Page 48 of Fae Unleashed
“Faust is trying to push Rhoan to the point of confession. The moment that your knight admits his love for you, then he will turn into a beast and join Faust’s sluagh army. You will lose your beloved once and for all.”
The world dropped out from beneath my feet. “I didn’t know.”
I’d been pushing Rhoan’s boundaries this whole time just to get something out of him. Had I known, I wouldn’t have pushed so hard. I would have let him be. I knew how to suffer with my longing—I’d done it when I watched my friends shift without me. This was nothing new to me.
“Take care of your chimera boy. If you can do that, you will keep him out of Faust’s hands. We Seelie cannot risk losing another to the Unseelie armies.”
I thought of my own curse threatening to take me over. It was sliding over my arcana like a red eclipse. “What will you do when my own curse overtakes me?”
“I will use it as a means to overthrow you, of course.” Foxglove pushed off the wall and straightened so that he could stand over me. “While it won’t change who you are, it will give me just enough ammunition to change the minds of our people.”
I grinned. Then it was good that I had no plan to sit upon the throne. However, that meant I had to keep Rhoan from succumbing to his own curse.
What a pair we made. Two fools desperate for love, only to be cock-blocked by a couple of Unseelie curses. It made for a riveting story, but living it sucked ass.
19
RHOAN
My princess was an absolute nightmare to work with. The nightmare was that I would fall head over heels for her and find myself more beast than man. Already, the creature inside me surrounded my heart and purred, so pleased with itself.
Still, I couldn’t admit my feelings. I had to stuff them back down and ignore the memory of her voluptuous body pressed against my own. Never before had I wanted anyone the way I wanted her.
Tal caught up to me. “Need a drink? I need a drink. Let’s get a drink.”
Tal’s expression was drawn thin. Everything about him seemed stretched to the limit. I guess that’s what meeting with an ex-boyfriend will do to a man.
Together we made our way to a fae speakeasy situated on the border of Syracuse and Lakesedge. It was in a basement bar, hidden out of sight from human eyes. The inside was dimly lit by bouncing fae orbs that cast light on the intricate carved wood details of the art nouveau architecture.
I stood at the bar and said that I should get back to Cerridwen.
Tal shook his head. “I have Delphine watching her for the time being. You shouldn’t be around the princess right now. Not after what I saw. And I can’t be around Lord Foxglove, so here we are.”
A glass of golden wine was placed in front of me. My beast snarled at the idea of a drink because it knew that Cerri wouldn’t like me drinking out of stress again. I needed to drown the creature before it overwhelmed the last of my logical thinking.
I couldn’t let Cerri consume my thoughts, or else I would fall for her. The part of me that I kept shoved down already had, but I refused to acknowledge it. If I could ignore it for a while longer, then we would be safe.
“I’m going to lose this fight,” I admitted as I picked up my glass and wished it was a stronger whiskey to burn my feelings away. I shot Tal a sidelong glance. “Can you promise me that you’ll protect her when I’m gone?”
My skin prickled with the burst of new feathers like that had been an admission of love. It wasn’t. My beast needed to stop.
Did it want to tear us away from Cerri? Because that’s what would happen. If I lost control to the beast and became a part of Faust’s sluagh, then I wouldn’t be able to help Cerri become queen.
That reminded me of something, though. “When I was in Faust’s domain, I met others like myself. They’re not entirely under his control. The other chimera are trapped, but they had enough awareness to help me escape his domain.”
Tal seemed to chew on this for a long moment. “What does this mean, though?”
I opened my mouth, but I had no response. I wasn’t a thinker. I was a fighter. Part of me had hoped, in bringing it up, that Tal could tell me what it meant.
“Fuck if I know,” was all I could say.
Cerri
I setone foot inside my apartment doorway and said, “What the fuck is going on?”
Before me, Del stood over a naked man on his hand and knees. The man’s russet brown hair flowed over his shoulders and onto the floor in a long wave that hid his face from view. From this angle, I couldn’t tell who it was, and Del was wearing enough leather that it looked like I’d just walked in on a dominatrix session.
She kicked the man and told him to speak, which really didn’t help me get a grasp on what was going on here.
