“I keep feeling like I’m being watched,” Aerin finally reveals. She feels silly saying it, but none of the embarrassment shows on her features.
“More than usual?” Vyx asks.
The Viper has a point. Aerin scans the street again, spotting multiple creatures watching them. There is even a Badger Shifter at the other corner pointing a long-range camera their way, taking photos that will likely end up in a tabloid tomorrow. Various security cameras posted over business doors, streetlamps, and rooftops also catch Aerin in their feeds. She’s never not being watched. But this feeling is different, it’s not the weight of curious stares or a camera. It’s something heavier.
“Yeah.” Aerin tells herself it’s just the Pixie Dust. “I’m telling you, throw the rest of that baggie out.”
“I’ll do you one better,” Vyx grumbles, “the Boa’s will have a little visit with our dealer.” Vyx bites hard into her food, fangs showing. The Boas are massive, the largest of the snakes, perfect as the Kelly Enterprises’ hired muscle.
Aerin nods her consent. Even without it, Vyx would set the Boas, or worse, herself, on anyone she perceives to have wronged them, as protective as she is vicious.
Dropping down into the seat next to Aerin loudly, Quinn’s mouth is already full of food. She immediately starts talking animatedly about the Fae she’d spoken to inside. The Fae exits a moment later and Quinn calls goodbye to them as they leave with food in hand.
Aerin lets her head fall back over her chair, eyes on the sky. It’s a dark night. She can barely make out the stars, moon nowhere to be seen. She’s struck with thoughts of a trip she’d taken to Zeneith as a child, back when traveling by foot was the only way around Novhelm. Every evening, she laid back on a bedroll beneath a blanket of twinkling stars, kept company by the moon and the sound of Bruin’s breathing. The forest was wild, the air fresh on her skin, everything free, including her. Out there, Aerin wasn’t a princess. She wasn’t anyone. Just another creature among the trees of Novhelm.
Finishing her food, Quinn is full and inevitably dead on her feet. Aerin and Vyx hoist her up to help her down the street. Even if Aerin has nothing else—if she can never leave the borders of Valtara again, never feel the forest around her like a warm blanket, never erase who she is—she still has this. Vyx and Quinn. Nights where she can forget all that keeps her bound.
Coming to the corner where they part ways, they bid each other goodbye. Quinn gives Aerin an overly long, emphatic hug before they separate, making the two of them stumble and laugh.
The streets near Aerin’s apartment are farther from downtown: quieter, darker, and emptier. The prickling feeling creeps down Aerin’s neck again.
Aerin hovers, allowing her steps to slow before she whirls with a trained violence. The creature behind her is taken by surprise when Aerin slams him up against the building next to them, the blade that usually hides in her shoe at his throat. Ice blue eyes meet hers. Membranous wings scrape against the brick behind him.
“Why the hell are you following me?” Aerin demands, pressing her body harder against his. The Dragon-Fae doesn’t fight her. Instead, he seems exasperated, annoyed even.
“Do you ambush all would-be attackers,Princess?” The words are condescending, yet they wash over Aerin like silk. She becomes violently aware of how close they are, bodies all but flush, faces inches apart, blade glinting silver at his throat.
Her aggravation rises to match his. Aerin’s louder emotions are often like a flashflood, taking her by surprise, crashing through her and destroying things, before receding just as quickly as they come. Her emotions now are no exception.
The blade presses firmer, a bead of red blood forming at its tip. Slitting his throat won’t kill him, not when he’s a full-magic creature and certainly not one as strong as a Dragon-Fae. Death for full-magic creatures, true death, only happens when both their body and their magic is drained. Damage to vital organs without a full well of magic is a recipe for disaster. Though, the Dragon-Fae seems to be brimming with power. It ripples just under his skin, brewing like a hot spring.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Aerin warns him.
He flashes an arrogant, almost disarming, smile. Aerin’s heart putters against her chest. Annoyed with her body’s reaction, her wrist twitches, cutting him deeper.
“I’m following you because I’ve been assigned as your personal guard.”
The world stops for a moment, then restarts, Aerin’s head spinning with it.
She does not have a personal guard, a baby-sitter to keep her under her father’s thumb. She is caged enough as it is.
The stupid male continues.
“I have been assigned by the Tolvare Crown of Valtara.”
With each word, emotion floods Aerin. It’s the emotion she knows keenly, the one she greets like an old friend. Her most consistent companion: anger.
“The King attempted to contact you prior to my arrival, but I am under the impression you werebusy.”
In response, Aerin snarls, baring her canines. The rage goes from hot to cold, from the touch of fire to the touch of ice.
Aerin’s condescension matches his as she says, “I’m sorry, but I won’t be needing your services.”
She flicks her wrist.
Blood sprays everywhere, coating Aerin’s hair, her chest, her clothes, dripping onto the pale concrete at their feet. Aerin steps back, letting him collapse into that puddle. She doesn’t stick around to listen to him gurgle. She doesn’t stick around to think about what she’s done or how she’ll pay for it.
Instead, feeling unpleasantly sober, Aerin hides the blood that coats her with magic and walks casually, the rest of the way back to her apartment.
