothing overwhelmed his thin frame and looked awfully uncomfortable. He scowled at her and his scent, cedar after a spring rain, filled the room and overwhelmed the remaining pheromones from the councilors. In small amounts, the king’s scent was fresh, comforting, but these days she rarely had an audience where he wasn’t trying to prove to her that she was less than the others in his court. These days, he tried to force the strength of his aura — and as a result, his scent — on her, making it clear she was unwanted. Perhaps it was because his queen had been in meditative seclusion for over a month and wasn’t around to temper his mercurial moods — which only made Riley more suspicious that the offer of freedom was a trick.
“Report,” he said, turning his gaze to the massive book on his desk, his blond shoulder-length hair veiling his narrow face.
“There’s a complication, Your Majesty.” Heat swept over her cheeks and spread low within her. For a second, she could smell Mr. Sexy’s seductive scent.
Oh boy, was there a complication.
“Which means?” King Rian didn’t look up at her but his shoulders tensed.
Her mouth went dry and instincts screamed that she was in danger, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. “Someone from the Shadow Court is after the thief as well.”
“It could be a separate incident,” he said, still not giving her the respect of eye contact.
It could be, but she doubted it.
A shiver of desire raced through her, making her face… and the rest of her… burn hotter. Even if Mr. Sexy was after the thief because of a separate incident that still meant she’d get to see him again. God, to have his scent wrap around her, to—
She sucked in a ragged breath and forced him from her thoughts. It was dangerous to get distracted when reporting to the king. Even if His Majesty wasn’t looking at her, it didn’t mean she couldn’t offend him and she’d be sent back to the Warlord, this time to face his whip.
“I’m not willing to make any bets on him— I mean with this being a separate incident, Your Majesty,” Riley said.
“And that matters how? You need to get the seal.”
It mattered because, if it wasn’t really the thief Mr. Sexy was after but the Seal, the chance of her freedom was in jeopardy.
“Her Highness, Queen Orlaith, will return to court at dawn tomorrow for the ceremony. You will have this matter resolved before then.”
It would have been easier to resolve the matter if he wasn’t wasting her time by summoning her back to the Golden Court. But she couldn’t very well point that out. Well, she could if she wanted to risk being imprisoned, or worse.
He glanced up, his pale green eyes cold, as if daring her to speak her thoughts.
Yeah. Bad idea.
Riley bowed instead. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You will go to the Sibyl to pick up the trail.”
“Your Majesty?” Oh man, the last thing she wanted to do was talk to the crazy fae who was so hopped up on wild magic she hardly ever made sense.
“You can’t afford to waste time on your human methods of investigation.” He quirked an eyebrow, his gaze getting colder. If he had any kind of ice magic, she was certain the room would have been instantly filled with frost. “I may need to reconsider my offer to release you.”
Her pulse pounded. This was a trap, and there was no correct answer.
Chapter Four
“Do I need to reconsider the terms of our deal?” the King of the Golden Court asked as Riley’s pulse pounded faster. “Are you questioning my judgment about how you should proceed?”
“No, Your
Majesty.” She dropped into a formal bow.
“Good. Then stop wasting time and go to the Sibyl to pick up the thief’s trail.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. The Sibyl, Your Majesty.” Even if the Sibyl would probably end up wasting precious time. “Right away.”
She spun on her heel and strode out of the king’s chambers before he could add another proviso to her mission or change his mind altogether. Not that her leaving his receiving room would stop him, but out of sight out of mind was the only thing she had to protect herself. She couldn’t wait until Queen Orlaith returned. She might not be the king’s soul’s other half, but she still did wonders for his mood. Riley could only imagine what King Rian would be like if he actually found his other half. More pleasant? Probably angrier. Nothing could make that man happy. She wondered if she’d be happy if she found her soul’s other half.
The memory of Mr. Sexy flashed to mind, and she shoved it aside. Even if by some miracle a half-fae like her had an other half, it wouldn’t be Mr. Sexy.
In fact, as far as she was concerned, the humans could keep the term. They’d done a good job appropriating it. But in truth, it originated from the fae and was entirely literal. Fae only had half a soul. It was how they could open themselves up to the magical energy of the universe, let it flow through them, and control it — from the human perspective: cast spells. Which meant that every fae soul had a match. Or so the saying went. Except for her. Because of her human parent, she had more soul and less space. She doubted there was a fae soul out there to fill the emptiness within her.
And all of that would mean nothing if she fell into her king’s bad graces.
With that in mind, along with the tantalizing memory of Mr. Sexy’s scent that she just couldn’t get out of her head, Riley strode out of the king’s apartments into a vast, manicured garden. Above shimmered the dome of the realm, the bubble which held all of — or rather most of — the Golden Court together. Other fae lived in other realms, connected by portals: doors, bridges, windows, rabbit holes, whatever a fae could step through, but for the most part, this was the Golden Court.
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