Page 53 of Fae Unleashed
When Tal returned, he gave Del a prying look. She swallowed and lifted her chin as her gaze slid away from us. Were we not paying her enough? Had money run out already? I knew there was no other way she would stay.
Or was it that she no longer felt confident in this fight? I remembered the way she’d looked at Faust. While we’d nearly killed him, Del still treated him like her personal boogeyman. Faust had something over her that I needed to know about.
I opened my mouth to ask, but right at that moment, Tal ripped the bag off my head and told me to go shower.
“Shower?” I asked incredulously as I gestured to all the makeup he’d plastered onto my face.
Tal lifted a bottle and sprayed something onto my face without warning. I sputtered and closed my eyes against the mist, but it’d gotten on my tongue anyway. The bitter taste in my mouth reflected the bitterness tightening around my heart.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there would come a point where I gave in to the anger trying to take ahold of me. Was that an Unseelie trait trying to sneak in? Or was that just my plain frustration with the state of things?
We felt disjointed. Though I had allies and power at my back now, I couldn’t help but feel like this force was a mess. There was no way that we could roll up to Beryl’s court and defeat her. We needed training and trust, which we didn’t have time for.
“There, let the setting spray dry and you’ll be able to get water on your face.” Tal waved his hand for me to head off.
At the bathroom door, I paused and looked back to see him talking to Del. The two kept their voices hushed. Del glanced past him and met my gaze. Her lips tightened almost apologetically. My stomach sank, though I wasn’t sure what it knew that I didn’t.
The hot water in the shower did little to help calm my nerves. No step helped put solid ground beneath my feet. I tried to dream of the day I opened my own café, but the vision was hard to hold. It seemed like there was no future in which I could have a life of my own anymore.
Could I leave a brand new court of my own making? I trusted Rhoan’s judgement, but holding together a court made of Seelie, Unseelie, and small fae would take a lot of work. If I left that in his hands without warning or preparation, he would grow to resent me.
The thought broke my heart. I couldn’t bear the idea of Rhoan’s anger towards me. A desperate need to assuage his anger overwhelmed me even though he wasn’t angry with me yet.
As I towel dried my hair, I tensed as if Beryl would storm into the bathroom when I was most vulnerable. I managed to wrap my curls in a soft fabric without interruption. Faust didn’t appear in the mirror when I wiped away the condensation. Beryl didn’t waltz in and sit on the closed toilet seat.
Was this how Ness had felt her entire life? I missed my best friend, but I couldn’t bear to reach out to her at this point. She was pregnant with her first child, and after the disaster that I’d brought to her last cookout, I knew that inviting her into this fight would only make things more dangerous for her.
I wanted to be there for her child’s first birthday, too. I desperately wanted to survive this fight so that I could see all the ways that my friends change during this happily ever after for them, even if my own future wasn’t so happily ever after.
Rhoan’s curse kept him at a distance. I couldn’t have him the way I wanted.
“Holy shit, I’m tired.” Rhoan said behind me.
I didn’t yelp or startle this time. Instead, I slid a dark glare in his direction. The man sat on my closed toilet lid and had one boot propped up on the side of the bathtub. I slapped his boot off the tub and scowled at the mud left behind on my hand.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
He put both boots down on floor and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. His hair hung like a dark veil over his face. I reached and pushed it away, letting my fingers graze his cheek in the process. His beast purred softly. The sound reverberated in the small room.
“I went looking for a madman,” he admitted. “Queen Beryl must have Faust on lockdown after she dragged him away.”
Faust had been determined to kill me before Beryl’s curse had taken effect. Since she wanted me as pet princess, she couldn’t let her little rabid dog kill me just yet. Beryl had interrupted our last fight, nabbed Faust, and dragged him off before disappearing herself.
Now that her curse had taken effect, and I wasn’t the monster she wanted me to be, Beryl would let him out soon. He would be hot on our heels before we knew it.
I pulled the towel off my hair and froze at the sight of myself in the mirror.
Rhoan leapt to his feet and rushed to me. Immediately, his hands went to my lower back like he could shield me with his massive palms. The man couldn’t shield me from myself, though.
“What?” he asked, rushed. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
My scowl deepened. I’d known that this would happen, but seeing it still frustrated me. All the dye had washed off. There wasn’t even a pink tone left in my hair. It was the same nearly translucent white it’d been this morning.
Rhoan stepped back. His gaze dropped to my shoulders. A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he devoured me with his eyes. His reflection in the mirror made my skin warm. The room was suddenly too hot.
“You have moth wings,” he said.
The heat vanished. I blinked, stunned.
