I tossed the stake up and then caught it. “It’s just weird.”
“What?”
“How in the last week, you’ve nearly showed up everywhere I’ve been. It’s almost like you’re following me.”
“What if I was?”
I almost dropped the stake as my gaze flew to his face. His expression was unreadable and I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. “Really? That’s not creepy or anything.”
His sigh was so heavy I was surprised it didn’t shake the buildings. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“What do you want from me?” I challenged. “I mean, really? Are we going to have this conversation every five minutes?”
“What do I want from you?” An emotion flickered across his face, parting his lips. “That’s a loaded question.”
I started to frown as I tossed the stake up again. “Not really.”
His hand shot out with a speed that was both unnerving and impressive, snatching the stake out of the air with gloved fingers.
“Hey!” I reached for it.
The Prince deftly avoided my grasp. “That is incredibly distracting—”
“It’s not my fault you can’t multitask,” I muttered.
“And incredibly dangerous,” he continued. “I really don’t want to see it go through your hand.”
I popped my hands onto my hips. “It wasn’t going to go through my hand.”
“Rather be safe than sorry.” He smiled tightly at me, and that just annoyed me to no end.
I started to ask for my stake back, but he spoke again. “You’re not a hunter,” he repeated, changing the subject. “Why were you out here?”
Back to that again. I sighed. “I wasn’t out here patrolling. I was seeing if I could find one of the missing younglings, which I did. However, that didn’t end well.”
“No, it did not.”
Knocking a strand of hair back from my face, I glanced at the mouth of the alley. “I thought it was a Winter fae first because he was following a woman, so I kept an eye on him—and yes, I know, I’m not a hunter, but I’m not going to walk away and leave someone to fend for themselves.”
“You should have.”
My head swung back to his. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
His eyebrow rose.
“Anyway, I saw his face and realized it was one of the missing younglings. I thought maybe I misjudged what he was doing since he broke away from the woman and walked into this alley, but he knew I was following him,” I explained, troubled by what had occurred. “It was a trap in a way. He came at me.”
“That makes no sense,” he said, head tilting slightly. “The Summer fae do not attack humans.”
“Yeah, well, he attacked me and I did nothing to instigate it either.” There was something pecking away at the fringes of my thoughts. “Wait a second. Elliot said some weird stuff. He said his parents weren’t his parents any longer and he also called them wannabe humans.”
“Did he say anything else?” he demanded.
I shook my head as I saw Elliot’s face in my mind. “But his eyes were messed up.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were pitch black, like I couldn’t even see the irises….” I trailed off as I thought about his eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like that, but….”
