City of Fae (21 page)

Reign angled himself so his back rested against the wall. The diffused lighting softened the angles of his face but sharpened the flecks of silver in his eyes. “Warren? Yeah, maybe …” He fished around in a pocket and plucked out a cell phone. He tapped out a text, dumped the phone back in his pocket, and said without pausing, “We should dance.”

I balked. “Oh, no … I mean, not here …” Nobody around us danced. It wasn’t that kind of bar. I wasn’t even sure I could dance. I bowed my head and took a generous sip of my drink, only to splutter and almost choke on whatever evil concoction Reign had ordered. “What is that?” I wheezed.

“Whiskey.”

“Are you trying to kill me, or this another lame attempt at seduction?”

He winced, and hissed in through his teeth. “Ah, that night. I was … I am very sorry. You were getting under my skin. I know it’s not an excuse. I really didn’t want to hurt you, but you
were
designed to kill me, so I think I deserve points for restraint.” His smile was made all the more wicked by the slither of light glancing off sharp fae teeth. “Besides, I seem to remember you were enjoying yourself right up until I frightened you off.” He wiggled his fingers in the air and smiled behind a sip of drink.

Heat warmed my cheeks, or maybe it was the alcohol. I arched my eyebrows and laughed, looking away. “I’m sure I don’t remember that.”

“Your memory isn’t the most reliable.” His gaze dropped to the table between us, his smile dying on his lips. Was it mention of memories that killed the mood? My lack of memories? Or his several lifetimes’ worth?

The thought of collecting memories, only for them to die with me when my time was up, had my own smile fading away, no matter how hard I tried to keep it. I didn’t want to dwell on the bad, not while we had some time to explore the good. “Tell me something good about your home, not Under—Faerie.”

He stroked his glass with light fingertips, teasing beads of condensation into swollen droplets. “Faerie isn’t like anything you’ve known. There are cities there that shine like stars. Sights and scents that would have you on your knees and weeping … It is …” He threw his gaze high, searching for the right words, “Dazzling, intoxicating, terrifying.”

“Terrifying?”

His eyes focused somewhere distant. “You already know we aren’t what we seem. Well, Faerie is the same, so beautiful, you’d cry tears of blood. So enticing, you’d sacrifice everything you’ve ever loved to stay one more day.”

My heart fluttered just that little bit faster. “What were you like there?”

“Different.” The smile came and went in an instant, replaced by a look of satisfaction, maybe even pride. “Harder. Not like I am here. My bloodline are—were— influential. I was born of warriors. Our blood is potent, rich with draíocht. I fought,” he hesitated, his gaze locking with mine as he clearly weighed how much I would understand against how much he could tell me, “in the war.”

“You were at war?”

“They probably still are. The fae are locked in perpetual war. We’re a predatory race. Always restless. Always hungry.” Lifting his drink to his lips, he lost his thoughts in the swirl of amber liquid.

“What happened?” I asked, almost too quietly beneath the beat from the music, but he heard.

“That day—that battle—we lost.” He didn’t meet my gaze but I still witnessed how the shadows stole the light in his eyes. “I saw it happening, knew we were beaten, and I deserted the line. A great many fae died that day.”

I tried to imagine Reign snarling, armored up, blades drawn, and found the image came easily. I’d seen him fight the general and the FA warriors. He had a predator’s patience, the same chilling stillness. He’d already admitted he was a killer. But when I tried to see him as a deserter, I couldn’t. Everything I knew about him told me he wouldn’t quit. So why had he run? I wanted to ask. The question burned on my tongue, but the regret in his eyes kept it there.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, folding his arms on the table, bringing him close enough for me to see the minuscule lift of his lips.

“That I wish I understood your world.”

“My world is here now.” He tossed a gesture at the bar. “With these people, and for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t go back, even if I could. I’m not the same fae I was.”

“Why are you here?”

“We were exiled. The worst of us, that is.” His lips twisted. “The elders believed they were doing the right thing. Remove the tumor and the cancer goes away, right?” That wasn’t always true, and his look told me he knew it. “They didn’t even understand where they were sending us. As long as it was somewhere else, somewhere they weren’t. They used vast reserves of draíocht to weave a connection between Faerie and here.” He paused. His eyes narrowed. “They rounded us up, and …” His words trailed off. I wasn’t sure if I’d seen the quiver in his lips before he bit down. “It was a long time ago.”

“What about you?” I asked softly. “How did you end up here? A rock star fae can’t be the worst of them, surely?”

His upper lip twitched, but the snarl didn’t break free. “The queen …” He began, and winced. “I lost control, went wild. The queen was the only one who could rein me back. Our elders exiled her when she slaughtered hundreds of her kin. She was lost to fae-fury. I didn’t really have a choice but to follow her. The elders would have driven me out eventually, and where she goes, I go, or I kiss good-bye to my freedom.”

“Fae fury?”

“Those that live too long, time gnaws away at their sanity.”

I wanted to ask more, but by how his gaze had started to dart, I suspected he’d deflect and distract. “What about Warren? Why is he here?”

“The worst were sent here. Make of that what you will.”

I could believe Warren was a nasty piece of work, but he must have some good in him to befriend Reign. “And Shay?”

His gaze flicked up to find what I hoped to be mild curiosity on my face and not raging jealously. Of course, I had no right to judge, or to get between them, but the fact he had her clothes in his apartment bothered me more than I wanted to acknowledge. In truth, she was so beautiful, surreal, I had little hope of ever competing against someone like her, and no time to even consider what it might mean to care.

“Why do you ask?”

“I, uh …” I caught myself looking down and quickly straightened. “She’s beautiful.”

His laugh was a delicate thing, softened by fondness. “The most deadly of us often are. But Shay is … She’s one of the few worthy here. Shay came voluntarily.”

I didn’t miss the sigh, although I wished I had. Did he regret her decision? A part of me wished she hadn’t come, while another part chided myself for being an idiot. Sovereign was over two hundred years old. Who knew how old Shay was. I was days old, and had days left to live. As much as I didn’t want it to, the world would go on turning without me, as it had before I’d arrived. There was little point in wasting energy on jealousy.

“I wish I had more time.” Although I said it quietly, Reign’s keen hearing picked up the words, and no doubt my tone too.

His smile sparked delight in his eyes. “The night’s not over yet.”

Every second, every minute, every hour, I felt the crawl of time as though it leached right out of my veins.

Reign downed his drink and stood. “C’mon, we don’t have time to waste on regret.”

We left the bar and walked alongside Royal Victoria Dock with its newly built multi-million-dollar houses and sparkling hotel restaurants. Countless lights glittered on the dark water but we were the only ones crazy enough to be out in the cold. Autumn air nipped at my cheeks. It occurred to me that in all likelihood I wouldn’t see snow, or Christmas.

Reign shrugged off his coat and seemingly unsure whether or not to drape it around my shoulders, he handed it over. I tilted my head, trying to fathom what he was thinking. His eyes absorbed what little light there was, splintering it into tiny filaments of color. He wore that habitual hint of a smile, which could easily turn into a luscious curve of his lips, or might disappear entirely if I said the wrong thing. How could he look vulnerable while at the same time so damn confident? It defied nature’s laws. “Thanks.” I put on the coat, pulled it tight, and flipped the collars up. It smelled of autumn berries, sweet and seductive, with a darker masculine hint of cedar. Bunching the collar under my chin, I walked on and breathed in the familiar scent of him. There were memories I never wanted to lose. He was one of them. Time spent with him another.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you everything. I wanted to.” The breeze teased his voice around the dockside. We were alone, although the restaurants blazed to our left; diners laughing and conversing in silence behind the glass.

“I get it.” The breeze played with my hair, flicking it in front of my eyes. “You couldn’t trust me. I don’t trust me, so I can hardly blame you for that.” Coat hugged close, I turned to find him stopped by the dockside. He leaned to one side, all at once casual, but statuesque, as though the casual went only so deep, and below … below there was something else, something lying in wait. When I’d first seen him, the washed-up rock star fae out-cold on the platform, I’d thought him wasted. I’d assumed he was the cliché. Trashed hotel rooms, string of one-night stands. I thought I knew him. I no more knew him than I knew myself.

I attempted a smile and it finally stuck. “I’m sorry I only wanted you for your story.”

“So you want me for something else now?”

I rolled my eyes and turned away. “That’s not what I said.”

“My sparkling personality? Razor-sharp wit? The great hair? Chicks dig the hair.”

He was joking, he had to be; his ruffled locks were a ragged mess. I snorted, “You wish.” He really was in love with himself. That part I did know. “You should fire your stylist. I have better hair after falling out of bed.” I turned, about to remark on his dress sense, but found myself alone the dockside. “Reign?” The breeze carried with it the background din of London. “Oh, c’mon … I thought you only vanished in emergencies?”

“I didn’t vanish.” His words kissed my neck, wrenching a yelp from me. I spun, and found myself peering into his hypnotic eyes. Instincts told me to shove him away. He was fae. Poisonous. Deadly. Forbidden. The Trinity Law. But it was a lie, at least for me. Conditioning. Fiction constructed from whatever facts the queen had plucked from the whispers of her fae subjects and dumped into my head.

He clutched at the collars of his coat, lifting me onto my tiptoes. “I told you to look up more,” he purred. “Think like the fae; you are one.”

I watched the light veil across his face; how it licked across his lips and cast half his face in shadow, half hidden in the dark, and fear stuttered my heart. Fear of what was to come. Fear that I might never really live. Colors played in his eyes, eyes I could forget myself in. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“What for?”

“Tonight.”

He dragged a lascivious smile across soft, delectable lips. “You hardly know me, American Girl.” He whispered his next words so lightly they were barely there at all. “You wouldn’t thank me if you did.”

His lips skimmed mine. I nipped my bottom lip to keep from sealing the kiss. Kissing Reign was dangerous. “Nobody knows me.”

He released my coat and trailed his fingertips down the side of my face. Peculiar sparks tingled across my skin in the wake of his touch. If this wasn’t bespellment, then what was it? He brushed his thumb over my lower lip, his gaze intensely focused on the gentle exploration. “You feel that?” he asked.

I licked my lip, tasting the same sweetness as when I’d kissed him on the rooftop, and gave a little nod, afraid my voice might betray how my heart fluttered and thoughts fell silent.

“It’s fae … Your draíocht and mine coming together.”

Carefully, I settled my hands on his chest. The warmth of him soaked through his shirt but I wouldn’t feel anything more unless we were skin to skin. What would that be like? He and I, so close, this peculiar sensation alive between us. It was intense enough with just a single touch. A kiss. More? His mouth elsewhere, his hands roaming, and that magic … Delicate trembles quivered through me. I could pass it off as being cold, but when I met his gaze, he already knew it to be a lie without me having to say a word. I wanted him. I’d always wanted him. I wanted to know him, every inch of him. To taste his lips, nip the tantalizing spider tattoo on his neck and stroke my hands over a body that demanded to be touched. This thing between us was probably the only real thing that I owned. My past, my life, was
hers
. But Reign, here and now, was mine.

“Alina—”

I didn’t give him a chance to finish, but pushed up on my toes and met his lips with a careful kiss. Maybe I’d gotten it wrong, maybe he didn’t want me, he’d said as much in his apartment, but that had been anger and lust. This was different. If these were my last few days alive, I wanted memories to cling to. I wanted to taste him, to experience something real. I
needed
this to be real. When he sunk his hand into my hair and pulled me close, I very nearly came undone. The madness and terror stalking my thoughts drowned beneath the sensation of his lips on mine. I forgot it all. Forgot my own name. He kissed as though relishing every second, as though I was something to be savored. The tingle spread across my tongue, urging me to take more. I did. Curling my hand around the back of his neck, I drew him down and fueled the kiss with pure need. Desire, or magic, I wasn’t sure which, darted through me. A groan peeled from my lips.

Reign broke away, drawing in a savage hiss. His hand remained locked in my hair, the other pressed at my lower back, hauling me so close I couldn’t think beyond the raw press of his body against mine. “W-what …” I blinked, coming back to my senses.

I saw the moment he shut down. How the dazzling light in his eyes faded. He let me go, and stepped back. “I … This can’t happen. You’re …”

Something was wrong. I ached to have him back, to pull him into my arms and finish what we’d started. Desire strummed through me, reducing me to a trembling wreck, but he was moving away, looking at me like I’d betrayed him. “Reign, what is it? What did I do?” I touched my lips, tasting him there. His gaze darted, as though seeking something I couldn’t see. What was going on? “Reign, talk to me.”