“Why is it that you only care about the high fae? Where is the same interest for the rest of your people?”
“Excuse me?”
I merely smiled. “You heard me.”
Finvarra’s eyes turned cold, and dark power radiated from him. I stood my ground, but the temperature in the room plummeted. My breath began to fog.
“Would you care to repeat that, human?”
11
Danica
Iignored the unspoken threat in the unseelie king’s voice. He wouldn’t dare kill me now. It’d be bad optics.
“One of your people was attacked and almost killed a few days ago. So far, there has been no dark fae interest in this attack. His store was a crime scene and left unlocked by the Mage Council. Truthfully, I don’t blame them. They’ve made it clear they don’t give a shit about anyone but mages and humans. But I thought your job was to protect all of your people— even lesser fae?”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. His beautiful face was hard as stone, and he was no longer amused.
“You’re correct. That is myjob. I was not notified of this attack, nor were any of the high unseelie responsible for protecting lesser fae.”
“Excuses are like assholes,” I began. A hand clamped over my mouth and I jolted. “Everyone has one,” I mumbled against Samael’s hand.
“That’s quite enough, I think,” he growled. The fae king stared at me. Then at Samael.
“You have a hellion on your hands,” he said, and my eyes shot daggers at him.
Samael pulled me away, removing his hand from my mouth and curling it around my arm once more.
“What was that, hmmm?” He steered me toward a balcony and I followed, distantly aware that every person on that balcony immediately vacated it, giving Samael privacy.
“I’mgladI’m not dark fae,” I muttered, kicking out at the stone wall with my stupid stiletto. “Althoughyou’rejust as bad. All of you paranormals who call yourselves ‘high whatever’ while naming those less powerful as ‘lesser.’”
Samael stiffened. “Be careful, bounty hunter.”
I was done being careful. “The dark fae king is a jackass, but you’re just as bad. When those demons were being killed, you had me investigating the high demons. You didn’t eventellme about the murders of the lesser demons until multiple days had passed. They were an afterthought to you.”
Samael laughed coldly. “And I suppose you’re the champion of lesser demons are you? Tell me, how many of my people did you drag into the Mage Council? How many did you interrogate withmydagger?”
“It’s mine now,” I snapped. “You gave it to me. And that’s beside the point. The demons I brought in were all guilty of crimes. Most of them had escaped their summoners and slaughtered innocent humans.”
“If you believe that, then you really were the Mage Council’s tool.”
I stared at him and he shook his head. “Enough.”
“You’re damn right it’s enough.” I turned to leave and he caught my arm.
“Don’t think to walk away from me.”
I swung at him. I was off-balance, so it was sloppy. He caught my arm and gave me a hard stare. “I thought you wanted to know what you were?”
I laughed bitterly. “Process of elimination, Samael. If I’m not fae, I’m demon.”
He studied my face and his brow lowered. “And this displeases you.”
I didn’t say anything. Damn right it displeased me.
“Your friend will be okay,” he murmured, changing the subject.
