I frowned. “Why?”
“Because everything you’ve heard about my kind is probably true. You may be a half-blood, but you’ll still one half of what my kind considers food. Only you’re more durable. You’re a fertile woman who can survive large doses of pain.”
“You’re afraid someone might try to challenge you for me.”
“Yes.” His gaze turned death-cold. “But they won’t see you as a queen. They’ll see you as—”
“A slut. A whore. Something to fuck and feast on. Yeah, yeah. We've established that.”
A heady cocktail of nerves and irritation surged through my veins. I didn’t know what to expect from the fae people other than that they would not make this easy for me. Which I’d just have to deal with. Frankly, I didn’t give a shit what they thought of me. My role was to not look weak, to convince them I was a suitable mate for their prince, and that I could pass the leader role without looking like a fool or becoming someone’s lunch. At least for a couple of days.
Because Feral was right, I could change their minds if I wanted.
I was Ruby Renada, daughter of Thomas Knight and Sapphire Helsing and heir to the vampire throne.
I knew how to bend monsters to my will. It was up to them if it was going to be the clean and friendly way.
Or if I’d have to start taking heads.
When I landed in the life tree, the slow creeping feeling that something bad was going to happen had gone from a tiny little tick in the back of my brain to a full-blow alarm.
I wasn’t supposed to be here.
This was home to some of the most cutthroat creatures in all of existence, and I was an intruder.
As if sensing my hesitation, Vincent arched down and brushed a kiss on my temple. “Don’t forget why you’re here.”
“Uh, because you kidnapped me?”
He chuckled. “Because you’re here to prove that you don’t need a cozy little throne in the vampire kingdom to be queen. If anyone should be afraid, it’s any fae who dare cross you.”
My muscles eased at his words of comfort. “You’re right. So long as you’re okay with a little bloodshed. If it comes to that.”
His lips twitched. “You are in the land of the dark fae now, Little Monster. Here we’re more familiar with pain and bloodshed than vampire kind.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The Life Tree seemed even bigger from where we were standing. It felt more like a city than a village.
There were so many fae.
Most of them weren’t in their titanic, half-familiar, half-humanoid form like Vin currently was. Most of them looked human, with a large majority in their full-familiar forms. Birds of all varieties darted around the tree and perched among the leaves. Parrots. Vultures. Hawks. Owls. Robins. Magpies. Finches. There were so many more I couldn’t name. Everyone who appeared in a human form was also heavily tatted, decorated in ink depicting their familiar form, just like Vincent.
“Is everyone’s familiar a bird?”
“No. It’s just the most common. Most fae with land-bound familiars live in the smaller tribes around the jungle.”
Countless treehouse-like buildings were built into the gnarled wood with a complicated network of bridges and ladders leading from one section to the next. At the center of the tree, the trunk was flattened. It reminded me of a palm and the larger branches surrounding it, fingers. The wood was worn from years of use and stained dark.
Blood.
“That’s the village center,” Vin said as he set me on my feet. “Where everything happens. Feasts. Village meetings, marriage ceremonies.”
I cocked a brow. “Battles to the death?”
I was half joking, but he gave a serious bob of his head. “Sometimes all of the above in one day.”
“Right.” I blinked, propping a hand on my hip and surveying the village below with another sweeping glance. “No place like home.”
