Filthy rich fae, p.36
Filthy Rich Fae, page 36
The Cabal. Goemon had tried to warn us. We weren’t just up against a killer. We were up against a fucking conspiracy.
One more murder, and the bona fides would fall, taking my court with it.
“Thank you.” I meant it, and that made what I had to do even harder. If the Cabal discovered that we knew, they would act. Surprise was our only advantage. If Willow was right, if they were trying to send a message, the first thing I had to do was keep my family safe. The Cabal couldn’t find out that we knew what they were up to, and that left me little choice in the matter.
I tilted my head at Roark.
He lunged for Willow, careful to pin her hands to her side with one arm.
“What the…” Roark’s other hand covered her mouth before she could start an incantation. Willow arched, her feet kicking wildly, but without magic, she didn’t stand a chance against him.
“Deal with her,” I ordered him. Willow’s eyes went wide, and she tried to shake her head.
“How…permanently?” he asked carefully.
Willow had helped us. She was Cate’s friend, so I found myself saying, “Take her to the Otherworld. Put her in the oubliette.”
Willow thrashed in his arms, but she was no match for Roark. She wouldn’t be able to access her magic there, and she knew it. Still, it wasn’t a death sentence. Not yet.
“Get everyone home,” he said, starting to turn. We needed to reinforce the spell through whatever means possible, but their safety had to come first.
“Wait.” Something else had occurred to me. “We’re going to need a witch we can trust to weave new threads into the spell.” I eyed Willow for a second. Maybe a deal could be struck. I waited for her to stop fighting him, waited for her to turn eager, pleading eyes in my direction.
Instead, they rolled back in her skull, only the whites visible. Her entire body went limp, and then she seized. A thin string of spit dripped from her mouth as her body spasmed.
“What the…” Roark lowered her to the ground and knelt beside her while she convulsed.
“Careful,” I warned him. “It could be a trick.” But something told me it wasn’t.
He knelt beside her, his eyes flashing up to mine as hers fluttered. Suddenly, she went still. Roark leaned over her, concern creasing his brows, and her hand shot up. She grabbed his collar, her eyes opening just long enough for her to deliver one final warning. It came out in spurts, each word rattling me to my core.
“Cate… My spell… I think she just undid it.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cate
My ears were rounded and normal and human. I knew that because I’d had them since I was a kid. These were… These were…
“Fae,” Ciara whispered, her eyes growing large as she took a step away from me like I was a threat. “You’re a fae.”
I’d spent the last few weeks facing the possibility that Lach was right, that there was a glamour on my ring, and that everything I thought I knew about my existence might prove to be a load of crap.
And all that had in no way prepared me for the moment when said load of crap hit the fan.
She continued to back away from me like I was a ghost—not her friend, not her future sister-in-law, not me. I pushed past her, rushing to the mirror hung over the sink.
A stranger stared back at me. I had to coach myself to breathe as I took in my own reflection. But I was in there, hiding behind sharper cheekbones and a nose that tipped a little more up than the one I’d been blowing my entire life. Now my skin glowed with that faint, ethereal light that I’d been glamoured to exude when by Lach’s side over the last month. My ears sloped and ended in elegant tips. But it was my eyes that snagged my attention and refused to let go. No longer simple, boring brown. Now they were endless and unyielding, as dark as the abismine stone in Ciara’s signet ring, save for piercing flecks of gold that shimmered with an unearthly radiance.
I needed proof that the reflection before me was flesh and blood. I raised a hand to touch my face and gasped. Gold ribbons twisted across the back of it, down around my wrist. A sob slipped from me as I saw the mating bond on my own skin for the first time. I stared for a moment, startling when a line of reddish-brown Theban flashed over my fingers and disappeared. Not just the mark of the mating bond, but also…
I turned my attention back to the mirror as I wrenched down the neckline of my shirt and found more Theban—not in the dark ink of shadow magic; instead, it was in the same tawny hue as the ones racing somewhere else on my body. But these symbols remained fixed firmly in place, not moving from their vigil over my heart. Seven of them. I clapped a hand over my mouth as I realized what they were, but it was too late. Tears rolled down my cheeks, their heat at odds with the cold confusion that had taken hold of my entire body.
And peeking from behind my shoulders—
“Who are you?” Ciara asked angrily.
I forced myself to turn and face her—and found a gun leveled directly at my head. “It’s me. Cate,” I murmured, holding my hands up and hoping I could prove it to her. “I’m still Cate.”
My own heart was still beating in my chest. My thoughts swirled and swarmed inside my brain, trying to process what was happening. I was still me.
Wasn’t I?
How? How? How?
Ciara’s arms shook, her finger hovering over the trigger. She studied me, her gaze sweeping across my face in swift, sharp passes as if looking for proof.
“You saw me go into the stall,” I pointed out, annoyance thawing some of my shock.
Her lower lip trembled, and she bit down on it. The gun remained pointed between my eyes.
I looked at her, at the perfect skin of her arms, her neck, her face. It was unblemished. No tattoos giving her away. Not a single ancient symbol to show that she was thinking this over. Nothing to tell me if she was capable of shooting me, and somehow that was exactly the answer I needed.
“You aren’t going to kill me,” I said softly.
She flicked the safety off. “You don’t know that.” But her voice cracked.
Maybe I was wrong, but I doubted it. “You won’t.” I swiped at my tears, my eyes straying to the effigy on the floor. I considered for a moment before I bent and picked it up.
The gun tracked my movement, Ciara beginning to breathe heavily.
“Willow…” I forced myself to swallow, something made difficult by the knot in my throat. “She came to the Avalon.”
With her dead tulips, poking around, looking in my purse… And when I was finally ready, when I finally took the ring off. A laugh burst out of me. I plucked the thread fully off the effigy, and my shoulders felt lighter.
“Start explaining,” Ciara demanded.
I turned around, still clutching the tiny doll, determined to make Willow explain later. Ciara’s eyes followed it. The gun stayed on me. My temples began to throb, because cramps, a period, and a life-altering revelation weren’t enough for one day. Now I was getting a migraine.
Worst. Day. Ever.
“Put the gun down, and I will,” I snapped at her. “And have some sympathy. I’m PMSing.”
She blinked a few times, and then her arms collapsed to her sides, the gun clattering to the floor. “I just need you to answer one question.” Her voice shook. “Does Lach know?”
I slumped against the wall, my thoughts drawing together my brows, which only made my head hurt more. “Kinda.” I closed my eyes to help with the pain. “Yeah, I think so. At least, he guessed it.”
Ciara crossed her arms as her body began to quiver. “And you?”
I should have expected a follow-up question, but I frowned at her. “Wait, you think that I was keeping this from you?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
That made two of us. I drew a deep breath, startled to find my lungs burning. My hand shot to my chest and began to rub.
“It’s a tad harder to breathe on Earth than the Otherworld,” she said, her voice softening. “You’ll get used to it.”
She stared at me for a minute like I might transform again, like she didn’t quite trust her sight, and I couldn’t blame her. Slowly, she took a step forward, her gaze zeroing in on my neck. I clamped a hand to the spot in alarm. “What is it?”
“Theban,” she whispered, “but it’s…” She lifted her head, looking into my eyes, and her mouth fell open. “Oh gods… Are you… It’s not possible.” Her attention drifted to my hand, to the engagement ring I wore, but I knew she was seeing something else. She was seeing the color of those tattoos. Not Nether Court black. Not the iridescent pearl of the light courts. “Does Lach know?”
The question sounded different the second time she asked. Like she might be angry if she ever got over the shock. Like she didn’t really want to know. Like she knew the answer was going to hurt.
Regret flooded through me. I’d been too scared to face what part of me had suspected when Oberon demanded the ring in his garden.
I’d felt it every time he had called me “princess.” More memories fell into place—ones that didn’t make sense. Ones that swam to mind like watching videos of someone else’s life. A pair of deep-brown eyes watching over me. Someone spinning me in a circle while I laughed. A fleeting memory of safety and belonging and home still tinged with innocence I’d lost long ago. My knees felt weak, and I lunged to grab the sink before I collapsed.
“Cate.” Ciara moved a single step but stopped short of reaching out for me.
I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t trust myself, either.
I didn’t know myself.
Someone knocked, the door opening a crack, and Ciara flew over to stop it.
“Everything okay in here?” the saleswoman asked in a chipper voice. “You’ve been in there for a while…”
“She got her period,” Ciara murmured, firmly gripping the door to keep her from entering. “I think we need to reschedule.”
“Poor thing,” the woman said, instantly sympathetic. “I’ll get something on the books right away.”
“Sounds good. We’ll be out in a second,” Ciara told her before shutting the door in her face. Ciara turned, pressed her back to it, and then, she snickered. “I bet that woman thinks she is having a bad day.”
And despite everything that had changed, despite everything that would never be the same again, I realized one important thing had not. My best friend. My sister. The woman who had my back when I’d just pulled the rug out from under her feet. Sure, she had trained a gun on me, but nobody was perfect.
“There’s a lot I don’t know,” I told her, “but I’ll tell you everything that I do.” I glanced around the bathroom. “Just somewhere else. I could use a real drink.”
Ciara drew in a deep breath as she considered my offer. Finally, she nodded.
“I guess first we have to find a way to get me out of here before someone sees.” I glanced around the room like a solution might present itself on a silver platter. “Maybe a hat? Or you could distract her while I sneak out the door?”
I prayed it wouldn’t come to walking out of here in a veil.
Another giggle erupted from her. “Okay, you definitely had no clue, because you don’t think like a fae. Someday you’ll learn not to make things harder than they have to be.” She grabbed the effigy from me and began looping the string until I felt a comforting tingle of magic. “There.” She tucked it safely in her pocket. “You look human again. Now let’s get out of here so you can tell me everything.”
Why did that sound like a threat?
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lach
As was often the case, the choice to tie Willow up wasn’t personal. It was purely transactional. I had questions. The witch had answers.
I’d long ago learned that it was better to have the upper hand during a negotiation when the stakes were life or death.
Roark had left to pick up Ciara and Cate in the car rather than send a driver, a strategic decision to not draw too much attention from anyone who might be watching us from the outside. And there was no reason to worry either of them…yet. Not until Willow explained more about the spell she’d confessed to placing on Cate. Their day would be ruined soon enough. Someone might as well have some fun until then, because I wasn’t.
Unless you counted being locked into a staring contest with an infuriated witch among your favorite pastimes.
For many reasons, I did not.
Willow had already wasted twenty minutes while she tried to free herself, called me every curse word she knew—it turned out that her vocabulary was quite extensive—and learned that if she attempted an incantation, I could add another fun accessory called a gag.
When she finally sagged in defeat, I picked up the Scotch I’d poured for her and lowered the handkerchief.
“Have a drink.” I brought the cup to her lips.
She turned her head away from the rim. “So you can poison me?”
“You know why,” I told her quietly, keeping the glass in place. “If I wanted you dead, Miss Broussard, you would be dead. This is an insurance policy to keep you from doing something reckless when I release you. The effects will only last a few hours.”
“If I do, you’ll take off these stupid gloves and untie me?” Her hands clenched open and shut as if she were bothered more by the presence of the former than the bindings.
Ropes were nothing to a witch, but gloves? Even when worn by choice, as many vampires and members of her kind still did, it was said to be like having an itch that could never quite be scratched. They weren’t enough to fully stifle her magic, which was why she was tied up. “I will.”
“I don’t know why I would trust you,” she muttered.
“I like to think it’s because you don’t have a choice.” I moved the cup to her mouth once more. “Now drink.”
She took a grudging sip, gagging a bit as she swallowed. The burn of the Scotch made the bitter mix of yarrow and hedgethorne easier to swallow—and hid the veritum I’d added to ensure she told me the truth. She coughed. “Geez, do you have anything stronger?”
“A bullet,” I said with a smile. “But I’d rather it didn’t come to that.”
Her nostrils flared. “I brought you information. I helped you. I should have known better than to believe Romy.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “Romy?”
“She vouched for you.” Willow shook her head, disgust evident on her face.
That was surprising. “I can’t allow you to repeat your theories to other people. We can’t afford for the bona fides spell to fall.”
“You can’t afford for it to fall,” she corrected me. “How does it feel to hide behind someone else’s magic to save your own skin?”
“Careful,” I warned her. “I haven’t untied you yet. And this is about more than protecting me. There are threats outside New Orleans.”
“I know that.” She tilted her head, a strand of platinum falling across her face. She puffed at it, trying to get it out of her eyes.
I reached over and pushed it away. “You know nothing.”
“Is that so?” She raised one brow. “Try me.”
But I didn’t care about more of her theories. I wanted to know about her actions. Particularly the one she’d confessed to before losing consciousness on my office floor. “Why did you have a spell on Cate? What kind of spell was it?”
“Untie me,” she said through gritted teeth, wiggling her hands like she could force herself free.
“I’d rather wait a few more minutes.” I was clocking the passing time on my Rolex.
She groaned and slumped against her restraints. “It was a protection spell.”
That wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting.
“Why were you protecting her?”
Willow glared up at me. “You know why.”
My own words turned back on me, the implication just as clear but for entirely different reasons. “Did…Cate tell you?”
“She told me the ring was stuck and she needed help breaking the spell to get it off.” Willow shrugged. “But I’m bright and I read, so I figured shit out.”
“Kudos,” I said flatly. Clearly, Cate hadn’t updated her since last night. “She took off the ring. She isn’t fae.” Somewhere deep inside, that accusatory voice I always heard whispered again. The one that had warned me that it was what I wanted. That it had all been foolish desperation. So smug that it had been right and I had been wrong.
But Willow snorted, allowing her head to hang for a moment as she chuckled to herself. “What do you think I was protecting her from? She wasn’t ready. That’s why the ring wouldn’t come off. That part of its spell was basic magic. All she had to do was decide she wanted to know the truth.”
For a moment, I could only stare. “You…lied to her.”
“I redirected her,” she said carefully. Her muscles twitched a little, a sign that the herbs were doing their job. When Cate found out, any trust she had built with the witch would be destroyed.
My phone rang, but I ignored it.
“You going to get that?” Willow asked, shooting an irritated look at my pocket. “Roark went to check on Cate, didn’t he?”
She raised a reasonable point. I whipped it out, wondering if she had a touch of the second sight when I saw it was him calling.
“They left the shop a while ago,” he told me. “Ciara isn’t answering her phone or the signet.” Bitterness edged the words as if he often found he couldn’t reach her through the ring meant to keep them constantly connected. What was the point of giving it to her if she never wore it?
“I’ll call Cate.” Hanging up, I dialed her, trying to shake off the concern gripping my heart.
The call went straight to voicemail.
I shot Roark a text to try tracking them. Both the women could handle themselves, but…
